The Circle

She began to read

"For six years they'd been meeting on Halloween night, here at the cabin by the lake, and reading ghost stories to each other."
Lesley looked up. Something about the story was making her nervous, and she could see that same unease on the shadowy faces around her.
"Some of the faces varied from year to year, but a central group remained the same. They had a lot in common - they played their games with each other, went to movies together, and sometimes they went to bed with each other."
Lesley felt a blush starting up her neck. She might have known he would do something like this to embarrass her. He'd been so jealous of the few stories she'd sold, and when she'd tried to offer him some advice he'd blown up. That had been the first quarrel, and he'd come back to it again and again, more bitter each time, until finally he'd left for Mexico.
Well, I'm the one reading this thing, she thought. If is gets any more personal, I'll just stop.
"Together," she read, "they'd decided that the supernatural was fit material for stories on Halloween, and not much else. Thus they, in their infinite wisdom, were not prepared for what happened to them that Halloween night.
"The leader of the circle got a story in the mail that week. It was written by someone he had known, but never really considered a friend. Beacause of his beliefs, he didn't recognize the power that lay in the pages and in the ink that the story was written on. And so he accepted the challenge to read the story aloud that Halloween.
"They met at the cabin and read their stories, and they began to read the story by the man who was not with them anymore. And as soon as they began to read it, a heavy mist settled down around the cabin.
"It was like a fog, but so thick you could almost feel it squeeze between your fingers. It carried the salt smell of an ocean that shouldn't have been there, and everywhere it thouched, the world ceased to exist."
Lesley's mouth had gone dry. She was leaning forward to pick up her teacup when she saw the window.
"Oh my God..." she whispered.
Beyond the window was a solid mass of white.