The Beast and the Cricket: Paragon Volume 1, Issue 1

Fourteen-year-old Tyler “Cricket” Bennett is instigating all sorts of mischief on his field trip to Whitevale Island. Hot girls, breaking rules—what’s wrong with adding some fun to all this science mumbo jumbo?

But then the Smiling Man shows up.

Within minutes, people are dead. Now it’s a race for survival as the students find themselves trapped in a brutal crossfire between the inhuman Smiling Man and their teachers’ mysterious pasts. The worlds beyond the stars have brought their fight to Whitevale Island, and they don’t plan on leaving any witnesses alive, especially a bratty group of middle school kids.

One misplaced step means Cricket’s whole class could meet their demise in the festering Whitevale marshes. The Smiling Man is hunting them, and nobody knows what cosmic monster lurks behind his sickly gaze. Even worse, after an encounter with a dying beast, Cricket starts lapsing in and out of consciousness.

And now he, too, isn’t quite so human anymore.