Chapter 6

Chapter Six I'm majorly annoyed with myself. I never should have let the Helidrone be used in the games. Rover loved chasing the thing, and I hate the thought of it lying busted somewhere.

I'm hiking down a hill, past a crumpled old shed, when I spot the Helidrone. And I realize it may be lost forever.... From where I'm standing, I see that it crash- landed inside Big Al's Junk Palace. Big Al's is a sprawling junkyard with twenty-foot walls covered in barbed wire. Hundreds of zombies surround the place. Undead moaning and the thick scent of decomposing skin float up toward me. There'll be no retrieving my Helidrone—not right now, at least... I lift my head to the heavens and utter a short memorial for my flying friend. "You may be gone, Helidrone, but you are not forgotten. You were a first-class gizmo. A blue-ribbon gadget. You will be missed—but with any luck, you will not be missed for long. I will attempt to retrieve you, Helidrone." I spit on the ground, then use my sneaker to rub the saliva into the dirt—because that seems like a kind of cool and theatrical thing to do after delivering a totally killer memorial speech. I take the long way home. My path leads me through the eerie old playground outside the

crumbling remains of the town preschool. It's super run-down and unsettling. Basically, it looked like a post-apocalyptic playground before the world went post-apocalyptic. Rusty swings blow gently in the wind, and paint-chipped seesaws jut out of the ground like prehistoric skeletons. And then it gets a whole lot creepier... The stench of the beast hits me like a basketball to the face. You know the embarrassing face-hit you get in gym class when you're not paying attention

and you just get straight whammed and you try to shrug it off like it's no biggie but secretly you're like, oh-man-my-nose-the-pain-it-hurts-in-a-superawful- way. It's one of those. And worst of all: I know this smell. The tremendous beast Blarg stunk of it. The monstrous fiend Thrull reeked of it. It is the odor of evil. And the King Wretch oozes the foul odor. It seems to swirl off him. I didn't smell it at the fire station—probably because my nostrils were stuffed with blood. The monster's head bobs, lowering, and his eyes narrow as he focuses on me. I don't mean to, I don't want to, but I look into his eyes. Soda bubbles in my brain again. The King Wretch is, like, gazing into my insides. I can't move. I'm locked in. Inside my brain. I feel something like a tornado of terrible energy whirl past me. Through me. I hear a very distant BOOM, and then everything is altered....

I'm in a sort of dream. But this feels realer than any dream I've ever dreamed. It's like watching myself, like I'm on the outside, and I'm looking in. And suddenly, I'm not at the playground anymore. I'm in Wakefield Town Square, and everything is different. The world is not back to normal, no, but it's better. The sky is bluer

than-blue and the sun is warm on my skin. Big, beautiful plants grow. I feel alive. My entire body is buzzing, warm. I feel safe. I feel untouchable. Invincible. I come to the tree house. Looking up, I see that the tree is taller, thicker, and the tree house is now a tremendously huge sort of tree castle. Rooms and rooms on top of rooms, connected —a fortress fit for a king. But who is the king? I grip the ladder, and I climb. My friends are inside. Waiting for me. June, Dirk, Quint, and Rover. Rover leaps up onto me, but he doesn't knock me back—it's like I'm strong enough to hold him. Like we're equals. My friends have huge, wide smiles on their faces, and their eyes glow with happiness. And in the center, between them—a huge seat. A seat like... a throne.