Into the Beyond Books 1-3

Mr. Gray handed Lewis his phone charger. "Get it started up. You call Kenzie in exactly three minutes."

Lewis plugged his dead cellphone in. The boot-up logo appeared immediately. He glanced over at his window; still broken. His mother had taped a sheet of plastic over the opening with blue electrical tape while he was at school. Once his phone was fully on he opened up the dialing window and looked down to retrieve Kenzie's number from the palm of his hand. To his dismay, a large smudge ran across several of the digits, rendering them illegible. He wasn't usually one for clammy hands, but all the stress of having Mr. Gray around was doing weird things to him.

Mr. Gray grunted in what Lewis assumed was annoyance. His little feet sank into the blue comforter as he bounced over to Lewis. He snatched the phone out of his hand and tapped on the contacts app. Lewis was surprise to see Kenzie's number already added to his list. It was perplexing, seeing as how the phone had been dead in his pocket all day long. He glanced over at Mr. Gray, but wasn't able to read the creature's expression.

Lewis decided now was the time to mention his concerns. "Landon got hurt really bad today...." he said.

Mr. Gray stared at him, unblinking. "He deserved it." He tapped the phone and initiated a call to Kenzie before handing it back to Lewis. "Be natural," he said. "And for your sake, agree with everything she says. Everything."

Lewis liked it better when Mr. Gray was giving him more specific instructions on what to say. He was no good at talking to girls on his own. His stomach filled with a tornado of disorderly butterflies as the phone rang several times. Part of him hoped she wouldn't pick up, but with the call being Mr. Gray's doing, he knew that wouldn't be the case.

"Hello...?" Kenzie answered the call.

"Hey, Kenzie," he said. "It's Lewis... Lewis Graham... from class... chemistry...." He grimaced at his own awkwardness. "Your lab partner."

"Jake?" asked Kenzie.

"...your other lab partner. Lewis. You wrote your number on my hand...."

"Oh, hi, Lewis," she said. "I wasn't expecting you to call. Everyone usually texts...."

Mr. Gray interrupted, "Say you wanted to make sure she was doing alright after seeing what happened to Landon." It was eerie hearing the creature talk about the horrible incident so nonchalantly, as if he hadn't set the whole thing in motion.

Lewis repeated the words anyway.

"Oh, that's sweet," said Kenzie. "Yeah, I'm fine. I can't believe that happened though! Did you hear the police found the truck abandoned down the street? It was Mrs. Davidson's! Someone stole it—they're still looking for the driver, but no one got a good look."

Lewis shot Mr. Gray a glance. "No, I didn't hear that. That's crazy. Mrs. Davidson's the librarian, right?"

"Mhm," said Kenzie. "I wonder if she was the one driving. Maybe she's just pretending it was stolen. Librarians hate kids, right?"

That was about the stupidest thing Lewis had ever heard, but he followed Mr. Gray's instructions and agreed with her. "Yeah, maybe." He didn't know what to say next. It wasn't exactly his idea to make the call.

"Hey, I was wondering, do you like to drink?" Kenzie asked.

Mr. Gray prompted Lewis with a head nod.

"Yeah," Lewis lied, "sometimes."

"Ok, cool, I wasn't sure if you liked to party since you're new here. You moved here from California or something, right? I think someone told me that...."

Mr. Gray was nodding even more vigorously now.

"Uh huh," said Lewis, though it pained him greatly. Kenzie actually thought he was new to the school, despite having walked the same halls with him every day since middle school. It was humiliating and depressing that he'd made so little of an impression on her that she didn't even realize he existed until Mr. Gray began guiding him.

"So..." said Kenzie, her tone changing to a flirty giggle, "I'm having a small gathering tonight. Just a few friends. You can totally come by if you're interested."

Lewis didn't need Mr. Gray's prompting this time. "Yeah!" he exclaimed. "I'd love to!"

"Ok, great!" said Kenzie. "Oh hey, I gotta go and start setting things up. I'll see you later though."

"Oh, ok," said Lewis.

"I'll text you the time and address," she said before hanging up unceremoniously.

Lewis wasn't sure how to feel about what just happened. He wasn't sure if Kenzie thought he was someone else or if she was just confused for some other reason. Regardless, she did invite him over. He decided to chalk it up as a win.

A new text beeped in. Lewis checked the message: "c u@7" it read, followed by her address. He glanced through the conversation history. There shouldn't have been any other messages present, but strangely the phone had already received the very same message many times before. He started scrolling up through the texts, but it just repeated over and over again.

Some sort of weird glitch?

Things didn't quite add up.

"You must do your homework now. There isn't time later," said Mr. Gray.

Lewis put his phone away, despite the weird feeling in his gut. He opened his backpack to dig out his homework assignments. All of his teachers had cruelly decided to assign homework on the first day. He had an essay to write for English and a chapter to read for History along with end of chapter questions to go through. It took several hours, but once he was done with all of that, he looked over the worksheet he'd been given in Chemistry. He soon realized he couldn't fill out half the sheet because he'd missed a demonstration at the beginning of class. Fortunately, Lewis owned a chemistry kit that he'd received for his birthday two years ago. He had everything he needed to do the missed experiment on his own.

"Such primitive science," mused Mr. Gray as Lewis began setting everything up.

He measured out an ounce and a half of table salt from the kitchen's shaker and added it to a solution of chemicals he mixed up from his kit. It bubbled furiously for about fifteen seconds before becoming stable. That was all there was to the experiment. Nothing too fancy. With that finished, Lewis was able to finish all the worksheet questions and be done with his homework.

"We leave right now for the party," said Mr. Gray.

"Party?" questioned Lewis. "Kenzie said it was just a small gathering."

Mr. Gray didn't respond. Lewis frowned. He left his chemistry set out as he picked Mr. Gray up and hurried downstairs.

"Snacks first," said Mr. Gray.

Lewis swung by the kitchen, placing Mr. Gray down beside the coffeemaker for a moment to fish out several more sugar cubes. Lewis quickly grabbed a bagel for himself to eat on the go.

"Take twenty dollars," said Mr. Gray, pointing to Lewis's mother's purse. Mr. Gray must have noticed his apprehension. "Don't worry, you put it back later, plus much more."

Lewis quietly opened the purse and slipped a twenty out of the fold of the wallet inside. Both his parents were watching TV down the hall in the living room.

"Good, now be silent. They mustn't know you've gone," said Mr. Gray.

Lewis was anxious about sneaking out. He knew he wouldn't get caught, not with Mr. Gray leading the way, but he wasn't the kind of kid that did bad things. It just felt wrong. He took a bite out of his bagel as he contemplated the possible ramifications of listening to Mr. Gray. Maybe the creature was done hurting people now that Landon was out of the way, and he would simply have a great evening with Kenzie... or something terrible could happen again.

"Go now!" Mr. Gray implored.

Lewis took a deep breath. He picked Mr. Gray up and put him on his shoulders, then slipped out into the night.