by R. W. Ridley
Banshee Worm King
Book Five of the Oz Chronicles
by
R.W. Ridley
Middlebury House Publishing
Copyright © 2012 R.W Ridley
ISBN-10 0979206758
ISBN-13 9780979206740
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
For the readers
A life with purpose can only end in honor. –Gorilla Proverb
One
They surfaced. Dug their way out of the ground and killed one of us.
My gut ties in knots every time I think about it. We were all there, but there was nothing we could do. Nothing. He was dead.
When I watched him die, I thought about Stevie Dayton. It was his fault. He created this world. He did this to us. If there was a way, I was going to make him pay. It didn’t matter to me that he was long gone. Dead by his own hand. Dead because of what I had done to him, how I’d made him feel small, unimportant, like a mistake. None of that mattered. If I had to, I was going to dig him up and drag him through the empty streets of Tullahoma to humiliate him one last time.
I didn’t want to think that way. I wanted to take responsibility for the mess we were in, but my mind just wouldn’t let me. I needed a bad guy to take down. I was tired of dealing with the monsters chasing us. They were just as much victims in this as we were. We were all powerless little characters in Stevie’s stupid story. I couldn’t believe I ever felt bad for the way I treated him.
***
Before thinking thoughts I shouldn’t have been thinking about Stevie Dayton, I stood next to a stream at the base of Cold Mountain in North Carolina. The area lived up to its name. It was cold. Freezing. And I hoped that was good because it meant we were out of the reach of the Délons. The human side of them took over in the cold. The purple dead-eyed freaks couldn’t touch us.
I sat on a boulder and picked through the stones at my feet so I wouldn’t have to look at the others. I knew something they didn’t. It crushed me. It ruined me. It scared me more than any of the ugly beasties that we had faced. I couldn’t hide something like that from Wes or Gordy or... her, especially not her.
Wes maneuvered his large frame along the rocky banks of the gurgling stream and sat across from me on another boulder. “We gotta talk.”
I didn’t take my eyes off the rocks.
“We’re in bad shape. Gordy especially. Boy’s had it. April’s a haggard mess, too. Babbling about the things she done back at the Biltmore. She can’t shake it out of her thinking.”
Kimball sauntered up to the stream and lapped up the cool water.
“We gotta take time to regroup. They ain’t in no shape to trek on down to Tullahoma...”
“We’re not going to Tullahoma,” I said, struggling to get the words out of my mouth.
I could hear Wes raking his fingernails against his stubbly cheek. “Since when?”
“Decided a while ago. It’s pointless. There’s nothing there for us.”
“What about the comic books?”
“That whole thing’s just a load of crap. There are no answers in Stevie’s comic books.”
I was avoiding eye contact with him, but I could feel him trying to study my face. After a long pause he said, “There’s something you ain’t telling me, Oz.”
I forced a chuckle. “This world’s got you paranoid, Wes. Going to Tullahoma just doesn’t make any sense. Makes sense to keep heading north and get as far away from the Délons as possible.”
He leaned forward. “I can tell when you’re lying...”
“I’m not lying!” I stood in a rage and quickly worked to calm myself. “I know what I’m doing, Wes. I am Creyshaw, remember?”
He looked as angry as I felt. “I remember. Ain’t exactly sure if I understand it, but I remember.”
“It means that this twisted world is part of me. I know it. Every sick inch of it. I don’t want to, but I do. So, if my gut tells me to go north then we go north.” He was right, of course. I was lying. I didn’t have a gut feeling to go north. I just knew that going to Tullahoma would bring us one step closer to bringing back normal times. I didn’t want that any more.
“Everything okay?” Lou asked. She stepped out of the woods behind me carrying two power bars.
Wes leaned back and thought about the question. “Little girl, things haven’t been okay for a while now.”
She shook her head and tossed a power bar to me and then Wes. “Don’t get smart, old man. You know what I meant.”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “We just decided that Tullahoma can wait. We’re headed north.”
“We decided?” Wes asked.
I peeled back the wrapper on my power bar and unintentionally gave him a pleading look.
“That’s right,” he said. “Délons can’t get us up north.”
I had no idea why he covered for me, but I was glad he did.
“That’s it? You two make a decision and the rest of us don’t get a say?”
I bit into my power bar and hoped that Wes would handle her question. But he had helped me out as much as he intended. I used chewing as an excuse to delay my answer. By the time I swallowed, I had come up with the best excuse I had. “We need to get our strength back. We’ll lose Gordy if we come across the Délons or any of the other Destroyers out there. And April needs time to get her head back in the game.”
She crossed her arms and huffed. I knew that meant she couldn’t come up with a good argument. I had stumbled upon a reason that actually made sense. “How far north?”
“That’s a good question,” Wes said with a mouthful of power bar.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. North north.”
“North north?” Lou raised an eyebrow.
“The colder, the better,” I said.
“I think the boy’s looking for Santa,” Wes said with a snicker.
“You laugh,” I said, “but just remember who created this world. It’s not that crazy to think we may come across the jolly little fat man with a belly full of jelly.”
Wes laughed. “He ain’t full of jelly. His belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly.”
“Whatever,” I said.
Wes smiled. “Well if we do come across Santa, I know just what I’m going to ask him for.”
“To go home,” Lou said.
Wes looked baffled. “Oh... yeah, I guess that would be good...”
Lou wrinkled her brow. “And just what did you have in mind?”
He swallowed the last of his power bar. “An abandoned store jam packed with Twinkies.”
***
Gordy was in piss-poor shape, as my grandfather used to say. He wasn’t bleeding anymore, but he was sweating through his clothes despite the chill in the air. His skin was gray and clammy.
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to him so I kept my distance. I was afraid I would tell him the truth. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that he would make it to the end of the week.
April sat next to him wiping the sweat from his brow and muttering “I’m sorry” over and over again. I wanted to feel bad for her, but I didn’t. I even wanted to be bothered that I didn’t feel ba
d for her, but I wasn’t. I just didn’t feel anything.
I stretched out on the ground on my back and laced my fingers together behind my head. Looking through a hole in the forest canopy, I could see that the sky wasn’t as purple as it had been. Black rolling clouds crashed into each other, forming bigger, faster rolling clouds that expanded and seemingly burst apart like fireworks.
A massive head entered my field of vision. Startled, I blinked and focused my eyes on Ajax’s leathery face. Pushing myself up on my elbows, I forced a smile. “No offense, big guy, but with a face like that, you shouldn’t be sneaking up on people.”
He slapped the ground with his huge gorilla hand and gurgled out a playful hoot. He sat back on his haunches and scratched his protruding belly.
I watched him for a few seconds when a phrase popped into my head. Gorillas always know. Leaning in I cleared my throat and whispered, “Do you know?”
He stuck his chin out, but didn’t give me a direct response.
“Do you know?”
His expression turned quizzical.
“What Stevie Dayton told me, do you know? Is it true?”
He signed something I had seen him sign before. I searched my memory banks. “Gorillas always know?”
Ajax pursed his lips and nodded his enormous head.
“I know gorillas always know,” I said. “But does that mean you know what Stevie told me? Is it true what he said about Lou?”
Ajax’s face soured. He turned away from me.
“Ajax, tell me. Is it true?”
He held out his hands and crossed them in front of his chest with his palms in. With the first two fingers sticking out, he crossed the right hand from in front of the left hand to behind it. He repeated the sign several times.
“I don’t understand.”
Lou spotted us and approached. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Ajax is just being a pest.”
“Why is he saying that?”
“Saying what?”
“That word. He keeps saying ‘reverse’ over and over again.”
“Reverse?” I shrugged. “Who knows? I just asked him why apes have to smell so bad.”
Ajax let out a growl like he was offended. He clapped his huge hand against my shoulder and shoved me to the ground. He was being as gentle as he could, but it still hurt like hell.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lou said.
“He’s a gorilla. What do you want?” I sat back up rubbing my shoulder.
The word ‘reverse’ stuck in my head as I stood. Stevie had said something else in the basement of his house. Something about reading the story... backwards. I wandered away from the others deep in thought, trying to remember his exact words. “It’s never the same when you read it backwards,” I said so low that it sounded as if I was hissing. “You see things you didn’t see before.”
Without paying attention, I had walked onto a marked path. The branches in the trees clicked and rattled as the wind blew through the area.
“You see things you didn’t see before.”
“What?”
I looked in the direction the question came from and saw Tyrone sitting on a tree stump. Every time I saw him, I had trouble picturing him as the little kid I had first seen riding with the bicycle bandits in South Pittsburg. He was taller than me now.
“Nothing,” I said in response to his question. “You eat?”
“Lou gave me a power bar.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He stared up at the sky. “Things are different.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sky. The air. The smells. I can’t really put my finger on it, but things just feel different.”
I sniffed the air, but couldn’t really detect what he detected. “You think that’s bad or good?”
He shook his head. “Nothing good happens in this world.”
I nodded. “You hear we’re not going to Tullahoma now? We’re headed north.”
He shrugged.
I laughed. “You really don’t care, do you?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, it’s just that Wes and Lou...”
“Have something to go home to.”
“And you don’t?”
“Let me ask you something, Oz. You think bringing our world back will bring back the people who’ve died in this world?”
“This is about Valerie.”
He didn’t answer.
“I don’t know how it works, Tyrone. It might.”
“It won’t,” he said.
“How can you be so sure?”
He thought about my question. “Because the one thing I’ve learned being here is that the only thing worse than today is tomorrow. That’s just the way it is.”
“Man,” I said, “you’re a regular barrel of laughs.”
He stood. “When we heading out?”
“Morning.”
He nodded and looked up at the sky. “Something’s definitely different.”
After he walked away, I sat on the tree stump and tried to clear my head. I just wanted to stop thinking. There was so much noise buzzing through my brain that I couldn’t hold onto a single thought. It was as if all the questions I’d ever asked in my life were bombarding me all at once.
Kimball sat next to me and whined until I scratched his head. He moved in closer and rested his chin on my leg. I moved my hand down and scratched the scruff of his neck. He responded by lying down on his back and exposing his belly.
“A belly rub, huh? Man, you’re pushing it.”
He squirmed on the ground and snorted. I didn’t know it at the time, but I smiled. I wished I had noticed it because I would have really appreciated it. I gave in and scratched his belly.
“If I had to choose the people I survived the end of the world with, Kimball, you’d be first on my list. It doesn’t really matter that you’re not people.”
He groaned and twisted his body back and forth as I continued to scratch his belly. I found myself being comforted by it as much as he was. I settled in and savored every second I could before he had enough and stood up. He shook the dirt from his fur and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the path. I hated to see him go.
I leaned back and felt my eyelids start to close. I fought it. I’m not sure why. They continued to grow heavier and heavier. Despite my best efforts, I quickly dozed off.
I dreamt.
***
The halls were dank and dim. Sputtering fluorescent lights crackled and buzzed overhead as I moved down the corridor. The smell of the place was familiar. The odor of piss and sweat told me exactly where I was: the facility. The place where the dead had visited me while I slept. The place where I’d met Bones and Scoop-face.
I turned a corner and recognized a doorway, Scoop-face’s room. It stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t want to be here, not even in a dream. The sound of footsteps came from the room. I ignored every instinct to run and instead moved towards it.
Reaching the open door, I gave myself a second to gather up my courage before I turned to look. As I turned, I heard the squeak of the flimsy bedsprings and considered closing my eyes, but I didn’t.
The figure sitting on the bed was lanky and hunched over. The man’s profile revealed a large Roman nose. It was Scoop-face before he was Scoop-face, Archie.
“I remember this place,” he said.
I slowly moved into the room.
“I’ve never been here, but I remember it. How can that be?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at me confused. “You were here, too.”
I nodded.
“We didn’t belong here, did we?”
“It was a trick. The one they call the Pure created it. He wanted to get inside our heads.”
“The Pure?”
“He’s a Délon. The first Délon.”
Archie’s eyes darted back and forth as he processed this new information. “The Source,” he said.
>
“What about it?” I asked.
“That’s what this place was for. He created it to find his source, the Source. Where all Délons came from.”
“That’s right.”
“He thought the Creyshaws would lead him to it.” He stood and stepped across the room absentmindedly laughing.
“What?”
“I’m dead.”
“Yeah,” I said, “you are.”
He spun around on his toes and locked eyes with me. “You killed me.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I could only bow my head.
He snapped his fingers as if he had received a great thought out of the blue. “But you had to.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to say anything.
“I asked you to because if you didn’t we’d be back here.”
I let a chuckle escape and then looked at him. “We are back here.”
“No. Not like before.” He felt his face with both hands and gently stroked the bridge of his nose. “I have... my nose, my eyes.”
“Because,” I said. “I...”
“You didn’t pull the Shunter off my face.” He moved back to the bed and sat down. “I remember now. You pulled the Shunter off my face. Each time you did, we were back here. It was some weird loop, right?”
“Basically, but I never remembered being here. Only you did.”
“And I asked you to kill me to break the cycle, so I wouldn’t lose my face.”
I nodded.
His eyes welled up and a tear slid down his face. “Thank you.”
“I wish that made me feel better about what I did,” I said.
“You had to do it.”
“Having to do something doesn’t make you feel good about it.”
He wiped the tear from his face and smiled. “That’s the price of being Creyshaw, I guess.”
I sat down next to him.
“They’re losing control, you know?”
“The Délons? I know.”
He hesitated and then said, “Don’t ask me how I know this because I don’t know, but you have the Source, don’t you?”