Gift of Dane: A Crabapple Gang Adventure - Volume Four

By David C. Baxter

Dane and his friends use to live on a quiet, suburban street until a storm rolled in, and they learned their neighbor was a mad scientist. The portal in his lab has chosen them. Now an insane, rogue commander and otherworldly creatures are after them and what is on the other side of the portal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David C. Baxter
• Release date: Sep 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463434659

David C. Baxter

David C. Baxter prefers flip-flops, tennis, an ocean breeze, and being called Dave. Unfortunately, he’s gluten intolerant, but he’s thankful it only took four years to find a gluten free beer that tastes like the real thing.

Book preview

Gift of Dane

A Crabapple Gang Adventure

Volume 4

By David C. Baxter

Copyright © 2018, David C. Baxter

1st Edition

Click here for the next Volumes on Smashwords

No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, digitally, or mechanically without explicit written permission from the author.

Illustration by Corbin Baxter

For my nieces: Mackenzie, Macy, and Cameron. Thank you for inspiring me to write this novel.

And for my wife. Thank you for your constant support in all my side projects.

Contents

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

The Author

61

The vortex’s purple light pulsed: its twisting-tunnel, limitless. Beyond its throbbing, semi-translucent sides, Dane saw infinite stars and galaxies.

He felt his body both floating and being forced—no, hurled—through space and time. Every hue of purple swirled around him. Violet orbs shot past leaving behind neon-like streaks. Faster and faster his body gained velocity. His head tilted forward and his feet leveled. He wondered if there was an up or down here. He didn’t think so. This was how Superman felt when he flew. Except, he heard no rush of wind. In fact, he couldn’t remember a place so quiet, so peaceful…nothing but the push-pull force, and the portal’s pulsating light, which provided pure serenity. This was warp drive without the Millennium Falcon, he thought with a smile. He tried to look back for his friends and found he couldn’t move his head, or any other body part for that matter. This brought no fear. He hoped his friends were enjoying the ride as much as he was…he hoped his friends had followed him.

CG

Collin had entered the portal a step behind Dane. He wanted to enter the otherworldly planet as close to his best friend as possible. Where they ended up might be hostile. Dane was fun and outgoing, but he could be too spontaneous, which typically got him into trouble.

Even though he’d entered right behind Dane, Collin couldn’t see him. This was odd, because, the purple swirls weren’t blinding and there were galaxies of space in front of him. He squinted, unable to see his friend’s silhouette against the tunnel’s purple flashes. What if the portal sent them all to different places? The thought brought with it no anguish. There was no concern here, simply the present…the now. This was the exhilaration a skydiver felt after leaping from a plane. Collin grinned. This, however, was an eternal freefall.

CG

Simone had followed Collin into the swirling light. She wished she’d grabbed his hand. She would’ve felt safer with him by her side. Simone went to push up her glasses and found she couldn’t move her hand from her side. A dazzling kaleidoscope of purple comets streaked by her. They left behind smears of pulsating light. The cylinder Dane had put back in the sphere entered her mind. Its shape had reminded her of a futuristic engine or atom splitter. I’m a free electron, she thought, like in a discharged glow stick. I’m being split at the particle level. This was what happened after Scotty beamed someone with the transporter. The idea brought with it an image of her mother. Her smile widened. The classic, sci-fi show was one of her mom’s favorites. While watching an episode together, her mom had informed her the show’s writers had to create the transportation idea because the production couldn’t afford shots of space ships landing. Well, this was way more fun than some cheesy film effect. She wondered if she’d be whole when the vortex finished beaming her to its destination. Surprisingly, the thought brought no terror.

CG

Alex had entered with Simone. She hadn’t wanted to enter alone. But now that she was alone, she didn’t care. Her psychiatrist had said that the fear of abandonment stemmed from her father’s death. Purple light elongated beside her like bright, beaming snakes. Excitement surged through her. This was just like going down the pool’s tube slide! Except, this was fast…faster than light. She didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell her, she liked to go fast because her dad had loved flying F-16s. She wished he could see her now. The thought brought a ping of loss, but not pain. There was only joy here.

CG

Paul hadn’t minded that his sis had grabbed his hand before they’d entered. He and Pen squeezed through the arched hole together. When the purple light had swallowed them, his sis was gone and her hand no longer in his. It hadn’t been yanked or forced from his. It’d simply disappeared. Had she dissolved into nothingness? Had he? It really didn’t matter. As his dad would say: It’s all good and groovy. Paul smiled. Yes, everything was swell, because this was, well…everything. The purple spheres of light shooting by were stars, the stars were galaxies, and the galaxies were universes. He was surrounded by all that had ever been and ever would be. And it was all connected.

CG

Penny had grabbed Paulie’s hand before entering the portal. But her little brother had disappeared. For how long she didn’t know. Time didn’t belong here. Strangely, this gave her no anxiety. Nevertheless, her brain did its trick. After she’d found the love of symbology, whenever she became tense, she found herself recalling the meaning of symbols, shapes, and colors. It kept her mind busy. The streaking spheres were purple. All the moving light around her was different hues of purple. In Biblical times and ancient Greece purple was a darker red, crimson. Used for honoring fearsome underworld gods, purple was tied with royalty and symbolized the highest values in the Chinese, Aztec, and Inca cultures. Made from the passion of red and the reason of blue, symbolically purple brought together opposites. It was considered the uniting of heaven and earth. Christianity connected the color purple to spiritual growth. Jesus Christ was often painted in a purple robe to signify the union of divinity and humanity. A bolt of violet light shot passed her. Purple, she pondered, the end of the known and the beginning of the unknown.

Another star-like orb elongated as she passed it. Or was it passing her? She’d once read that the Star of Bethlehem, from the birth of Christ, might’ve been a comet. No longer thought to be random, comets represented a greater pattern of continuity. Carrying carbon-rich molecules, they brought the very essence of life to earth. Seen