So far, so good. Anna had survived the first half of the school day. When the lunch bell rang, Anna made her way to the last empty table in the cafeteria and sat with her back to the rest of the kids. She pulled out a book and put on her earphones and turned on her own personal invisibility shield. She was so focused on not being noticed, that she didn’t notice the boy who sat down directly across from her.
Anna sensed a presence. She looked up slowly. The boy, for his own part, wasn’t paying any attention to Anna either and stared down intently at his phone. He was smaller than the other boys in eighth grade and wore thick black-rimmed glasses. One of the outcasts, Anna thought. She knew them all too well. But, this boy with his moppish blonde hair and crooked grin emitted a funny kind of confidence.
Suddenly, he laughed out loud, startling Anna. He laughed again and shook his head.
“Classic,” he said to himself.
Anna didn’t bite.
He turned his phone to Anna and showed a photo of a young girl, dressed as Albert Einstein, full moustache and wild hair.
“Is this really you?” he laughed.
Anna stared, unblinking.
“It is you,” the boy laughed. “For what it's worth, I think you look great with a moustache.”
“How did you find that picture?” Anna said sharply.
“I heard your name in class. Learned you’re from Boston. Found your not very active social stream. Easy peasy,” the boy smiled.
“Well, I’d appreciate you not stalking me,” Anna said flatly.
“Oh, no. You got me all wrong,” the boy put his hands up in defense. “Consider me like the unofficial class yearbook. If you want to know what’s going on, the people to know, the foods to avoid. I’m your guy. People are going to want to know who you are. I figured I’d help.”
Anna wasn't sure what to think of this strange little boy, and it showed in her face. He didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he didn't seem to care much and kept on going.
“My name is Scout, but my friends call me Scout.”
“Scout? Really?” Anna said.
"Scout the Third actually. Doctor says I haven't hit my growth spurt yet,” Scout began gnawing on a carrot stick like a bunny. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Anna.”
He reached his hand out. Anna let it float there for several seconds before slowly reaching out and shaking his hand back. He seemed harmless.
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“So, I hear you’re some kind of genius. Your placement tests had you, like, at a college level or something.”
“News travels fast I see,” Anna said.
“You're the new kid. So, yeah, you’re a big deal, at least until our attention spans run out. And, since you're new, let me share some things they never bring up in orientation. For instance, whatever you do, pack your own lunch on Taco Tuesdays. Don't ask questions. Just trust me.”
“Okay.”
“And, another thing. Most kids are pretty nice around here, but some think they were put on this planet to rule over us peasants,” Scout jerked his head in the direction of a pack of girls at the lunch table two rows over.
Anna started to look but Scout stopped her.
“Don't look at them. If you make eye contact, they might attack,” Scout shook his head and grimaced.
Anna looked over anyway and was met by a fearsome smile filled with white teeth from the prettiest girl at that table. The girl's lips were curled up in a smile, but the rest of her face was unmoving and she didn't blink, like a predator calmly waiting for her prey to move. She appeared to be the leader of the group of girls who surrounded her like a queen. Anna smiled back with the same fearsome smile and unblinking eyes.
“Her name is Blaire. The others sitting around her are Brittany, Bethany, Brianna and Brooke. I kid you not,” Scout said under his breath.
Anna leaned in. "The Killer B's?"
“Exactly,” Scout smiled broadly, surprised he hadn't thought of that one himself. “Say, I like your style, sister. You and me are going to get along just fine.”
“Anything else I should know?” Anna asked. She wasn’t used to this much attention, but it wasn’t altogether horrible.
“Plenty. See those guys over there?” Scout nodded his head to a group of boys in the corner of the cafeteria. “Good people to know in a pinch.”
“You mean the jock table?” Anna asked.
Anna knew the popular kids, from their body language and posture and easy confidence, and that they owned that part of the cafeteria and, most likely, the entire school. She had always avoided their type before, and for good reason. Kids like Anna and Scout were easy prey, picked off from the herd because they traveled alone.
Scout whistled over at the table and waved.
“No, really, you don't need...”
“It's no problem. They may look simple, but they're surprisingly friendly," Scout continued to wave until he caught their attention. “There’s Edison, Theo, Gus and Guillermo Delgado Gloria, otherwise known as Del.”
Their faces flashed past in a blur except for the last one. Del, the boy in the back with the faded sweatshirt and a smile so bright that it made her pause. Just as Del made eye contact, Anna's stomach cramped. It was an unpleasant feeling and Anna didn't like it one bit.
She cringed and prepared herself for the verbal abuse she was sure would follow. Instead, most of the group smiled back at Scout. The biggest boy, the one named Edison, nodded his head in greeting.. One boy even waved back. No sarcasm. No over the shoulder snickers that masked their true intent. Their reactions were genuine, and Anna couldn’t be more surprised if she saw a small lamb playing kickball with a pack of lions.
Anna was still trying to make sense of this new place, when two new figures popped into view. They moved so fast it made Anna lean back and shake her head. The two figures, both girls, sat down on opposite sides of Scout.
“Is he bugging you?” the tall girl asked. She didn't even look at Anna but glared directly at Scout instead, like an angry older sister. “He's been known to bug people.”
The girl was a good head taller than Scout and outweighed him by at least thirty pounds, most of it lean muscle. She was pretty in a Viking kind of way with her short cropped, copper red hair . The other girl was Scout's size and had a small afro pulled back in a neat bun. She smiled serenely and seemed oblivious to the potential violence to her left.
“What's your name? My name is Lula. My friend's name is Fiona. I love your shirt. It's funny,” the small one named Lula blurted out her lines so fast and without a break, it sounded like one protracted sentence.
It took Anna a couple of seconds to parse what she had just heard. Before she could respond, Scout jumped in.
“Geez, Hulk, will you give me some room here,” Scout pushed his small frame against Fiona. She didn't budge an inch. “Her name is Anna, if you must know, and you are rudely butting in on our conversation.”
Fiona ignored Scout. She seemed to have had plenty of practice.
“Congratulations, Anna. I hear you're officially the smartest kid in school,” Fiona took a fry off of Scout's plate and bit it in half. “I used to share that honor with Blaire before you got here. It doesn't bother me, but Blaire ain’t going to like it.”
“It was just a stupid placement exam,” Anna argued. “Seriously, it's no big deal.”
“No, I think it's awesome. Anything that gets ol' Blaire worked up into a frenzy is alright by me. We need more smart people around here, anyway,” Fiona directed the last sentence at Scout.
“And other things I never heard at my old school,” Anna smiled. “Ever.”
“Well, ladies, it's been lovely chatting with you. But, I know you have to run along,” Scout stood in the hope the others would follow. No such luck. Lula and Fiona didn't move. He took a deep breath, then slowly sat back down in defeat.
“Where do you live?” Lula asked, her eyes big behind her glasses “Can we come over and visit? Do you play any musical instruments? Maybe we can start a band.”
“I'm not sure which question I should answer first,” Anna giggled.
“Just pick one. You'll get used to it,” Fiona offered.
“Well, I live with my uncle now,” Anna said.
“With your uncle? That’s funny. Why don’t you live with your…?”
It took exactly three seconds for Lula’s brain to catch up with her mouth. But when it did, she found she couldn’t go forward, or back, so she sat unmoving with her lips frozen mid-phrase.
“My parents?”
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my…”
“It’s ok. You didn’t know,” Anna shook her head. “My parents had an accident a year ago. A bad one. The worst. And, since the state of Massachusetts doesn’t let me live on my own, I had to choose who would take care of me. My Uncle Jack or Aunt Claire.”
Scout smiled meekly. Lula stared straight ahead, while Fiona looked down at nothing at all. Anna searched for a way to break the awkward silence. She hadn’t talked this much to kids her own age since forever, other than some of the guys from her Little League team from her life before. But they were just friendly, like teammates, not friends. This felt good. Better than she had felt in a long time. But, now she could sense the conversation slip away and with it the hope that this time things would be different. Anna was overcome with the urge to pick her things up and retreat into silence.
Then Fiona spoke.
“I’m glad you chose your uncle,” Fiona smiled, breaking the silence. “Otherwise, how could we start a band.”
A band of all things. That made Anna smile.
Anna gazed out the bus window and watched the switchgrass and yellow wildflowers pass by in a blur. She was one of the last students on the bus. The end of the route. In the distance, irrigation lines sprayed giant jets of water that caught the afternoon light in bands of color. The fields were freshly plowed with only a hint of green from budding new plants. Dirt fields. Brown, orderly and neat compared to the carpet of varying green colors that blanketed her uncle’s fields. As the bus neared the lane leading to her home, Anna saw her uncle at the end of the road, leaning on his dirt bike with his arms folded and legs crossed.
A grin spread across Uncle Jack’s face as the bus doors opened. He nodded his head in greeting to the bus driver then took several steps forward and handed Anna a motorcycle helmet. The bus pulled away with the rumble of a diesel engine and grinding gears and a cloud of dust.
“Hop on back,” Uncle Jack motioned towards his motorcycle. “We’ve got some work to do.”
Anna placed her arms around Uncle Jack’s waist as he sped down the dirt road that led to the house. He shouted back that she was a good passenger and that she knew how to lean with the bike, but she could only hear every other word over the whine of the motorcycle’s engine. Her eyes watered and small bugs smacked against her face more than once, but Anna felt free like she was flying.
Instead of heading towards the house they took off down a dirt road carved with deep ruts from an earlier rain towards the edge of the woods where Anna had seen the lights the night before. The dirt road veered to the left then ran parallel to the woods for a half mile until it reached a sloping hill. As they made their way to the top of the hill, a span of water came into view, Tyson lake. It was a small lake, small enough for her to swim across if she tried hard enough, but it had a network of inlets that doubled the size of the shoreline. Woods and large boulders framed most of the water’s eastern shore and farm fields and meadows lined the north.
Uncle Jack coasted the bike downhill to a grassy clearing and parked it just beneath a cottonwood tree. The motor ticked to a stop as Anna hopped off and stretched her legs. Uncle Jack removed the bungee cords that held a small toolbox in place behind the seat, and then handed the toolbox to Anna.
“See that sensor station over there?” He pointed towards a wooden post with a square green box bolted to its side about fifteen feet away. It looked like an overgrown bird feeder. “Let’s see if you can replace the circuit board.”
Anna opened the toolbox and found two identical circuit boards wrapped in plastic, a night vision camera board, a cordless soldering iron, assorted screwdrivers, wrenches, a USB cord and an empty pack of gum. She carefully pulled one of the circuit boards from its wrap and held it by the edges.
“A location sensor. An optical sensor,” Anna turned the board over in her hands and looked at both sides. “What’s this one?”
“Airflow sensor. Measures soil air permeability.”
“These boards look custom. Did you print them yourself?” Anna asked.
“Right here on the farm,” Uncle Jack squinted in the afternoon light. “I also had a couple of night vision camera modules laying around the shop. Handy, huh? Figured you might be able to do something with it.”
Anna nodded her head approvingly and then got to work. She removed the plastic casing of the sensor station and surveyed a nest of unattached wires.
Uncle Jack, for his part, sat down on a soft patch of wild grass and leaned back with his hands behind his head to stare at the spring clouds passing by overhead. A study breeze formed tiny waves on the surface of the lake, reflecting light that shimmered and shifted in rhythm with the sound of leaves blowing in the Cottonwood tree. Minutes ticked by in silence as Anna worked.
“You know what I see?” Uncle Jack broke the silence.
“Some guy laying on the grass while his niece does all the work?” Anna shouted back as she gently placed the new circuit board in its housing.
“No, besides that,” Uncle Jack pointed up to a cloud overhead. “See that cloud right there? It looks just like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. Serious, look.”
Anna took a deep breath and looked up to where her uncle was pointing. “It looks like a clam.”
"No, it doesn't. And, check this out. If you squint your eyes just right, the little clouds in front of it look like TIE fighters, too," her uncle sounded genuinely impressed. "How cool is that?"
"You know, this might go faster if you help me out.”
“And deprive you of this learning experience? Nice soldering job by the way,” Uncle Jack turned his head in her direction. “Oh, I forgot to ask. How was your first day of school?”
“Weird.”
“Care to elaborate?” Uncle Jack asked.
“Let me see,” Anna didn't look back as she began drilling holes for a small camera mount on top of the green box. “The principal was nice. Kids were friendly. And, I think I might have actually made some friends today. So, yeah, weird.”
"Yeah, that sounds positively awful," Uncle Jack rolled over on his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “I don't think you should ever go back.”
Anna couldn't help herself and smiled.
“Not to rush you or anything, but how long is it going to take to wire up this camera thing of yours?” Uncle Jack asked. “I’m getting hungry.”
“Just need to configure the settings,” Anna removed the laptop from her backpack and plugged in the USB cord.
“So, how are you configuring the camera?”
"I've set up a script that takes a picture every five minutes on its own. But, I’ve also integrated readings from your sensors. Anything moves out here tonight or any sudden bright light and the camera begins shooting video. It also triggers a message on my phone. If someone is out here messing around, we'll catch them.” Anna closed the mount with a satisfying click.
“So no thermal scan?” Uncle Jack smiled slyly.
Anna rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's coming in version two."
In the field outside her bedroom window, a lone figure crept slowly in the darkness towards the house. It's movements were jerky like jump cuts in a film and its arms were impossibly long and bone thin. The creature wore a broad round hat that cloaked its face in shadows. The hat brim glowed white in the sharp moonlight. Anna stood frozen at the window for what seemed like hours, unable to move, to breath, to do anything but stare at the intruder walking closer.
How long had she been at the window? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything at all, like why the sky was filled with star formations she had never seen and a gaseous cloud, the deepest color of purple, that stretched across the southern sky. Who put that nebula there? The corn stalks in the field were at least five feet tall and swaying like waves in a dark green sea, even though the air was stale and unmoving.
They were just seedlings yesterday. Didn’t know corn could grow so fast.
The moon, much larger than normal and twice as bright, sat low in the sky just touching the horizon. Another creature emerged from the cornfield. A twin. It wore the same black outfit, the same hat, and walked with the same herky-jerky movements towards the house. The night was dead silent. No wind. Nothing, except for a low pitched hum that seemed to come from the two approaching figures in the field.
Anna knew they were coming for her.
Ping.
The sound came from nowhere, distant and muted.
Ping.
The sound was sharper this time, and closer. The figures in the field seemed to have heard it too. They stopped walking at the same time. In perfect unison, the brims of their hats lifted up slowly revealing their bone white faces in the stark moonlight.
Anna tried to scream, but there was no sound. Only darkness.
Ping.
Anna opened her eyes slowly and blinked several times to clear her vision. She was laying in bed. Her pillow was covered in sweat, just like her hair. She was still disoriented and her heart raced in her chest, but at least she was awake. Her bad dream was over. That’s what it was. A bad dream, right?
Her phone was blinking on the side table; an alert from the sensor in the field she had installed that afternoon. It took Anna a moment to process what was happening, then her eyes snapped open wide and she hopped out of bed and made her way across the room towards her laptop. She stopped by her bedroom window. As much as she didn't want to look, she couldn't help herself and turned her gaze out into the field. For a moment she was sure she’d see that bone-white face staring up at her from the field. But the field was empty and the moon was back to its right size and place in the sky. The night was alive with a chorus of crickets.
It had felt so real, Anna thought, more like a memory than a dream. And, unlike most dreams, the images in her head showed no signs of fading. She took in a deep breath and made her way to her desk.
“Let's see if this camera is working.” Anna sat down and blinked her eyes, adjusting to the bright blue glow of her laptop in the darkness.
Anna cleared the messages from her screen and logged into her cloud drive. She yawned while waiting for the host to resolve.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Anna impatiently tapped the return key.
Several video feeds appeared as text links on her screen. She clicked on the link titled Lake Station but the video feed was black even though the counter below was ticking off milliseconds. Anna opened the settings for the remote camera and adjusted the light sensor. Slowly, Anna could make out a fuzzy white image moving slowly in a sea of black.
“There we go,” Anna said to herself.
More fuzzy white images appeared. Intruders! As she adjusted the light settings, the figures became clearer, until they snapped into focus.
“Awww, how cute,” Anna couldn't help herself. A small deer stared directly into the camera lens. It's big fawn eyes lit up like shiny silver dollars. Behind the fawn was a group of deer drinking water at the edge of the lake. “So you’re the little guy that triggered my camera.”
For the next two minutes, the stream of images showed the fawn licking the camera mount, which made Anna giggle out loud. She absently watched the small herd graze for a moment and was ready to shut down her laptop, when the small deer closest to the camera popped its head up in alarm. All the other deer followed suit. Then the deer were gone. Just like that. Wow, they’re fast. All that was left was the blur of a small white tail exiting the camera frame.
“Where did you guys go?” Anna said out loud to herself.
Something had scared them, but what? The screen was blank again except for two faint, red lights that appeared in the center of the video frame; so faint, Anna wasn’t sure if they were early season fireflies. But, with each passing second, the lights grew brighter like a car driving towards the camera with its headlights on.
Anna didn’t remember seeing a road on the other side of the lake, but she couldn’t think of any other explanation. Suddenly, the two lights stopped. Instead of veering left or right, the lights floated straight up. Anna let out a gasp and realized she had been holding her breath for the last 30 seconds. A row of smaller red lights appeared in the next frame circling the two original lights, like a floating hula hoop. The object began to spin in a blur. It’s bright light cast a strange red glow across the trees and the knee high grass and the surface of the lake. A flash, then static. The camera went black.
Anna stared at the screen for a second, then realized she might still be able to see the real thing if she were fast enough. She stumbled from her chair and barely caught her balance by the time she made it to the window. She leaned out just in time to see a red light float silently along the edge of the trees.
Unlike the night before, the light didn’t disappear but continued on a course away from the trees and up into the night sky. Anna watched the light climb at a sharp angle, growing fainter until it was swallowed up by a bank of clouds across the valley. The clouds flashed pink like cotton candy, then returned to dark silhouettes outlined by moonlight.
The light was gone. But, now she had a record of its passing. Now she had video.
“Uncle Jack!”