The Purge
into reality, he was with Ash, Adam, Jayson, Ralph, and Deanna. He fell a couple of inches, onto his knees—the position he was in before his void had been destroyed. But it wasn’t destroyed by him.
Wiping tears with his arm, he stood, now among his confused friends as he was no longer in the chopper. The voids that had captured them must have gathered. But they didn’t go far. Krull and his friends were in a group in front of the school.
Ten feet away, Boston floated a foot off the ground. On his head was the diadem, a beautiful golden bejeweled crown. It all looked ethereal, like Boston wasn’t really there. A rainbow beam of lights shot from the jewels in a steady stream, eviscerating every single void.
Scatterings of people popped up all around the area as voids were destroyed. Some voids had contained more than thirty people, and they all fell on top of one another when their void disappeared. Moans and groans got louder and louder, as well as mumblings and grumblings like “Where the hell are we?” “W-what just happened?” “Are we dead?”
Boston didn’t acknowledge anyone, and nobody tried to get his attention. They let him do his thing, which continued to be floating, eyes wide and unblinking, and killing voids. The newcomers, once they got their bearings, gawked at him, some like they thought him a god, and others like the devil, their faces morphing into grimaces.
The voids blinked out of existence as soon as a beam hit them. Beams from the crown crisscrossed in all directions. If a beam hit one void, it would continue on to the next nearest void in a fraction of a second. It was like a frantic rock concert light show, almost strobing in the darkness.
In seconds, not one void remained. The ghostly Boston vanished in a wisp of mist that dissipated quickly.
Not all voids had contained someone, but with the amount of voids that had come down upon them, they brought a fair share of people. There must have been a couple hundred, all ages, even an infant who thankfully was with his parents now trying to console him.
And, Krull just realized, their invisible watcher in the sky was nowhere he could see. The sky was a field of stars in every direction. Nothing was blocked out. Where did it go?
“I must say,” Deanna said, “this has been the weirdest day of my life.”
“It’s a contender for sure,” Krull said. “The weird has no boundaries.” Krull’s eyes fell upon the chopper. He dropped his head and quickly looked elsewhere.
“The what?” Deanna asked, and Ash’s eyebrows scrunched.
“I’ll tell you later,” Adam said.
“Dudes… and dudette,” Jayson said, “are we just gonna leave Boston hanging? And the PTU?”
“Go,” Ash said. “I’ll stay with these folks, try to explain. And I need to call Wendy, get some transportation out here to pick us all up. And find out if she knows what’s happened. With any luck, every shadow creature is gone, along with all the other undesirables.”
Ash put a hand on Krull’s slumped shoulder. “Go easy on yourself. You did what you had to. Hell, I heard her ask you to. The mere chance of them getting her back was far too risky. Thank you for doing what I wouldn’t have been able to.”
Krull sighed.
“Buck up,” Jayson said to Krull. “Let’s get Boston and get the hell out of here.”
“Are we assuming he’s still in there?” Deanna asked. “I mean, we just saw him out here. Granted, he was floating, and kind of looked like he was a ghost and all.”
“Let’s find out,” Adam said. “Deanna, if you would, please stay with Ash, help talk to these people if you can. I think some of them probably overheard us, and they’re sidling over.”
She nodded. “Sure thing.”
Adam led the way into the school as he was the only one with a flashlight. Everything was quiet. It was unnerving. And then Adam’s pistol-mounted light revealed a horrific twisted shape near a hallway intersection. Each step seemed to reveal another. It was like someone had placed statues within the corridor.
Nobody spoke, probably not wanting to draw attention in case something lurked. Boston surely would have taken anything out. He would’ve had to, or he never would have made it to the diadem.
As they got within a few feet of the first statue abomination, Adam’s light revealed it. Krull had not seen them previously, but it had to be one of the formerly yellow-eyed creatures. Its head was twisted slightly toward them, its eyes dark pits, its body a twisted and gnarled mass.
When they got into the intersection, they had to dodge left and right to avoid them. Krull didn’t want to even nick one. Who knew if they were dead or not? Could have been some form of torpor. Everyone steered clear as far as they could. It was like walking through a dark, twisted forest. Adam’s light threw ghastly shadows that would no doubt plague Krull’s dreams.
Once they cleared through, they beelined forward and reached the hallway that surrounded the gymnasium. It was so quiet. Krull suspected none of the PTU had survived. Otherwise, they would have run into them already. Or, more sensibly, one of the PTU members would have come outside to update them. For that matter, Krull suspected Boston wasn’t even there. Dead? Maybe. Either way, none of it felt right.
The tear in the hallway wall, into the gym, was another anomaly.
And where was Zander?
Adam went through first, followed by the rest. Krull came up last, looking left and right in the hallway that had contained numerous creatures not that long ago, according to Zander’s report. Nothing he could see lurked in the shadows. The opening to the gym was dark other than Adam’s light, so Krull turned his cell on, having turned it off earlier to avoid frying it if someone discharged a light stick on a void.
Jayson helped Krull with the drop, the gym lower than the rest of the school. The column of soil was there. And Boston, beside it, lying on the floor… not moving.
Adam bent down and touched Boston’s neck. “He’s alive. Real slow pulse though. It’s like he’s sleeping or—”
“In a coma,” Ralph said.
“Maybe,” Adam said.
“What made you think that?” Krull asked.
“I don’t know,” Ralph said. “I mean, he wore that mysterious, powerful crown that no one else could pick up, not even Zander, and then appeared in front of us and destroyed the voids. And I suspect—being that he’s not operating anymore, if you take my meaning—that he was in a quantum superposition. I’d be tired, wouldn’t you?”
“Ralph,” Jayson said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “what the fa-uck are you talking about?”
Krull smiled. “Good one, Ralph. You might be right. Basically, Jayson, he means that Boston was concurrently in multiple places at once. I would agree.”
“Well, why not just say that?”
Ralph patted Jayson on the chest. “Then how will you learn, little one?” He smiled.
Jayson smiled back. “Wow, well, aren’t you getting cocky, knowledge boy. Fine, I learned something today. Aaanyway, let’s carry him out of this pit.”
Just then, Zander appeared. He was lying on the floor, face up. If Krull had to guess, and he’s not sure how, Zander knocked himself out bashing the hole into the gym. “Are you okay?” Krull asked him.
“Just dandy, now,” Zander said. “Probably wondering how I knocked myself out?”
Krull nodded.
“Well, not in the way you would,” Zander said. “It’s more of an energy thing, as in I depleted everything I had to make that opening.”
“Thank you,” Ralph said. “I’m assuming the hallway around the gym was lined with creatures, and they would have been impossible to get through.”
Zander stood. “You’re most welcome, and yes, that’s correct. So…” Zander paused when he saw Boston. “Is he okay? Did he…? I mean, there are no glowy-eyed things around, so I’m assuming he did.”
Krull smiled. “He did.”
“Hey,” Jayson said, “does anyone see the diadem?”
Everybody shook their heads.