The Land of the Dead: Book Four of the Oz Chronicles (21 page)

“I’m back,” I said knowing that the other staff members couldn’t hear me.

He half turned with a creepy smile on his face. “So you are,” he said.

The other painters looked at each other, but quickly got back to their food. Clearly they were used to Fish’s weird behavior. Seeing him talk to thin air was nothing new to them.

“I brought friends,” I said.

He craned his neck a little more and saw Lou in the doorway. His smile grew a little bit bigger and then Throwaway Grace stepped past Lou. His smile faded quickly. “What…”

As if Grace knew the old man was tortured by her presence, she approached the old man and said, “Hello, Mr. Howard.”

A painter at the table looked up from his meal and said, “Howard? Thought your name was Fish?”

Fish looked at the man with pure terror in his eyes. “You heard her?”

The painter flashed a half-toothed grin. “You’re a nutty one, Fish. Bashir must have been half in the bag when he hired you.”

“Bashir is as stupid as that mongoloid kid of his,” the youngest of the painters said with a mouth full of ham sandwich.

“Here now,” the woman who had shown us the way to the dining room said, “None of that talk. Mr. Bashir hears you talking like that he’ll run you off the property with a pistol.”

Fish had not taken his eyes off Grace.

I laughed. “This is where we make you pay.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong!” Fish yelled.

The other painters looked startled by the obvious panic in his voice. One of them even went for the carving knife sticking out of the ham.

“Paint fumes have gotten to you, old man,” the young painter said.

I chuckled. “This is just the beginning. The others are coming.”

“No!” The old man grabbed the bowl of apples and flung it at me. It passed through me and struck the wall. Apples flew everywhere. He bolted out the back entrance to the dining room. I followed close behind. I heard the woman pleading with Lou and Grace to steer clear of Fish, but they emerged from the dining room shortly after.

Fish crashed through another door, and I could see the light from outdoors pour in. I let Lou and Grace catch up and we all exited the same door.

“What do we do?” Lou asked.

“He doesn’t have the package with him,” I said. “We’ve got to hope he leads us to it.”

“What then? He’s not just going to hand it to us.”

“I’ll distract him while and you and Grace grab it and take off.”

“We can’t separate,” she said.

“We have to,” I said. “Make your way back to the pool.”

We followed Fish to a small row of stables. A half dozen horses wandered around a fenced-in area not far off. He walked as quickly as he could to a ladder leaned up against the side of one of the stables. A small wall of paint cans stood to the right of the ladder. He made his way around the cans and bent down out of sight. When he reappeared, he had the package in his hand.

“Hey,” I barked. “It’s over, Fish. Grace is just the first one. The others are coming.”

“Shut up!” He backed away. “I sent them to heaven. They couldn’t have gone without me.”

Throwaway Grace approached him without prompting from Lou or me.

“What is she doing?” Lou whispered.

“I don’t know, but it’s freaking the old man out, so I say we let her go with it.”

“We appreciate everything you’ve done for us, Mr. Howard.”

Fish’s entire body was shaking. “I loved you all,” he said.

“We know.” Grace smiled. “That’s why we’re throwing you a party.”

His expression changed from panic to relief in an instant. “A party?”

“Yes, sir,” Grace said. “There’s cake and punch.” Approaching him, she reached out and took his free hand. “And plenty of sweet, sweet meat.”

“A party for me? You’re all such wonderful children.”

“We’ve new tools for you,” she said covering her mouth. “Oh, I’ve ruined the surprise. Now you know what your present is.”

Fish laughed a sick and hardy laugh. “I won’t tell.”

“Thank you, Mr. Howard.” She looked at us and smiled. “I promised everyone that you wouldn’t bring your old tools with you.”

The panic started to creep back into his face. “I can’t leave my tools.”

“But we’ve gotten you new ones. It will ruin everyone’s fun if you bring the old tools. You don’t want to ruin everyone’s fun, do you, Mr. Howard?”

He thought it over. His eyes darted back and forth from the package of tools to Grace’s face. “I wouldn’t want to do that.”

Grace squeezed his hand. “You can leave the package here. You won’t need it anymore.”

The old man hesitated, bent down, and carefully laid the package on the grass.

“Everyone will be so pleased. Remember, you have to be surprised when you open your present,” Grace said, leading the old man toward the woods that surrounded the stables.

“I will.”

Lou started for them, but I grabbed her arm. “Don’t move until they’re out of sight.”

“We can’t let her just go off with him,” she said.

“Just hold on,” I said.

“But…”

I squeezed her arm. “This is the way it has to be.”

She stopped resisting me and we both watched as Grace and the old man vanished into the woods. Once there were no signs of them, we ran to the package.

“That was insanely brilliant,” I said. “I can’t believe she did that. Did you talk to her?”

“No,” Lou said. “I certainly wouldn’t have told her to go off into the woods with the sadistic cannibal.”

“Well, it worked.”

“Just one thing,” Lou said.

“What?”

“How do we get it back to our world without Grace? We need a Throwaway to bring it back.”

Or a Never-was, I said to myself. “I may have been wrong about that,” I said. “I think I’m the only one who can’t be seen or interact with this world.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lou said.

“Look where we are,” I said. “Does any of this make sense? The staff in the mansion saw you but not me.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean…” she bent down and reached for the package. Part of me wanted her hand to pass right through it. She was real. She had to be. Just as I convinced myself that she wasn’t a Never-was, I saw her hand land gently, but solidly, on top of the canvas wrapped package. She screeched. “You were right. It must just be you.”

I nodded. “Must be.”

She picked up the package, and we heard a scream from the woods. “C’mon,” she said running for the trees.

“No!”

“What?” she asked.

“We can’t,” I said.

“But that was Grace.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“That was Grace,” she repeated in a tone that suggested that she could not be talked out of believing it.

“Listen,” I said. “We have to get that package back to our world. That’s the only thing that matters. If we leave the Land of the Dead without it, it’s over.”

“But…”

“Nothing else matters.”

She looked at me with fire in her eyes. “I’m not leaving her.”

I groaned. I was mad, but not at her. I was mad at me for being so willing to leave Grace behind. “I’ll go after her. You get back to the pool.”

She thought about arguing, but she knew deep down that I was right. The package mattered more than Grace. She kissed me on the cheek and said, “You better make it back.”

I nodded and sent her on her way.

Entering the woods, it was easy to spot Fish and Grace’s path. They had stomped their way through some pretty thick bush, breaking off limbs and leaving footprints along the way.

I reached a clearing and spotted something lying in the tall thick grass. The closer I go to it the more I realized that it wasn’t just something. It was Grace. I picked up my pace and scanned the area for the old man as I ran. He was nowhere to be seen.

Kneeling down beside Grace, I saw her eyes flutter. She was alive, alive as a Throwaway could be. “Grace, are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. She just smiled.

“Did he hurt you?”

She nodded.

“Where did he go?”

“He’s gone to get his tools.”

Her eyes started to close. “I’m taking you back.”

She pushed herself away from me. “You have to find Lou before he does.”

“I can’t just leave you.”

“I’ll be okay.” Her smile got bigger.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I got to be part of the story.” With that, her eyes closed and her smile continued to grow.

I stood. “I’ll come back,” I said knowing in my gut that I wouldn’t be able to return for her. “You were always part of the story. All of you.” With that, I ran towards the mansion.

***

I stood on the edge of the pool looking for Lou. There was no sign of her. I was breathing heavily with my hands on my knees. My head felt like a lead weight. Every cell in my body ached from the sprint I had just completed. How could she not be here?

I glanced at the water and saw a dark object… no, two dark objects. It was Lou and the old man. He had her by the throat. Without a thought to my state of exhaustion, I dove into the pool, never taking into consideration that I was totally helpless in this world.

I swam at the old man and passed right through him. I turned and headed for him again. Lou kicked her way loose and swam for the surface. The old man did his best to go after her, but a current had hold of him and started to pull him back. I got caught in it, too. I even started to see Lou struggle against it.

Suddenly, the pool became pitch black, and I hit the ground with a crunching pop. I heard Lou moan in agony. We had made it out of the Land of the Dead.

I coughed and worked hard to breathe normally. “Lou, you okay?”

“Been better,” she said.

The room, still dark, got bright enough for me to see her sitting up. “The package?”

She looked at me. “I don’t have it.”

DAY 9

TWENTY

“What do you mean you don’t have it?” I said lying back down and covering my face with my hands. We were done without that package. We had one more day to make it back to the Land of the Dead and get the package to Detective King. That was the plan. Now we had nothing to deliver to the detective.

“I mean I don’t have it,” she said. I could hear her getting to her feet. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not here.”

I sat up. “What?”

“I knew the old man was after me, so I hid it,” she said.

I got to my feet. “You hid it?”

“I figured we didn’t have to actually bring it back with us. If I hid it somewhere in the mansion, it would be waiting for us when we got back.”

“You figured?” I asked sounding more than a little skeptical.

“It makes sense, right?”

“Where did you hide it?”

She headed for the shallow area of the pool, and I followed her hoping against hope that she figured right. She reached behind the ladder and popped out a screen to a filtering system. Her hand disappeared into the rectangular hole, and it seemed like an eternity passed before she pulled it out holding the package.

“Told you,” she said.

“That was your hiding place?” I said in disbelief.

“It’s not like I had a lot of time. I was lucky I found this spot.”

We both climbed the ladder.

“Where’s Ajax?” Lou asked as she stood waiting for me at the top of the ladder.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “He wouldn’t leave without a reason.”

Lou took off running before I suggested we go looking for him. She headed directly for the bowling alley. Ariabod was gone, too. Gordy was propped up against the wall mumbling to himself. I kept my distance while Lou questioned him. I was so far away I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I could tell that Gordy was on his last legs. He had lost a lot of blood, and he’d had nothing to eat or drink in days. He was sick. I could smell it.

Lou said one word that told me everything I needed to know about what was going on.

“Délons.”

I could feel the blood rush through my veins. As soon as the word left her mouth, I could tell that they had been here. I could still feel their thoughts lingering in the air. I was still tuned into their collective.

“Ajax and Ariabod took on six of them in the basement.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Where are the dead Délons?” I asked.

“There aren’t any. They fought for a while and then as suddenly as they arrived they retreated.”

“That’s not very Délon-like,” I said.

“Maybe they’re still here. Upstairs.”

“No, they’re gone. I’d know it if they were still here… Upstairs?” It came out like a question to her, but it wasn’t. I was basically asking myself how I could be so stupid. “C’mon,” I said, and we raced through the Halloween Room and headed for the stairs.

***

I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face. Archie lay on a wooden table, still alive, but most likely wishing he was dead. The shunter attached to his face was sucking out his humanity.

Ajax and Lou signed to each other, while Kimball and Ariabod waited at the entrance to the fourth floor observatory.

Lou finished her conversation with Ajax and joined me by Archie’s side.

“The six Délons in the basement were a decoy. They were sent down to keep Ajax and Ariabod busy while General Roy and his men came up here and took Bobby.”

“What about Wes, Tyrone, and April?”

“They’re alive. The Délons had no interest in them.”

“They came for the Storyteller.”

She nodded. “There’s something else.”

She handed me a note. “They left this note on Archie’s body.”

I took it from her and read it to myself. “Fulfill his destiny.”

“What does it mean?” Lou asked.

I looked at the translucent jellyfish-like mass on Archie’s face. I could see the unbearable pain leaking from his eyes. I thought back to the facility where I knew Archie as Scoop-face. His eyes and nose were missing. I did it to him. That’s what he had said.

“I don’t know what it means,” I answered.

“We can’t leave him like this,” she said.

She was right, and I almost hated her for it. I wanted her to tell me that he wasn’t our responsibility. That we should just leave him, but that’s not why Lou was here. She was here to make sure I did the right thing no matter how wrong it felt.

“Take the gorillas and Kimball and check on the others. Let them know that this will all be over soon. They just have to hold out for one more day.”

“What are you going to do?” She asked.

“Fulfill his destiny,” I said.

She hesitated. When she said we couldn’t leave him like this, she meant she wanted me to find a way to save him, but I knew that wasn’t possible. I can’t explain how, but I had been here before, hundreds of times maybe, and I had tried every way possible to save Archie, including ripping his face off and turning him into Scoop-face. I never succeeded, and Archie ended up paying dearly for my failed efforts. I wouldn’t make him pay this time.

Lou left the observatory with the animals and I fought to keep from passing out. I didn’t relish the thought of killing a man, especially a man who had helped me escape the facility and one I considered a friend. I pulled my hunting knife from my sheath and gripped it with a shaky hand.

“I wish there was another way, Archie.” My voice cracked and changed pitch as I held back tears. “I don’t want to do this.”

I saw his eyes fixate on me.

“You are Creyshaw,” I said gripping the knife with both hands and raising it above my head. I counted to three, took a deep breath, and fell to my knees in a blubbering mess. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill him.

I felt a gentle tapping on my head. Startled at first, I backed away and then realized it was Archie patting me on the head. He motioned me to come closer. I did as asked, and he grabbed my hand holding the knife and guided it to his chest. I looked in his eyes and knew what he was telling me. I nodded, raised the knife over my head, and reminded myself out loud, “I am Creyshaw.”

***

I threw-up three times after fulfilling Archie’s destiny, which meant my stomach had less than nothing in it to keep me from starving to death. I was discovering that hunger is not only painful, but it’s exhausting as well. I was so tired I barely had strength enough to descend the stairs. I stopped every ten steps or so and sat down to catch my breath.

I sat on the bottom step on the first floor and hung my head. I was so tired I had forgotten what was left for me to do. I knew I had one last trip to the Land of the Dead, but I couldn’t remember why. It wasn’t until I saw Lou approach with the package underneath her arm that I remembered.

“Detective King,” I meant to say in full voice, but I wasn’t capable of it. The words barely escaped my lips.

“We can’t wait,” Lou said. “Wes and Tyrone look worse than you. I couldn’t even wake April up, and you saw Gordy. He’s on death’s door.”

“Listen,” I said, “if this doesn’t work, you have to make sure that we don’t get out of here.”

“This will work.”

“We don’t know that. We don’t even know if our next trip to the Land of the Dead will take us to King. This is the ninth day. If one of us gets out of here, we will infect the rest of what’s left of this stupid world.”

“What am I supposed to do, kill all of you?”

I didn’t answer because she knew that was exactly what she was supposed to do.

“You can’t ask me to do that,” she said as the tears began to fall.

“I’m not asking you,” I said. “I’m telling you. We’re all weak from hunger. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The Flish was expecting one of us to give in to temptation and take the others out. Eating them one by one. That would leave one infected individual strong enough to leave this mansion and spread his sickness across the globe. Instead he’s got five strong-willed people barely able to stand. None of us will be able to put up a fight. Chain us up, and burn this place down with us inside.”

“I’ll be alone,” she said sitting beside me. I could feel her trembling.

“No, you won’t. You’ll have Ajax, Ariabod, and Kimball. And you’ll have a mission.”

“What?” she asked wiping the corners of her eyes.

“Get that Délon picture to Tarek. He’ll know what to do with it.” With that, I leaned back and lay down on the steps. “I’m so tired.”

I felt her shake me. “Don’t go to sleep.”

I turned to her, smiled, and closed my eyes.

***

I awoke to the sound of a horn honking. I opened my eyes and groaned as the glare from the sunlight seemed to zap my brain. After a while, I found the strength to sit up and examine my surroundings. The old-timey cars puttered up and down the busy street.

My hand shielding my eyes, I turned to the right and saw the dead boy crouched over me. I propped myself up on my elbows.

“I hope this is the right place,” I said.

“It is,” I heard Lou say excitedly. She was at the corner of the street. The people of the Land of the Dead were giving her strange looks for her choice of clothing. This time period didn’t look too kindly on girls in pants, especially girls in jeans.

I stood up. “How do you know?”

“Because I heard that woman call that man Mr. King,” she pointed to a man and woman down the street.

I approached and looked in the direction she was pointing. “That’s him.” I looked up at the street sign: East 52
^nd
Street. As I panned down from the sign, I caught a glimpse of an elderly man approaching from two blocks away. Fish.

“We have to hurry,” I said.

“Why?” She turned and answered her own question. “Crap.”

A portly woman dressed in a fine blue dress gasped. “Such language.”

Lou and I made a beeline for the detective.

“What do I say to him?” she asked. “He’s going to think I’m nuts.”

“Probably, but you just have to make him understand.”

We reached the Detective and Lou was so nervous that she was out of breath. “Detective King.”

The stout middle-aged man turned and looked at her with puffy blood-shot eyes. He looked as though he had not slept in years. He stared at Lou with a peculiar glare. “What is wrong with you, young lady, and how do you know my name?”

“Albert Fish,” was all she said to make his eyes brighten.

“What about him? Do you know where he is?”

“Yes, sir. He’s coming. We don’t have much time.”

“He’s coming?”

“Listen to me,” Lou barked. She was in a full-blown panic. She held out the canvas wrapped package. “This is his. It belongs to him.”

The detective took the package from Lou. “What is it?”

“His tools.”

“Tools?”

“I don’t have time to explain. You can’t let him have them. He gets his powers from his tools.”

“Powers?” The detective laughed.

“He doesn’t get it,” Lou said to me.

“Who doesn’t get what?” The detective asked.

“You’re doing fine,” I said.

She sighed. “These are your tools now, Detective King. You can’t let Fish get to them. Do you understand? If he gets his hands on this package, more kids will go missing. More kids will die. Do you understand?”

I saw something in his eyes change. If I was right, a little flash of light went off in his brain. He got it. He recognized that he would never understand completely why, but that package was his to watch over and protect. For a brief second, he seemed overwhelmed by the idea, but just as quickly something changed in him and he accepted it. That’s when I knew for sure that he was the Keeper.

“I get it, kid. I’ll never let it out of my sight.”

Lou smiled. “You have no idea how important this is.”

He smiled back. “I think I do.”