June 16, 2001
Ravenwood Forest
10:00 AM
The woods behind the high school were usually the domain of paintballers and kids smoking stolen cigarettes. But on this Saturday morning, the forest felt empty. The birds weren't singing. The wind didn't rustle the leaves.
It was a dead zone.
"This is it," Aris whispered, holding up his modified Walkman.
He had duct-taped a heavy copper coil to the side of the yellow plastic casing. The headphones were around his neck, buzzing with a low, rhythmic static.
"The signal strength is spiking," Aris said, adjusting the volume wheel. "We're close to where I picked up the reading last night."
Kenji walked in front, pushing aside a heavy fern branch. He was wearing his backpack, which was weighed down with flashlights, a first-aid kit, and—just in case—a baseball bat.
"Stay sharp," Kenji said. "Remember the plan. If we see something, Marco goes front. Sarah, you flank. Maya, you stay behind Marco."
"I feel ridiculous," Sarah muttered. She was wearing knee pads she had dug out of her garage. "We're hunting ghosts in broad daylight."
"Not ghosts," Marco corrected, snapping a dry twig under his heavy boot. "Aliens. Or interdimensional demons. Totally different."
They hiked for another ten minutes, moving deeper into the ravine. The air grew colder, despite the summer sun trying to poke through the canopy. A mist started to curl around their ankles.
"Stop," Aris hissed.
He pressed the headphones to his ears. His eyes went wide behind his glasses.
"What is it?" Maya asked, clutching the strap of her bag.
"Interference," Aris said. "Something is jamming the scanner. It's not the static anymore. It's... organized. Like a broadcast."
"Look," Kenji pointed.
Fifty yards ahead, in a small clearing surrounded by dead pine trees, the air was shimmering.
It looked like a heat mirage on a hot highway, but vertical. A slit in reality, hovering about four feet off the ground. Through the slit, they could see flashes of that other world—gray ash and purple lightning.
"An Anchor Point," Aris breathed, pulling out his notebook. "It's like a small tear in the screen door. Not big enough for the big monsters, but big enough for the bugs."
"We should close it," Sarah said, stepping forward. She clenched her fist, and a flicker of white light played across her fingers. "Can we smash it?"
"I wouldn't touch it," a smooth, deep voice said.
The five kids froze.
The voice hadn't come from the tear. It came from behind them.
They spun around.
Leaning casually against a mossy oak tree was a man. He wore a long, dark trench coat that seemed to absorb the sunlight, making him look like a silhouette cut out of the world. He wore a matching fedora hat, pulled low.
But it was his face that made Kenji's stomach drop.
His skin was the color of wet clay—gray and lifeless. And where his eyes should have been, two soft blue orbs glowed beneath the brim of his hat.
"Who are you?" Kenji asked, his voice shaking but loud.
The man smiled. It was a polite, terrifying smile.
"I have many names," the man said. He pushed himself off the tree and took a step toward them. He moved too smoothly, like he was gliding on ice. "But in this frequency, you may call me the Detective."
"Stay back!" Marco yelled. He stepped in front of the group, his skin instantly rippling and turning into jagged gray stone. He looked like a statue come to life.
The Detective paused. He tilted his head, looking at Marco's stone arm.
"Impressive," the Detective said. "The corruption has taken root quickly. Titan-class biological armor. Very durable."
He turned his glowing blue eyes toward Sarah.
"And you... Photon manipulation. The Vance bloodline is strong. Your grandfather was quite the pioneer, Sarah."
Sarah gasped. "You knew him?"
"I ate him," the Detective said casually.
Sarah screamed. In a blind rage, she didn't think. A blinding white light erupted from her hand, forming her sword instantly. She charged.
"Sarah, no!" Kenji yelled.
Sarah swung the blade of light at the man's head. It was a fast, angry strike.
The Detective didn't even dodge. He just raised one gray finger.
Ping.
Sarah's sword of light hit his finger and shattered like glass. The light dissolved into sparks. Sarah stumbled back, shocked.
"Rude," the Detective said.
He flicked his wrist. A shadow extended from his sleeve, solidifying into a long, black whip. It lashed out, wrapping around Sarah's ankle.
He yanked.
Sarah flew into the air, slamming into a tree trunk with a sickening thud. She crumpled to the ground, groaning.
"Sarah!" Maya screamed.
"Target acquired," the Detective said, ignoring the others. He turned his gaze solely on Kenji. "Designation: The Key."
He reached into his trench coat. He didn't pull out a scanner. He pulled out a revolver.
But it wasn't made of steel. It was made of swirling black smoke, with a cylinder that glowed with blue energy.
He pointed the gun at Kenji.
"Marco, shield!" Kenji screamed.
Marco threw himself in front of Kenji just as the Detective pulled the trigger.
POOF.
It wasn't a bang. It was a soft sound, like a silenced pistol. A bullet of compressed black air shot out.
It hit Marco's stone chest.
CRACK.
Marco roared in pain. He didn't bleed, but the stone on his chest spider-webbed with cracks. The force of the shot knocked the big boy backward, bowling him into Kenji. They both hit the dirt.
"Marco?" Kenji scrambled up. "Are you okay?"
"Hurts," Marco wheezed, clutching his chest. "Feels like... getting hit by a truck."
The Detective cocked the hammer of his shadow gun. Click.
"Incomplete specimens," the Detective sighed. "I was hoping for a challenge. I suppose I will just harvest the Key and be done with it."
He aimed at Kenji's head.
Kenji looked at the gun. He looked at Marco on the ground, Sarah slumped by the tree, Maya crying.
Fear vanished. Rage replaced it.
Harvest this, Kenji thought.
He didn't try to punch. He didn't try to run. He remembered the feeling from the fight with the dog—the explosion.
He focused all his energy into his hands. Not a spark. A bomb.
"Aris! The jammer!" Kenji yelled.
Aris, who was hiding behind a bush, understood instantly. He cranked the volume wheel on his Walkman to the max and threw the device at the Detective.
The Walkman flew through the air, the headphones screaming with static feedback.
The Detective flinched. The noise annoyed him. He swatted the Walkman out of the air.
That split second was all Kenji needed.
Warp.
Kenji teleported. Not away. But directly above the Detective.
He fell from the air, gravity pulling him down. He grabbed the Detective's shoulders with both hands.
"EAT STATIC!" Kenji screamed.
He unleashed everything.
BOOM!
A massive pulse of blue energy exploded from Kenji's body. It was uncontrolled, wild, and chaotic.
The blast drove the Detective into the mud. The ground shook. Mud and leaves sprayed everywhere.
Kenji was thrown backward by the recoil of his own blast. He landed hard, rolling in the dirt.
He looked up, panting.
The Detective was down. He was on one knee in a crater of mud. His fedora was gone. His trench coat was shredded at the shoulders. Smoke was rising from his gray skin.
The Detective slowly stood up. He brushed a speck of dirt off his lapel.
He wasn't dead. He wasn't even badly hurt. But he looked... annoyed.
"Unexpected," the Detective said. His voice had lost its smoothness. It sounded glitchy now. "Displacement... combined with kinetic discharge. Dangerous."
He raised his gun again.
But suddenly, the air around them began to wail. A siren.
Wooooop-Wooooop.
It wasn't a monster. It was a police siren. Sheriff Miller's cruiser was coming down the logging road nearby.
The Detective paused. He looked toward the sound of the siren, then back at Kenji.
"Authority figures," the Detective sneered. "Complications."
He stepped backward, toward the shimmering tear in the air.
"This isn't over, Key," the Detective said. "I have your scent now. Sleep with one eye open."
The Detective stepped into the vertical tear. His body stretched and distorted like taffy, sucked into the Void.
With a final zip sound, the tear snapped shut. The Detective was gone. The shimmering mirage vanished.
The woods were silent again.
Kenji collapsed onto his back, staring up at the leaves. His hands were smoking.
"Is he... gone?" Maya whispered, crawling over to Sarah to check her injuries.
"For now," Kenji gasped.
"He ate my grandpa," Sarah said. She was sitting up, rubbing her head. She looked furious. "He said he ate him."
"We need to move," Aris said, picking up the pieces of his smashed Walkman. "The Sheriff is coming. If he finds us here with a crater in the ground, we're grounded for life. Or arrested."
Marco groaned, sitting up. He looked at his chest. The stone skin faded back to normal flesh, revealing a massive, nasty purple bruise right over his sternum.
"That guy," Marco winced, "hits way harder than the dog."
Kenji sat up. He looked at the spot where the Detective had vanished.
"He had a gun," Kenji said softly. "They have guns. And they can talk."
"He called you the Key," Aris noted. "And he knew about Sarah's family. This isn't an invasion, Kenji. It's a hit squad."
Kenji clenched his smoking fists.
"Then we need to hit back," Kenji said. "But we can't do it with baseball bats and Walkmans."
"So what do we do?" Sarah asked, limping over to them.
Kenji looked at Aris.
"Aris," Kenji said. "Can you trace where that tear went? Can you find out where he lives?"
Aris looked at the broken wires in his hand. He grinned, a dark, determined smile.
"If I can get into the high school computer lab again? I can trace him to hell and back."
"Good," Kenji said. "Because next time, we're not waiting for him to find us."