With Pigeon holding one end of the bottle, carrying the Stargazer was no problem. When they exited the storeroom, Pigeon kicked the door shut and made sure it was locked. They hurried between the bookshelves and hustled across an area full of tables and chairs near the resource desk.

Upon reaching the hall that led to the stairs, Nate and Pigeon stopped, the bottle cradled between them. Three figures waited in the hall, blocking their exit, lights pulsing around them. Denny, Eric, and Kyle.

“A boat, huh?” Denny called, striding forward. “Hand it over.”

“What are you guys doing here?” Nate asked.

Denny rolled his eyes. “What do you think, Dirt Face? We got a call from Mrs. White and followed you. Give me the boat.”

Summer took a baggie of Shock Bits out of her pocket and dumped some into her hand.

“Don’t make this hard!” Denny yelled, pointing at her. “Trust me, we have candy you guys haven’t seen.”

“Jump through a window,” Summer advised Nate, walking past him and putting the Shock Bits into her mouth.

Holding his end of the bottle with one hand, Nate snagged an Ironhide from his pocket. Like most jawbreakers, it felt smooth and hard against his tongue, and tasted sugary.

Denny shoved a small cookie past his lips. Eric and Kyle also each ate something. Kyle’s fingers began sparking.

Denny began to swell. In seconds his oversized T-shirt looked small on him. His shoulders widened, his limbs grew longer and thicker, his belly expanded. Warts erupted on his face, and his nose plumped up like a potato. A sloping brow jutted over sunken eyes. He sprouted up to well over six feet tall, his frame filling out into the powerfully bloated physique of a professional lineman. Opening his inhumanly large mouth, he roared, drowning out the alarm and displaying dull yellow fangs.

“Run!” Summer shouted.

“Can you hold it?” Pigeon asked.

Nate hoisted the cumbersome bottle onto his shoulder and fled into the room with the bookshelves. Several large windows at the far side of the room offered a view of the old barn, dimly visible by the lights of the parking lot. As he studied the far wall, a particular window caught Nate’s attention. It had a table beside it, which would provide the height he would need to leap through the glass.

As he ran, Nate questioned whether he really wanted to jump through a second-story window. He had the Ironhide in his mouth, but his skin did not feel any different. Then again, the bottle was heavy enough that it should be hurting his shoulder, but although he felt the pressure of the weight, there was no discomfort.

He heard another roar from Denny, alarmingly near. Even with his adrenalin pumping, the bottle was so heavy that he could barely manage, let alone run fast. Reaching the end of the room, Nate used a chair to step up onto the table near the tall window—a single pane of glass about four feet wide and eight feet tall. Trusting the jawbreaker, knowing that if it was a dud he was about to die, Nate charged across the table and lunged at the window with all his strength, aiming beyond the glass.

Head, arms, bottle, and torso punched through, and for a terrible moment, he lost momentum and hung draped over a jagged sheet of glass, feeling the pressure against his waist, but no pain. Then the glass buckled beneath him and he tipped forward, plunging headfirst toward the patio below along with a swarm of transparent knives. Disoriented as he was, Nate tried to twist his body to cushion the ship, but he felt the bottle rupture in his embrace as he struck the concrete.

Without the Ironhide he would have impaled himself and broken his neck. With the Ironhide, he experienced the wild rush of the fall, and a tactile sensation of striking the patio, but no pain. Glass had shredded his shirt, and shards glittered on the concrete all around him, but he did not have a scratch or a bruise on his body.

Two of the Stargazer’s masts had snapped, and a long crack traversed the bow, but otherwise the ship seemed mostly intact. Nate got up and ran away from the library, uncertain of where to go. He saw headlights, and recognized a police car coming down Goodman Road toward the library parking lot.

The nearest cover was the barn, so Nate ran toward the dilapidated structure. Without the heavy bottle, carrying the ship was no problem. Coming around to the side of the rundown building, he found a modern door. It was locked, but had window panes. He searched around for something to smash the glass, finally remembering that his hand would do just fine. He bashed his fist through a pane, receiving no scratch and feeling no pain, reached down, and unlocked the door.

Pushing the door open, he hurried inside and shoved it closed. Enough light filtered in from the parking lot through several high windows that he could faintly distinguish the strange forms of antiquated farming equipment on display around the room. Seeking a hiding place, Nate wove between obsolete plows and combines until he reached a rickety ladder that led up to a high loft. The rotten rungs creaked in protest as he ascended, cradling the Stargazer in one arm while climbing with the other.

When he reached the loft, Nate did not like the warped contours of the floor or the way the wood groaned beneath his weight. He reminded himself that if he fell, he just had to protect the ship, because his body would not suffer any injury. Emboldened by the thought, he proceeded to a hatch in the roof and started stacking old crates in order to reach it.

*****

Summer gaped at the monstrous new version of Denny, knowing that Nate would never escape with the ship if she failed to slow him. She held up her hands menacingly, hoping he might find the prospect of a shock discouraging. He leered and strode forward. Glancing back, Summer saw Nate dashing away with the Stargazer braced on his shoulder. Pigeon was swallowing some Shock Bits of his own.

Denny tried to brush Summer aside, but when his hand met hers, electricity sizzled. He lurched backwards several paces and dropped to one knee. Rising, he let out a barbaric cry of resentment.

Kyle and Eric rushed at Summer. Electricity crackled between Kyle’s fingers, and Eric no longer looked like himself. Though he was still roughly the same size, his skin had coarsened into green scales, his eyes were yellow and reptilian, his nose and mouth had merged into a snout, and sharp claws tipped his fingers.

Summer started chewing her first stick of Peak Performance gum as she backed away from her attackers. Kyle lunged at her, but she spun nimbly away from his grasp. Eric sprang forward, swinging a clawed hand. Summer ducked the swipe and grabbed his scaly upper arm in one hand, his forearm in the other. Heaving and pivoting, she swung him into Kyle, releasing his arm just before a blaze of electricity launched Eric into a bookshelf.