Their Midnight Agenda {✔}

Chapter 1

Every single day, as long as I could remember, I walked past the old man on the corner of Glendale Street. Every single day he was there, in the scorching summers and chilly winters, fending off the elements with his torn umbrella and even more torn jacket. But today, he wasn't. He was gone. I looked up and down the street, but he wasn't there. Suddenly, I heard a noise. It was a low hum, a yell, and quiet. I whipped my head around to the corner store and the Wells Fargo. A stained, shredded umbrella blew out of the alleyway. I looked up the side of the sun-tested stone building and saw the air ripple, like a heat mirage, but there was something behind it. I stared harder and then it was gone.

I hurried home, something entirely uncharacteristic of me. Usually, I take my time, trying to enjoy the walk down the familiar paths. But what I saw on Glendale walking to school this morning... that bothered me. I knew it was most likely that the old man had just gone inside, or chosen another corner to haunt, but I couldn't get the yell and the image of the dusty umbrella rolling down the street out of my head. A shimmer of heat in mid-September was odd considering it was something that usually only occurred during Nevada's fiery summers. Something about the whole event was offputting and wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. So I chose to hurry home and not have to think any more about the street.

I got to Mesquite Bluffs Apartments and hurried up the lined green stairs to Room 208, my apartment I shared with my mom and brother. I immediately ran to the room I shared with my brother, Terry and leaped onto my bed. I grabbed my laptop and tried to do homework, but before I knew it, my hand was drifting towards a fresh search bar, looking for missing people in the area. I eventually made it on to a sort of Facebook message board. Someone had seen a giant shimmer in the air, like smoke above a fire, acting as some type of shield or cloak to a metallic object behind it. Surprisingly, no one was doubting the user. A few comments were talking about how it was related to the nearby Area 51 military base or the research center a couple of miles away. Some claimed it was aliens. My mom's voice calling for dinner startled me out of my thoughts. I shut my laptop and headed out the door.