Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters (27 page)

“It
is
, Xander.” Her voice sounds calm now. “Tanuki and I knew you wouldn't leave on your own, so we had to do it this way. I'm sorry. But I know your father would agree.”

I close my eyes, feeling my forehead bumping against the creature. The thing is, I remember my father telling me to stay in the house, no matter what. It's true that he wouldn't want me here. He knew I was too wimpy to try something like this. And of course my father would rather die himself than have me die, too.

But that doesn't mean I don't want to find him. How could I live with myself if I made it this far and didn't even try to rescue him?

“You don't know what you're talking about.” My voice is as strong as a piece of granite.

She doesn't answer.

The sun bakes the slime on my back dry. I'm almost used to the smell. I guess you really can get used to anything.

Even though crazy yoga people spend all their time on their heads, upside down, it will actually make you pass out if you do it too long. So that's what happens—I black out. And really, that's better.

No dreams of grandfather this time. No nothing. I'm just out, and when I come to again, it's because of the heat.

I'm lying on something hard and hot. My neck has an awful knot in it, and the rest of me aches. I blink slowly. The surface I'm on feels and looks like super-hard black glass. Volcanic rock.

Bright sunlight creeps in through white smoke. I sit up slowly, trying to take everything in. I'm in the middle of a valley.

Jinx said she was taking me to the ship. This isn't the ship. Where are we?

It's a volcanic crater. A circle of mountains surrounds a city that was built in the center. It's abandoned now, though. Husks of houses, shops, factories—they're all here. Rusted-out cars parked next to crumbling sidewalks. Dry yellow grass and bushes sticking out through cracks everywhere. White smoke belches up from crevices in the flat landscape.

A large circular gap surrounds the entire clearing where we now stand. A ring of fire. It's keeping the other wild oni out, I guess, and us inside.

Everywhere, dark shadows scurry and glide among the ruins. I can't tell what the creatures are. Rats, or dogs, maybe? Some walk upright, some close to the ground. But when I see them, tiny hairs I didn't even know I had stand on end.

Run!
my body screams. I'm not tied up. I get to my feet and look around with my blurry eyes for Peyton and Inu. There's a fog of volcanic ash that makes everything appear to be happening in black and white, with only a little bit of faded color. I don't see them, or anyone else, just the oni. I'll go find my friends. I take a tentative step forward, and the ground seems to quiver like a water bed.

I put my hands on my thighs, trying to get my bearings. I take a deep breath and get ready.

But before I go anywhere, I hear her voice. “Xander.”

I turn to see Jinx lying in the black ashy dirt. Her eyes are almost swollen shut, her face blue and purple. Dozens of scratches mar her face and arms, and dark ash has mingled with her blood, making her look like a burned-out log. Her lower lip is split open and oozing. Somebody's beaten her up.

Even though she's the one who had that yucky-smelling oni bring me here, my gut instinct is to want to get her some ice. “What happened?”

She looks at the ground. A tear splashes down her face.

She makes a noise that sounds like a choked-off word.

“What?” I say. “Tell me.”

She makes another strangled, garbled noise, like somebody stabbed her in the back with a rusty knife. Then big, deep sobs erupt.

“Stop!” I say in my sternest tone, hoping to jolt her out of her crying paralysis. “Get up and help me, Jinx.”

She blubbers, sucking up snot and blowing it out. Ew. “I can't,” she says finally. “Ican'tIcan'tIcan't.”

“Yes, you can.” I make my voice sound as nice as I possibly can. “Jinx, come on. Help me, and I'll help you.”

“I'm sorry,” she whispers. “I'm so sorry, Xander.”

A foot kicks her in the side, and the girl winces.
Sorry never helped anything, Jinx
, a deep voice says.
Forgiveness means it's already too late. Better not to make a mistake in the first place.

I look up. Next to Jinx stands the beast-man.

I gasp and, like a little bug trying to run away from a foot that's about to squish it, try to scrabble away. But my body won't do what I want. I am frozen.

When he sees me looking at him, his thin lips break into a smile over the jagged teeth. I shiver involuntarily.

He takes a step closer to me and sticks his tongue out. The three little snakes at the tip dance and hiss over my face. I shut my eyes. Their tongues tickle my lashes, my eyebrows.

I try to back up and yell and punch him all at once, but my body won't do what I tell it. I reach for my sword, and there's nothing at my back. That's right—I don't have it anymore. My muscles go slack and I fall to my knees, my heart thumping.

The tail swishes back and forth as the deep voice speaks.
Momotaro. Jinx told me so much about you
. His mouth doesn't move. The voice purrs low and loud in my head.

I look at Jinx. “You know him?”

A chuckle.
Better than you think, Xander.

She doesn't answer, just squishes her eyes shut.

The beast-man puts his arm around her.
Don't be shy, Jinx. Acknowledge your father.

I try to swallow, but my mouth's so dry there's nothing to go down. “This is your father? An oni?”

Not a beast-man
,
Xander
, the thing says in my head.
A
satori.
Sort of like your Bigfoot. You should have studied with your father. He must be disappointed to have such a lazy son.

Jinx's shoulders slump, and her voice sounds funny when she speaks, because of her swollen lip. “He told me he would help you get back to the ship, Xander.”

“Yeah, right.” Volcanic ash tickles my throat, making me cough. I manage to produce enough saliva to spit into the dirt. Rude, I know, but sometimes you have to be rude to survive. “I should have listened to Peyton. We should have left you behind.”

She doesn't answer, just closes her eyes. But something prevents me from being too mad at her. It is weird that she got beat up instead of me….Something's not right.

The beast-man chuckles.
What Jinx failed to realize was that not all oni keep their word as readily as the kappa. Even if an oni is your own father.

I look at broken Jinx, who is crying and bloody, and this awful thing who is her father. Who abandoned her and forced her to live in a jungle. Who beat her so horribly. Suddenly I'm not mad at her anymore.

Because I understand.

We all want to believe our parents will do the right thing. Just like I've always hoped against hope that my mother will come home someday. Jinx wanted to believe her father would keep his word.

She's just a kid. Like me. Only, I've got a father and a grandmother who care about me, and faithful friends like Peyton and Inu. She has nothing. Nobody.

I stare up at the beast-man and instead of fear, I feel something else.

Resolve.

I draw my head up and square my shoulders.

Let us go
, I say, strong in my head.
Let us go and I won't harm you.

The beast-man's eyes widen for a moment. Then he throws back his head and laughs. “Oh, look, it thinks it can fight. How adorable.” He speaks aloud this time, and Jinx stares at me. He gestures around him. “Will you let all of us go, then, noble Momotaro? For we all stand and fight as one.”

I look beyond him. Things are moving in the ruins.

Those creatures I saw before are not rats or dogs. They're monsters. Oni.

Thousands of them.

They're in the sky, too.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes weave and bob above us on leathery wings. Blobs of flesh. Swords with legs. Troll-like things. It's like every scary fairy-tale monster I know—and a lot I've never imagined—has come to life.

I swear, every hair on my arm stands on end. I feel the overwhelming need to run away. But I still can't move.

“Dude,” I hear a voice—a real voice that I recognize—whisper. Peyton!

I can't locate him immediately. The voice seems to be coming from outer space. Then I spot him, a few dozen yards to my right.

He's trussed up in a rope net that is hanging from a giant, ancient tree. His wings look mashed. Inu dangles in another bag next to him.

They are suspended above a smoking, hissing gray pit. I'm pretty sure we're on top of the active volcano.

Inu manages one pitiful little woof.

“Peyton!” I shout. “Inu!”

Peyton lifts his head. A long, deep gash extends from his hairline, across his eyebrow and cheekbone, all the way to his left nostril. The whites of his eyes are crisscrossed with red, so bad that the damage is visible from this distance. His skin is a mottled purple. “Don't come any closer.” His eyes look down into the smoky pit.

I follow his gaze.

The deep pit is filled with rice.

In the middle of the rice, buried up to his neck, is my father.

M
y father's face is turned upward, his eyes closed. He is missing his glasses. His skin is an icy blue, his mouth slack and open.

“Dad!” I have to get to him. My muscles twitch but do nothing more.

We move as one
, the beast-man says, and all those things in the air suddenly pause and shift. They coagulate into a giant sphere, like swarming bees. Pointing toward me.
It is over, Xander.

He is correct. I'm done. I shut my eyes and brace myself for the onslaught.
Good-bye, everybody. Sorry I failed you.

Iie!
My grandfather's voice shouts in my ear, shoving at me from the inside.
You will not give up.

Like a snap of the fingers, it comes to me, what I must do.
Move
, I command my muscles, and I get up and start running. I think I hear the beast-man laughing, but I don't care. Let him try to catch me. Nobody can stop me.

I jump in to save my father.

“Don't!” Peyton says hoarsely.

Too late. My feet plummet in, the rice giving way, and it feels like I'm dropping into water. Except I can't stay afloat. I keep on sinking and sinking.

I manage to find and grab my father's shoulders. He doesn't move. He's stiff and cold. Grayish vapors rise mistily around him.

I wrap my arms around his neck, stick my head above the rice. I put my cheek against his and feel just the faintest little bit of air
whoosh
out of his nose. I keep imagining. I keep hoping. “Dad!” I yell again, and shake him. Nothing happens. It's like trying to shake a huge tree.

Hot tears fall out of my eyes onto his neck where they turn into powdery ice. That's how cold he is.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please don't be dead.”

He descends with me as the rice pulls us under. I try to climb back up, to save us, but there's nothing to grab on to. My fingers comb through the rice.

The grains swallow my dad completely. I'm next. I tilt my head back. Up above, the beast-man looks down at me triumphantly, his tongue pulsing in and out of his mouth. And above him I see Peyton, strung up and immobile in his big webby net, his eyes huge and horrified.
Sorry you had to watch this
, I say silently. Then I sink.

Rice swallows my neck, starts filling my ears. I cough and try to hold my breath, but it's no use. Rice goes up through my nose, into my lungs, and presses into my eyelids. And then everything goes black.

I'm dizzy. I stand up slowly, expecting to spit out rice, but my mouth and my nostrils are clear.

Where am I? Am I dead? Everything looks fuzzy. I try to breathe deep and slow. To not panic. It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

Four walls, a wooden floor, windows come into focus. My house. I'm in my house! I want to cry from relief.

I look around, dazed, at a familiar scene. Dad and Inu are sitting on the couch. Peyton sits in the armchair at one end—no wings in sight—and Obāchan's in the kitchen, bustling around. She has cleaned everything up. There's no evidence that an earthquake or tsunami ever hit. It's dim in here, though. Why doesn't Obāchan have any lights on? I crane my head up at where the ceiling lights are—or where they should be. Nothing there but black sky. The roof's not finished yet, I guess.

Maybe it was all just a strange bad dream. Caused by eating too much of Obāchan's chicken and Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Or maybe I passed out during the earthquake, and I'm only waking up now. “Hey.” I test out my voice. It sounds normal. “Hey,” I say again, louder, getting the cobwebs out.

The others don't respond right away. I sit in the armchair opposite Peyton, my heart rate slowing. I did imagine it all. There was no tsunami, no boat, no wings, no demons, no Momotaro. Life is back to normal—heck, it never even changed.