FROM THE MOMENT FINN took off running, he was afraid. He hated snakes. Any kind of snake gave him the weebies. A python as thick around as a basketball and nearly twenty feet long was the stuff of his worst nightmares—he’d never even had a dream that bad. Somewhere inside him he understood how stupid he’d been to offer to play the decoy. Somewhere in him he understood how fast a snake that big could travel across level ground and how if there were any small piece of him not fully crossed-over when the snake caught up to him—for Gigabyte would catch up to him no matter how fast he ran—that he would be caught, crushed, and consumed. But he ran straight at the snake, as fast as his legs would carry him.

At first, Gigabyte didn’t see him, concentrating on the group of six others. The snake moved over the grass in an almost lazy motion, as if filled with such confidence that catching the kids was never in question, that instead it was only a matter of when, and how many, and what to do with them once they were caught. Such confidence terrified Finn; it was the confidence of a predator, a killer.

Despite his proximity to the disgustingly large reptile, the beast didn’t turn in his direction. “Hey!” Finn shouted, trying to win his attention.

The huge head pivoted toward Finn, one yellow eye taking him in, but the giant tube of his body kept sliding ahead, aimed now at a precise point directly ahead of Charlene, who had just overtaken Philby in the footrace to reach the jungle’s edge.

It took Finn a second to realize what was happening: the snake wasn’t interested in having one kid for dinner when the opportunity for six remained only a few yards in front of him.

“Scatter!” Finn shouted. With that, he briefly closed his eyes and summoned the locomotive’s light in the darkness—the pinprick of purity that would allow him to fully cross over to all-clear. Shutting his eyes also had the advantage of eliminating the snake from his view, and thereby removing it from his thoughts and from an imagination that could easily picture him as an appetizer ahead of the main meal Gigabyte would make of the others. Not only did Finn think he was about to die, he thought he was also about to fail in his campaign to save his friends.

Finn opened his eyes to find himself within a few yards of the thing. Gigabyte, responding to the distraction, suddenly straightened out from the winding S that had been propelling him forward and bent into a giant C, with Finn at the center.

Out of the corner of his eye Finn saw the snake’s tail recoil and come at him with blinding speed—like the tip of a cracked whip. Gigabyte had no interest in biting Finn, despite the open mouth and tickling tongue. He intended to knock Finn off his feet, wrap himself around the boy, choke the life out of him, and swallow him whole.

The snake’s tail flew through Finn’s legs, making no contact. Gigabyte, having expected to hit the boy, rolled off-balance. The snake recovered quickly and took aim at Finn once more as Finn’s arms began to tingle and his physical sensations returned. He’d managed to hold the all-clear for a few precious seconds, but having a snake’s tail whip through his projection proved more than Finn could bear. Every piece of him was sparking and prickling—he was substance again, half hologram, half human, the same as the others. The human aspect of his DHI would prove crushable—if Gigabyte got hold of him, Finn was going down.

The snake folded in half, reminding Finn of a jackknifing semitruck. Finn jumped over the body like a hurdler but caught his trailing foot and tumbled to the ground. The snake reversed course, jerking into a mirror image of itself—more of a V than a C, with Finn at the center; from Finn’s right swung the huge head; from his left the pointed tail. The serpent was closing around Finn, who retained enough presence of mind to skid to a stop before those snapping jaws got hold of him. He’d seen a video in science class of a reticulated python catching and crushing a wharf rat; the snake had struck with lightning speed and snagged its prey in its mouth; it then ate the wiggling rat as it quickly coiled tightly into a death knot that hid all but the rat’s desperately quivering tail, which soon went still.

The look in Gigabyte’s eye as his head swept around told Finn that just such a strike was coming.

Finn turned—trapped—with the snake quickly closing around him. He shut his eyes and regained his focus. His arms lost their tingling.

A girl screamed.

* * *

To Finn’s six friends, Gigabyte’s head strike appeared to happen with the speed of a fighter jet. The massive head seemed to be feather light as it flew like a spear at Finn’s body.

Amanda screamed.

The head pierced Finn’s projection and drove right through the boy, once again making no contact. Once again, confusing the predator.

The snake lifted his head up into the sky, already twisting and turning its flashing tongue in search of the scent that connected to the piercing scream he had just heard.

Philby tugged hard on Amanda’s arm and got her running. The planting was thick; it would not be easy going for such a large snake. He could take nothing like a straight line to reach them, but was forced instead to stitch his way through the dense undergrowth. Perhaps this explained the serpent’s attraction to Finn, who was out in the open and looked like easy prey. If anything, the very size of the snake was an impediment. He was powerful and strong, yes, but his weight and mass slowed him and prevented him from traveling well in dense terrain.

Gigabyte launched himself in the direction of Amanda’s scream, cutting a rut into the soft lawn, throwing mud and grass to either side.

* * *

Finn, who lost his brief state of all-clear the moment he heard Amanda scream, was struck in the back by the snake’s departing tail and knocked six feet up in the air before sprawling onto the ground. Like a pendulum, the snake’s tail swept back toward him, this time aimed for his head. Finn reached out to block the blow, but for reasons unknown to him, ended up clutching to the tail and holding on for dear life. This softened the blow and prevented another, but left Finn rushing along the grass at nearly thirty miles an hour, swished from side to side, and wondering how long he could hold on.

Gigabyte sensed the parasite holding on to him. The snake didn’t give free rides. He turned his head just far enough to get a glimpse of the glowing boy clinging to his tail—but at the exact wrong moment.

The snake’s head collided with a light blue steel-rail fence. It bent and popped through the railing’s two center pipes which, as the snake turned, put him into a headlock, with his jaws stuck like a key in a lock.

Finn let go and took off running. The snake turned farther to catch sight of him, but in doing so further turned the key in the lock, preventing his own escape. He struggled briefly, writhing with the effort.

Finn ran, and ran hard.

Gigabyte, not able to pull free, went still. The snake dislocated his lower jaw, thrust his upper jaw forward and, as the mechanism came apart, pulled his head from the fence. He looked to the right, licking the air—the scent there was fading; to the left there was only a blur of light running away—no scent at all.

Finn heard a ferocious hiss charge the air from somewhere behind him. Farther and farther behind him, as it turned out.

He would soon try to describe that sound to others.

“Like it was…cursing,” he would say.

Upon reaching the rendezvous, Finn demanded that Philby return the borrowed pants and shirt, something even Willa believed beyond the call of duty, given the somewhat desperate nature of their current situation. But Philby did not object and took off, returning a minute later in only his underwear, having left the clothes outside the door of the store. Again he was subjected to a volley of cackles and derisive snorting.

“Don’t look now,” he said, out of breath, “but we’ve got visitors.”

Finn peered around the edge of the building and out toward the fountain.

“Did they see you?” he asked, over his shoulder.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Who?” Charlene asked.

Philby answered, “It’s the Vikings and the caveman and his boy.”

“They’re looking for us,” Finn said in a whisper as he joined the others. “Must be.” He glanced around for a place to hide the fob, somewhere they could find it when they next crossed over. The gardens and grounds were out—Cast Members worked on the landscaping every day of the week. The stainless-steel water fountain had no hiding places; Finn couldn’t just leave the fob out in the open.

“We’d better think of somewhere fast,” Charlene said, who had nominated herself as scout and was keeping one eye on the fountain. “They’re getting closer.”

“How can this be so difficult?” Finn asked.

But it was. Unlike the teepees in the Magic Kingdom, there was no obvious out-of-the-way spot in which to conceal the fob.

“It’s going to have to be the bushes,” Maybeck said. “Someplace any of us can get to. We’re just going to have to trust that no one finds it.”

“Hurry!” Charlene hissed.

Finn showed everyone where he was tucking the fob: nestled in beside the bricks that lined a raised garden of shrubs and flowers.

Maybeck produced a pen from his pocket and passed it to Finn. If any one of the kids held the fob as they crossed back over, the fob would travel with them. If Finn pushed the button with a pen, the pen would come along, but the fob would remain behind.

“Ready?” Finn asked.

Charlene abandoned her post and the Kingdom Keepers huddled together around Finn, alongside the raised garden bed.

He stabbed the button with the pen.