SILENT NIGHT

A strange fog rolled through the streets of New Zealand’s northernmost city—Whangarei—on the night before Christmas, blanketing the city. Streets that were usually full of festivity and Christmas Eve revelers became unusually, deathly silent.

By morning, not a creature was stirring in the city of nearly fifty thousand people, except for the birds in the trees and the small animals of the undergrowth; the pets, now howling and yowling for their owners; a few farm animals; and, of course, the occasional mouse.