Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (19 page)

“Then let me go,” Wes said.

“Won’t work.
 
You’re
too big.
 
I’m just a kid.
 
They won’t see me as a threat.”

Wes gritted his teeth after thinking my logic over.
 
“Why in the hell do you always to have this
stuff figured out right?” He stooped down behind the door and came back up with
a crossbow and a quiver of arrows.
 
“At
least take this.”

“They see a weapon, and I’ll never draw them in.”

“You can’t go out there unprotected.”

I rolled my eyes.
 
“Did you not see what I did to Bostic?”

He nodded.

“I think that pretty much shows I can take care of myself.”

He shook his head.
 
“Damn it. There you go again being right.”

***

I stopped and rested at a small platform on the treeway. I
had no idea how far I had traveled.
 
It
felt like I had been walking for an hour.
 
It was dark, and there were noises coming from the forest below me that
constantly made me rethink my decision to do this alone.
 
The other Myrmidons must have discovered what
we had done by now, and I was pretty sure they were going to want to settle the
score.

I sat with my sack of Myrmidon meat and tried to convince
myself that I was safe up in the treeway.
 
The monkey was gone.
 
We hadn’t
seen another one.
 
And if the Myrmidons did
come, they’d make a lot of noise clomping through the woods.

I heard a tree branch snap, but I wasn’t sure if it came
from above or below me.
 
I shifted to my
left and scanned the woods below.
 
It was
unnaturally still.
 
Nothing was
moving.
 

Another tree branch snapped.

I rolled to my right and scanned the other side.
 
Nothing.

I rolled back over and screamed bloody murder when I saw a
Ratty-Bob standing over me.

“I seen you,” he said.
 
Half his face was hidden under the hood of his sweatshirt.
 
“I seen you at Bostic’s.”

I nodded and scooted back on the platform.
 
“I’m Oz.”

“You don’t know Bostic, does you?”
 
His lips were chapped, and he was missing at
least one front tooth.

“I know enough not to like him that much,” I said.

The Ratty-Bob displayed his half-toothed grin.
 
“He ain’t one to like, that one.”
 
He sniffed the air. “That jubilee meat you
got in that sack?”

“Jubilee meat?”

The Ratty-Bob shuffled his feet and did a little dance,
“Jubilee meat. Jubilee meat.
 
Makes me
dance on my feet.
 
Jubilee meat. Jubilee
meat. Makes my heart go beat, beat, beat.”

I stood. “It is.”

He pulled back his hood and revealed the rest of his
battered face.
 
He was covered in red
blotches and one of his ears was missing.
 
“What you gonna do with that jubilee meat?”

I held up the sack. “I brought it for you.”

His eyes opened wide, and he clapped his hands
together.
 

“I want some information first.”

“Max ain’t got no information,” he said.

“Who’s Max?”

The Ratty-Bob held up his filthy hand. “I am.
 
Max is me.
 
Max, Max, Max.”

“How do you know you don’t have the information?” I asked.

He bobbed his head from left to right.
 
“Because I know what information I got, and I
ain’t got no information.”

I started to regret my trip out into the darkness to find
the Ratty-Bobs.

“My people got information,” he said.

I put the sack behind my back.
 
“Where are your people?”

“Around and around,” he said pointing randomly.
 
He stopped and clasped his hands
together.
 
“They’re around.”

“Take me to them,” I said.

He nodded his head anxiously.
 
“Can’t do that. No, no, no.
 
Can’t, can’t, can’t.
 
My people don’t like strangers.”

“You don’t get the jubilee meat if you don’t take me to
them.”

He wrung his hands.
 
“Jubilee meat. Jubilee meat.
 
Makes me dance on my feet.
 
Jubilee meat. Jubilee meat. Makes my heart go beat, beat, beat.”

“I walk in ten seconds and take the meat with me.”

“They really don’t like strangers,” he said nervously.

“That’s okay, I’m sure I won’t like them either.”

“You’ll give me the meat?”

“After you take me to your people.”

He held his clasped hands up and squeezed tightly.
 
“I’ll have to share.
 
They’ll all want some.”

“That’s between you and your people.”

“What do I do?
 
What
do I do?”
 

I showed him the sack again.

“Let me see it?”

I opened the sack and held it out.
 

He reached for it.

I pulled it away.
 
“No touching.”

He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a high
pitched groan.
 
Finally, he leaned
forward and looked in the bag.
 
He barked
out a giggle.
 
“So much jubilee meat.”

“Ten pounds at least,” I said closing the sack.

“Ten pounds?”
 
His
face lit up.
 
“I can share that with my
people.
 
That’s enough for everybody.”

I hoisted the bag over my shoulder.
 
“Offer ends in three seconds.”

“Yes!” he said so loudly that it shook the leaves above
us.
 
He stared at me and said calmly,
“Yes, I’ll take you to my people.”
 
He
chewed his dirty fingernails and stared at me.

“Which way?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said.
 
“I’ll
show you.
 
Follow me.”

He headed down the treeway, but stopped halfway on the
expanse.
 
Kneeling down, he grabbed the
top of a small tree and jumped off the bridge, riding the tree to the ground as
it bent to his weight.

“What are you doing?” I asked as if he’d just jumped in
front of a speeding truck.

“Taking you to my people?”

“What about the worms?”

“You’ve got the jubilee meat.”

“So,” I said.

“Worms don’t like the smell.”
 
He lifted his leg and bent it so I could see
the bottom of his shoe.
 
“We soak our
shoes in the grease.
 
Keeps them away.”

I hesitated and then tied the sack closed.
 
I wasn’t nearly as graceful as Max was
getting down, but I managed somehow without letting go of the meat.
 
Once I was on the ground, I stood still and
watched for any signs of the worms surfacing.
 
“You sure about this?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t be on the ground if I wasn’t,” Max said.
 
“You got the jubilee meat.
 
It’ll keep you safe, safe, safe.

He moved through the brush, and I followed.

***

We entered a clearing in a valley between two mountains
when Max cupped his hands together and blew through them. He made a foghorn-like
whistling sound.
 

“They ain’t gonna like you.
 
No, sir.
 
Not one bit.” he
said.
 
“Don’t do nothing to give them
reason to kill you.”

My spine stiffened.
 
“What would give them reason?”

“Well,” he said after making the whistle sound again,
“talking for one.”

I almost responded with an outraged “What?” but I stopped
myself.

I watched as seven figures approached from the other side
of the clearing.
 
They all had hoods
draped over their heads and they walked as if they were stalking prey.
 
I hoped Bostic was right about them being
scavengers and not hunters.

The group stopped just far enough away that I couldn’t make
out faces, ages, or sexes.
 
I had no idea
what I was dealing with.

The Ratty-Bob in the middle separated himself from the
others. “No strangers, Max.
 
We done gone
over this a million times.”

“But he come for information.
 
He’s got jubilee meat to trade for it.
Jubilee meat tastes so sweet.”

The group chattered in excitement.
 
The leader held up his hand to silence them.
“What kind of information?”

“I need to know more about this meat,” I said.

There was a brief moment of silence before the leader
asked.
 
“You’ll give it to us if we tell
you about the meat?”

“I will.”

“How much?”

“Ten pounds,” Max said excitedly.

The chatter picked up again.

“Bring it here,” the leader said.

Max and I did as requested.
 
There were seven men, all filthy, all missing teeth and various other
body parts.
 
One was missing a hand.
Another an eye.
 
They were not living
nearly as well as Bostic.

The leader was taller and older than the others, but he
wasn’t in any better condition.
 
His name
was Thomas, and once I showed him the meat he smiled with the others.

“You really gonna give us this?” he asked.

“If you tell me what you know about jubilee meat.”

He shrugged.
 
“Okay,
what do you want to know?”

“How to survive without it?”

Thomas coughed out a laugh and the others joined him.
 
“Goodness, why would you want to do a thing
like that?”

“I have a friend I’m trying to help out.”

“What’s wrong with your friend?”

“She ate some of the meat.”

“She don’t need help then,” Thomas said.
 
“Everything’s fixed for her now.”

“I don’t see it that way,” I said.
 
“She doesn’t either.”

“She doesn’t?” He said, clearly confused.
 
He turned and whispered something to a member
of his group and then turned back.
 
“Ain’t no way to live without the jubilee meat once you have a
taste.
 
That’s just the way it is.”

I sighed.
 
“Don’t
tell me that.”

“You asked for information.
 
That’s the information we got.”

I gritted my teeth.
 
“Wes was right.
 
I should have
ripped out Bostic’s throat.”

The group stepped back and went completely silent.

“You know Bostic?” they asked.

Max hung his head.
 
“He lives in the tree with Bostic. Mean, bad Bostic”

“And you brought him here?” Thomas asked in a panic.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked.

“Give us the meat and go,” Thomas said.

“Why are you so afraid of Bostic?”

“We gave the information, now give us the meat.”

“Wait, just tell me about Bostic.”

“He keeps the worms,” Max said.

“Shut up,” Thomas said.
 
“No information on Bostic. Only information on the meat.
 
The meat tastes like life.
 
That’s all we know.
 
Give us the meat.”

“Keeps the worms?
 
What do you mean?”

Max looked at Thomas.
 
“Tell him about bad Bostic.”

“We can’t.
 
He’ll
stop giving us meat if he knows we said anything.”

“Bostic gives you meat?” I asked.

Max waited for Thomas to answer, but when it was clear his
leader wouldn’t, Max jumped in. “We work for it.
 
And it ain’t easy work.”
 
He pulled his hoodie down and showed me his
damaged ear.
 
“Most of us have lost a
part or two baiting for that bad old Bostic.”