Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (12 page)

“No,” I said.
 
“Not a
worm, not exactly.
 
I’m betting they’re
related to the worms in some way though.”
 
I thought it over.
 
“This thing
lived in the trees, right?”

“Yeah,” Wes said.

“The worms are underground.
 
They surface to eat whatever is above ground.”

“So,” Tyrone said.

“So not everything lives on the ground.
 
Some of the food lives in the trees.”
 
I pointed to Bostic.
 
“Even some people.”

Lou said, “I get it.
 
This worm-head feeds the Banshees.
 
It knocks animals... and people out of the trees so they can eat.”

“Holy crap,” Wes said.
 
“That’s brilliant.”

“That’s terrifying,” April said.

“One thing I don’t understand,” I said looking at Bostic.

“What?” he asked.

“When Wes and I zipped back over to the platform to help
you the other day, you said it was new.
 
You hadn’t seen it before.”

“I hadn’t.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Bostic chuckled.
 
“Good luck trying to make sense out of anything that goes on around
here.
 
If you’re right about this thing,
it could be that food on the ground was getting scarce, so the Banshees
adapted.
 
Grew one of these things to
round up some food.
 
Ain’t you ever heard
of evolution?
 
That’s how it works.”

“So there’s only one of these things?” April said
hopefully.

“Don’t know,” Tryone said.
 
“But this thing was going somewhere.
 
Could be he was looking for his buddies.”

April groaned.
 
“Just
say ‘Yes’ next time I ask you a question like that.
 
I don’t need to know there might be more of
these things out there.
 
Holy crap!”

“What do we do with it?” Lou asked.

Tyrone shrugged.
 
“Eat it?”

“Gross!” April said.

“Yeah, I’ve gotta agree,” Wes said.
 
“That’s not the most appealing proposal I’ve
heard.”

“But that’s what we’re here for,” Tyrone said looking at
Bostic.
 
“Right?”

Bostic crossed his arms and said, “That was the idea, but
I’m not too sure about this thing.
 
It’s
more bone than meat, ‘cept for the head, and I ain’t got no interest in eating
that head.”

“Again,” April said, “gross!”

I picked it up.
 
“I’ve got an idea.”
 
I walked to
the backdoor of the treehouse and pulled it open.

“What are you doing?” Lou asked leading the others as they
followed.

“I’m going to send it back where it came from.”
 
I walked on the deck and hurried to the
railing.
 
I leaned over the top and
tossed the monkey-worm to the ground below.

We all watched the ground, waiting for the worms to
surface.
 

“Nothing’s happening,” Lou said.

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, a white mound
poked through the ground next to the monkey.
 
The worm stretched to a height of three feet.
 
It seemed to be sniffing the air.
 
Bending down, it ran its end across the dead
monkey.
 

“Is it smelling it?” Tyrone asked.

“Looks like,” Bostic said.

The worm stretched upward again and opened its mouth.
 
To everyone’s complete horror and surprise,
it let out a long mournful cry.

The blood drained from April’s face.
 
“Oh my God!
 
Oh my God! It’s sad!”

“Who cares,” Tyrone said.
 
He stepped forward and leaned over the railing farther than anyone
else.
 
“I killed your sick little monkey
thing, worm!
 
Tyrone killed your monkey!”

I pulled him back. “What are you doing?”

“Letting that piece of crap know I killed its monkey, and
I’m going to kill it the first chance I get!”

The worm let out a warbled moan.
 
It almost sounded like it said an actual
word.
 
It repeated the sound.

“Good gravy,” Wes said.
 
“That thing just said... Tyrone’s name.”

Tyrone’s mouth fell open.
 
He looked scared for the first time in a long time.

The worm bent forward and gently took the monkey into its
mouth.
 
It disappeared underneath the
ground.

***

“Worm’s don’t talk,” Tyrone said sitting on the floor near
Gordy.

“Worms don’t grow as big as a man and have teeth like
sharks either,” Wes said.

Bostic entered the house from the back door.
 
I saw Ariabod casually following him.
 
Lou had talked to him about her suspicions,
and it looked like he thought she made a good case.
 

“So, what do we do?” Tyrone asked.

“First thing,” Wes said, “is for you to stop popping off
like a fool hot head.
 
You ain’t doing
anybody a lick of good with your attitude.
 
Now you got them worms all riled up. They know your name, son.
 
And by golly, that can’t be a good thing.”

I waited for Tyrone to bark back at Wes, but he
didn’t.
 
He shrugged.
 
“I expect you’re right about that.”

“What’s done is done,” I said.
 
“We’ve got to start working on our plan to
take those things out.”

“About that,” Wes said.
 
He couldn’t bring himself to look at me.

“What about that?” I asked.

“I may have let my emotions get the best of me before.”

I gritted my teeth.
 
“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it would be more than foolish to tangle with
those things.
 
Maybe we should help
Bostic on a hunt or two and move on.”

“But those things killed Kimball,” I said.

“And I am torn up about that Oz.
 
I’m telling you true on that, boy, but those
things are like little demon submarines that come out of the ground without no
notice at all.
 
I just don’t see how we
can fight them without losing a body or two in the process.
 
And frankly, getting Lou or Gordy or Tyrone
or me killed going after those things ain’t gonna make you feel better about
losing Kimball.”

“You afraid?” I asked.

“Hell, yes I’m afraid,” Wes said.
 
“And I’m a little concerned that you don’t
appear to be.
 
Fear is a good thing,
Oz.
 
It’s what keeps you alive.”

“They killed Kimball,” I said with more conviction than I
had ever spoken before.
 
My face was hot,
and I felt the blood rushing to my temples.

“Settle down, son,” Wes said placing his hand on my
shoulder.
 
“I get it.
 
I swear I do.”
 
He sighed and removed his hand.
 
“I’m in on this if we do it my way.
 
Safe.”

I calmed myself.
 
“I’m listening.”

Wes scratched the fat under his chin.
 
“The way I figure it, those things come from
somewhere.
 
They ain’t just waiting out
there underground waiting for food to drop.
 
They gotta have a den or lair or something somewhere.”
 
He leaned back as if he’d said something
beyond important.

Tyrone and I shared a glance.

I finally said, “And?”

“And,” Wes said.
 
“Well, I ain’t exactly thought too far ahead of that.
 
I’m in the early stages of my plan, but I’m
of the mind that finding them is more prudent than them finding us.”

Bostic approached Gordy with his bottle of whiskey and sat
down next to the cot.
 
He soaked a cloth
with the alcohol and carefully applied it to Gordy’s wound.

“We need more information from him,” I said pointing at
Bostic.

“Forget it,” Bostic said.

I was surprised by his response because I didn’t think he
could hear me.

“I’m not helping you get your people killed.”

“Then you might want to tell us what you know because we’re
going after those things with or without you,” I said.

He shook his head.
 
“You’re about as thick-headed a kid as I’ve ever known.
 
In my experience, thick heads usually get
chopped off.”

“Do they have a lair?” I asked.

Gordy’s eyes fluttered and he smiled. “You might as well
answer him, giant dude.
 
He’ll just keep
asking until you do.
 
That’s what he does.”

“Fine,” Bostic said, “I don’t know.
 
I’ve never been dumb enough to look for a
lair.”

I stood and approached him.
 
“All your people got taken here?”

“How do you think this place became their feeding
grounds?”
 
His face looked vacant.

“What haven’t you told us about them?”

He eyes floated toward me.
 
“They weren’t always the way they are now.”

“In what way?”

“In every way.
 
They
were nothing but night crawlers not too long ago.
 
Little bitty things.
 
Good size for fishing, but nothing more.”

“What changed?” Wes asked.

“Not sure,” Bostic said.
 
“One day, I was out dumping trash into the compost we built underneath
the tree.
 
Reached in to turn and aerate
the pile.
 
Felt a sharp pain in my finger
and yanked it back.
 
Wouldn’t you know
one of those little suckers had grown teeth and latched onto me.”
 
He held up his finger to show us that he
still had a scar from the incident.
 
“We
were all kind of baffled by it, but we didn’t pay much attention.
 
Some of us even thought it was kind of
funny.”

“Funny?” Tyrone said.

“Funny’s not the right word, I guess.
 
We were amused by it.
 
It was strange enough to be interesting, but
they were just earthworms with teeth.
 
Easy enough to avoid.”

He shifted his eyes about as his brain popped off the
memories.
 
“We had typical forest
critters in this area back then.
 
Used to
stand on that back deck and watch a mess of squirrels hop and scurry about
below.
 
Kind of a peaceful way to pass
the time.”
 
He pursed his lips and
shifted in his seat as if he was seeing something unpleasant.
 
“One day this squirrel, Bonnie-Dale, I called
her, after this woman that taught my Sunday school class when I was kid.
 
Well, Bonnie-Dale came hopping off the tree
and hopped over to a pile of acorns.
 
She
sat there nibbling away.
 
That’s the
first time I saw the ground move.
 
A
night crawler as big as a housecat exploded out of the ground and bit
Bonnie-Dale in half.”
 
He snapped his
fingers.
 
“Quick as that.”

The snap of his fingers jolted us all.
 

“We didn’t think they were so amusing after that.
 
Stayed on our toes when we had to go
below.
 
They’d take a bite out of one of
us from time to time, but we managed to avoid getting seriously hurt.”

“Until?” I asked.

“Until Miss Maggie Green decided to go below by herself one
night.
 
Wasn’t gone five minutes before
we heard her scream.
 
By the time we made
it outside, we saw her being dragged beneath the soil.”
 
He cleared his throat and looked at me.
 
“You asked what I know about them.
 
I know they started off small and they’re
getting bigger all the time.
 
Wouldn’t
surprise me if they reach the deck out there in about two or three month’s
time.”

Gordy sat up in his bed and looked at his leg.
 
“Whatever that stuff you’re putting on my leg
is, it stinks.”

Bostic held up the bottle.
 
“Homemade brew.
 
It’s called
backwoods blackjack.”