Chapter 1

            AFUN Archive File#1

Initial news report by Martin Andross as printed in the Anne Falls Gazette, October 6, 1995

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT NEAR THE FOREST

October 6, 1995

ANNE FALLS-Last night, local witnesses reported seeing a fireball streaking across the sky. They claim it crashed into the Kingland Forest outside of town. The area was immediately closed off by military personnel though rumors circulated soon after that an object fell into Queen’s Lake. A large crowd soon gathered and kept its distance, and many reported seeing the military leave the forest with a covered object on a flatbed truck. Initial reports stated that it was an aircraft, though the military forbade anyone, including rescue workers, from entering the forest. This action has led to rumors that the object may have been of extraterrestrial origins.

October 2015

“Where is he?” Nathan Hawkins muttered as he read the time on his glow-in-the-dark watch: 7:15 pm. He yanked his cell phone from his pocket and tapped the screen, but it remained dark. He tapped again. Nothing.

“That’s just great,” he groaned. “Now I need a new phone. If Aunt Allison didn’t buy me this used piece of crap—” He was about to snap his fingers but paused to check his surroundings. He stood in front of the entrance to Kingland Forest, which was just an opening in the line of trees. In the daylight, it always looked to him like the open mouth of some creature from a sci-fi movie. In the dark, it looked like the gaping jaws of a demon, made scarier by the moonlight streaming through the branches.

Nathan chuckled to himself. He was the only one around for miles; no one came to Kingland Forest after dark.

He held up his hand and forced the familiar warm tingle from his stomach up through his arm. It coursed past his wrist and through his hand until the tip of his index finger ignited into a flame the size of a match head. Now able to see the home screen of his phone, he realized the brightness had been lowered, probably through an automatic update.

“Still a crappy phone,” he mumbled as he rubbed his fingers to snuff out his dirty little secret.

He dialed a number from his contacts. A voice quivered on the other end of the line when it answered. “Uh, hey, Nathan.”

“Mike, where the hell are you?”

“Oh, uh, sorry, man. Didn’t you get my text?”

“No, I didn’t. I’ve been waiting here for over an hour.”

“Um, sorry. Something kinda came up…”

“You went to Comic-Con anyway, didn’t you?”

“Um…well…”

The phone cracked in Nathan’s hand, and he felt plastic dig into his skin. “Are you kidding me? You’re the one who wanted to come out here again.”

“Sorry, dude.”

“You’re the one who wanted to look into the reports about that cult even though the group didn’t think it was important.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t have a car yet, remember?” Nathan sneered. “I had to ride my bike up here like a little kid.”

“I’ll make it up to ya.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He disconnected the call and checked the damage. The plastic case had shattered, but the phone itself wasn’t damaged.

He looked back at the opening in the forest. A chill crept up his spine at the thought of running into a bear. He wasn’t afraid of ghosts. At least, that’s what he told himself.

A breeze whistled through the trees. He sent a text message to Coyote57.

Hey. Are you there?

A few seconds later, a response chimed. Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?

I’m about to head into Kingland Forest to check out that cult that’s been in the news.

For the SATI website, or did you convince your aunt to let you write articles for her magazine?

The website. My aunt’s never going to let me practice my writing career. I was supposed to go with someone else, but he stood me up. You interested?

Can’t. Sorry. Let me know how it turns out.

Nathan frowned, then replied, Sure.

He dropped the phone back into his pocket and muttered, “Don’t know why I bothered. He never wanted to hang out before.”

Nathan glanced back at the dark forest. It all felt like a scene in a bad horror movie. Another breeze whipped through, and his hair stood on end. He shook his head, his enthusiasm snuffed out by the burning anger and a freezing spine.

“There’s no cult in there,” he told himself. “I’m over this.”

He walked to where his bike rested against the wooden sign that declared the forest a national park. Although no one outside of the county knew it existed. He snorted. No one outside of the state knew the entirety of Anne Falls existed. It wasn’t a small town but apparently not large enough to warrant attention either.

A loud boom split the sky behind him. Thunder? The forecast hadn’t said anything about rain, but the weatherman was often wrong. Another reverberation echoed through the trees. That wasn’t thunder. It sounded like a weak firecracker. No one more than a mile away could’ve heard it, but Nathan knew fireworks were off-limits in the forest.

He looked at his Samsung PL200 digital camera—three years old and bought used, of course—hanging around his neck and grinned. Cult or no cult, photographing criminals in the act should get him a credit in the local paper.

He ran past the two large trees standing guard and onto the dusty path winding through the thick forest. He saw a flickering light in the dark overgrowth, maybe a quarter of a mile ahead, which meant it had to be at Queen’s Lake. He rolled his eyes—as if he had any estimating skills.

As he continued forward, he could see the light’s orange hue. It must have been a campfire near the lake. When had he ever been camping, period?

He reached the overgrowth at the edge of the clearing. If the forest’s entrance was the jaw of some alien creature, then the lines of trees around Queen’s Lake was an inner jaw, complete with plaque of shrubs and sticker bushes.

Voices came from within the clearing. Nathan hissed and bit his lip. It was now or never. He suppressed another shiver, swallowed his fear, and slid forward on his stomach using the tall grass as cover. The square mile of greenish water that was Queen’s Lake came into view, as well as the group of people on the shoreline—about a dozen of them all wearing dark robes.

They stood in front of the campfire. No, it was closer to a bonfire. Their faces were hidden in their hoods, but the fire’s light reflected in their eyes. One spoke, almost shouted, in an unmistakably male voice, and lifted his arms. “We have come, Great Starfall!”

The others raised their arms and said in unison, “Receive us, Great Starfall!”

Someone stood next to the man in dark blue. Nathan guessed she was female from how the robe clung to her frame. She reached into a bag at her side and threw what looked like sand into the fire. It crackled and popped with a rainbow of smoke. No, not sand, some kind of special effect powder.

The one in blue started chanting, but Nathan couldn’t understand what he was saying. It was either Latin or Greek; it could even have been Chinese for all he knew. The rest of the group bowed and chanted in reply. Maybe it was Latin. It sounded like a church service.

The one in blue lifted up his arms again. “Here, where the Great Starfall descended to our world…” The female threw more powder into the fire. It burst into smoke that clung in the air. “We come on the twentieth anniversary of the Descent of Starfall.”

The group bowed.

“Here, where the Great Starfall touched our world.” The one in blue approached the bonfire and inhaled the burning trees. “We wait for the coming of the others. Our prophecies state when we all stand together, then our divine mission—”

He was cut off by a cell phone’s ringtone.

“Sorry, m’ lord,” another man said. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket.

“What is it?” the one in blue asked.

“One of our guards found a bike near the entrance,” he answered as he checked his phone. “No sign of the owner.”

Nathan hissed and squeezed his camera.

“I see,” the high priest responded. “Any clues as to who it is?”

“We believe it’s a child.”

Nathan’s heart gave a weak thump. Child?

“How young?” asked the cult leader.

“Pretty young, I think. It’s a blue bike with an air horn on the side.”

“Yes, probably a little boy. Why wasn’t this area secured?”

“I take full responsibility, my lord. We assumed the police had written us off after finding nothing the other day.”

“But that boy’s here now! Find him!”

The others bowed and moved toward the tree line. Nathan exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He should’ve left when he had the chance. He ran as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast at all. If those stupid video games weren’t so addictive, he could’ve been out exercising in his massive amounts of free time. Once he felt he was far enough away, he leaned back against a tree and slid onto his rear. His lungs felt like balloons that refused to inflate.

“There really is a damn cult in Anne Falls,” he said, almost shouting, “What the hell is Starfall? Is that the thing that—”

A twig snapped, and Nathan hissed. At the end of the path too far to make out clearly, was what looked like a little boy running through the grass. Nathan blinked, and the boy was gone. Or was he really there to begin with? Maybe it was a leprechaun. He had fire powers, there were cultists in the woods, and a potential alien object crashed in the lake twenty years ago, so little people who liked rainbows and pots of gold didn’t seem out of the question.

His thoughts returned to the cult, and he was on his feet in a moment. He wasn’t sure if they even were a cult, but they were worshipping in a place where a mysterious object landed, which probably meant they were more than just Wiccans. What were they willing to do to keep their secret?

“Hey, you!”

Nathan was sure his heart stopped for a moment. Two of the cultists stood behind him. Was his face hidden in the shadows? Why did he leave his hoodie at home? He stepped back.

“Don’t move,” the cultist said taking another step forward. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

His mind raced for an explanation. He needed something. Anything! “I...I was just taking a walk.”

“No one comes out here anymore. Are you with that little boy?”

Nathan shook his head. “No.” He realized his mistake and quickly added, “What little boy?”

His perfect acting didn’t fool either of his enemies. The one who hadn’t spoken yet said, “He’s either with that boy, or he’s been listening to our ceremony.”

The other one nodded. “Agreed. We must take him to the High Priest at once.”

Nathan’s head was empty of any coherent thought as he spun on his heels and ran faster than The Flash. Well, he had one coherent thought: he was going to die, and he was thinking about superheroes.

They were right behind him. Images of fireballs shooting from his hands entered his mind, but he brushed them aside. He leapt over a fallen log, nearly twisting his ankle when he landed. He shook off the pain and continued running. Despite being of average height and weight for a 17-year-old, he’d never really been in shape. And those lonely evenings at the fast-food diner didn’t help much either.

“Stop!” the two cultists ordered.

Nathan’s legs seemed to gain weight with each step. He glanced over his shoulder. The duo were even closer. The only way to escape was to use his powers. The familiar, almost pleasant, heat filled his palms. A couple of third-degree burns would give them something else to focus on.

Then the universe decided to give him a break for once. A large tree had fallen over the path, but the top was caught in the foliage on the other side. He’d never tried to throw a fireball while he was running and struggling to breathe or make one as large as he’d need, but it was his only chance. He formed a baseball-sized flame in his palm and flicked it into the shattered trunk of the fallen pine. What little splinters of wood it made contact with ignited in a quick burst of flame. The base fell, freeing the top from the knot of other trees, and it crashed to the ground so close the small branches brushed his back. The duo shouted, but Nathan forced more energy into his wobbly legs.

The next moments were a blur until he exited the forest. When he reached his bike, he fell to his knees and emptied his stomach. His ride home was a haze that didn’t clear until he reached his front door. He pushed himself through it and up the stairs before collapsing onto his bed.

His sides hurt, he struggled to breathe, his head was pounding, and his hands were covered in tiny cuts. He must’ve acquired them running through some bushes or brush, but he didn’t remember doing that.

Once his head was on the pillow, his room twisted into a kaleidoscope of psychedelic shades, and stared up at the ceiling. He was still, almost afraid to move. Time seemed to stand still until his racing heart slowed and he stopped heaving with each breath. Weariness overtook him and his eyes slid shut.