by R. W. Ridley
I heard a muffled woof and turned towards it. Kimball was on the edge of the deck focused on the ground below. I joined him eager to see what he found so interesting.
The Banshee worms were surfacing and submerging back underground over and over again. It was almost like watching a school of fish swimming in circles at the surface of the water.
“Feeding grounds,” I said patting Kimball on the head.
He barked. I took it to mean he was glad we were up here.
I turned to go back inside but stopped short when I saw it standing at the other end of the deck. The thing that I thought was a monkey wasn’t a monkey, not completely. It stood on two legs and brown fuzz covered its gray flesh. Its arms were incredibly long and it held them out in front like a praying mantis. A row of eyes circled its bald white head and strings of mucus stretched across its hideous mouth. It only stood four feet tall, but I had no interest in getting any closer to it.
Kimball growled and lurched forward. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck before he could go anywhere.
The creature stepped forward silently. It was as if it didn’t want to alert the others of its presence.
I looked at the door. I could make it. I could run inside with Kimball and shut the door behind me.
The creature took another step.
I leaned forward. I had to go now. I ran.
The creature leapt into the air and swooped down on top of me. I fell back and pounded my head on the deck. Dazed, I struggled with the creature and pushed it off me.
“Hey,” I said thinking I had shouted, but no one came. “Out here!”
The creature lurched forward and finally let out a shrill scream, but only because Kimball had his teeth buried deep in its arm. It pulled and yanked feverishly to get loose, but Kimball wasn’t letting go. The creature whacked him on top of the head. Kimball whimpered but didn’t let go. He tugged on the creature’s arm and pulled it to the edge of the deck.
“What in tarnation?” Wes asked stepping onto the deck.
“It’s that monkey thing,” I said standing. “Kimball, hold on.”
“That ain’t no monkey.”
“No kidding,” I said. “I need a knife.”
Tyrone stepped out from behind Wes holding his hunting knife.
“Not a problem.” He moved towards the creature.
With one swift motion, it reached up impossibly high and grabbed a branch and, as if connected to a bungie cord, pulled itself off the deck, taking Kimball with it.
“Kimball!”
With little effort, the creature hopped to another branch and slammed Kimball into the trunk of the tree.
I heard my dog yelp and the world slowed to a crawl. My heart was pounding in my eardrums. I found myself on the edge of the deck, leaning over the railing. I don’t even know how I got there. Kimball was falling. I watched him slip through every inch of air on his way down. Somebody yelled, “No!” Somebody else cried “Stop him,” as if a thing like that was possible. My first thought was “My dog is falling.” My last thought was, “Feeding grounds.”
He hit the ground with a thud and a whine. He was alive. I could see him moving. He tried to stand once, but couldn’t do it.
I climbed on the railing.
“What are you doing?” Wes asked.
“He can’t be down there,” I said readying myself to jump to the nearest branch of the tree. The monkey creature was gone.
I felt the railing shake and turned to see Lou climbing up on it.
I jumped to the branch and swung to another one that was sturdy enough to stand on.
“What the hell, boy?” Bostic said.
Lou was about to jump.
“No,” I said, “stay. Keep the monkey thing off me.”
She jumped off the rail and barely reached the limb. “The others can do that. I’m helping you get Kimball.”
“I told you this is their feeding ground,” Bostic said. “They don’t play cautious here. They eat whatever falls in their lap.”
Lou swung to the sturdy branch and I grabbed a hold of her.
Without a word, we both started climbing down. I peered down at the ground below as I climbed with one eye on Kimball and the other on the ground around him for Banshee worm activity. It was still. Maybe the worms didn’t like dog.
I stepped on the last branch before the ground. It was about six feet high. “Kimball?”
A second or two went by before he moved. He lifted his head and let out a low cry.
“I’m coming.”
Lou stepped down on the branch. “So, how are we going to get him up the tree?”
I hesitated. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
We heard a grunt from above and looked up to see Ajax easily climbing down to our branch.
“I should have figured,” I said. “There’s no way Ajax would let Kimball down.”
The monkey creature screeched. I could see its silhouette through the tiny branches at the top of the tree. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ariabod leap from the deck and onto the tree. He was going after the creature.
Ajax joined us on the branch.
“I’ll go down,” I said, “and I’ll hand Kimball up to you, Ajax. Got it?”
The gorilla nodded.
“What do you expect me to do?” Lou asked.
“Watch out for those worms. The ground moves the least little bit, you let me know.”
She nodded.
I gave her a smile and dropped to the ground. My knee twisted and popped. I curled up and fell on my back. A searing pain shot up my leg and I growled in pain.
“Oz?” Lou said.
“I’m fine... I’m fine. I just twisted my knee.” I rolled over and pushed myself on my hands and knees and crawled over to Kimball.
He was panting heavily. I placed my hand on him, and he raised his head.
“I’m going to get you out of here, boy.”
“Oz?”
I brought my leg forward and propped myself up on my good knee. I was hoping I hadn’t hurt the other one seriously.
“Oz?”
I attempted to push up and put some weight on my bad leg. A sharp pain turned my stomach.
“Oz?”
“What?” I asked in a huff.
“The ground moved.”
The words left her mouth and entered my ears like a missile. It was all the motivation I needed to ignore the pain in my knee. I stood and looked for solid footing. Bending down at the waist, I placed my hands underneath Kimball and lifted.
I had forgotten how heavy he was. I limped back to the tree trunk and tried to lift him even higher. Ajax’s long arm dangled down and waited for me to hand Kimball up to him. He was ready to do his part. If I could only do mine.
The ground underneath my feet shifted, and I stumbled back. It shifted again and my foot turned sending a shooting pain through my leg. I fell to my knees.
A worm emerged just a few feet away from me. Its mouth opened, and I saw the teeth up close and personal. It wasn’t a fun sight.
I scrambled back to my feet, but the pain was too much. The ground shook. Kimball began to squirm in my arms. I tried desperately to hold on to him, but it was too much. I dropped him to the ground.
As I reached down to pick him up again, I felt myself rising into the air. Kimball was getting farther and farther away from me. I could see the ground sinking away all around him.
A Banshee worm raised its mutant head out of the ground next to my dog, and wrapped its mouth around his stomach. Before I even had time to scream, the worm bit down and killed the best friend I had ever had.
My world began to shrink. I reached up absentmindedly and felt Ajax’s arm. Working my way down from his elbow to his wrist, I realized he was holding onto me. He had lifted me up at the last moment and saved me from the Banshee worms. He saved me, but doomed my dog.
I heard Lou screaming the word “No!” over and over again. Her voice blared out like a siren.
Ajax slowl
y lifted me up to the safety of the branch. His eyes were wet, and he couldn’t look me in the face. A strained hoot-like whimpering was all he could manage to form with his tongue-less mouth.
I felt like I wasn’t really there. I couldn’t really be there. If I was there, my dog was dead. “I want to go back,” I said. I was babbling. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t want to go back down with the Banshee worms. I was trying to say I wanted my dog back, but somehow my brain knew that wasn’t possible. I wanted to go back just a few minutes. Just to the point where I saw Kimball looking over the deck of the treehouse. If I could go back there, I could get my dog inside before that monkey creature showed up, before my dog fell. I could save my dog. I would still have my dog.
“You can’t go back,” Lou said.
Five
I had survived the end of the world. I had survived the Takers. The Délons almost had me, but I got away. The Silencers, the Myrmidons, the Flish, all of them. I had survived them all. I was Creyshaw. That’s what we do. It’s what we were made for. It was easy in a weird kind of way.
Sitting in Bostic’s mansion in the trees, staring at the homemade wood planks that made up the walls, I couldn’t see how I was going to survive this time. Kimball was gone. Kimball was my family. He was part of me. I couldn’t go on without him.
I sat perfectly still as if doing so would stop time itself. I stared angrily at the wood, trying to push it backwards, to set the world spinning in the opposite direction. It was connected to the tree. The tree shot up out of the Earth. The Earth spun in a direction that moved time forward. If I concentrated hard enough and pushed the wood backwards, the tree would push against the Earth, and we would go backwards in time. It didn’t happen that long ago, I told myself. I just had to push a little, just a tiny bit, just enough to get my dog back.
It didn’t move. I saw the shadows of the others moving behind me. They whispered and signaled silently to each other. They were crying, too. Kimball was one of theirs. He fought with them. For them is more like it. Protecting all of them was more important to him than his own life. That’s just the kind of dog... warrior Kimball was.
Minutes passed and I stared. Hours passed and I stared. The night passed and I stared. My eyes felt locked. I couldn’t have closed them if I’d wanted to.
I heard the heavy thumping of Wes’ footsteps approach. He pulled up a flimsy folding chair and sat next to me. I could hear the chair groan as he applied his weight to it. He sat for a few minutes without saying a word. I could hear him swallow and sniffle. He cleared his throat and said, “Son, your family is here for you.”
I managed to move my head slowly and look at him. His eyes were red and swollen. He had been crying all night.
He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Did you hear what I said, Oz? We are your family now. You’re one of ours. We’re hurting for you, boy, and we want to know what to do for you.”
I hesitated and then turned back to the wall. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”
I felt him sitting behind me for a few more minutes before standing and walking away. He whispered something to someone and then I heard someone taking his place in the chair.
“Oz,” Lou said, “won’t you at least try to get some sleep?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m tired.”
“But you’ve been up all night.”
I shrugged. “I’m not tired.”
She didn’t push it. I felt her ease back in the chair.
“Did you get a look at it?”
She didn’t answer right away. “Look at what?”
“The worm.”
“The worm? You mean the one...”
“Yeah, the one. It had a scar on the right side of its head. Half moon shape, about six inches long.”
“I didn’t see,” she said. “It moved so fast.”
“I saw it. Been thinking about it all night long. I keep picturing that scar.”
“Oh,” she said not knowing what else to say.
“I’m going to kill it.”
The chair creaked as she leaned forward.
“I’m going after it. I’m going to find it and cut it up into little pieces.” I finally turned and looked at her and wasn’t at all surprised to see the terrified expression on her face. “I’m going to kill that stinking worm, Lou.” I gritted my teeth and raised my hand in a fist. “And I’m going to squish all the little pieces with my bare hands.”
There was silence. I squeezed my fist into a white-knuckled ball. The faces of the others standing on the other side of the room turned from concern to horror. I lowered my fist.
Bostic stepped forward with his thumbs looped through his homemade belt. “You gone Ahab on us, kid.”
I didn’t reply because I didn’t know what he meant.
“Moby Dick?” He asked stepping even closer.
“What about it?” I asked.
“It’s a book. You heard of it?”
“Heard of it,” I said. “Never read it.”
He scratched his beard. “I read the damn thing. Tried to anyway. Assigned reading in school when I was your age.”
“I haven’t been in school in a long time.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Time gets away from me. You would have been too young to read it. Lucky,” he said propping his foot up on a small stool. “Damn book’s a tough read, but it does lay out a nice cautionary tale about revenge.”
“Nothing wrong with revenge,” I said dismissively.
He leaned forward propping himself up with his hand on his thigh. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Feels right. Feels like even-Steven is the only way to go. Captain Ahab went after that white whale because it took his leg. He wanted to make that accursed white whale bleed, suffer for what it did to him and his ship. But, as you can probably imagine, it didn’t turn out too well for him and a good many of his men.”
“What’s your point?” I asked.
“My point is, boy, that you lost your dog today, but that ain’t nothing compared to what you will lose if you go after that worm. No good will come of it. Not for you or none of these other people who seem to care a good bit about you.”
Tyrone stepped forward. “I’ll help you get it, Oz.”
Bostic chuckled. “There, you see. The angry fella is on your side. What does that tell you?”
“I ain’t angry,” Tyrone said. “But...” he stopped and grunted back the urge to cry. “I’d like to get in on some of that revenge stuff.”
Bostic stood up straight and shook his head. He turned to Wes. “Are you going to say something?”
Wes had his head hung low, but he peered up at Bostic and said, “I’m with my boys on this one. I want that worm hunted and gutted quick as a hiccup for what it did to Kimball.”
Bostic turned to Lou. “I suppose you’re of the same mind.”
Lou darted her eyes from Bostic to me, pulled the muscles in her jaw taut and nodded.
“Ain’t none of you got a lick of sense. You’re going to go off all half-cocked into the woods and hunt down a killer that lives beneath your feet. It can come up on you without a warning. It’s got thousands of wormy cousins that are just as sneaky and hungry as it is, and not a one of you thinks this is a bad idea!”
“I do,” April said mildly.
Bostic put his hand over his heart and said, “Well thank the good Lord above for small miracles. This time tomorrow all that will be left is me, her, and your dying friend over there.”
We all shifted our attention to Gordy. He lay on the cot soaked in sweat. His chest expanded and collapsed dramatically with each breath he took. He smacked his dry lips together with eyes tightly closed.
I stood up and moved to his bedside. “Gordy’s not dying,” I said with a forcefulness that even I didn’t think I could muster. I had lost the world, my parents, fellow warriors, including my dog. I was not going to lose my only friend from the time before.
Bostic sighed.
I was about to tear into him like there w
as no tomorrow when I saw Ajax and Ariabod sitting at the backdoor. They had their backs to everyone and were signing the same thing over and over again.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Lou said, “Praying... more or less.”
“Praying? What are they saying?”
“Literally? ‘A purpose life only end in honor.’” She choked back tears and repeated the phrase in her own words, “A life with purpose can only end in honor.”
Upon hearing Lou, Ajax did a half turn towards us. As soon as I saw his face, my mind flashed back to the worm surfacing, and I shook my head. I owed Ajax my life, but I couldn’t stop myself from blaming him for letting Kimball die. Why didn’t he save Kimball? He could have. I turned away from him. Maybe he couldn’t have saved Kimball, but as long as I had doubts, there was no way I could look at him, not without thinking of that awful, awful moment.
“Tell them to stop,” I said.
“What?” Lou asked even though she heard me.
“I don’t want them to do that anymore.”
“But they want to do it. They need to.”
“They’ve never done it before.”
“But this is different. This is Kimball. He was special.”
I practically growled before saying, “I know he was special! You don’t think I know that? He was my dog! Tell them to stop!”
She looked crushed by my outburst. She gathered herself and suppressed the urge to let me have it for being so selfish. She gave me a stern nod, approached the gorillas and simply signed, ‘stop.’
Both gorillas complied without argument and lumbered off to a corner of the room.
Lou avoided turning in my direction and moved to the kitchen.
I grabbed Gordy’s hand and whispered, “A life with purpose can only end in honor.”
I mumbled the phrase to myself until I fell asleep with my head resting on my arms on Gordy’s bed.
***
I woke up with Tyrone shaking me by my shoulder. My eyelids felt like they were being pulled down and it was a struggle to open them. It was dark and quiet. The others were asleep.
