Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (7 page)

Lou donned an apologetic expression and pulled her hand back. “Or I can just sit here. Whatever works for you.”

Mrs. Dayton handed me a small pile of dirty plates and motioned for me to follow her. I shrugged my shoulders and obeyed. Lou gave me a “What’s with her” look as I left the table. I shrugged my shoulders again.

At the sink, Mrs. Dayton ran the hot water. She picked up a bottle of liquid soap and squeezed it. Nothing came out. She squeezed harder. Still nothing. Exasperated, she approached Lou and forcefully tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, Lou stared at her. Mrs. Dayton pointed to the bottle and then pointed down. She then motioned for Lou to leave the kitchen.

“I think she wants you to get some soap from the basement,” I said.

Mrs. Dayton touched her nose and nodded.

“Oh, okay,” Lou said. She stood. “Any place special I should look?”

Mrs. Dayton emphatically pointed down and escorted Lou to the door.

Lou looked at me with a puzzled expression and exited the kitchen.

Mrs. Dayton watched her move down the hallway and then quickly ran over to me. She pulled a small notepad and pen from a drawer near the sink. She laid the pad down and frantically began to write. When she was finished, she held the pad up for me to read.

“Leave,” was all she wrote.

“Now,” I said. “Don’t you want help with the dishes?”

She shook her head and put the pad back down and wrote some more. When she finished she thumped the pad with her index finger.

I read. “Leave this world.”

“This world?”

She wrote. “Not home.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t.” She was writing at break neck speeds. “The Source destroys home. You find Source and home is gone.”

“Me? No, if I find the Source and destroy it, then the Délons are gone.”

She huffed and stomped her foot. “You won’t destroy it.”

I was confused and just a little angry that she doubted my abilities. “I can do this. I know this sounds weird, but I’m a warrior. I beat the Takers...”

She shook her head. “Not won’t because you can’t. Won’t because you won’t want to.”

I read the passage twice. “What? Yes I do.”

She pointed to my left eye and carefully mouthed the word, “Marking.” She then wrote. “You want what they want.”

I shook my head. “No.”

She nodded, and started to write more. I read over her shoulder.
“DON’T TRUST G...”

We heard footsteps coming up the hallway. Mrs. Dayton stopped writing, frantically tore the pages out of the notepad and stuffed them in her pocket. She put her finger to her lips giving me the signal to keep quiet.

Lou entered the kitchen with a bottle of liquid soap. “Found it.”

FIVE

Gordy was waiting for us outside Mrs. Dayton’s house. He stood on the sidewalk hunched over and fidgety, hands clasped together in front of him, eyes drawn down.
“Don’t Trust G,”
I thought.

Regardless, I was relieved to see him. I was ashamed to admit it, but once I underwent my marking, he was the furthest thing from my mind. I hadn’t given one thought to whether he had become skinner food or not.

“Gord-o, good to see you,” I said. I was feeling chipper despite Mrs. Dayton’s warning. She was wrong. That was all there was to it. I didn’t want what the Délons wanted. The marking’s effect on me was temporary. I was the same old Oz Griffin that killed the Taker Queen. And Gordy was harmless.

“Oz,” Gordy said with a nervous quiver. “You – you’re looking good.”

“I feel good.” I turned to Lou. “This is my best pal, Gordy Flynn.”

Lou shook his sweaty hand. “We met... kind of.”

“Yeah.” Gordy let out a breathless laugh. “In the principal’s office. That was some weird stuff, huh?”

“About that,” I said. “You know there was no way I was going to let that thing... you know, skin you, right?”

“Oh, sure, sure. I know,” he said. “And you know that I was just about to kick some serious ass, right?”

“Sure, sure.” I looked at Lou as she ducked her head to hide a smile. “Just like always.” We turned up the sidewalk and headed toward my house. “So, what brings you this way, Gordy?”

“Nothing... you know. On my way to school... I was just wondering if we could hang... I mean I was wondering if it would be all right if I hung with you... you and Lou, I mean?” He was growing more and more nervous as he talked.

I stopped walking. The others quickly followed suit. “Gordy, what is up with you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You’re like all nervous and shaky.”

“I am?”

He looked at Lou. She confirmed my observation with a nod.

“Okay, maybe I am,” he said. “But, dude, you’re like king of those purple... things. How do you expect me to act?”

I thought about the question. He had a point. If I was in his position, I might be acting the same way. “I expect you to act like my friend.”

He smiled. “Really? Cool. I was kind of afraid that you were all... you know... too kingy for me now. Plus, you were about to feed me to one of those skinner thingies yesterday...”

“I told you I wasn’t going to let that happen,” I said.

“Yeah, and I told you I was about to kick some major ass. People say things, you know.”

I sighed. “Yeah, people say things.” We started walking again. I remembered some of the thoughts I was having last night. Particularly my regrets for not letting the skinner have its way with Gordy. How could I have felt that way? “If you thought I was going to feed you to the skinner, why would you want to hang with me?”

He smiled. “I’m no idiot. You’re the top dog, Ozzie. Ain’t nobody going to mess with me if we’re tight.”

I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. It was a smart move on his part. Gordy always had top-notch survival instincts. “That’s cool,” I said. “But you should know, I’m not planning on being king. You understand?”

“Dude, why not? Everybody will be falling all over themselves to treat you like... well, a king. You’d be a real dink to pass something like that up.” He caught himself and cleared his throat. “Oh, I so did not mean that. Don’t have me smited or nothing.”

“Relax,” I said. “It’s me - Oz. I’m not into smiting. Besides to become king, I have to become Délon. I’m not really into the spider leg dreadlocks.”

He laughed. “What other choice do you have? There’re only two kinds of humans on this planet. Those who are about to become Délon and those who are about to become food. Call me crazy, but I’m not ready to be fitted for a happy meal suit. I’d rather be purple and evil than fleshy colored and delicious.”

“You’re forgetting the third kind of human,” I said.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“The warrior who defeats the Délons and restores the planet to the way it was.”

He shook his dead. “Oh, that kind - The kind that dies in a pointless show of heroism and bravery. Face it, Oz, the Délons are here to stay. You might as well join the party and get in on the fun.”

I stopped and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt. “Do you want to hang or not?”

“Dude, take it easy. I absolutely want to hang, man. I am here to serve you, your Oz-ship.” He was back to his nervous self.

“Then shut up about the Délons.”

“You got it.” He put his hands up in the air as if he were surrendering. “Not another word about the purple people eaters.”

I let him go and continued my walk. I noticed Lou hadn’t disputed anything Gordy had said. That made me madder at her than him. She had no right to lose faith. She knew what I was capable of - what we were capable of. I could beat the Délons, and she had no right to doubt me.

“So,” Gordy said. “Why were you at the retard’s house?”

I slugged him without warning. He stumbled backwards off the curb onto the street. Lou stepped in front of me.

“Don’t,” she said.

“What is up with you?” Gordy asked.

“I don’t like that word,” I said.

“Since when? You practically invented it.” He was rubbing his jaw. Clearly, I didn’t have the power I had the night before, otherwise I imagine Gordy would be lying dead on the street. The effects of the marking must have completely worn off.

He was right of course. I did use the word a lot. I teased Stevie Dayton with it on a daily basis until he cried. I was just as big a sinner as Gordy was, but that didn’t change how I felt now. “I don’t use it any more and, if you still want to hang, you better lose it from your vocabulary.”

“It’s done, man. I’ll never say it again.” He stepped back up on the sidewalk. “Friends?” He extended his hand.

I shook it with some hesitation. I didn’t really like the new cowering Gordy, but he was still Gordy. It was kind of nice having him around because he reminded me of the world before crazy monsters took over. For the first time since I woke up in my bedroom, I thought about the others we used to run with. “Hey, where’re Tim and Larry?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Gordy said. We turned up Westwood Avenue. “They disappeared about a month ago. I figured they were taken to the farm.”

“The farm?” I asked.

Gordy looked past me and eyed Lou as we walked. “He don’t know about the farm?”

She shook her head sullenly.

“What’s the farm?”

Gordy cleared his throat. “I told you, man. There ain’t but two kinds of humans. Those that are about to become Délon and those that are about to become food.”

“Yeah I get it. Skinner food, right?” I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going.

He placed his hand on my shoulder as we walked. “Skinners ain’t the only ones that use humans as food.”

I walked in shocked despair. “What are you saying?”

“It ain’t that complicated, Ozzie.”

I looked at Lou. “They eat humans?”

She turned away from me and said. “They drink the blood.”

“Blood?” I remembered my craving from the night before. When I felt fear, I craved the blood of a human. It was unmistakable. “Like vampires?”

“They say it’s more like mosquitoes,” Gordy said. “They don’t drain ya’. They just drink until their bellies are full and move on.”

“And this farm?”

Gordy picked up a rock and started tossing it from hand to hand. “They herd up the humans that they ain’t planning on turning purple and keep them on a farm... I don’t know if it’s a farm, really. That’s just what we call it. I hear they keep you fat and happy with sweets and soda and all kinds of pizza and junk food. But...” He stopped tossing the rock and fixated on it as if he was lost in a thought that he didn’t want to find his way out of.

“But what?” I said.

He snapped out of his trance and started tossing the rock again. “It ain’t no fun when they pick you as their cocktail for the evening. There’s a lot of screaming and crying and praying for death.” He cocked his right arm back and threw the rock at a car parked on the street, cracking the windshield. The look on his face was frustration and anger. I was an expert on those two emotions after my marking. I could spot them anywhere.

“You’ve seen it happen?” I asked.

He nodded. “I seen ‘em do it to my mom. The ugly worms made me and my little sister watch. That’s when I realized there were only two kinds of humans.”

A horse whinnied in the distance. We heard the beating of hooves against the pavement. Through the trees and houses, I could see a horse and rider approaching from Crestwood. A horse with no rider followed. We stopped and watched as they turned up the other end of Westwood. At first, I wasn’t sure I was seeing things right. The rider . . . it just couldn’t be. I wiped my eyes and looked at Lou for confirmation. She was just as surprised as I was.

The rider was Roy. Not General Roy the Délon, but Roy the warrior. The one who had joined our gang on interstate 75 outside of Dalton, Georgia. The one who had fought with his sister to keep her in line, the one we had lost in the Georgia Dome.

He tapped Mr. Mobley lightly on the ribs with his heel and galloped up to our position. Lou and I stood motionless, mouths agape, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.

“Friend of yours?” Gordy asked.

Neither Lou nor I answered. We simply couldn’t believe our eyes.

Roy slowed Mr. Mobley to a walk when he got close enough to talk without shouting. “I brought an old friend.” He motioned to the horse he was towing.

“Chubby,” I said. The horse I had ridden to Atlanta. It was strange, but I was glad to see him. He wasn’t my horse. He was just a mode a transportation I had used to get from point A to point B. Yet, there I was, absolutely giddy that he was back in my life. I walked over and stroked his long neck. For the moment, I had forgotten that Roy was Roy again.

“You want to go for a ride?” Roy asked.

I looked at him and then back at Lou and Gordy, still standing on the sidewalk. Lou was still mystified by Roy’s sudden reappearance.

“We got to get to school, Oz,” Gordy said.

Roy laughed. “School’s over for Oz.”

“What? No way,” Gordy said.

“Kings have very little need for school.” Roy’s face began to vibrate.

“What about king sidekicks?” Gordy asked. “I can’t see how school does us much good, either.”

Roy breathed deeply. He was trying to control something inside of him. His face twitched and his eyes bulged. “What is this sidekick business?” Roy struggled to ask me.

“Tell him, Oz,” Gordy interjected. “We’re tight, you and me. I’m his main man, his numero uno, his bench strength...”

“Gordy,” I said.

“I’m the head cheese in his cheese... collection. The sugar in his cup... no wait, that didn’t come out right,” Gordy said.

“Gordy,” I said again, a little louder, a little more forcefully.

“The important thing to know is that I’m not skinner bait or farm material because me and his royal kingship are like toast and jam, okay,” Gordy continued nervously. “We’re like salt and pepper. Wherever there’s one there is the other...”

“Gordy, shut up!” I said. I mounted Chubby. “Lou, can you look after him?”

She reluctantly nodded. “You sure you’ll be okay.”

I looked at Roy who had gotten his twitching face under control. “I’ll be fine.”

***