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    Gift of Dane: A Crabapple Gang Adventure - Volume Two
    Gift of Dane: A Crabapple Gang Adventure - Volume Two
    Gift of Dane: A Crabapple Gang Adventure - Volume Two
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Gift of Dane: A Crabapple Gang Adventure - Volume Two

    By David C. Baxter

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    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid C. Baxter
    Release dateJun 7, 2017
    ISBN9781370055685
    Gift of Dane: A Crabapple Gang Adventure - Volume Two
    Author

    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.

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      Book preview

      Gift of Dane - David C. Baxter

      Gift of Dane

      A Crabapple Gang Adventure

      Volume 2

      By David C. Baxter

      Copyright © 2017, David C. Baxter

      Smashwords 3rd Edition

      Click here for previous 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.

      Edited by Ann-Marie Trammell

      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 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      The Author

      19

      The last child joined the others around the door upstairs. The huddled group was enamored with the flickering light behind the cracked door. Penny’s Intruder crept up the stairs without a sound. At the top of the stairs, the Intruder slunk into the master bedroom.

      CG

      Dane glanced over his shoulder. Shadows thrown from the surging light must’ve played a trick on his mind. He could’ve sworn the door by the staircase had just closed shut. He turned back to the light. What did the room conceal?

      Tommy smiled at him, a kind gesture, but the throbbing light twisted Tommy’s face in sinister shadows, like Two-Face’s deformed side. Dane smelled Tommy’s stale sweat, like leaving his gym clothes in his bag over the weekend.

      I don’t think anyone’s in there, Tommy whispered.

      Dane wasn’t so sure. What had Penny said outside? The house might really be haunted. It did feel occupied…no, more like alive. Maybe it was the way the light pulsed off the foyer tiles and walls. A darkness clawed at him. It took effort to look back. Yeah, his friends felt the same. Penny looked the worst, her strained face pulling her beauty away.

      Dane forced a smile, rubbing the goose bumps on his arm. He couldn’t, however, rub away the vision of those fangs and hellish eyes. The monster lurked behind that sadistic strobe, but if they didn’t go in after Mad Murry, who would?

      Dane heard nothing but the whoosh of his exhale. Paul, he whispered, give me the camera.

      Paul passed it over without a word.

      Dane turned on the camera’s light, moved past Tommy, and shouldered the door open. The relenting light refracted off two steel tables. He panned the camera: a flash of light on the wall and a figure behind it. A scream jammed in his throat. The light and figure moved.

      Dane shook the camera. The light near the wall mimicked the movement. It was the camera’s light reflecting off a closed window and the figure behind it was his.

      But something was in here. Something was watching him. He could feel it.

      Dane swung the camera to the left, using both hands to steady it. Fear glued his sneakers to the tile floor.

      On the far side of the room, the mad-faced-mask of a Modifier glared down at him. He squinted at it on the camera’s monitor. The monster would lurk up on him in the darkness, between the strobes, and devour him. And there was nothing he could do about it.

      Clicking behind him: the gnashing of fanged teeth. Dane gulped preparing himself for the feeling of two needles in his neck. He’d watched so many movie victims encounter that fate, but he’d never stopped to think what a vampire’s bite felt like.

      The room ignited with blessed light washing away the night terror.

      Dane glanced back. The clicking had been Tommy flipping the light switch.

      An arm wrapped around his shoulders with the smell of strawberries.

      We can go get your Yoda nightlight, Alex said with devious eyes. You know, if it makes you feel better.

      Thanks, Dane said. He scanned the lab from left to right: shelves crammed with books to the left. In front of him, at the far wall: clear-plastic marker boards covered in black, formulaic scribbles, and closer in were the two lengthy tables.

      The rest of the gang entered and spread throughout the monster-less room.

      On the far wall, the face of the Modifier had been nothing more than a sun mask. Below the mask was what grabbed Dane’s attention.

      Mad Murry built a lab, Paul said, crossing to the formula boards.

      Tommy studied Paul.

      They affectionately call your uncle Mad Murry, Penny said, blushing. Actually, my generation did the same. Sorry.

      It has to be for the portal, Alex said, staring at the hole in the wall.

      Dane followed Alex between the tables and to the carved hole below the sun mask.

      Everyone gravitated to it, except for Tommy who rummaged through papers on one of the tables.

      The hole, Dane said, is nothing but cut-away plaster and sheetrock.

      Simone peered in and said, I can see the house’s brick wall.

      They’re like our bracelets, Paul said, all his fear gone. He was looking up at the hole’s arch.

      Dane scanned the archway with the camera. Seven white stones hung in a row beneath the cut sheetrock. The center stone was beneath the arch’s apex, three stones on

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