It was the morning of the eleventh of July, 1981.

The creek babbled and bubbled as it meandered through the clearing. On a day as hot as today, Shaun was grateful for its cool touch. The diminutive brown-haired boy sat reading a comic book on the creek's edge, shoeless feet submerged in the shallow water. His mom would yell at him if she saw—creeks were such dirty things, she'd surely say—but that was, of course, one of the joys of summer. School was out, but the adults still worked. In other words, he could do whatever he wanted, and there was nobody to tell him otherwise.

The other boys were nearly late, but that was little surprise. Summer had everyone on lazy schedules, sleeping in where they could. Shaun was relatively sure that the boys knew where the creek was, at least. He had fond memories of them all racing about this very clearing, fighting with sticks as though they were swords. They were children then, but now Shaun was old: last April, he had celebrated his twelfth birthday. A boy of such experience could surely decide for himself whether creeks were a fitting place for feet.

The wind stirred, and Shaun sighed with the forest itself as he turned to the next page in his comic. On the full-page panel, Lord Galaxy piloted a burning rocket into an emergency landing on a wild, alien world, a picture that nearly took Shaun's breath away. He immediately reached for his pack to his right, rummaging around for the construction paper and pencils he brought. He set the comic book down—gingerly placing a rock on it so that no wayward breeze sent it into the creek—and then he started his sketch. He, too, would draw a rocket ship on dangerous descent, but instead of an alien world, his rocket would be crashing towards—

"That's Boone?"

Shaun almost jumped at the voice. He'd been so absorbed in his sketch, he hadn't noticed the older boy's approach.

"You could recognize it?" Shaun asked excitedly.

"You did write the word 'Boone' with a line pointing towards the trees," said the newcomer, Skinny.

"Oh, that's right."

Skinny sat down next to Shaun, watching the sketch with genuine interest. He peeled his left shoe off, followed by the right.

"Water's cool," Skinny said.

"Sure is," Shaun agreed.

Skinny's nickname was fitting, for Shaun had never seen a boy more tall and lanky. He was black-skinned, something that his grandparents whispered as though it were some secret scandal, but Shaun never really understood what the problem was supposed to be. It was just too easy to like Skinny. He was friendly to everyone, even Shaun, though he and the rest of the gang were several years Shaun's senior. None of the other boys would've paid Shaun's sketch any mind, but here Skinny was, sitting beside him, watching closely. Shaun thought it no wonder that just about everyone thought Skinny was the coolest.

"You gotta teach me how you draw so good sometime," Skinny said, and Shaun beamed. "But before that art lesson, we got important business to get to today. What's got everyone else so late?"

* * *

Elsewhere in the woods of Boone, a short and stocky boy stood with triumph, finally holding fast to the treasure he carried.

Wade managed about ten steps before a bag fell once again.

He huffed, waddling a few steps backwards to the site of the crime, careful not to upset the rest of the stack. Carefully—slowly—he bent down, stretching out his right hand until he felt contact with his index finger. He maneuvered his hand until he felt the foil lip between his index and middle finger, and then he squeezed those fingers together, grabbing the stranded snack bag. Then, with great exaggerated slowness, he stood back up to a straight-back posture.

Six snack bags in his left, and again six in his right—well, five in his right and one dangling underneath. It would have to work.

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Wade bravely extended one foot forward, and then the other, finding a steady walking rhythm that didn't shake the bags loose. He made it about another dozen steps before twin *plops* on his left and right told him two bags of cheese-filled pretzels had escaped his grasp. Such was as it had been for the past 20 minutes of forest wandering—and before that, the 15 minutes between grocer's and forest. A boy made of weaker stuff might have gone home, might have gotten some sort of bag, but Wade was nothing if not persistent. His parents called him stubborn, but they didn't acknowledge the creativity that stubbornness required. An idea came to Wade then, and he laughed aloud at its sheer brilliance. He dropped the carried snack bags and immediately began to tuck his shirt into his pants. He drew his belt tight, and then he gave a few experimental tugs to his shirt. Finding it satisfactory, he bent down for the snack bags, and he then began to stuff them under his shirt from the neckline, one at a time, tucked shirt holding them snugly and securely against his body. Wade roared in his victory.

"You look ready to survive a hit from a car," said a new voice. Wade turned up the trail, still stuffing more snack bags under his shirt.

"They're filled with mostly air anyways… Could make for some good armor," Wade said, rubbing a hand on his bulging shirt for comedic effect.

Logan Kessler stepped into the clearing, expression caught between amusement and concern. "I can't decide if you'd bounce off or roll away," he said. "Those all for you?"

Wade huffed indignantly. "I brought lunch for us," he said. "All of us."

Logan watched him stuff yet another bag of cheese-filled pretzels into his shirt. "Lunch," he repeated, watching as the final bag was packed away.

"Two apiece," Wade said. "Twelve bags. My own money, too, so you guys owe me."

"You know," Logan began, "I've got this backpack on my back… Why don't we get those snacks out of your shirt and put them somewhere less… sweaty?"

Wade thought for a moment, sad that his genius solution wouldn't be put to the test… but he finally relented, figuring that it wasn't admitting defeat if someone else went and brought the bag. He'd persevered, and that was what mattered. He yanked his shirt up and let the snack bags clatter to the floor. Logan bent down to start collecting them.

Logan was dark-haired and freckled, quiet around strangers and only slightly less quiet around friends. If Wade was being honest, Logan could sometimes be a bit too serious, but he supposed sometimes serious was just what a group needed to avoid getting too deep into trouble.

"I only count ten," Logan said, shuffling the last into his backpack.

Wade reached down and gave a cautionary prod. "Oh, feels like two may have fallen into my pants," he said. He immediately moved to grab them, but Logan raised a hand to stop him, zipping up the backpack.

"Why don't we just say those two are yours, instead of mixing them up with the rest?"

Wade shrugged, not quite seeing the big deal.

"Onwards, then?" Logan asked.

"Onwards," Wade agreed.

* * *

"You think they're all waiting for us already?" Parker Campbell picked his steps carefully, choosing the crunchiest sticks and leaves for each footfall. He was red-haired and pale, and a fair bit smaller than his walking companion—but, to be honest, almost everyone was smaller than Ronnie.

"Probably," Ronnie supplied, walking with eyes fixed on the path ahead, clearly lost in thought. Ronnie was tall—only an inch shorter than Skinny, and the boys checked that fact almost every week—but while Skinny was all lank, Ronnie was stocky and sturdy. His straight blond hair fell in a neat bowl cut, and a frown creased his face as he thought on today's business. "Do you think it can be true?" he asked Parker, feeling silly for even asking.

Parker shrugged his shoulders, knowing immediately what he meant. "Probably not," he said. "It'd be really cool if it was, though," Parker added, hating to deflate spirits.

"Exciting, even," Ronnie agreed, before he frowned again. "But dangerous, maybe. Impossible, probably."

"Just because something's never happened before doesn't mean it can't ever happen," Parker said, scratching at his head. Innately, he was always the optimistic sort, but sometimes words didn't fit together the right way to express how he felt. "Like, the first time something happens, it never ever happened before—and then it does," Parker continued. It was abundantly clear to the both that he was no philosopher.

"I guess you're right," Ronnie said, thinking he understood the smaller boy's point. "You just don't think things like that happen in Boone… nothing interesting ever happens in Boone."

"That's not true—remember last summer, when the library had to close down 'cause it had roaches?"

Ronnie stared at Parker levelly.

"Fine, fine, you're right, boring old Boone. That's why I, for one, welcome the bit of excitement," Parker said, sighting the creek and the rest of the boys ahead.

Ronnie, not wanting to sound too dour, held his tongue. As they drew near to the other four, greetings were exchanged, bags of pretzels were tossed, "lunch" was had, and then six boys set off into the balmy woods on a great search. They were looking for the impossible; they were looking for a body. And though they didn't know it yet at the time, they were looking for trouble, too.

And ahead, trouble waited, packed neatly in a simple leather case, alight with the buzzing of flies and the wriggling of maggots.