The Land of the Dead: Book Four of the Oz Chronicles

by R. W. Ridley

  “Your eyes are nice. I like those.”

  She rolled her eyes this time. “You’re terrible at this.”

  “At what?”

  “Telling someone what you like about them.”

  I grunted and stepped toward her. “If you really have to know, there’s not much I don’t like about you. I think about you and I smile. I could be in an all out brawl for my life against the meanest monster in this crazy world and the smallest thought of you comes to me and I smile. No matter what happens to me, I think that at least I got a chance to know Lou and spend time with her and, yes, even dream about kissing her.”

  Her eyes smiled. “You dream about kissing me?”

  “Every chance I get.”

  I can’t recall where the distance between us went. I don’t know how my hands found their way to her face. I don’t know why my head moved forward, but it did, slowly, and I was pulling her closer to me. The split-second I felt her soft lips touch mine, my heart slammed against my chest. I knew instantly that she really was my one true love. The longer the kiss lasted the lighter my heart felt. It may be terrible to say, but at that moment, I didn’t care if we ever made it back home. I was where I belonged.

  ***

  That was my first kiss, my first love, the first time in a long time that I didn’t wonder about what horrible thing was going to happen next. Where I was didn’t matter. Getting home didn’t matter. Figuring out the crazy world I was trapped in didn’t matter.

  I sat in the banquet room with Ajax at my side. I was so giddy it was hard to focus on what I needed to do. I had to go the Land of the Dead. I had to take June with me, even though she was clearly no longer presenting herself as June. Her face had completely changed. It was paler and smoother. And her hair was black and shorter now. Some of the elements of June’s face were there, but they were quickly fading.

  Her appearance didn’t matter. She could be turning into Abraham Lincoln for all I cared. Her ability to interact with the ghosts in the Land of the Dead and bring objects back was what mattered.

  I turned to give Ajax some last minute instructions, but he was gone. The banquet hall was gone. The house was gone. I was standing in the middle of the road with June next to me. It was late in the game, but I was realizing that no two trips to The Land of the Dead were exactly the same.

  A cool breeze rustled the brown leaves clinging to the almost bare trees, and disrupted the piles of leaves on the side of the road. I scanned up and down the street. I knew this place. I couldn’t recall from where, but I definitely knew this place.

  The houses and cars in the driveway did tell me one thing for sure. I was not in the right time period. This was not Albert Fish’s time.

  “Hey!” I yelled. The dead boy was not around. We were wasting time by being here. I needed to be back in the Fish’s time so we could get his tools of terror. “Where are you?”

  There was no answer. I looked up and down the street and then just started walking. The direction didn’t matter because I didn’t know where I was anyway. I just walked in the direction I was facing.

  We reached a side street, and I nearly gasped at the name on the street sign, Westwood Drive. My house was on Westwood Drive. I peered through the trees at the house immediately to my left. It was Donnie Kaye’s house. A kid three years ahead of me in school. I was in Tullahoma!

  I felt a mixture of joy and total annoyance at finding myself in my old hometown. It was good to be in familiar surroundings, and if I wasn’t on such a strict timetable I would be running towards my house at that very moment, but I didn’t need to be here, not now. I needed to be where Fish was.

  “Where are you?” I asked the empty street again. I felt a tugging on my arm and looked down to discover it was June. She pointed straight ahead. I looked where she was pointing, but didn’t see what she was seeing. “What is it?”

  “Stevie,” she said.

  I bent my head forward and tried to sharpen my focus by squinting my yes. Finally, I saw someone move through the trees thirty feet or so ahead. He was wearing a yellow jacket and black mittens.

  “Stevie,” I called out.

  Upon hearing his name, I could see him tense up. I stepped forward and he took off down the street.

  “Stevie, wait! How did you get here?” I chased after him with June not far behind me. “I thought I told you to stay with Gordy.”

  “Gordy’s mean,” he yelled without turning.

  “I know he can be a jerk, but…”

  He cut through a yard and dashed through a thin strip of trees behind the house. I couldn’t believe it, but I think I knew where he was going. He was going to Stevie’s real house. How would a Throwaway know this shortcut to Stevie’s house? I guess he could have plucked it from Gordy’s memory banks, but it seemed totally remarkable to me.

  Since I knew where he was going, it didn’t seem necessary to follow him at full speed. I was getting winded, and there was at least a quarter of a mile to go. I slowed to a jog, and tried to clear my head. I wasn’t in the time period I needed to be in, so the question was, why was I here and where was the dead boy? It seemed strange to change things up on me now, just when I was so close to bringing down the Flish.

  We exited the woods and turned up the street towards Stevie’s house. Visiting Stevie’s house was never high on my list of things to do, but it seemed like I was always brought back here for some reason or another.

  I cast my head down and concentrated on my footfalls. When I reached a familiar crack in the street, I knew that when I looked up I’d see Stevie’s house just a block away. I counted to three and lifted my head.

  As much as I hoped it wouldn’t be, it was there. I caught the storm door rattling to a close.

  June looked up at me and smiled. She had no idea what that house meant to me, and it shouldn’t have bothered me, but I wanted to knock that stupid smile of her face. To my horror, she kept the smile until we were standing at the front door of the house.

  “Stevie,” I said.

  I heard a door slam, so I quickly stepped through the foyer and stood at the head of the hallway. Every door was open except the door at the very end of the hall. I immediately began to sweat. “The basement,” I whispered.

  “Stevie,” I said “we shouldn’t be here.”

  A bang came from basement.

  I dropped my head and said. “CRAP! I am so tired of having to creep through dark basements. I’d like for once to have to go into a well-lit, completely un-scary room.”

  I slinked down the hall with June tagging along. Reaching the basement, I placed my hand on the door knob and said, “Come on, Stevie. Please don’t make me come down there. Just come upstairs and we’ll get out of here.”

  No answer.

  I turned the knob and pushed the door open. The stairs looked like jagged teeth to me. I stepped down on the first one and imagined myself stepping into a monster’s mouth and walking down its throat. The feeling stuck with me until I stood on the basement floor.

  “Where are we?” June asked.

  “The belly,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said. The sound of something scraping across the dirty concrete floor came from our left. Once our eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see Stevie sitting in a chair and kicking the dirt.

  “I’m sorry, Oz,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” I answered. “Let’s just go.”

  “I didn’t want to make all those bad things happen.”

  “What bad things?”

  “He said it would make us smarter and everybody would like us.”

  My mouth went dry. My legs felt like wet noodles, and I heard a buzzing in my ears. This wasn’t Throwaway Stevie. It was the real Stevie.

  “You don’t have to be sorry, Stevie.”

  “But I did bad things.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I looked above him and saw the pipe that he had tied the rope to when he ended his life. His death was what broug
ht the first Destroyer into our world.

  “Dr. Bashir said the bad people must pay. None of us wanted to do it.”

  “I know, Stevie. We shouldn’t have been bad people.” I was standing in front of him now. I knelt down. “If I could do it all over again, Stevie, I promise you I would be nicer. I wouldn’t treat you the way I did. It’s not your fault I’m here. It’s my fault. I deserve to be here.”

  He whispered, “But not for the reason you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re here because I see the magic in you.”

  I smiled and sarcastically said, “Where have I heard that before?”

  He looked puzzled. “You heard it from Lou. Do you like her?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  He smiled. “I knew you would.”

  I patted his leg. “You’ve got good taste, buddy.”

  “Mom said I had a knack for drawing pretty girls.”

  I looked over my shoulder and looked at June. Seeing her fading face jarred my memory. “Listen, Stevie, I’d love to sit down here with you and chat, but I gotta find…”

  “The Flish,” he said. “He made Connie really sad. Dr. Bashir said he had to be in her story. Said he had done bad, bad things to people like us. Tried to do something bad to his great uncle a long, long time ago. Before Dr. Bashir was even alive. ‘Put him in your story,’ he said. ‘He’ll make the other bad people pay. Bad against bad.’”

  “Bad against bad,” I repeated and leaned in closer. “How do I get everyone home, Stevie?”

  “I once read the story backwards,” he said.

  I laughed. “That’s great, Stevie, but I need to know how I can end this. How do I get everyone home?”

  “When you read it backwards, it’s not the same. It changes.”

  “Stevie, concentrate. How do I get everyone home? You like Lou, right? You want her to find her way home, don’t you?”

  He titled his head and was clearly considering my question. “She doesn’t have a home.”

  I turned that over in my head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean she doesn’t have a home?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I mean she doesn’t have a house with people in it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying words,” he said.

  I was getting frustrated. “Yes, but the words you’re saying aren’t making any sense. Lou has to have a home. She came from somewhere. Everybody does.”

  He pointed at June. “She doesn’t.”

  “Yes, but she’s a Throwaway…”

  “A never-was,” Stevie said.

  I stood up. “What are you saying?”

  “I told you, I’m saying words.”

  I didn’t like the words he was saying. If he was telling me that Lou was a never-was, not real, I didn’t want to hear it. It couldn’t be true. She was real. She had to be.

  “You look sad,” Stevie said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  The ground began to shake.

  “They’re coming back,” Stevie said.

  “Who?”

  The basement floor began to crack. June screamed and ran up the stairs.

  “June, stop!” I turned to chase her, but Stevie grabbed my arm.

  As if he was trying to force his words into my skull, he spoke slowly and harshly. “It’s never the same if you read it backwards. You see things you didn’t see before.”

  He let go of my arm and stumbled backwards, tripping over the debris from the crumbling basement floor. I struggled to keep on my feet, but I crashed down on my elbow and felt a burning, numbing sensation throughout my arm. I gritted my teeth and sucked in a long stream of air. By the time I had worked through the pain and stood up, Stevie was gone. The house continued to shake, and the crack in the floor grew wider.

  I made it to the bottom step of the basement stairs when a gigantic, gnarled, clawed hand burst through the concrete. Now I knew who was coming back. Takers. I ran, barely touching the surface of the stairs with my feet. I was in the hallway before my mind caught up. “June!”

  A shadow moved to my right. A door was open to one of the rooms. Behind me I heard the tell-tale chatter of the Taker coming from the basement. I quickly approached the open door. June stood in front me, shaking and facing the wall above the dresser.

  I entered. “C’mon, June. We’ve got to go.”

  She raised her arm and pointed at the wall.

  I followed with my eyes. There, hanging on the wall, just as it was the last time I saw it, was the perfectly drawn, framed picture of a Délon. Their source. What they were so desperately looking for. I ran to it and attempted to rip it from the wall, but my hand passed through. I tried again. I tried a third time before it hit me. I was in the Land of the Dead.

  “June, you have to grab it.”

  She hesitated. I heard the Taker coming up the stairs.

  “Hurry,” I barked.

  She didn’t hurry. It seemed like she was walking as slowly as she possibly could.

  “June, we’ve got to get out of here. I need that picture. Please, hurry.”

  The Taker roared. He was at the top of the stairs.

  Still June took her time.

  I rushed to the door and carefully peeked down the hallway. It was there. It was almost too broad for the hall. It ducked its head so as not to hit the ceiling. Its eyes zeroed in on me. Crouching, it opened its mouth and let out a high-pitched wail. I grabbed the door and hurried to push it shut, but in the blink of an eye the ugly beast was standing in the doorway. I put all my weight into the door and managed to shut it. I turned to see June holding the framed picture of the Délon in her hand.

  “Out the window,” I said, fighting hyperventilation.

  The Taker pushed on the door, and I comically tried to prevent the monster from opening it. It was like a bug trying to push back the moon. I heard what sounded like a crack of thunder and then felt myself tumbling through the air. A tremendous white light washed out the room.

  My head slapped against a hard wooden surface. I heard a roar and looked up bleary-eyed. I felt instantly relieved to see Ajax staring back at me.

  DAY 8

  NINETEEN

  There was no ice, so Lou rubbed the back of my neck trying to work out the throbbing pain in my head. The trip coming back from the Land of the Dead this time around was definitely much worse than the trip there.

  “So the trip was a total waste of time?” Lou asked.

  I went over the conversation I’d had with Stevie in my head. It was a little hazy due to the crack I took to the skull but, unfortunately, I could recall the gist of it. Lou was a never-was.

  “Not totally,” I said. “June brought back something.” I looked around the table and didn’t see June. Pulling away from Lou, I stood up and a wave of panic hit me. “June… where’s June?”

  “Right there,” she pointed to a little girl with black hair.

  I couldn’t make out her face so I approached her and wasn’t totally surprised to discover she looked remarkably like Grace.

  “What did she bring back?” Lou asked.

  I examined June’s face for a beat longer and then asked her, “Do you have it?”

  She nodded, reached down, and picked up the framed picture.

  I took it from her and showed it to Lou. “We’ve got what the Délons have been looking for.”

  “The source,” she said just before a smile spread across her face. “We have it. We own them.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said. “We don’t know how it works.”

  “But we know they desperately want it. They’ve lost control of this world without it. They don’t even know what the source is. This is huge.”

  “True,” I said. “But that doesn’t really help us. Besides we’ve only got today and tomorrow left on our nine days. Having this will mean nothing if we can’t get the Flish’s package to Detective King…”

  “Where is s
he?” Wes screamed from the other end of the room.

  “Who?” I screamed back.

  “You know who! What have you done with Lou, my Lou?”

  “The Throwaway?” I asked.

  “Is that all she was to you? Someone who doesn’t matter? She wasn’t just a Throwaway! She was my sister! What did you do with her?”

  “Wes,” Lou said, “Oz didn’t do anything to your sister.”

  “Don’t cover for him, Lou. He’s the reason we’re here in the first place.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” I said. “Why would I do anything to your Throwaway?”

  “Stop calling her that!” He stomped towards us.

  The closer he got, the stronger his smell became. It was like bacon sizzling in a frying pan. Mouthwatering. I hadn’t eaten in… too long.

  “Don’t come any closer,” I begged.

  Either he didn’t hear me or he just didn’t car; he continued coming at us.

  “Wes,” Lou said.

  Ajax plodded towards him.

  “Out of the way, go-rilla,” Wes said.

  “Wes, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Lou shouted

  I headed for the door and stopped in my tracks when I saw Tyrone staring back at me from the hallway. My stomach twisted. I doubled over from the pain.

  “They’re all gone,” Tyrone said.

  Wes stopped at the sound of his voice.

  I positioned myself behind Lou.

  “Gone where?” Lou asked.

  “The old man,” Tyrone answered. “Got Valerie last night. Gordy’s Throwaway is gone, too.” He stepped into the room and moved around the table. He held tight to his hunting knife. “Yours is the only one left, far as I can tell.”

  Wes wiped the drool from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Got ‘em all but the golden boy’s. Why you suppose that is?” He was clearly sizing the situation up, trying to determine if he was closer to me or Tyrone. I knew that’s what he was thinking because I was thinking the same thing.

  “We can’t be in the same room,” I said in a voice I didn’t even recognize. It was low and weak. The hunger was more than I could take.

  “We’ve got a plan,” Lou said. “You just have to hold out a little bit longer.”