Mars was so engrossed in thought he failed to notice the change in his surroundings. Besides, he had his eyes closed as he tried to figure out what the heck had just happened and where Dash had gotten off to, boys simply don't vanish into thin air. Or maybe they do. This was Eerie, Indiana after all.

Dash was startled by the sudden materialization of a person in the middle of the room. Although his back was turned towards him, Dash immediately recognized the form of Marshall Teller. His friend was sitting with his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. Dash spoke up. "Mars!"

Marshall mumbled an answer. "Leave me alone, Simon, I'm trying to figure this out."

Dash played along and tried to imitate Simon's voice. "Well, I think Dash was transported to some weird empty room and you were transported there, too."

Marshall was annoyed but curious. "Whaaaaaaat? What are you talking about Simon?" Marshall opened his eyes and was shocked to find that he was no longer sitting in the snow at the Eerie Municipal Skating Rink. He was indeed in some weird empty room. He turned to look at Simon but instead found the missing-in-action Dash X.

"About time you opened your eyes, Sherlock. Welcome to the Twilight Zone." Dash, despite the circumstances and the probable danger he and Marshall were in, gave his friend a big toothy smile. Dash was always smiling, it was his thing, like he never-ever took anything too seriously. "Listen, take off your skates before standing up!"

Dash meant that as sincere advice but it sounded like an order which Marshall, being 13-years old and male, promptly ignored. He stood up, discovered ice skates weren't designed for whatever surface he was standing on and after a few seconds of desperately trying to maintain his balance fell backwards as his legs shot out from under him. He landed on his ass.

"Ouch! That looked painful, Teller! Are you alright?" Although Dash was concerned about his friend he could not help but break into a chuckle and then a full-scaled belly laugh. Marshall ignored him. He just wanted to lay still for a minute.

"OK, go ahead and say I told you so." Marshall winced in pain. He had landed incredibly hard and was in quite a bit of discomfort. "I think I broke my butt!" That of course sent Dash into a fresh fit of laughter. "Dude, I don't think you can actually break it! You probably just banged your coccyx when you fell. From what I hear that can hurt like hell."

Marshall gave him a blank look. "My what?" Dash knelt beside his friend and started to unlace his skates for him. "Hey, I can do that myself!" Dash ignored him and took off the younger boy's ice skates. He looked Marshall in the eye. "Tailbone, you banged your tailbone, it's called the coccyx. You need to lay still for a few minutes before trying to get up."

Marshall immediately tried to stand only to have the surprisingly strong Dash X forcefully push his shoulders down. "Look, I'm not trying to order you around so stop with the teenage defiance for once and listen to me, lay still for god's sake. Despite what I said earlier you actually can break your coccyx, so yes in fact you may have broken your butt. Please, just lay still, I don't want you to get hurt even worse. If you just banged your tailbone the pain should go away in a couple of minutes."

The injured boy actually listened. Dash was making sense and his concern for his welfare touched Mars deeply. Despite their constant bickering, he realized Dash was in fact a good friend who was always looking out for him, even if he did come off as obnoxious at times. Marshall wiped his eyes. "Um, um, my eyes are watering, must be the cold air in here."

Dash wanted to say it was at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit in the room but he held his tongue. "Yeah, that's probably it, cold air." He put his hand on Marshall's shoulder as the boy tried to get control of himself. He assumed his friend was crying from the pain. Marshall was actually crying from a combination of embarrassment and a wave of emotions brought on by Dash's actions. Puberty was hell.

"Well, well, look who we have here! Two little mice caught in a trap!" Dash immediately turned in the direction of the voice and Marshall opened his eyes. Both boys were startled to see Ned, the old bartender and custodian at Eerie's Loyal Order of Corn. "What happened to young Mr. Teller?"

"Ned!" Dash jumped to his feet. "How did you get here?"

"Easy there, I'm actually in my lab quite a distance away. What you're seeing is an interactive hologram. Is the Teller boy injured?" Ned looked concerned. As Dash explained what had happened, the ex-bartender and current mad scientist and inter-dimensional traveler broke into a grin. "Oh, I see. He's probably fine, help him up and see if he can walk."

Dash did as instructed and Marshall stood up. The pain eased as he put weight on his legs. He experimentally took a few steps. He was definitely sore but the worst of the pain seemed to be over.

Ned coughed a few times to get the boys' attention. "Now both of you listen closely. You don't have much time." Ned quickly explained that the two of them had been caught in a trap deployed by a band of criminals known as The Traders. They travel between planets, stealing everything they can lay their hands on and setting up transporter traps to snatch humans. They sell them to the highest bidder. Sometimes the prisoners were forced into hard labor, but usually their fate was much, much worse. Ned said that some races found humans from Earth to be quite tasty and paid a premium price.

Mars was horrified but Dash had listened carefully and started asking questions. "OK, so that doesn't explain how you found us. Where are we exactly? Are we still on Earth? Can you get us out of here?"

"Easy, young man. I'll explain everything if you give me a chance. A radiation detector in my lab sounded an alarm that there was a sudden and dramatic increase in theta-band radiation in the center of Eerie. Theta waves are the signature of two things, warp engines on large starships, and localized but powerful transporter devices like the traps used by The Traders. I triangulated the location of the source and found it was at the Eerie skating rink. I waited for it to activate and followed it's transmission to this location. I projected my holo and found you two. Then I destroyed the trap entrance with a focused energy beam so no one else would be caught. It's as simple as that and you are still very much on Earth. You are located exactly 4.2 miles north north-west of where you were trapped, in a place I believe the locals call Markham Woods, and yes, I think I can get you out but we must hurry."

Dash was more than ready to get the hell out of the trap and listened for Ned's instructions. Marshall was still hung up on one thing. "Did he say tasty? Does that mean what I think it means?" Dash ignored him. He was prepared to pull Marshall out by the scruff of his neck if it came to that and it probably would. The boy wasn't exactly good in a crisis.

Ned explained he had detected a smaller room behind the one they are in and what appeared to be an exit to the outside. He thought he could trigger both the opening to the other room and the exit by using a strong electro-magnetic pulse. He told the boys to stand-by and be ready to move quickly.

The hologram of Ned gave a countdown. "3-2-1 NOW!" Silently, a panel in the wall of the room opened. "Boys, run for your lives, go!"

Dash didn't hesitate and he didn't wait for Marshall to get it together. He stood behind his friend and physically shoved him through the door and followed him inside to a much smaller room. It was filled with clothes. All sorts of clothes, shirts, pants, coats, and lots of footwear. The exit to the outside was open and the boys could feel the cold night air rushing inside. Mars started to run through to freedom but Dash stopped to pick up a pair of boots that looked to be his size, and a pair of sneakers he hoped would fit Marshall's weirdly large feet. Clutching his loot, Dash followed the younger boy outside just in the nick of time. The exit slammed shut behind them seconds after Dash cleared it.

The boys ran as fast as they could until the trap was out of sight. "Mars, wait up!" Dash came to a stop and sat down on the cold snow covered ground. He tossed Marshall the sneakers he had picked up and started to put on his new pair of borrowed boots. "I'll think we'll be better off if we had something on our feet besides socks!"

Mars was grateful for Dash's quick thinking. He thought about why the room they had just come from was filled with discarded clothes and what it meant about the fate of their owners, they were probably all dead. He realized that if things had gone just a little bit differently, he and Dash could very well have been someone's dinner. He wiped his eyes. Dash gave him a snarky look. "Cold air making those eyes water again?" Marshall nodded then hugged Dash tight and buried his face in his friend's shoulder.

Dash didn't resist. He understood about puberty and raging teen hormones and knew Mars could be very emotional at times and simply patted his friend on the back. After a few moments he spoke up. "So, if we're done being emo, can we please get going? I wanna make it back while there's still some hot chocolate!"

It was a little after 10:00 when the pair of tired and disheveled boys slowly walked through the gate of the skating rink. Simon saw them first and ran up to them. "So, it figures you two are together! Where the hell have you guys been? Half the town has been out searching for you buttheads and your mom and dad are worried sick, Marshall! What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Marshall Teller and Dash X found themselves surrounded by a crowd of very annoyed people. They knew no one, with the exception of Simon, would ever believe the truth. The boys exchanged glances and nodded. Mars spoke for them both. "It was just a joke, we're really sorry. We pretended to vanish then we got lost in Markham Woods and couldn't find our way out. We're really, really, really sorry you were worried." Marshall's parents were NOT impressed by the apology. His mom grabbed him by the left ear and unceremoniously marched him out the gate and into the family station wagon. Simon left with his mother but not before Dash had a chance to tell him at least some of the real story.

An hour after he was ordered to bed by his parents, Marshall Eugene Teller turned on his flashlight under the covers and began writing his report. "It was just another day in Eerie, Indiana. The center of weirdness for planet Earth and maybe the entire universe." Exhausted, Mars fell asleep without writing another word. He woke up the next morning still holding the pen in his hand.