Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (21 page)

Canter reached the top of the mound and pulled me to my feet.

I looked at him, grateful but suspicious.

“A favor,” he thought.

“What’s the price?”

He looked confused. “Price?”

“What do I owe you in return?”

“You’ll know soon enough.” A Long Legs reached the top of the mound. “Find your new shunter and get out of here.” With that, he rushed the giant spider. I watched as he started to tear it apart leg by leg. “Go!” He shouted in my head.

I jumped down the mound, lost my footing, and tumbled head over feet to the concrete floor of the hangar, banging my knee. I screamed in pain, but managed to stand. Somehow, J.J. was still in my hand. I limped toward the light in the back of the hangar. The mounds got progressively smaller the closer I got to the light. The sounds of the silencers ripping the Long Legs to shreds echoed throughout the metal building. I imagined the Long Legs were getting their licks in as well, but the silencers by their very nature did not scream or yell out in pain.

I reached the lighted area. It was an exit sign. My second dead-end. Miles said I would know the general’s stock when I saw it, but he never said it would be easy to find. I yelled in frustration. My knee was killing me. I was covered in slime from the solifipods. Giant Daddy Long Legs chased me. I owed a tongue eating crab-man a favor for saving my life, and on top of it all, I could spend the next week inside the hangar and never find the general’s precious solifipod stock. Lou deserved a better hero than me.

I sat down on the floor with my back against the door below the exit sign. I wanted to cry, but I was too tired. I closed my eyes, and tried to wish myself out of the hangar. The aches and pains my body had collected over the last couple of days pushed their way into my consciousness. I hurt all over. I grimaced, shifted, and squirmed, trying to find a comfortable position while I sat and contemplated how many ways I had failed. My mind was about to settle on my first misstep when I felt the ground shake. I opened my eyes. The ground shook again. I looked right, then left. Nothing. The ground shook again. I tried to stand, but my knee had stiffened. The pain was too intense. A little voice in my head was screaming for me to run. The ground shook again. This time it was followed by a high-pitched screech. I looked to my left again, and to my great disappointment, I finally saw what was causing the commotion, a Long Legs – the granddaddy of all the Long Legs. It must have been fifty feet high, and I got the sickening feeling it was looking for me. While it had no eyes that I could see, it still seemed to spot me. It let out a series of short screeches, almost like it was laughing maniacally. I tried to push myself up, but I couldn’t. Fear had joined the pain in my body and completely immobilized me.

The Long Legs approached. Each step it took shook the entire hangar. I held on to J.J. feebly. I was dead. I had accepted that much, but that didn’t mean I was happy about it. Maybe I could give the mutant spider one last jab before it sucked me into its ugly mouth.

When it reached me, it probed my face with one of its thin long legs. I knocked it away. It stooped and brought its massive oval shaped body down to my level. It did have eyes. Millions of tiny black eyes outlined its body. Two smaller legs that had been folded underneath its body, reached out for me. I flinched. The Long Legs screeched in disapproval. The smaller legs weren’t legs at all. They were hollow tubes. The Long Legs ran the hollow tubes across my face. It was smelling me. I almost laughed. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t funny at all. I was about to be eaten by an ugly giant Long Legs, and it was smelling me first. I wondered if I farted if it would leave me alone.

The Long Legs retracted its hollow tubes and folded them back under its body. “Did I pass the smell test,” I laughed.

Its body began to shudder. Its mouth started to make the sucking noise the other Long Legs had made, and it opened and closed, slowly at first and then more rapidly as time went on. I saw a purple hump appear through the mouth opening, surrounded by a thin transparent membrane. The Long Legs shuddered even more. It was vomiting. Slowly the purple hump got bigger and bigger. It wasn’t until it was almost all the way out that I realized what it was. It was throwing up a solifipod. The general’s stock.

The Long Legs seemed exhausted after it dropped the solifipod on the floor in front of me. It stood to its full height and clumsily walked away, leaving me grateful that it had not eaten me, and grateful it had given me what I came for. I removed the backpack and stuffed the solifipod inside. Pushing back the aches and pains I had allowed to creep in earlier, I stood and threw open the exit door.

To my surprise, Miles was waiting for me on his horse. He was holding onto Chubby’s reigns.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He smirked. “The man in the white coat wants to see you.”

“What?”

In a blink of an eye, the blackened Délon night disappeared.

***

“Send me back!” I demand.

The man in the white coat ignores me. He writes in his notebook.

I stand. “Send me back, now!”

“We’ve done enough for today,” he insists, still scribbling in his notebook.

I feel like pouncing on him, but I know it will bring nothing but trouble. I sit back down and collect myself. Think! Think! I have to get back. Lou needs me.

The man in the white coat gets up and moves to his desk. He looks for something in a pile of papers. I can’t for the life of me figure out why he thinks this is so unimportant. Lou is going to die if I don’t get back.

“We can continue this next week...” he says still going through the papers on his desk.

“I can’t wait until next week.”

“Why is that, Oz?” He glances over at me.

“I have to get the solifipod back to the condo!” I’m trying not to raise my voice.

“There’s no such thing as a solifipod or Lou for that matter. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’re on the road to recovery.”

I’m growing increasingly angry, and the man in the white coat is aware of it. “You said if I found the Source it might help...”

“It’s obvious you don’t know what this Source is, Oz.” He moves back toward the couch.

“I...” He’s listening. I can get him to send me back. “I’ll know it when we get to that part of the story.”

He looks at me with a curious expression. “That’s the first time you’ve called this a story. Does that mean you know this isn’t real?”

Without thinking I say, “I’m beginning to feel that way.” Was I?

He sits back down in his chair and gives me a hard look. He rubs his chin. “If I put you back under, you mustn’t dawdle any longer than you have to. We must find this Source. Do you understand?”

I nod. “I only have to help Lou and find Ajax. I’ll find the Source then. I know it.”

He thinks over my terms and then nods. “Lay down,” he says. “We’ll give this one last try.”

***

Getting the solifipod to open was the tricky part. They came out when they came out. Supposedly there was no coaxing them out. Gordy and I noticed that whenever I was near, the shunter chirped like crazy. “Ain’t that cute?” Gordy smiled. “It likes you.”

“Great,” I said. “But it still won’t open for me.” We knelt (me on a very sore knee) around the coffee table trying to solve the puzzle of the reluctant shunter.

Lou was lying on the nearby sofa. She was running a fever, but she was still conscious. She kept a weary eye on us. Getting the solifipod to open was going to be the easy part compared to what she would have to do.

“Go get a knife out of the kitchen,” I said.

“You’re going to cut it open?”

“You got any other ideas?”

Gordy stood. “What about them?” He pointed out our

penthouse window to the crawling Délons. “They ain’t going to be too happy if you slice this puppy up.”

I watched as the thick layer of Délons climbed all over each other. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

“You’ll deal with it,” he said walking toward the kitchen. “If they ask, I didn’t know nothing about it.”

He was in the kitchen for less than a minute. He emerged with a large knife with a black handle that had three brass rivets.

“I think it’s one of them Ginsu knives. It can cut through a metal pipe,” he said proudly. “That’s what they say on the infomercial anyway.”

He handed it to me handle side out. I took it and placed the sharp side of the blade gently on top of the solifipod. Gordy positioned himself between the window and me. I shut my eyes and said a quick prayer. Opening my eyes, I bore down on the handle and began sawing the top of the solifipod. The solifipod hide was tough. The sharp knife didn’t leave so much as a scratch. I bore down harder. Still nothing. I tightened my grip on the solifipod with my other hand. I stood trying to put my legs into it. My knife holding hand slipped and I stuck myself with the knife. I raised up, gritted my teeth, and sucked in air.

“Ahhhh,” I said. “Damn!” I bled from a surface wound. The solifipod must have dulled the knife otherwise it would have cut my hand off. Drops of blood dripped down on the solifipod. The shunter began to chirp wildly. Gordy and I exchanged a glance. Seconds later, a small opening appeared on top of the solifipod.

“Dude,” Gordy said, “the blood.”

I held my bleeding hand over the solifipod and let the blood fall freely. The solifipod opened wider and wider. “Get Lou over here,” I said.

Gordy was stunned by the sight of the solifipod opening. He snapped out of his brief trance and helped Lou off the couch.

Lou’s eyes were slits. Her cheeks were beet red from fever. The rest of her complexion was ghost white. Her bloodshot eyes focused on the gaping opening in the solifipod.

“You know what you have to do, right?” I asked.

She nodded weakly.

“Do you want me to help?”

She shook her head, and I felt relieved.

She fell to her knees in front of the coffee table. She was covered in sweat. She slowly lifted her right hand, still a little swollen from the previous sting, and let it hover over the opening in the solifipod.

She looked at me for reassurance. I smiled and tried to give her strength with a quick affirmative nod. I was scared to death for her, but I couldn’t let her know it. She closed her eyes and shoved her hand in the opening.

Maybe two seconds passed before she screamed at such a pitch it seemed to vibrate every glass in the condo. The crawling Délons stopped in their tracks and turned their full attention to what we were doing. I pulled Lou up by her shoulders before the purple, dead-eyed freaks could see. The solifipod closed quickly. I was sure that none of the spies outside the window saw a thing.

I sat Lou down on the couch. Her regular color flew back into her face, and her eyes gradually opened wider and wider. She was slowly returning to the Lou I knew and loved. I sat down next to her.

She examined my face closely. “Don’t be scared.” With that she closed her eyes and rested her head on my shoulder. It was the first time since I found out the Délons were in charge that I was actually glad to be where I was. I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. I can’t explain it. I just knew that being with Lou was where I was supposed to be.

SIXTEEN

We all slept until the next afternoon or at least what we thought was afternoon. There seemed to be only two times of day in Délon City, dark and slightly less dark. I realized after finding some peanut butter and crackers in the pantry that I hadn’t formulated a plan to spring Ajax. I had been so consumed with worry for Lou that I had not given my old gorilla friend much thought beyond the conversation at dinner. He was part of the one-on-one match today, and I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out ways of getting him out of that. But in the end I decided he’s not the one you would have to worry about in a one-on-one match. It was the other poor sap that they had him matched up against that would have to worry. Ajax was the greatest warrior I had ever seen. I couldn’t think of man, monster, or animal that was any match for him.

Lou, Gordy, and I engaged in very little conversation that day. Lou’s hand was red from the two shunter stings, but the swelling had gone down. The welt on her face had become a very fine, almost indiscernible scratch. She had slept on my shoulder all night. When we woke up, we were both a little embarrassed. She wiped the spittle from her mouth and quickly pushed away from me. I stood with my eyes downcast and moved to the kitchen. It was weird, but in a good kind of way. It’s really hard to explain.

Gordy was the first to notice that the crawling Délons were gone. He walked to the window as if it were it a huge gaping hole and he would be sucked out into the darkened sky at any moment. “What gives?” he asked.

Lou and I joined him. “They’re gone,” Lou said stating the obvious as some people do.

I looked down on the street below us. It was empty. “It’s a ghost town...”

We all nearly jumped out of our skins when we heard a loud knock at the door. Lou covered her mouth with her hand holding back nervous laughter. Gordy’s lips were pressed together. He stumbled back clamping his hand to his chest. His trademark. Faking a heart attack. I hadn’t seen him do that... in a long time. It was strangely comforting.

I shook off the initial shock, and went to the door. “Yeah,” I said. My mother would have killed me for such a rude greeting.

“Open up,” the voice barked back.

I opened the door a crack and saw Délon Miles staring back at me.

“I am to escort you to the stadium.” He pushed his way into the condo. “We must go now.”

“What happened to everybody?” Gordy asked. He pointed to the window.

“They’re at the stadium,” Miles said.

Gordy squinted his eyes and tilted his head. “All of them?”

“It’s a big day. Now, c’mon, let’s go.”

I grabbed my backpack with my new solifipod and waited as Lou and Gordy passed through the front door. Miles directed me to walk ahead of him, and we all moved to the elevator.