this in.
Collin thought he’d never ask the question.
“Well, what are they?”
Mr. Right looked over, shifting his gun strap. “That’s the thing, no one knows for sure. No one has ever lived to tell about meeting one or at least remembered seeing one. Some say they’re an experiment gone awry: the spawn of a human and demon creature. Some rumors say they’re an alien species from another dimension that our government made a deal with, and they’re why we have an FBI.”
Mr. Left leaned against the window. “Yeah, and they’re time travelers from the future.”
“So, you’ve read the book too?” Mr. Right rubbed the top of his crew cut.
Mr. Left chose to chew instead of reply.
“Well, the strangest part,” Mr. Right said, “is the kid’s description.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a buddy taking care of his dad, too expensive to put him in a home. Poor guy is in his eighties now. But, he was once top-level classification. My buddy says his dad has these horrific night terrors. Usually wakes up screaming two names: Brim and Mirk.”
“So?” Mr. Left said.
“The kid’s description! One Modifier with a brimmed hat and one with white eyes.”
Mr. Left stuck his wad of gum on the window. “You need to stop reading conspiracy sites.”
Collin leaned back on the couch. Brim and Mirk were aliens or demons working for our government? It couldn’t be.
Two flickering shadows broke the orange light between the soldiers. It happened so fast it could’ve been a trick of the eyes. The soldiers hadn’t noticed. Should he warn them? How long would it take for him to say it?
The side door flung open. A third soldier strode in. “The van is clean. I parked it in the garage.” He tossed the keys into the air meaning to catch them. He didn’t.
Silent, blinding, red light blew the door into the soldier. He and the door sailed into the air. Body and wood crashed into kitchen cabinets.
Collin lunged back, tipping the couch. Splinters pelted his face.
Two vibrating thuds and the sound of cracking: Mr. Right and Mr. Left thrown into the window.
Like staring into some other world’s giant sun for too long, Collin saw nothing but red. He was pinned between the wall and overturned couch. He squinted through the red world. A shadow towered over him. It wore a wide hat.
33
The door closed, locking shut. Sarge led Collin, Simone, Penny, and the two soldiers down the hall and out of view.
Dane saw the break room through a messy blur. All the embarrassment and humiliation he’d suppressed rose up. Sarge had singled him out, picked on him because he was the weakest and crippled. He wiped his eyes. Alex and Paul simply stared at him. The two of them were always together lately.
Dane jabbed a finger at the closed door, his words welling with emotion, “He is nothing but a bully!” He turned his back to Alex and Paul unable to stop the tears.
“Then the best thing right now,” Paul said, “is to get out of here.”
Dane turned and saw Paul fighting his own emotions.
Bottom lip quivering, Paul said, “We have to save Pen Pen and our friends.”
Dane wiped his eyes with his arm and took in a long breath. “Simone said Agent—” he stopped not wanting to say her name. “She told Simone naughty rust while looking at Sarge.”
“Did you hit your head that hard?” Alex asked.
“Naughty rust,” Dane said again. “Not to trust.”
“She knows our secret language?” Alex said, hands on her hips.
Paul tugged on his medallion. “So how long have we been spied on?”
Alex busied herself by trying the door. “It’s locked.” She stopped abruptly, Converse squeaking on tiles. “How did they forget that?”
On the floor laid Sarge’s modified cattle-prod weapon. None of them moved for it.
Dane sat back down at the table. Alex and Paul joined him. They sat bunched together, backs to the soda machine, facing the wired window.
“I think there’s a way out,” Dane whispered.
“What do you mean?” Paul asked.
Dane ran his hand through his hair looking up. “It’s just a feeling. But maybe this will help.” He pulled out the phone, making sure to conceal it with his body from the hidden camera.
Alex pocketed her phone. “Mine won’t even turn on.”
“Probably some sort of jamming mechanism they have here,” Paul said. “Simone would know.”
Alex shrugged. “Or the battery is dead.”
“I think I know the code,” Dane said, keeping his voice low. He hit the phone’s side button. Its touch screen lit up with a keypad, pretty much like any password-protected phone, except the keypad had both letters and numbers. Alex and Paul tightened in on either side of him.
Dane typed in the password. A three-letter word: god.
Nothing happened.
“That should’ve worked,” Dane said. “Maybe it’s a capital G.”
“Wait!” Alex grabbed his hand. “We only have six more tries.”
“Huh?”
“She’s right,” Paul said, pointing at a number in the upper right corner of the screen.
It was so tiny Dane had missed it.
“It was a seven before you typed in god,” Paul said, “and now it’s a six.”
“I just want to get out of here,” Dane said. He felt really tired all of a sudden.
“Why did you try god?” Alex asked.
“When Simone passed the phone to me, she whispered: Three dog tarts. Three god starts.”
“Well, before the soldiers busted in,” Paul looked up in thought, “Sim’s said: With three his creator activates him.”
“You and your uncanny recall,” Alex said. She reached across, placing her hand on Paul’s. Her thumb traced a circle on his skin.
“Any ideas?” Dane asked. He received nothing but blank stares. “Paul, you’re like a walking Wikipedia! And, Alex, you make straight A’s and your homework is done before the bus gets to Crabapple—”
A crash from above shook particle dust from the ceiling tiles.
Dane jumped up, kicking his chair across the floor.
“Pen Pen!” Paul cried out.
Alex’s whisper equaled the terror in Paul’s voice, “You think it’s the two creatures?”
Dane watched the ceiling tiles settle. They had to figure out the phone’s password. It was their only chance of escape and saving their friends. He hoped it wasn’t already too late.
34
Collin had instinctively closed his eyes moments before the red blast, so his vision came back first. It was Simone’s hopeless whimper, however, that set him in motion. He opened his eyes and the pain dissolved away with the fading red vision. The creature with the hat, Brim, stood over the two soldiers with its back to him. Collin couldn’t see the soldiers. It must be making sure they were unconscious or dead.
In the street lamp glow, Mirk walked in front of Brim and into the kitchen. The white-haired, shade-wearing Modifier pointed a long, barreled gun at the kitchen tile. The gun crackled like something from Mr. Thompson’s lesson on electrical current.
A blue flash erupted from the gun, sending a tremor through the couch. Kitchen tiles simply dissolved to nothing, leaving a large hole. The creature dropped into the underground area.
Collin groaned. The creature was going after his friends.
A flicker of movement.
Collin blinked and Brim was once again standing over him. The creature raised a laser gun directly at his face. The end of the oval barrel glowed red, the gun hummed. Collin had watched enough Sci-fi movies with Dane and Alex to know the gun was charging.
Brim hit the side of the gun. The final indicator light turned red. The creature turned the gun back on Collin with a fanged smile. It was all things wicked.
Brim pressed the trigger but the gun didn’t fire.
Because of th
e tight space between the couch arm and wall, Penny rolled awkwardly off the couch.
The creature’s shark eyes tracked Penny.
Collin twisted his body, scissoring his feet. One sneaker struck the back of the creature’s hand, while the other hit the side of the gun’s barrel. The gun’s glow peaked. It fired, death flashed by with red-hot heat, and white stuffing exploded into the air. A throw pillow blazed where Penny’s head had just been.
The handgun clattered on the tile floor.
Brim strode to Penny or his weapon or both.
Penny crawled into the kitchen.
Collin had to help her. If she couldn’t see, Penny would fall straight through the hole. He gently shoved Simone, through the couch’s other opening. “Move or we die.” Pride tightened his throat. Simone blindly crawled away from the couch and, more importantly, the creature. She headed for the television and fireplace.
Penny screamed.
CG
The voice in Penny’s head yelled louder than the searing red pain: You’re the oldest! These kids are your responsibility!
She moaned, blind to the world. Penny, lover of all things chocolate and sleeping in on rainy mornings, wanted nothing more than the pain to end, even if that meant death. But the voice was unrelentingly annoying.
Your baby brother, the only blood family you have, is going to die if you don’t move right now! And you call yourself a babysitter.
Penny had taken in the full blunt of the blast. She’d been eyeing the soldier tossing her keys. Even as the couch had tipped over, she’d seen her keys slide to a stop under the open refrigerator door. They had glinted red as the flash took hold of the room.
It was the voice in her head that got her moving, the voice that wasn’t hers.
Off the couch and crawling, Penny’s hands went from carpet to cool