The man sighed. "Kevin, I know this is going to be hard for you. But I think you're ready for the truth."
"Okay..."
"The other kids, the school bus crash, all the rest...none of it is real."
*****
The bus hung in the air for a moment, then struck the water with a violent lurch, throwing Kevin from his seat into the floor, but he just hugged the bag tight and kept his eyes clenched shut.
The energy of the multiverse flooded the bus and surrounded him, but his mind shut it out, repelled and banished it.
The shout in Kevin's head drowned out the screams of the other kids. I want to go home!
*****
There were two of them this time, Tommy and another kid, a pimple faced kid with red hair. Tommy grabbed Kevin from behind and held his arms pinned. They dragged him off the sidewalk and into the space between two apartment buildings.
"Thought I told you not to leave home," Tommy said.
Kevin strained but couldn't wriggle free.
"We're gonna teach you a lesson," said the other kid.
"Yep," said Tommy.
"HO, VARLETS!" came a boisterous voice from behind.
"What the?" Tommy spun around, letting go of Kevin.
A skinny kid, wearing what could only be some kind of home made Halloween costume, leaped up onto the air conditioning unit some ten feet away. His costume looked like some kind of cross between Wolverine and the Mighty Thor, with Captain America thrown in for good measure. He even had grabbed a beige plastic trash can lid from somewhere to serve as a shield.
"THOU HAST CHOSEN THE PLACE FOR THY FOUL DEEDS POORLY, BRIGANDS!" he shouted.
"Whaaaaaat?" said Tommy.
"NONE MAY ACCOST THE CITIZENRY OF MIDGARD WHILE I AM ITS PROTECTOR!"
"Dude," the other kid said, "someone's gonna hear this."
"Fuck off, you fuckin' nerd!" Tommy said.
"FLEE OR FACE THE WRATH OF MIGHTY MJOLNIR!" From somewhere, the scrawny kid produced a fairly impressive ball-peen hammer.
Tommy's face darkened.
"This dude's crazy," the second kid said.
"Let's get out of here. Next time for you, Lloyd!" Tommy shoved Kevin down and the two of them took off around the corner.
The scrawny kid jumped down and took off his "helmet", which looked to be a badly taped together cereal bowl and paper wings.
"Pretty good, huh?" he said. He extended a hand, helping Kevin up.
"Uh, yeah, thanks."
"Not a problem, that's what heroes do, man!"
"Yeah," Kevin said doubtfully.
"D'you like the hammer? Check it out!" He displayed the hammer to Kevin. Written on the side in black marker were words.
"He who...holds...uhh...I can't make it out."
The kid looked at it. "Oh. Uh, well...I didn't have as much room as I thought. So I started out big, then I had to go smaller. It's a little smudged. And I think I mixed a little of the Green Lantern oath in there, to be honest. But it's all good."
Kevin nodded. With no idea what the kid was talking about, it seemed prudent.
The kid reached out and shook Kevin's hand.
"I'm Brandon!"
*****
"No," Kevin said. "No, that's not possible!"
Juergens sighed. "I know it's hard, Kevin. Right now you have all these conflicting ideas in your head and none of it makes any sense, but I want you to think."
"No. It is real. It is!"
"Let me ask you another question."
Kevin was silent.
"You remember the bus leaving the school?"
"Yes!" Kevin said emphatically.
"Do you remember the crash itself?"
"Yes."
"How long did it take?"
"What?"
"From the first moment you remember something strange to the bus going into the water, how long was it?"
"I'm not sure. A couple of minutes. Not long"
"And after the crash? Do you remember afterward?"
"Ye-" but Kevin stopped. Did he? He struggled to think. He remembered being on the floor of the bus as it sank, and then... Nothing. "No.. the water...I must have been unconscious."
"When we talked about it, you said the others reported ambulances, being in the hospital..."
"Yes," Kevin nodded, "yes they did."
"So...do you remember being in the hospital?"
Kevin thought.
"Were you ever in the hospital at all?"
"No," Kevin said, confused.
"Think about what the other kids said about after the crash, being in the hospital...what time was it?"
Kevin thought back to the other kids' accounts. "It was...it was late. The middle of the night."
"But you remember the bus leaving school, and you said the crash took only moments."
"Yes."
Juergens leaned in. "Then Kevin...why would the bus have been on the bridge in the middle of the night?"
*****
Water rushed over Kevin, splashing into his mouth. He choked, but didn't move. He was too scared. Water flooded the bus, rising all around him, cold...so cold.
Kevin's mind, exposed to the aperture yet untouched by the energies of the worlds beyond, began to wield a power unlike any of the others, and that power struck out, pushing and stretching the fabric of the world around him.
I want to go home! Please, I just want to go home!!
*****
When the bell rang, Kevin hurried though the halls and headed out the door. He wanted to get to the bus quick before-
He spotted Tommy near the lockers, talking with his friend, Russell or Rusty something. Kevin ducked around the other side of the lockers, hoping they hadn't seen him. He hid there for a while, then peeked around. They had gone.
By the time he got outside the line at the bus was too long. He knew it would fill up before he could get on it, and he'd have to wait for the next one.
He sat down at the bench, praying they wouldn't find him there.
Some time later, the second bus pulled up to the curb. Kevin stood, and walked up, but a blind kid with a seeing-eye dog was there waiting.
"Hey!" said a familiar voice from behind. Brandon clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You don't usually take the bus. Dad couldn't pick you up?"
Kevin shook his head. "Go ahead," he said to the blind kid. "You first."
"After you," the kid said.
Kevin shrugged and boarded the bus, Brandon right behind him.
As Kevin took his seat, he looked outside and saw Tommy and Russell on the sidewalk, looking around. They hadn't seen him.
Made it, Kevin thought. Home free. Home.
*****
"This is important Kevin. When you got on the bus, did you see the driver's face?"
Kevin thought. "He was...he had white hair."
"Yes."
"And...he was wearing...glasses."
Juergens nodded.
Realization dawned on Kevin's face. "It was you."
"You saw me?"
"It was you. The driver was you!"
"You've created this fantasy from various components of your real life, Kevin. It's not real. Can't you see that?"
"No...No, it's real...you were there."
Juergens sighed. "I can see we have a long way to go." He pressed a button, and the monitor started up again with its flickering patterns of light and color.
"No!" Kevin said. "I don't want to look at this any more. I want to go home! I want to go home!"
"This is home, Kevin," Juergens said. "And we're going to take good care of you, I promise."
"You're not taking care of me, you're trying to confuse me. Trying to trick me!"
Juergens sighed and opened the door.
"You're not one of them at all. You're one of us! YOU'RE ONE OF US!"
Juergens stepped out, and turned off the light before closing the door, so that the light from the monitor filled the room.
*****
Kevin's eyes we
re closed, and water was all around him, but somehow he knew it was there. The something that had been outside the bus. The something that had pursued them through the darkness above. It was there, in the water.
But there was nothing there, had never been anything there at all. It was all in his mind, an imagined terror of the world outside his home that had haunted him since he was a child. That terror now manifested a power within him capable of forcing the world around him at bay.
If it could be heard, the crack that Kevin's power opened around him would have been deafening.
His terror overwhelmed him. I WANT TO GO HOME!
Kevin's power tore open the universe for just a moment.
Kevin tumbled through the opening and was gone.
*****
Kevin tumbled through the void cracked open by his power. Hurtling through space, he splayed out his arms and legs but found nothing to hold onto, nothing that could stop his fall.
Soon though, he saw something approaching from the opposite direction, something growing larger, more defined. As it passed, Kevin was finally able to make it out.
He saw his own face, his own form! It was him!
"Help me!" he called, but they passed each other too far to touch.
He turned, and saw the other him falling though the crack he had made, escaping the void.
"Please!" Kevin cried. "I want to go home!" But he couldn't get there.
Kevin fell and fell, hopelessly lost and alone.
*****
Carl flopped down in the chair at his desk and started typing notes.
"Juergens!"
The General.
"Sir," Carl said.
"I need some explanation. What is all this about? What are you trying to do in there?"
Carl closed his eyes. Patience.
"General, that's not a person in there, not really."
The General nodded, his jowls wobbling. "You've said this. They're walking cracks in the universe."
"Well this one is the worst of all. This one can make cracks of his own. The entire world is in danger as long as he and the others are together."
"But nothing affects him!"
"Precisely. We can't kill him, can't destroy him. The best I can think to do is...convince him that none of what happened is real, so we can lock him down."
"So that's why all the shrink mumbo jumbo."
Carl sighed internally. "Yes."
"But all the things you asked...how old he was, how long the bus was gone...what did all that mean?"
"The others all took on properties of other realities. Kevin didn't. Kevin's power rejected reality entirely, tearing it apart and pushing it away from him."
"What does that mean?"
"Sir," called a soldier, "I think you should see this!"
Carl stood and walked over, the General following.
On the monitor, Kevin's bed was empty.
"Where did he go? Did he vanish?" Carl asked.
"No, the straps came apart."
"Came apart?" Carl asked.
Suddenly, the door splintered behind them. Kevin walked through. The air around him seemed to bend and shimmer, a distortion in the fabric of reality.
The two guards drew their weapons.
"Hold your fire!" Carl said. "You'll only damage the lab!"
Kevin grabbed Carl by the coat and threw him against the wall.
"I want some answers! Now! Everything you said...what does it mean? THE TRUTH."
"You're not Kevin. Our Kevin," Carl said.
"What does that MEAN?"
"You're from another world, another place," Carl said, "In your world, the crash happened ten years ago. The Kevin from our world, the one who was on the bus with the others...he disappeared. He vanished and never came back."
"No..." Kevin said.
"You have to listen to me now. We're in danger as long as we're-"
"NOOOOO!"
Silence fell. The air wavered and the light around them splintered apart. Kevin and Carl were thrown into space, and when the world came together again, the place they had been was empty.
They were gone.
*****
The bus sank beneath the waves; only one taillight and the number 313 emblazoned in black paint were visible now. The students on the bus were enthralled by what was happening to them. Kevin had vanished. Unbeknownst to all of them, Carl had run off into the night. The aperture, a shimmering hole in the world, shrank away until it disappeared completely.
All was quiet now on the bridge.
At the very edge of the bridge though, overturned in the ditch off the side of Highway 10, was another school bus.
And some 200 meters further, lying on its side in the middle of the road, was still a third bus.
Both were emblazoned, in black paint, with the number 313.
Sirens filled the night air.
EPILOGUE
"What happens next?"
Carl rolled out of the void and onto hard broken rock. He rolled to his knees and found himself on a rocky precipice. Lifting himself up, he saw the precipice thrust out into the air high above a barren, rocky land. There was nothing except rock and the bitter acrid taste of the air, no living thing anywhere in the land below, on the precipice, or the mountain from which it thrust. Nothing except...
"Why was the bus on the bridge in the middle of the night?" a voice asked.
Kevin stood over him.
Carl tried to stand, but Kevin lashed out with a savage punch to the jaw that rattled Carl's bones and sent his taped-up glasses bouncing off the edge of the precipice and tumbling away.
"Stay down," Kevin said. "Just...stay down."
Carl raised his right hand and pressed the soft tissue against his lip.
"I never hit people, you know that? Never." Kevin shook his right hand. "I don't like hitting people."
"Could've fooled me," Carl said. "Where are we?"
Kevin gave him a harsh look. "I get that I'm from a different world. I get that somehow I'm different from the others. The only part that I don't get is why the bus was on the bridge in the middle of the night."
Carl sighed. "The aperture was a hole in the world. Beyond it was a void filled with alternate realities. Everything you can imagine. It took me hours to get us back out of it, trying to get us back to the right world." He stood, defiantly. "But I did. I got us out."
Kevin waved dismissively. "I'd be grateful if you hadn't spent a lot of time since then trying to kill us all."
"Where...are...we?"
"To be honest," Kevin said, looking around. "I have no idea."
"Are we even...is this even our world?"
"No," Kevin said. "You want to go home? Join the club."
*****
Brandon rocketed upward, further and still further. He had been watching the panel, but nothing activated. He kept flying higher and higher, and still nothing changed.
He risked a glance backward, and was shocked by what he saw. The Earth was far, far behind him, and its motion in space was carrying it away from him.
An alarm with the voice of Admiral Ackbar went off in Brandon's skull. Was this all a lie: the satellite, him flying into space, everything? A way to get rid of him?
There had to be some way to know. He couldn't stop if there was any possibility of it being true. There was some kind of access panel next to the instruments. He shifted one hand to the edge of the panel and opened it.
Empty. No wiring, nothing.
Brandon released the satellite and turned around, rocketing back toward Earth. Despite his having released it, the satellite continued to tumble behind him, pulled along by whatever field his powers created. Brandon pushed himself faster and faster, but he didn't seem to be making any progress. The Earth was still moving away, and Brandon was surrounded by the blackness of space.
Brandon urged himself on faster and faster, but it was hopeless. The Earth was speeding away from him, and leaving him behind.
He closed his eyes, and tried
to calm his mind.
Finally, knowing this was the end, he stopped.
*****
Simon saw children. There were children, beyond the metal, beyond a rail, where a sign stood proclaiming this to be the GORILLA ENCLOSURE.
Simon tried to talk to call out to them, but it only caused his head to throb. He couldn't form the words. He emitted a whimpering sound as he let go, sliding down the metal, slipping down the rock. He collapsed at the bottom, and buried his face in his hands.
The children, their parents...everyone was looking at him. Everyone was smiling.
Simon rolled over onto his side and wept.
*****
At the bottom of the pool, Heather struggled and struggled but could not free herself. More of the hardening paste poured down on her, and she couldn't break free. Eventually, a light turned on, and she could see men looking down on her.
One of them gave a command, and the others aimed hoses downward, into the pool, and they poured gallon after gallon of the stuff down on her. Finally, the last of it poured over her face, and she lost all sight.
Heather absorbed the properties of the base of the pool, the paste, everything she could think of, but nothing worked. She was trapped there, under the water, with no way out.
*****
Mia's eyes began to crackle with energy when Kevin seized the bus-driver-turned-scientist and threw him into the wall.
Mia, Tyler, Becca and Max had been silently and invisibly observing, still waiting for the right moment to make their next move, when Kevin had burst in. Finally, Mia thought, some action.
She stepped forward, her hands beginning to glow.
"The Kevin from our world," Carl said, "the one who was on the bus with the others...he disappeared. He vanished and never came back."
Mia stopped, puzzled. What?
"No..." Kevin said.
"You have to listen to me now. We're in danger as long as we're-"
"NOOOOO!"
Silence fell. The air wavered and the light around them splintered apart. Kevin and Carl were thrown into space, and when the world came together again, the place they had been was empty.
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