Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (10 page)

“Gordy,” I said sounding frantic.
 
“Get out of there!”

Ariabod plodded forward.
 
He was huffing and pounding the ground with his fists with each inch of
ground he took.
 
I realized he was trying
to get the worms’ attention away from Gordy.
 

They weren’t going for it.
 
They were focused on Gordy.
 
Bostic had said they wouldn’t bother eating Gordy because he was sick,
but that didn’t seem to matter to them.

A worm surfaced at Gordy’s heels.
 

“Gordy!” Lou screamed from the deck.

The worm raised up slowly until it towered over Gordy.
 

“Run, Gordy!
 
Run!”
 
I jerked my arm trying to
free myself from Ajax, but he wouldn’t let me go.

Gordy never even turned around.
 
He stood and swayed from side to side.
 
“Hungry!” he said.
 
“So hungry!”

“Ajax,” I said trying to pry his fingers off my arm.
 
“You have to let me go.”

He didn’t budge.

The worm’s mouth opened.
 
Drool hung from its teeth as it bent forward to take a bite out of
Gordy.

Inches from Gordy’s head, the worm jerked back as Ariabod
grabbed it.
 
It twisted and writhed under
the gorilla’s bearhug.
 
Ariabod let out a
ferocious roar.

Gordy finally turned.
 
He was dazed out of his mind.
 
“Is
that what we’re eating?”

Ariabod squeezed and squeezed.
 
The worm squealed in protest.
 
Another worm raised up on the side of
Gordy.
 
Ajax let me go and leaped to the
next tree.
 
In a flash, he swooped down
and scooped Gordy up off the ground.
 

Ariabod let out one last ear-blasting roar and squeezed so
hard the worm exploded in his arms.
 
Guts
and goo sprayed everything within a twenty foot radius.
 

The other worms quickly turned their attention to the now
slime-covered gorilla.
 
He scrambled back
and made his way up the tree I was in before they had a chance to get
close.
 
He spit and groaned as he climbed
up to the deck.
 

Ajax dragged the half limp body of Gordy from his tree to mine.
 
They passed me on their way to the join
Ariabod on the deck.
 

“Still hungry,” Gordy said, “but I’m not eating that stuff
that Ariabod made.
 
Looks gross.
 
Monkey dude said there was real food down
there.”

I climbed up after them, anxious to find out who this
monkey dude was.

***

Gordy sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and sipped from
a cup of water.
 
He mumbled “monkey dude”
to himself over and over again.

Wes and I stood apart from the others and studied him as he
lifted the cup of water from the counter and tilted it toward his lips.

“What do you make of it?” Wes asked.

“Not sure,” I said.
 

“Monkey dude?
 
What
does that mean?”

“He said a man with a monkey told him there was food in the
woods.”

Bostic set a plate of jerky on the counter.
 
Gordy reached for the plate with a shaky hand
and pulled it closer.
 
“Monkey dude said
there was food.”
 
He lifted a piece of
jerky from the plate and bit into it only to recoil almost immediately.
 
“This ain’t food.”

“It’s Bashir jerky,” Bostic said. “I know it tastes a
little like spoiled pork, but it won’t kill you.”

Gordy grimaced and tore a chunk of jerky off with his teeth
then chewed with a scowl on his face.
 

Bostic saw Wes and me and joined us.
 
“Guess I was wrong about your boy there.
 
Looks like he’s going to make it.”

“Can’t believe he’s up and about,” Wes said.

“He’s running a little fever,” Bostic said, “but otherwise
he’s about as tip top as you can you expect.”

“Are you sure you’re the only one left from your group?” I
asked Bostic.

“Positive,” he said.
 
“Worms got every last one of them.

I leaned back against the wall and folded my arms in front
of me.
 
“Then there’s somebody else out
there.
 
Somebody who hangs out with the
monkey thing in the trees and apparently has an interest in feeding the Banshees.”

Bostic raised an eyebrow.
 
“That don’t seem likely.”

“Why?” Wes asked.

“Because I would have run into him by now.
 
I ain’t the most observant guy, but I think
I’d notice some guy running around with an evil little monkey creature and
tossing down human food to the Banshees.”

“Then who’s the monkey dude?” I asked.

“Nobody,” Bostic said.
 
“The kid’s loopy as hell.
 
He was
probably talking to shadows out there.”

“I saw something,” I said.

“What?” Bostic asked.

I hesitated before saying, “A shadow.”

Bostic rolled his eyes.
 
“Right, a shadow. Like I said.”

“But this was a shadow of somebody, a person.”

“Kid,” Bostic said, “shadows in the forest can look like
anything, a person, a bear, Bigfoot.
 
That’s just the nature of the get along between a shadow and someone’s
brain.”

I groaned and stepped away because I was growing frustrated
by the conversation.
 
I knew what I had
seen.
 
It was a shadow of a person.
 
I was positive of it.
 
Tyrone saw it, too.
 
He could verify my story. I looked around the
room, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Tyrone?” I asked no one in particular.

Everyone else turned to me and then did their own
search.
 
Lou went from corner to corner
of the large room checking behind furniture and supplies.
 
“He’s not here,” she finally said.

“Not here?” Wes said doing his own survey of the
treehouse.
 
“Where in the hell could he
be?”

I saw April pass the front entrance to the house.
 
She reached out and pulled the door back with
her finger.
 
“Guys,” she said.

Everyone but Gordy joined her.

“This door was open.”

“You opened it,” Bostick said.
 
“I saw you.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, I did open it, but it was already
open a hair.”

Bostick studied the door.
 
“I locked it.
 
I always lock it.”

I stepped outside and looked for signs of Tyrone.
 
He wasn’t anywhere to be found.
 
I spotted the hook with the harnesses for the
zip line and counted two.
 
There should
have been three.

I motioned for Bostick to join me on the deck.
 
When he stood next to me, I pointed at the
hook.

It didn’t take him long to notice a harness was
missing.
 
“Damn.”

I started for the hook, but he stopped me in my tracks.

“Hold on.”

“What’s going on?” Lou asked joining us on the deck.

“Tyrone took a harness.
 
He must have zipped back across.” I freed myself from Bostick’s grasp
and retrieved a harness from the hook. Lou was right behind me.

“You two figure on going after him, do ya’?” Bostick asked.

“He can’t be far,” I said.

“I got news for you,” Bostic said.
 
“That boy’s been a hundred miles away from
the start. Bringing him back here won’t fix that. You best let him work out
what he’s got to work out.”

Wes stood in the doorway.
 
“Take that harness off, Lou.
 
You
too, Oz.”

I fastened the harness.
 
“Tyrone’s out there...”

“I heard,” Wes said.
 
“Bostic is right on this.
 
Let him
be.”

“Let him be?” Lou said astonished.
 
She fastened her harness and reached up to
hook up to the zip line.

“Damn it!” Wes said stomping towards us.
 
“I said take those harnesses off!
 
You’re not going after him!
 
No one is!
 
It’s dangerous and foolish, and I won’t allow it!”
 
His face was red.
 
Spit formed on the corner of his mouth.
 
He was madder than I had ever seen him.

“But we can’t just let him run off like that.”

“We can, and we will,” he said.
 
“The boy’s full of mad and hate and him
taking off was pure selfish.
 
You going
after him will just make what he done worse because you’re liable to run into
trouble and pay for his stupidity.
 
We
gotta start acting like a team. That only works when all the parts are working
together. You understand me?”

Lou looked at me and waited for me to respond.
 
I held the hook up to the zip line and then
let it drop.
 
“Wes is right.”

“He is?” Lou asked.

“More or less. Besides Tyrone can take care of himself,” I
said stepping out of my harness.

Lou hesitated and then followed suit.
 
She would have gone out on her own looking
for him if she didn’t agree with us.
 
He’s probably lucky she didn’t go looking for him because she would have
come down hard on him when she found him.

We walked back into the house and gathered around
Gordy.
 
He was struggling to eat his
jerky. His head snapped back every time he tore off a chunk with his teeth.

“You feeling better, Gordy?” I asked.

He looked at me glassy-eyed and nodded.
 
“Little fuzzy on where I am and how I got
here.”

“You’re in my humble abode, young man,” Bostic said
stepping forward.

“I kind of remember that.” Gordy tilted his chin up and
squinted his eyes as he examined the tree-sized man.
 
“Good Lord, you’re big.”

Bostic chuckled.
 
“So
I’ve been told.”

“You’re the one who gave me the jerky?” Gordy asked holding
up a piece of the dried meat.

“I am.
 
How is it?”

“Awful and disgusting and horrible,” Gordy said sliding the
empty plate across the counter.
 
“You got
any more?”

Bostic picked up the plate and approached the pantry.

“You remember about the man with the monkey?” I asked
Gordy.

He took a sip of water. “Man with the monkey?”

“He told you there was food in the forest.
 
Remember?”

He shook his head.
 
“Doesn’t ring a bell...” He snapped his fingers.
 
“Monkey dude!”
 
His eyelids fluttered, and he grabbed hold of
the counter to steady himself.
 
“Head
rush.”

April put her arms around his shoulders and helped him off
the stool.
 
“You should lie down.”

He nodded and then gazed at her momentarily.
 
I could practically see him get a vision of
April biting his leg.
 
He yelped and
pushed her away.
 
“Get away from me!”

April’s face drained of all color.
 
She was devastated by his reaction.
 

“Gordy,” I said, “take it easy.”

“Take it easy?
 
She
tried to eat me!”

“We all tried to eat each other, buddy-boy,” Wes said.

“Yeah, well nobody else took a bite out of anyone.”

April reached for him, but he pulled away.
 
“I’m sorry, Gordy.
 
I’m truly, truly sorry.”

Lou stepped between them and draped Gordy’s arm over her
shoulder.
 
“I think he just needs some
rest.
 
That’s all.
 
He’s not thinking clearly.”

“Lou,” Gordy said excitedly.
 
“Pretty, pretty Lou.”

April looked even more hurt.