With the kind of night they'd been having Mathias very first thought was, "Great. Now we've got aliens." Except the light show wasn't all that impressive and he couldn't hear the spaceship. It suddenly seemed much more likely that the single flickering, bouncing beam of light was Joleen's.

Matty whistled out a little tune, a signal to his friend and one that she would know well. He was on his way.

...

Oobis was on his way - he didn't know where. The fog was making him cough and his paws hurt from holding on tight to the back of the truck as it had bounced along, down the mountain. At least the ride was smoother now but he couldn't SEE anything.

He could hear the spray of sea on sand and knew they'd made it down by the beach. They was a click and then a humming mechanical sound. It was like one of those motor doors that open up when the humans want to store cars inside of buildings.

A garbage door. No. That wasn't it. A, um, carriage door sounded a little better but still not exactly right. The cat decided it didn't matter, at the moment, because he was very confused. The garbage door made it's angry humming noise again and closed. The fog began to dissipate Oobis found himself inside a cave. "Ooooooh kay." He slipped off the side of the truck bed and pressed himself into the shadows along the cave wall.

It was still sort of hazy but Oobis saw a human exit the vehicle. He couldn't tell what kind of human it was. They weren't wearing much, just a stretchy one piece romper thing. It looked like a yogurt costume and seemed to flatten out any of the bits that might help him identify the perp. The human had an ease of movement and quiet confidence that reminded Oobis of Mrs. Windsor. This being the second time he thought of her recently the cat began to wonder if he should consider Mrs. Windsor a suspect. Except this human wasn't Mrs. Windsor - Oobis was sure of that and "Stealing tractors. How common."

The well hidden cat put on his best rich human voice and spoken aloud. The truck driving human in the yogurt costume turned around and hissed, rather impressively, really, and that's quite a compliment from a cat. Wild eyes searched the empty cavern room but there was no one around. The human turned and ran, flat shoes slapping on the cavern floor. Oobis followed the sound, sticking to the shadows and keeping low to the ground.

...

Mathias caught up with Joleen. "Hey Jo, what's with the hike down the mountain?" He looked out at where the town would be, underneath them. The creeping fog was illuminated by the streetlights from this vantage point. It looked like the whole town had been swallowed by cotton candy. "Where's Oobis?" when she didn't answer right away - he turned to her. Her face told him everything.

"Come on." He said, pointing ahead, further down the road. "We won't be able to see to drive in that fog and we're already this far down the mountain. We'll walk." He wanted to run. Mathias was more scared now than when the ghouls had been chasing him. He was having a serious case of Dude, Where's my Cat? And hated it.

They picked their way carefully the rest of the way down the mountain coming up on the burbs through the forest, a little off the beaten path.