Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (13 page)

“You said...”

“I said they fed her to the skinners,” he shouted. “And they did.”

Another crash from overhead.

“But they didn’t let them finish,” Gordy continued.

“What are you saying?” I kept my eyes on the garage ceiling.

“I’m saying the Délons are dirty filthy pigs who get their sick kicks all kinds of ways. They let the skinners do what they do until sis didn’t have a shred of skin, and then they killed the little stick bugs.”

My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You mean...”

“She lived for a couple of days. I tried to take care of her, but what do I know? She died because she couldn’t take the pain anymore.”

I looked at him confused. “She died? But she’s not dead.”

“There’s all kinds of dead in the Délons’ world.” He stood.

His sister shouted in anger this time. “Gordy, come here!”

“What kind of dead is that?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know, Oz. You don’t want to know.”

“Please, Gordy,” his sister begged this time.

“We have to help her,” I said.

“Trust me. There ain’t nothing to help. That ain’t my sister.” He quickly moved to the door to leave the garage.

“I’m going up,” I said.

“No,” he barked. “Not a chance. I won’t let you do it. It’s my sister. Just leave it alone.”

“You just said that wasn’t your sister.” I walked past the car and opened the door to the house.

“Dude, don’t do this. I’m telling you... I’m not coming with you,” He said.

“Fine,” I said. “Go wait by the horses.”

“If you go up there, I won’t have nothing to wait for. She’s skinner dead.”

I turned to him. “What’s that mean?”

“That means she ain’t nothing but a walkin’, talkin’, skinless skinner. She’s got one thing on her mind.”

“What’s that?”

“Eating,” he said. He gave me one last look and then exited the garage.

That should have been enough for me to turn back, but it wasn’t. Something deep inside of me drove me to walk through the door and stand in the dark kitchen of Gordy’s house.

NINE

I stood in the kitchen for what seemed an eternity. All the while I could hear Gordy’s sister begging for help upstairs. I gripped and re-gripped the handle of the hammer 50 or so times as I worked up the courage to make the first step toward the stairs. The longer I hesitated the more it seemed like a bad idea. Then something unexpected happened. Gordy’s sister called out my name.

“Oz Griffin. I smell Oz Griffin.” She cackled and then wept. “Help me, Oz Griffin.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped toward the hallway leading to the stairs. My heart was fluttering like a nervous butterfly. As I got closer to the stairs, I asked myself one question. “What the hell are you doing, Oz?”

I had no acceptable answer, but still I pushed forward. I took the stairs one step at a time, stopping to reassess what I was doing every step of the way. I gripped the hammer with both hands now. My breathing was labored.

I reached the top of the stairs and made myself as flat as I could against the wall. I scanned both ends of the hallway.

“Someone’s upstairs,” Gordy’s sister called out. “And someone smells so good... so tasty...”

That was all I needed to hear. I bolted back down the stairs. Halfway down, I heard a deafening screaming. “Oz, help me! Don’t let them get me!”

I stopped. It was a trap. My mind knew it. But it was Gordy’s sister. If there was the smallest chance she could be helped, then I had to help her. I walked back up the stairs as if I were climbing the final peak on Everest. Every step was carefully calculated, and every prayer I had ever heard in my life came spewing out of my mouth uncontrollably.

I stood in the upstairs hallway, eyes focused on the room above the garage. I flipped the light switch, but nothing came on.

“No lights. No eyelids. No lights. No eyelids.” The voice screeched throughout the house.

I moved down the hallway as silently as I could, but still she heard me. She counted each step I took. “Three steps closer. Four steps closer. Here he comes. Here he comes!”

“Allie,” I said.

“He calls me Allie!” Her voice was shrill with excitement.

“Allie Flynn.”

“Ten steps closer. Eleven steps closer. Twelve steps and at the door. He’s at the door! He’s at the door!”

“Allie,” I said. “You’re not making this easy. I want to help you.”

“Help me, Oz Griffin. Please, help me.”

I turned the knob and let the door open slowly on its own. The room was a guest bedroom. The mattress from the bed was stacked against the window to keep out the light.
No lights. No eyelids.
She had said.

In the darkest corner of the room, directly opposite the door, I saw a silhouette of a little girl. She stood motionless. She was taller than I remember.

“We’re so hungry, Oz Griffin.”

I forced myself to move forward. The hammer was raised, cocked back, and ready to crash down on her head at any time. “Take it easy, Allie. I’m here to help.”

Two-thirds of the way to Allie, I realized it wasn’t her at all. It was a coat rack. I stood in the middle of the room, completely vulnerable. I scanned the room in every direction. My heart went from a nervous flutter to a brutal pounding. “Allie?”

“We’re so hungry.”

The voice came from above me. I jerked my head up. There, crawling on the ceiling like an insect, was Gordy’s little sister. Her skinless body was fire red with patches of black. She wore a lipless grin.

“Can’t you see how hungry we are?” she cried.

“We?”

Slowly dozens of skinners emerged from underneath her, their razor-like mandibles rubbing together.

I attempted to back away, but tripped over the naked bed frame. Skinners started to rain from the ceiling. Allie leapt from the ceiling and landed on my chest.

“Thank you for bringing us food,” she said. Her lidless eyes bulged. Saliva dripped from her mouth as she chomped her teeth. I could feel the skinners starting to take little bites.

“Get off!” I screamed. “Gordy, help!”

A beam of light shot across the room, and struck Allie in the face. She screeched and leapt out of its path. The skinners were still nibbling away. I stood, shaking and swatting at the bugs.

“Leave!” a voice commanded. It was Délon Devlin standing in the doorway with a flashlight. I was never so glad to see a Délon.

“How...”

“Leave before the skinners eat my king.”

“No light. No eyelids!” Gordy’s sister screamed.

I rushed to the door. “What about her?”

He smiled. “Don’t worry, I will show her mercy.” He stepped back and let me pass. “And I will have fun doing so.”

I turned back and watched as Allie deftly climbed up the wall and on the ceiling. “Don’t let the tasty boy go,” she whined. “We are so hungry.”

I raced down the hallway, and down the stairs as Devlin started to put Allie out her misery.

***

Lou and Devlin were waiting on horseback when I emerged from the house. The expression on my face must have told them everything they needed to know, because they didn’t ask a single question. I simply walked over to Chubby, climbed on his back, and waited in silence for Devlin to finish his business.

I was disheartened to see my backpack with my solifipod hanging on the saddle horn of my horse. It wriggled and twisted. Chubby seemed uneasy, so I snatched it up and looped my arms through the straps before I had time to think about it. If I had taken the time to think about it, I probably would have smashed it on the ground and had Chubby stomp on it.

We waited only about five minutes before Devlin exited the house with a grotesque Délon smile. He had clearly enjoyed putting Allie out of her misery. I hated him and appreciated him all at once. I guess that’s how most people feel about the devils in their lives.

He leapt on his horse’s back and gave the command to move. And we did, like a sad, sulking caravan of pre-schoolers off to see a circus we had no interest in seeing.

We passed various residents of Tullahoma as we rode through the town. Some were human, some were going through the change, and some were halfers. All of them looked at us as if we were part of a presidential procession. It was strange and unsettling.

As we entered Manchester, I noticed there was very little traffic. There were only a few cars here and there. Had this been normal times, there would have been a steady stream of cars going back and forth from Tullahoma to Manchester.

I was on the constant lookout for Wes’s van. I peeked over my shoulder so often Devlin started to get suspicious. I reined it in and kept my nervous anticipation in check as best I could.

On top of Monteagle, the temperature was cold enough that a dusting of snow stuck to the ground. The humans on horseback bundled up in two or three layers and we all pulled skullcaps over our ears. Devlin was cold, but he never covered up his shredded Délon uniform. He seemed disoriented at times, and I could swear he shrunk about an inch and a half while we were on top of the mountain.

Given the Délons’ troubles with the cold, I was surprised that they still “allowed” cold weather. After all, this was their world created by their Storyteller, shouldn’t they have control over everything, including the elements? That’s when it occurred to me. The Délons didn’t have control over their own world. They were in fact as helpless as humans were in our world. Even though they controlled their own Storyteller, they were at the mercy of fate.

I smiled as I realized this because it meant one thing. The Délons could be beat.

***

We traveled the same route we did when the Takers were the monsters of choice. As we passed South Pittsburg, I couldn’t help but think about our first encounter with the bicycle gang. Roy stayed in the shadows, while Reya and the others tried to steal our horses. They would have, too, if it hadn’t been for Ajax. He was definitely the kind of ape you wanted to have on your side.

I couldn’t believe I was thinking it, but I missed those days. There was something simple about our mission then. We knew what had to do, and we did it. Not like now.

I still wanted my home back, but defeating the Délons would not get me there. I knew that now. There was something much bigger at play that I had to figure out. Making the Délons go away would only clear the way for the next Storyteller’s monsters.

Dr. Hollis, Pepper Sand’s shrink, knew about the treatment that Stevie Dayton went through. He had called it Hyper Mental Imaging. Individuals with Down syndrome were taught to cope with their condition by visualizing. Only some of them were too good at it. Some of them learned to do more than visualize. They learned to make things happen with their minds. They learned to bring the monsters they created on paper to life to deal with the monsters in their real lives. Now, the lines were blurred.

We deserved it. Those of us who treated Stevie and others with this condition like retards, we deserved being on the business end of the abuse we dished out. I didn’t blame Stevie for where I was. I blamed myself. And nobody with half a brain would disagree with me. When you daydream and create an elaborate fantasy that positions you as the hero and the world around you in desperate need of your super heroic talents, you never imagine that the evil you are battling is really of your own creation as well. But it is. It’s your mind, your fantasy, your evil.

I looked at Lou riding ahead of me. The first time I saw her, she looked like a ratty little homeless kid. Now, she was downright pretty. I didn’t want to think of her that way, but I couldn’t help myself.

What had she done to deserve this nightmare? I knew why Gordy was here. He was a bigger jerk than me, but Lou didn’t strike me as the type to pick on the less fortunate. On the contrary, she seemed like the type who would give one of her kidneys to the less fortunate. Yet here she was, riding alongside me, trying to survive this hell. Why?

I tapped Chubby in the ribs with my heels and rode alongside her. “We haven’t had much time to talk,” I said.

She smiled. “I guess we’ve been kind of busy.”

Riding next to her, I found myself thinking she wasn’t just pretty. She was beautiful. What the hell was happening to me? Lou was a warrior. I couldn’t think of her that way. “Funny, now that we have the time, I don’t know what to talk about?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean. There’s not much use for small talk in this world. Seems kind of silly and pointless.”

“That’s what small talk is,” I said. “But I know what you mean.”

We rode in uncomfortable silence for a few excruciating moments. She cleared her throat and spoke up. “I heard about your parents... What you saw, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I replied. I found myself hoping against hope that we could find a way to stick to small talk.

“They won’t remember it, you know.”

I looked at her and tried to decide if that mattered.

“It’s like being born. Nobody remembers being born.”

“I guess so,” I said. “But...” I didn’t want to have this conversation, but I couldn’t help it. My mouth shot off before my mind had time to shut it down. “I saw my Mom’s face... She was in pain.”

I saw a thousand lies run through Lou’s head. She wanted to tell me that my Mom wasn’t in pain. She wanted to tell me that everything was going to be all right. She wanted to tell me that I would get over what I saw happening to my parents, but thankfully she didn’t. I would have lost all respect for her if she had. She leaned in and whispered, “Use it.”

“What?”

She looked to see how far ahead Devlin was. He was out of earshot. “Make them pay, Oz. Make those purple rats eat dirt and die.”

I smiled. That was the Lou I knew. “Yeah, I’m working on it.”

“If we find their Source before they do, this whole thing is over.”

I shook my head. “We’ve got to be smart about this. Look where killing the Taker Queen got us.”

“Nothing could be worse than this,” she said.

“We don’t know that.”

“You don’t know, Oz. You haven’t seen the things I’ve seen. You think what’s happening to your parents is bad. It’s nothing compared to 90% of the stuff I’ve seen Roy and Reya do. If they find the Source before us, it’s only going to get worse.”