D. MacHale - The Reality Bug

They soon realized they weren’t about to be pulled into the tunnel. Something else was headed their way. Through the bright light they saw a tall, dark silhouette walk out of the flume. Oddly, unlike everything they had ever heard about how the flumes worked, once the passenger arrived, the sparkling light didn’t go away. The jangle of music stayed too. Whatever was happening now, it was out of the ordinary. Mark and Courtney opened their eyes. What they saw made them want to close them again, because standing in the mouth of the flume was Saint Dane.

He had arrived on Second Earth.

The two had never seen him before, but there was no mistaking the tall demon with the long gray hair, piercing blue eyes, and dark clothes. The light behind him continued to burn and the walls remained crystal. This had never happened before, at least not that Mark or Courtney knew.

“And so it begins,” Saint Dane cackled. “The walls are beginning to crack. The power that once was, will no longer be. It is a whole new game, with new rules.”

Saint Dane roared out a laugh. With a sudden burst of light from deep inside the flume, his hair caught fire! His long gray mane exploded in dancing flames, burning right down to his skull. Mark and Courtney watched in horror as the flames reflected in his demonic eyes. Saint Dane laughed the whole while, as if he were enjoying it.

Mark and Courtney didn’t move. If Courtney had her wits about her, she would have felt that Mark was trembling.

The fire burned away all of Saint Dane’s hair, leaving him bald, with angry red streaks that looked like inflamed veins running from the back of his head to his forehead. His eyes had changed too. The steely blue color had gone nearly white. He fixed those intense eyes on the two new acolytes and smiled. He then tossed a dirty, cloth bag at their feet.

“A present for Pendragon,” Saint Dane hissed. “Be sure he gets it, won’t you?” Saint Dane took a step back into the light of the flume. “What was meant to be, is no longer,” he announced.

Saint Dane then began to transform. His body turned liquid and he leaned over to put his hands on the ground. At the same time his body mutated into that of a huge, jungle cat. It was the size of a lion, but speckled with black spots. The big cat then snarled at Mark and Courtney, and leaped into the flume. An instant later the light swept him up and disappeared into the depths. The music faded away, the crystal walls turned back to stone, and the light shrank to a pin spot.

But it didn’t disappear entirely.

Before Mark and Courtney could get their heads back together, the light began to grow again. The music became louder and the walls went crystal again.

“My brain is exploding,” Mark uttered.

A second later the bright light flashed at the mouth of the tunnel and deposited another passenger.

“Bobby!” Mark and Courtney shouted, and ran to him. They threw their arms around him in fear and relief. The tunnel then returned to its normal, quiet state.

But Bobby wasn’t there to give them comfort. “What happened?” he demanded.

Mark and Courtney pulled away. Both of them were supercharged with adrenaline. “It was Saint Dane!” Courtney shouted. “His hair burned! It was horrible!”

“He said the rules have ch-changed, Bobby,” Mark stuttered. “What did he m-mean?”

Bobby took a step back from the others. Mark and Courtney felt him tense up.

“What did you do?” Bobby demanded. It sounded like he was scolding them.

“Do?” Courtney said. “We didn’t do anything!”

Both Mark and Courtney focused on Bobby. He was wearing rags. His feet were bare, his hair was a mess and he had a coating of dirt all over his body. He didn’t smell so hot either.

“What happened to you?” Mark asked.

“It doesn’t matter!” Bobby shouted back. He was just as charged up as they were. “Did you activate the flume?”

Mark and Courtney looked to each other. It took a while for them to register what Bobby was asking. Finally Mark said, “Uh, I g-guess so. I said ‘Eelong’-“

“No!” Bobby shouted in frustration.

“What’s the matter?” Courtney asked. “We’re not Travelers. We can’t control the flume.”

“Things have changed,” Bobby shouted out. “Saint Dane’s power is growing. He’s got his first territory. It’s all about changing the nature of things.”

“So… that means we can use the flumes?” Courtney asked.

“Don’t!” Bobby demanded. “It’ll just make things worse.”

Mark then remembered something. He ran back to the door of the root cellar and picked up the bag Saint Dane had thrown at them.

“He said this was for you,” Mark said, handing the bag to Bobby.

Bobby took it like it was the last thing in the world he wanted. He turned the rotten bag upside down, and something fell onto the floor.

Courtney screamed. Mark took a step back, not believing his eyes. Bobby stood firm, staring at the floor, his jaw muscles clenching.

Lying at his feet was a human hand. It was large and dark skinned. As gruesome as this was, there was something else about it that made it nearly unbearable to look at. On its finger, was a Traveler ring.

“Gunny,” Bobby whispered in agony.

The three stood there, unable to move. Finally Bobby took a brave breath, picked up the hand and jammed it into the bag.

“Bobby, what’s happening?” Courtney asked.

“You’ll know when I send my journal,” he said. He then turned back and ran into the mouth of the flume, clutching the bag with Gunny’s hand. “Eelong!” he called out. The flume sprang back to life. The light and music started on their way back for him.

Mark was nearly in tears.

“Is Gunny all right?” he asked.

“He’s alive,” Bobby said. “But I don’t know for how long.”

“Tell us what to do!” Courtney pleaded.

“Nothing,” Bobby answered. “Wait for my journal. And whatever you do, do not activate the flume. That’s exactly what Saint Dane wants, and it is not the way things were meant to be.”

With a final flash of light and jumble of notes, Bobby was swept up and into the flume, leaving his two friends alone.

Mark Dimond was ready for an adventure.

He was about to get one.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

I looked to the base of the tree and saw the small opening that I had crawled out of. It was so small compared to this monster tree that if I didn’t know it was there, I’d have missed it. Sure enough, carved in the bark just above the opening was the star symbol that marked it as a gate to the flume. Unbelievable. Now the hanging vines in the cavern below made sense. They were the root system of this immense tree. I walked along the base, running my hand across the rough bark. You could live in this tree… with all of your friends and their families, and still have room for a Keebler cookie factory. I took a step back, looked up, and laughed. The impossible kept proving itself to be possible. What was I going to see next?

The answer came quickly, and it wasn’t a good one.

I felt something hit the back of my leg. I looked down and instantly wished I hadn’t because lying in the ground next to my leg was an arm. A bloody, human arm. I quickly looked up in the direction it came from and felt like the wind was knocked out of me. If the big tree hadn’t been there to catch me, I would have fallen back on my butt.

Standing ten yards away from me was a beast. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The first thing I thought of was… dinosaur. It stood upright on two legs, with a long, thick tail that whipped back and forth angrily. It looked to be around seven feet tall, with powerful arms, and hands and feet that were three-finger talons. Its entire body was bright green, like a lizard, with scales covering it. But what I couldn’t take my eyes off of was its head: It was reptilian with a snoutlike nose. It had bright green hair that swept back from its forehead and fell halfway down its back. But most hideous of all was its mouth. It looked like a shark mouth, with multiple rows of sharp teeth that were all about tearing flesh.