by R. W. Ridley
“Holy crap,” I heard someone say.
I turned to see Gordy staring at me.
“It’s really you, ain’t it?” he asked.
I reached up and touched my face. “I think so. How old am I?”
Gordy shrugged. “I don’t know. Ain’t you a couple months younger than me?”
I study his face. He was a chubby-cheeked kid of about fifteen. I pumped my fist in the air. “I am back.” I jumped off the gurney. My legs were weak and my knees almost buckled before I caught my balance.
“Easy, now,” Gordy said. “You’ve been getting your brain sucked for a long time.” He reached out and grabbed my arm to steady me. “The old sour puss was pretty impressed. He said he ain’t never seen anyone survive as long as you did.”
“Sour puss?”
“The Pure,” Gordy said. “He did something to that shunter so it wouldn’t never turn you Délon. It just tinkered with your brain. You remember anything at all?” he asked. “Nothing I want to talk about,” I said. I looked around the cave. “Where is our lovely host?”
“Headed toward the opening,” Gordy said nodding his head to the right. “He heard a noise.”
“Noise...” I said. “Scoop-face!” I stepped away from the gurney and tumbled to the ground. I was covered in clay.
“Scoop what?” Gordy said helping me to my feet.
“A friend of mine,” I said out of breath. I regained my feet and placed my hands on my knees. “He was that noise.”
“Oh,” Gordy said. “Ewww, that’s not good. Purey-boy don’t like visitors. He turned the last guy inside out.”
There was a minute of uncomfortable silence as I absorbed the information.
“You understand I mean that literally, right,” Gordy said.
“I suspected as much,” I said stumbling through the mud floor on weakened legs.
I saw Gordy duck his head and drop his chin to his chest. “What’s wrong?”
“You picked up where you left off,” he said. “You’re bound and determined to do this hero thing. You know that is really kind of annoying.”
“You going to help me or not?” I asked.
“Of course I’m going to help you. I’m the plucky sidekick.” He put my arm around his shoulder. “Besides at the rate you’re going, you’ll never get there on your own.”
With that, he helped me navigate the twists and turns of the cave until we could see beams of light bouncing off the rock walls. I looked ahead and saw what looked like the silhouettes of two men (or boys) and an ape. They were tending to another man on the ground. The Pure was nowhere to be seen. “Scoop-face... ahhh... Archie,” I yelled.
The three silhouettes peered down the cave. I can hear them chatting, but it is nothing more than muttering from my vantage point. I step forward and see something moving to my immediate right. I nearly jump out of my skin when I see two white eyes staring back at me. The twisted figure of The Pure stepped forward.
He leaned in. “This isn’t possible,” he hissed.
I leaned back. “What’s not possible?”
“You. This. You can’t be awake. How are you able to walk... to stand... to breathe? I have not released you.”
“Who’s there?” I heard Archie yell.
“Stay there, Archie,” I said.
“This is a trick,” The Pure said.
“No trick,” I said. “I’m here, and I’m staying this time.” “Who’s there?” Archie called out again.
“Stay there!” I shouted.
“Let them enter,” The Pure groans. He sniffs. “The small one’s blood smells so sweet.”
“I know the Source,” I said.
The Pure shifted his gaze from the mouth of the cave to me. “You lie.”
“It’s the truth.”
His head bobbed nervously as he considered every inch of me. Looking for some sign I was lying. “What is it?”
I smiled. “We’re not there yet. I have some conditions.”
He wrapped his hand around my throat and shoved me up against the cave wall. I felt the blood racing through my veins.
“You waste my time with these lies,” he growled.
I wheezed. “It’s a picture.” My body began to warm from the raging river of blood that was flowing through my veins.
“Easy, spidey-do,” Gordy said. “If he’s telling the truth, it would be the bonehead move of the century to kill him before he has a chance to tell you about this picture.”
The Pure contemplated Gordy’s logic. He released me and let me fall to the ground. “What of this picture?”
I massaged my bruised throat. “I know where it is. Your shunter must have jarred something lose in my memory banks because I know this picture exists. I’ve seen it. I know it’s the Source the same as I know up is up and down is down.”
“Where is it?”
“Oh, no,” I said standing with Gordy’s help. “I’m going to keep that to myself for a while.”
The Pure reached for me, and I slapped his hand away. My blood was searing. He snarled and flared his mandibles. I pushed him to the cave floor. He landed on his back with a thud.
“Whoa,” Gordy said. “What are doing...? How are you doing that?”
I opened and closed my hand creating a tighter and tighter grip with each flex. “The shunter must have done something to me.”
The Pure crawled up the cave wall like an insect and hid himself in a dark crevice.
“Listen to me,” I said. “I’ll bring you your picture, but you’ve got to give me something in return.”
I heard him snivel. “Watch your tongue, boy. Your strength is temporary. You’ll be weak and useless soon enough.”
I examined the back of my hand. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I got this weird feeling that you turned something on in my brain you shouldn’t have. Funny thing is...” I reached up in the darkness toward the sound of his voice, found the collar of his ragged shirt and yanked him out of his hiding place. He flopped to the ground. “I think you know it, too.”
“Ozzie, boy,” Gordy said. “I think you better cool off. I seen the old Pure here do some pretty ugly stuff while you was taking your shunter-faced nap.”
I turned to him. “Just what is your role in all this, Gordy?” He held up his hand. “Easy now. Easy. I’m your compadre. Your number one best friend.”
I lurched forward. “Friend? You live with this slime, how can you be my friend?”
“It was part of the deal.”
I pushed him backward. He stumbled on the loose gravel of the cave floor. “Deal?”
“General Roy was sucking the life out of you, man.”
I pushed him again. The sound of his voice felt as though it was stabbing my eardrums. I was growing angrier the more he talked.
“He was going to kill you to get what he wanted. I couldn’t let that happen. So, we made a deal.” He backed away from me grabbing in the darkness for the cave wall.
“What deal? Who’s we?”
He shifted his eyes from me to behind me. “She’s we.”
I turned to see General Roy’s sister standing behind me. “Reya?”
She stepped forward, dead-eyes locked on mine, her spider-leg hair flailing madly. She sniffed the air. “Still alive. How disappointing.”
Still enraged, I rushed her. She swiftly stepped out of the way, and I rammed my head into the cave wall. I dropped to the ground.
“Hey, not cool,” Gordy shouted. “Not cool.” He raced to my side.
I rolled over on my back. My head felt like a cracked egg. My anger was replaced with excruciating pain. “What deal?” I moaned.
“I found The Pure. I made a deal with him. If I brought him to you, he would get you to reveal the Source without torturing you like General Roy was. I couldn’t get to you. So I went to her. She helped me get you to The Pure.”
I sat up with great difficulty. “Why would she do that?”
“General Roy is weak,” she screeched. “He’s disgraced
the Délons. I aligned myself with the Pure to save my kind.”
I chuckled. “You’re not doing this for your kind.”
The Pure hobbled forward. “He knows you well, my queen.”
I smiled. “Now it makes sense.” I stood with Gordy’s help. “Wait a minute. I was in... that place... Scoop-face said the Délons put me there... I’m still there... on the couch... Bones is watching over us.”
“The Délons put you there, but I’ve kept you there,” the Pure said. “It was necessary to keep General Roy at bay.”
Reya smiled. “The one called Bones is my cow. He is our decoy. He lays on a table in Délon City in your stead. His brain’s being fed upon by a royal shunter. He is most likely dead by now, but he is just a cow.”
I grunted. Stepping forward I fought to suppress the anger that had engulfed me earlier. “He is creyshaw,” I said to Reya.
She took some satisfaction in my tone. She had gotten to me.
“What about Canter? He’s been helping Lou and the others.”
“Helping?” Reya laughed. “He works for General Roy. He hasn’t been helping them. He’s been using them.”
“Why?”
“They’ve long felt the Lou knew of the Source, too. They had hopes that eventually she would lead them to it. She’s proven to be a great disappointment.”
I moved down the cave toward the entrance. “I don’t completely understand what’s going on here, but I’m back, and I’m calling the shots now. You want the Source you play my way.”
The Pure crawled along the cave wall in pursuit of me. “I won’t be ordered around by a human...”
“Then kiss the Source goodbye.”
Furious, he groaned like a wounded animal.
“Control your human,” Reya barked at The Pure.
He roared. “I cannot.”
“Fine, then I shall do your job for you,” she said. I turned to her when I heard the sound of Gordy gasping for air. Her hand was clamped around his neck. “I will snap your guardian’s skinny neck,” she said.
I smiled. “Go ahead. I’ll just burn the Source.”
“Fine,” she growled. “Destroy it. Better no one have it than let it fall in the hands of General Roy.”
“You would have killed me a long time ago if that’s what you really thought.”
She jerked her hand away from Gordy’s neck and tossed him toward me. “I am watching you. You betray us, and I will kill him and the girl and the fat one.”
I caught Gordy before he hit the ground. “I’ll bring you the Source when it’s time and not one second before.” Gordy and I headed for the mouth of the cave. “So you were my guardian?”
He nodded massaging his throat. “You think I was going to trust that Pure puke to keep his word? You made a deal. I had to make sure he kept his end of the bargain.”
“Yeah?” I said. “I guess that’s pretty cool.”
“You guess?” he said sounding offended.
I lightly pushed him as we walked. It was all the thanks I was up to giving at the moment. I hoped he understood.
As we got closer to the cave opening, the details of the people who had just been silhouettes began to fill in. I saw Little Bobby’s face first. It was drawn and pale. Mud covered most of his forehead. He bore a hopeful grin as Gordy, and I approached.
Kavi sat with her feet underneath her. She let out a guttural whoop as we got closer. The hair on her shoulders stood on end.
Scoop-face stood to her right only he was not Scoop-face. Not there. Not in that time. He was Archie Maynard. Young, fresh-faced, alive in a way I could not have imagined when we first met in the hallway of the “facility.” He stared at me in confused wonder. I picked apart every detail of his eyes. They were green with specs of gold. His nose was strong and prominent. What my mother would have called a Roman nose. He was not at all what I pictured him to be. He was a few inches taller than me now. “Hello,” I said.
Archie looked at Kavi. The chimp was growing increasingly agitated. “He’s okay,” he said turning back to me. “I think.”
“You know this guy?” Gordy asked.
“We’ve met,” I said.
“We have?” Archie asked.
I stuck out my hand and noticed for the first time that my arm was now covered in fine light hairs. The dark bushy forearm I had sported just a few minutes ago was completely gone. “My name is Oz Griffin, and I am creyshaw.”
Archie hesitated and then shook my hand. “I... I am creyshaw, too. Archie...”
“Maynard,” I said. “The warrior with two hearts.”
He looked at me cock-eyed and stepped back. “What’s going on?”
“I’m Gordy in case anyone cares,” Gordy said.
“You don’t remember anything?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” Archie asked.
I thought about explaining everything to him, but I quickly decided against it. We didn’t have the time for me to try to convince him that he was in two places at once. I wasn’t even sure I believed it.
A pained squeak shot up from the ground. It was then I noticed the Myrmidon Keeper laying next to Kavi. “How is he,” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Archie shrugged. “How do you know how a ant-guy... man... person... is really doing? This could be normal for him... it, for all I know.”
I squatted down next to the Keeper. “This doesn’t look normal,” I said examining the Myrmidon closer. “General Roy and his boys really did a number on him.”
The Myrmidon coughed and spit up a bright yellow mucus.
“Nice,” Gordy said.
“I’m not too sure he’s going to make it,” I said.
Archie knelt down next to me. “What happens if a keeper dies?”
“Not sure,” I said. "How 'bout you, Bobby? You know what happens if a Keeper dies?”
“They come through,” he answered. “Some of them, anyway. The rest come when the Délons catch me.”
I stood. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This Myrmidon’s not dead, and the creyshaw won’t let the Délons get you.”
Little Bobby hung his head. “That ain’t how the story goes.” A horse whinnied in the distance.
“Uh-oh,” Gordy said. “I’m guessing that ain’t the cavalry.”
“I thought it was too cold for those guys,” Archie said.
We heard the howl of a mandrill.
“That little...” Archie said.
I turned to look down the cave. I couldn’t see a thing ten feet in. It was a dead end and would leave us cornered if we decide to use it as our refuge. There was only one thing left to do.
“Quick! Grab his feet,” I instructed Gordy. He hesitated. “C’mon, now. You can complain later.”
Sensing the urgency of the situation, Gordy did as requested and grabbed the Myrmidon’s feet. I grabbed his hands. To Archie, “Lead the way!”
He hesitated.
“Today, Archibald,” Gordy barked. “We’re about to be up to our necks in purple pukes.”
Archie turned in a panic and then stopped. By his stiff body language, I could tell he was going over an imaginary checklist in his mind. I could tell because I had done the same thing as a leader. He snapped his fingers and turned to Bobby. “Up here with me, Little B. You’re still my responsibility.”
We trudged along the creek bed. The almost superhuman strength I had experienced earlier was gone. I could barely lift the Myrmidon off the ground. Gordy wasn’t faring any better. Tired of watching our pathetic attempt to carry the giant ant-man, Kavi pushed us aside and dragged the Myrmidon at a much faster pace than we could carry him.
We heard the sound of General Roy’s men moving through the forest. The gloom hid their direction. We had no idea if we were traveling towards them or away from. Eventually we heard the sound of boots slogging through the water. They were in the creek bed, too.
Gordy whispered loudly, “This is crazy. We can’t see where we’re going.”
“W
e’re almost to the clearing,” Archie answered.
“How do you know?’ Gordy asked.
Archie hesitated. “Because we have to be.”
“Human,” General Roy’s voice boomed through the darkness. “Give us the Storyteller!”
Archie suddenly stopped, and the rest of us crashed into him. His breathing was unsteady.
“Move,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m lost,” Archie responded. “I got turned around.” A dog barked.
“Did your hear that?” Archie asked.
I nodded not realizing that it was a useless response because no one could see me. The dog barked again. “Go,” I said. “It’s in front of us. Follow the sound of the bark.”
Slowly we moved forward, adjusting our direction slightly with each subsequent bark. The dog was leading us out of the woods.
After several minutes, we reached the tree line and stepped into the clearing and stopped. We all looked over our shoulders to admire what we had escaped. I turned back and looked across the large expanse of the sloped clearing and thought I saw a ghostly stick-thin figure standing on the opposite side. He held a rambunctious dog by the collar. In the blink of an eye, Bones and Charlie boy were both gone.
Archie looked over the group and nodded confidently. Kavi let go of the Myrmidon long enough to sign to us impatiently. She wanted to keep moving and she made it emphatically clear.
We rushed across the clearing into a cold wind. I hoped it was enough to keep the Délons back. They were weakened. That was clear. It wasn’t just the cold weather either. It was beyond that. Something was zapping them of their power. I didn’t much care what it was. I just hoped it continued. By the time we reached the other side of the clearing, it was apparent they were no longer following us. It was more than likely just a temporary postponement of their pursuit, but it was all we needed for now.
***
We must have been a mile from the camp when we heard the first screech in the gloomy sky above us. It was an inhuman screech. I guessed it to be a gibbon. I had seen something about them on Animal Planet when the world was normal. The warbling howl that surrounded us at that moment sounded just like the gibbons on that program. It was a distress call. Another howl soared above us, followed by a deafening roar. I heard a man scream. The battle between Carl’s crew and the apes was in full swing. I pushed ahead to the front of the line. I turned to the others and signaled them to stop.