by R. W. Ridley
The group stepped back and went completely silent.
“You know Bostic?” they asked.
Max hung his head. “He lives in the tree with Bostic. Mean, bad Bostic”
“And you brought him here?” Thomas asked in a panic.
“What’s the big deal?” I asked.
“Give us the meat and go,” Thomas said.
“Why are you so afraid of Bostic?”
“We gave the information, now give us the meat.”
“Wait, just tell me about Bostic.”
“He keeps the worms,” Max said.
“Shut up,” Thomas said. “No information on Bostic. Only information on the meat. The meat tastes like life. That’s all we know. Give us the meat.”
“Keeps the worms? What do you mean?”
Max looked at Thomas. “Tell him about bad Bostic.”
“We can’t. He’ll stop giving us meat if he knows we said anything.”
“Bostic gives you meat?” I asked.
Max waited for Thomas to answer, but when it was clear his leader wouldn’t, Max jumped in. “We work for it. And it ain’t easy work.” He pulled his hoodie down and showed me his damaged ear. “Most of us have lost a part or two baiting for that bad old Bostic.”
“Shut up!” Thomas said.
“No,” Max said. “Bostic is bad. We gotta say everything.”
“He won’t find out you said anything,” I said. “I promise.”
Thomas reluctantly gave Max permission to tell me about Bostic.
“Bostic keeps the worms. He feeds them. He takes care of them.”
“Why?” I said sounding a little dazed by the news.
“For the Myrmidons.”
I was even more confused. “Why would he keep the worms for the Myrmidons?”
Max did his little shuffle dance. “It’s their jubilee meat. Makes them dance on their feet.”
I thought about his answer. “The Myrmidons eat the worms?”
“They eat ‘em up like there is no tomorrow,” Max said.
“And it’s like this?” I asked holding up the sack. “Once they eat it they can’t live without it? Literally?”
“It makes their heart go beat, beat, beat,” he said tapping his chest with his open hand.
I processed the information and said, “What do you mean ‘baiting for him?’”
“We bring the Myrmidons in. Travel night and day to find a pack of them and then slip them some Banshee meat. Once it gets in them, they get drawn here like a fly to sugar water.”
My shoulders dropped as I finally understood what was going on. “And Bostic hunts them down for the meat.”
“Jubilee meat. Jubilee meat...”
I stopped Max mid-song and handed him the sack. “Here. Just stop singing and take this.”
Max looked at the sack wide-eyed and then ripped it out of my hands. He could barely contain his excitement. Holding up the sack he yelled, “Jubilee meat!”
The Ratty-Bobs erupted in dance.
Thomas took the sack from Max and turned to the group, “Time to eat our sweet, sweet jubilee meat!”
They ran for the other side of the clearing with Thomas carrying the sack above his head. I stopped Max before he could join them.
“Gotta go before the meat’s gone,” he said as if he were about to cry.
“I just want to know one thing. What does Bostic feed the worms?”
Max looked at the others getting farther away and then quickly back at me. “He... He... He feeds them most anything. They ain’t picky. Won’t eat Myrmidon, but that’s it.” He tried to pull away.
“Wait. What about his people?”
“People?”
“The group that used to live in the trees with him. What happened to them?”
“Bostic ain’t never had people. The same people anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I gotta go,” he said.
“Just tell me what you mean.”
Max stomped his foot like an angry kid and said, “He takes in traveling folks like you every now and again.”
“Traveling folks?”
“People running from the scary stuff to the cold. Come through here every two or three months. He takes them in. Fattens them up.”
“Fattens them up?”
Max pulled away and said, “Bostic is bad. I done told you that.”
“He feeds them to the worms?”
“The ones that don’t eat the jubilee meat,” he backed away into the darkness.
“What happens to the ones that eat the jubilee meat?”
“They become one of us,” he said as he turned and ran towards the other side of the clearing.
I watched him disappear into the darkness. A wind came out of nowhere and whirled around me. It felt like every thought I had ever had in my life was rushing through my head. I couldn’t control them. They came at lightning speed, making me dizzier and dizzier by the second. I placed both hands over my ears and pressed. I was going crazy. I was sure of it. I breathed in deeply and the thoughts slowed until eventually I was stuck with just a single thought bouncing around in my head.
“Bostic is bad.”
I took a step back. I was wasting time standing in the clearing fighting the thoughts in my head. I had to get back. I stepped toward the line of trees and my foot landed in a hole. I felt my knee pop and fell to the ground in pain. Slapping the ground, I cursed my luck. How could I have been so careless? I flexed my knee and was relieved that it wasn’t hurt as badly as I’d thought.
The ground beneath me rumbled as if there was a tiny earthquake. I sat up facing the clearing. Everything looked normal at first. It was possible I’d just imagined the earthquake. I leaned forward to get back on my feet, but stopped when I saw a hump appear on the other side of the clearing. At least I thought it appeared. It could have been there all along. It must have been there all along. Another hump appeared. This time I was sure it hadn’t been there before. A giant white object surfaced and then disappeared below ground. The Banshees.
I stood and tried to figure out why they would show now. Max said the Myrmidon meat would keep them away... The Myrmidon meat. I didn’t have it anymore. I was out in the middle of the woods, at least a half a mile away from the treeway, and I had nothing to protect me from the Banshees.
The worm surfaced again. It had traveled fifty feet in just seconds. It rose out the ground four or five feet, and I could see the half-moon scar.
I went from being terrified to being angry, but not angry enough. Not the kind of anger I experienced fighting Bostic. I’d never be able to dig up my Délon side in time. My only option was to run.
I turned and took one step towards the woods and nearly fell again. A sharp pain shot through my knee. Whatever I’d done to it would apparently slow me down when I really couldn’t afford to be slowed down.
I heard the worm surface behind me and decided the only thing I could do was ignore the pain and run like it wasn’t there. Four steps in, the pain became tolerable enough for me to do just that. I ran, pumping my arms and legs like there was no tomorrow. I reached the tree line and crashed through the low lying brush and started my way up the hill in the direction of the treeway, at least I hoped it was the direction of the treeway. I couldn’t get my bearings. I knew I had come down the hill to the clearing, but I couldn’t remember which way down the hill. Did I come straight down, from the right or from the left? I chose to go straight up.
My foot slipped on a loose rock and my knee seized up in pain. I leaned up against a tree and tried to work the pain out.
A small tree at the bottom of the hill moved and tilted to the right. A slightly bigger tree next to it tilted to the left. The worm was churning its way underneath the mountain headed straight for me. There was no way I was going to outrun it. I looked up. I couldn’t climb any of the trees nearby. I turned and scrambled farther up the mountain, using my hands to help pull myself along the damp ground. Every time I l
ost my footing, a shooting pain shot up my leg.
I came to a tree that was large enough to climb and had a branch low enough for me to use as leverage. I grabbed it and crashed to the ground when it broke. The hill started to cave in. The Banshee surfaced and sensed I was close by. It let out a shriek and dove underneath the ground. I had a feeling the next time it surfaced would be right underneath me. I would be bitten in half before I found another tree to climb.
Still, I couldn’t just wait for it to find me. I forced myself to stand and scanned the area for another tree. There were plenty that would have been perfect if my leg wasn’t killing me. Finding one with a branch and foothold to make it an easy climb was another matter.
The ground shifted underneath my feat. It was here. The pain in my leg went away as my mind went into full blown panic mode. I hugged the tree nearest me and attempted to shimmy my way up its trunk. I got three feet off the ground before the worm poked through the dirt. It probed the air and immediately got a bead on me. Slowly it stretched its long body out of the ground until we were eye to mouth. I could smell its putrid breath. I was going to be eaten just like Kimball. When I thought of it that way, I didn’t mind as much.
It leaned away and opened its mouth. The next motion would be a quick head strike followed by its teeth ripping through my flesh. I prepared myself for the end. This was all finally going to be over. Maybe this is how I would make it home.
I heard a garbled roar and then watched as a huge black and silver mass swung out of the tree and landed with a thud on the ground.
Ajax didn’t waste any time. He leapt for the giant Banshee and yanked it back, pulling it away from me. He threw his huge fist into its slimy body. The worm twisted so violently that it sent Ajax flying. He landed ten feet away. The gorilla rolled and sprang to his feet and knuckles. He shook his powerful head to get rid of the cobwebs and then barreled towards the Banshee again. Sensing it was about to be bashed again, the worm zipped its body underground. Ajax didn’t give me time to say anything before he scooped me up and pulled us both up into the top of the tree.
He panted and huffed, doing whatever he could do to catch his breath. We sat on a thick branch that barely supported our weight, and I searched for what to say. I didn’t know how he got there when he did, but I owed him my life... again.
“I’m not sure what just happened,” I said, “but thanks.”
He wouldn’t look at me.
I thought of Kimball. How could I not? In my mind, Ajax would always be linked to Kimball’s last horrible moments on this planet. It was wrong of me to think that way. I had to let go of the growing hatred I had for the gorilla. “Listen, I need to say something to you,” I said. “It’s about Kimball.”
He turned his back to me.
“I wouldn’t look at me either.”
He still didn’t acknowledge me.
I placed my hand on his shoulder and to my surprise he reached over his shoulder and placed his hand on top of mine. “A life with purpose can only end in honor.” That was it. I didn’t need to say I was sorry because he knew. Gorillas always know.
The worm poked through the ground and stretched a foot in the air. If it figured out we were within stretching distance, it wouldn’t hesitate to come after us. At the moment, it was looking for us. Waiting for us to move so it could feel the vibrations. It smelled us, and knew we were close. But the more I watched it, the more I felt certain it couldn’t hear. It found its prey by feeling it move.
I didn’t take any chances on being wrong about its deafness. I waited for it to submerge before talking. “We’ve got to figure out a way to the treeway.”
Ajax reached up into the tree and hoisted himself up higher. Seconds later his big padded hand reached down to me. I grabbed, and he pulled me up to his level. Ajax grabbed the trunk of the tree and shifted his weight forward. The tree started to bend.
“What are you doing, big guy?”
The top of our tree collided with next tree up the hill. Ajax grabbed the trunk of the new tree while still holding onto the old tree. He grunted and motioned with his head for me to climb across to the new tree.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” I closed my eyes and prayed that neither tree would break under Ajax’s weight. After a count of three, I jumped to the new tree. Ajax released the old tree and it snapped away from us like a catapult.
Ajax repeated the trick until the treeway was in sight. He was showing signs of exhaustion, but he refused to stop. I pretended like I needed a rest even though he was doing all the work.
There hadn’t been any signs of the Banshee for a long time. I was tempted to jump to the ground and race to the treeway on foot. Surely we could make it. It wasn’t that far.
“Ajax,” I said, “Break off a good sized branch and toss it to the ground.”
Before I could suggest which branch, he reached up and yanked one down that was as big around as the fat end of a baseball bat. It hit the ground with a thud. The ground underneath it bulged up ever so slightly.
“It followed us.”
Ajax started the process of getting us to the next tree, but he was so tired he nearly slipped and fell to the ground.
“Whoa, take it easy. Take a few more minutes and try again.”
He was relieved that I suggested he rest. He bowed his head and collected himself.
“I need you to regain your strength by the time we get back to the treehouse. Turns out Bostic isn’t the award-winning host we thought he was.”
Ajax hooted which I assumed meant “No duh.”
I sat back against the trunk of the tree and watched the leaves bob and dip in the steady breeze. It reminded me of sitting in the woods behind my house, lying on the ground and staring up through the trees as the clouds raced by. “I can’t go home, Ajax.”
His hoot indicated a “Why?” this time.
“Lou isn’t real. She can’t go back with us.”
There was no response from him this time.
“I can’t go back without her. I know I did some terrible things to Stevie, and I know I deserve to be here. It’s my responsibility to make it right. I know all that, and I accept it, but this... this doesn’t seem fair.”
He turned his massive head toward me but still didn’t offer a hoot or growl in response.
“It’s cruel. Crueler than anything I ever did to him. And it’s not just cruel to me. If Lou ever finds out, it’ll kill her. Plus if I’m the key like everyone’s been saying, that means I’m the key to getting everyone home. Wes, Gordy, Tyrone, April, you. Everyone will pay if I don’t find a way home. But if I find a way home... you get the point.”
He nodded.
“I wish I knew what you were thinking, big guy.”
He pointed at me and signed a word I knew, “Protect.” Then he spread his hands out and did a half circle shape. “You protect all.”
He stood and reached out for the next tree that would move up the mountain.
I had no idea what he meant by “You protect all,” but it didn’t sound easy. I was getting tired of being the guy at the center of everything.
***
We made it to the treeway, but we barely mustered up enough energy to make it to the zip lines before daybreak. By the time we got in our harnesses, the first slivers of light were stretching across the sky.
As soon as I hit the deck of the house, I could feel that something wasn’t right. I pushed open the door to the house and announced we were back, but as it turns out, I announced it to an empty room.
“Lou,” I said walking to the back door. The deck was empty.
I called out for the others, but no one called back.
Ajax knuckle-walked through the door and looked as confused as I felt.
We both heard the sound of someone darting across the zip line. We hurried to the deck and watched the fog, waiting for the person to appear. Hopefully it was one of ours, letting us know they were all okay, that they just went out for a morning walk through the tr
eeway. Maybe they went out looking for me.
A large figure dashed out of the haze and soared toward us. It was Bostic. He landed on the deck and unhooked his harness with a disturbing smile.
“Boy,” he said. “Gorilla.”
Ajax growled and shot him a hateful glare.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“In a safe place,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means what it means. No riddles. I’ve put them where they won’t come to harm. That’s what you do with bargaining chips.”
Ajax’s growl grew louder.
“And you certainly don’t bring harm to the fellow who knows where they are.”
I crossed the deck keeping my eyes on him. “What exactly are we bargaining for?”
He removed his harness and tossed it on the hook. “I’m bargaining for you.”
I looked over the deck. “You alone?”
He laughed and pointed up into the canopy. “I’m never alone.”
I strained to see what he meant. A flicker of light seemed out of place and then another and another. I looked closer and saw why. The freakish monkey-worms were hiding in the trees. There were dozens of them.
He walked into the treehouse. “I didn’t have a clue what I had with you, boy. Thought you were just another group of ‘poor me’ survivors passing through my mountain.” He chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong. You were that and then some. Never heard so much moaning and groaning about the state of this apocalypse we presently are enjoying. You people just don’t know how to take advantage of a situation. There are riches to be made. Fun to be had. You just gotta have the right attitude.”
Ajax and I followed him into the kitchen. “Are you going to get to the point?”
“The point is I have made my way here, boy. I have prospered like I never could have dreamed in the old world. I have carved out a nice little life and it keeps just getting better.”
“Where are the others?”
“We’ll get to that.” He snapped his fingers. “You’re probably wondering why I can talk all normal now.” He pulled back his bandage and removed the tobacco leaf revealing scars that looked like nothing more than minor scratches. He ripped the bandage off and tossed it away. “Myrmidon meat does more than make you feel good.” He rolled his eyes and smiled. “I mean really good. It also helps you heal fast. You done some real damage. By the way, that is some trick you’re able to do there. You got all Hulkie on me.”
