“I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE LEAV—”

“Sir! Mr. Officer sir!” Timothy panted. He seemed to be dragging a large thrashing garbage bag behind him. Next to him, the doctor was doing the same. As they approached the officers, Oakley emitted a little gasp. Poking out of the black bags were little human heads with duct tape around their mouths. The gray-haired girl Timothy was dragging looked furious. The red-haired one the doctor had simply looked confused and perplexed.

“That…that couldn’t be…” Detective Hart gasped, evidently having better eyesight than Oakley. The officers behind her quickly joined in with similar gasps and exclamations.

Look at them, little minions copying each other, Oakley thought grumpily, looking so silly gasping and exclaiming at the same time. A few people in garbage bags are nothing great at all. I’m sure when I get a better view, I won’t gasp or exclaim anything at all.

Oakley, feeling frustrated and annoyed for being left out, struggled to the front, squinting hard to see the faces.

It became clear in an instant. The girl was unmistakably from the posters.

“Good God,” Oakley whispered, instantly forgetting her oath. “It’s Marine Nicole Lucifay!”

As if everyone shared a mind, all the officers and Oakley sprinted to receive Timothy instantly after Oakley finished. The doctor and Timothy ran away, in fear of being stampeded on. But the extra weight of the two kids was not in their favor, and the entirety of the thirty-so people on-site collided with the two, knocking them to the ground. The two kids protested, their words and screams muffled by the duct tape.

Detective Hart was the first to regain his composure. The rest of the police followed. Oakley’s local police officer took a minute before he was able to heave himself up, and the female officer by the name Andrea had to be practically pulled up. The only member of the local police force that was able to stand was the strange, jumpy officer named Jake, who acted very oddly. He kept looking around and bouncing on the balls of his feet, fingering his gun as if he sensed danger. Unlike the rest of the police, who were all focused at the four people, Jake seemed more interested in the woods, almost like he was searching for a fifth person.

Well, perhaps he is just one of those strange prodigies, Oakley thought absently. After all, he was standing like a pirate when I came.

Meanwhile, Detective Hart and Officer Kirk were fighting for chances to ask their questions. It didn’t take an empath to sense a power struggle between the two policemen.

“Who are you?” Hart demanded.

“Where did you come from?” Kirk interrupted.

“Identification please.”

“Where did you find these?”

“Officer Kirk, I need to get their identification first!” Hart roared.

“Oh, by the time you’re down with your background checks, they would have forgotten the important details. Besides, I know them. They are from my town. I assume they were also keen on this case,” Officer Kirk said. “That’s Timothy Blake Fletcher, an archeologist I believe. And that’s—er—the doctor.”

“Name?”

Officer Kirk struggled not to turn pink. “He’s…he’s just the doctor. That’s what he is known as.”

Detective Hart smirked. “I thought you knew—”

Nick suddenly uttered a loud muffled noise. “Oh, just quiet down Marine,” Kirk muttered angrily.

“Now, now. We shouldn’t let our emotions and fatigue get in the way of this,” Detective Hart chided, obviously enjoying tormenting Kirk. “You’re safe now, Marine. Here, I’ll take the tape off. Though I am rather confused as to why they are vacuum-sealed in large garbage bags?

“They tried to get away,” Timothy explained.

“But I imagine tying them up would suffice?”

“We did, but—”

“I’m sorry, officer. Timothy here just wanted to vacuum seal them. It was an experiment,” the doctor said.

Detective Hart nodded with amusement as he reached over and gently ripped the tape off Nick. “Ah, I see. Though next time, I beg you to just call the police. It could have been dangerous for you to approach them directly. Now let’s see what Ms. Marine Lucifay would like to say.” He peeled the tape off.

Nick gasped and wheezed. At last, she was able to say, “Please call me Nick. And please, get me out of this bag.”

Detective Hart ripped the back easily. “So, mind if you tell us who that boy is? Your kidnapper, I mean?”

“He’s not me—well, yeah. He’s sort of my kidnapper,” Nick admitted. “But he’s not bad at all! He’s nice actually. It’s not what you think. Half of it is my fault for going—”

“Who is he?”

“He’s Ex—Bob. Bob Smith.”

“Funny,” Detective Hart commented. “No, I meant his real name. No Bob Smith exists.”

“Now that is strange,” Nick agreed. “I thought Bob Smith was one of the most generic names I could think of.”

“Don’t play games with me, little girl,” Detective Hart said, his voice dropping an octave. “You can easily get arrested for withholding information.”

Nick snorted. “That’s kind of low of you,” Nick remarked coolly, “picking on a little girl and scaring her into revealing information. I would have expected more from an adult policeman.”

“I’m not joking. You can easily find yourself in a cell for this.”

“Alongside my mother, I presume?” Nick snapped. She continued before Hart could reply. “Alright, alright. I’ll tell you his name, but it won’t be any use to any of us. You won’t believe me, and his name won’t be in your database thing. I don’t know his last name either.”

“Just tell me the name.”

Nick sighed and shrugged. “It’s Exflibberaguil.”

Detective Hart did a sharp intake. “Come again?”

“Told you you won’t believe me,” Nick said. “And if it were an alias, it would be the worst one I’ve ever heard of. Alias is supposed to be believable, not names you’d more likely find on the internet.”

“Seems like you spent a mighty long time thinking of this,” Hart remarked.

“The least I can do for being kidnapped. Can you unbag him now? He’s even weaker than me, I swear.”

“Ah, sure why not?” Officer Kirk interrupted. Before Detective Hart could stop him, Kirk walked over to Exflibberaguil and began tearing at the bag. He did seem very violent about it and accidentally cut Exflibberaguil. “Oops,” he said, not even pretending to be sorry, as he ripped the duct tape off. Exflibberaguil began howling.

“Well, we should take him downtown. Cuff him, and this girl too,” Detective Hart ordered. Officers instantly rushed to the kids.

Suddenly Jake began screaming at the top of his lungs. Everyone turned toward him.

With no warning, Jake suddenly drew his gun and began firing madly around him. He had somehow managed to climb into a tree and was firing as fast he could.

“DUCK!” Detective Hart and Officer Kirk yelled in unison. Nick dropped to the ground and covered her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

Nick heard screaming around her. Her eyes began to tingle and water. Crying? That’s strange.

Then she fainted

NICK WAS THE FIRST TO AWAKEN.

Detective Hart rose almost immediately after, followed by the rest of the officers. Nick’s vision was blurry. Bullet casings littered the ground. Her eyes were watery, but to her surprise, so was everyone else’s.

“Tear gas?” an officer suggested.

Nick snorted out loud. “I suppose none of you had a childhood. That was bubble solution, no doubt, in gas form.”

Officer Kirk sniffed the air. “She’s right.”

Then everyone, again as if being controlled, sat up and looked around.

Oakley, Timothy, the doctor, Jake, and Exflibberaguil was nowhere in sight.