The Kidnapped Army

by Shiloh White

  “What the hell do you mean, kid?” Stark said, his scowl replacing his sad excuse for a smile. “At the end of the day, you're all going to die!"

  “Yet you're going after the girl first.” Chug taunted. He took a step towards Stark—which was a smart move on his part. I wasn't sure why he put so much emphasis on 'girl' but I was about ready to elbow him in his ribs like I promised.

  “But you know,” he continued, “I think I know why that is. Why you couldn't kill me all those times before. Even when I was right above you, all you could manage was this!” He pulled up his shirt to reveal the bandages. Stark started to make this deep raspy growl out of anger.

  His face scrunched up, as if his eyes, nose, mouth, and teeth all became one giant angry scowl. He whipped his knife around in his hand and crouched.

  Chug, what are you thinking? At least before, if Stark had found out about Woodstock, we might have had a second or two to do something. But Stark was ready now. We had no time to defend ourselves.

  “Chug—” I whispered, trying to get him to be quiet. He ignored me, keeping his eyes on the crazy psychopath in front of him.

  “It's because you're afraid of me!” Chug said. He pointed both thumbs at himself, with a grin on his face.

  “If it's the only way to shut you up, then I will kill you first,” Stark growled. Then with a single dash, he'd closed the distance between him and Chug. His knife was pointed at Chug's chest and his other hand gripped down on his head, keeping him from getting away.

  I jumped back and pulled out my paint whip.

  “Let go of him!"

  “Fat chance,” Stark said. “He asked for it.” Chug gritted his teeth, but showed no fear.

  “Coward's right,” Chug said. “I did ask for it, so hurry up already! HURRY UP ALREADY!”

  “Shut up!” Stark screamed, raising the knife above his head.

  Just before he brought it down, a voice boomed from nowhere in particular:

  “Duck, ese!"

  Chug—and I, thanks to being too freaked out to know what was happening—ducked, giving up a clump of his hair to get yanked out by Stark. Then Woodstock launched into vision out of a dark swirl of smoke and tackled Stark to the ground. But when they hit the ground, the two of them fell straight through the gray surface.

  For a minute nothing happened. I looked down at Chug, who was staring at the grayness as well, but I didn't even dare help him stand. Neither of us moved while I tried to decipher what happened.

  I will tell you I was secretly relieved that Woodstock was still here. His last-minute pullback on the subway train combined with disappearing like that? For a second—and just a second, mind you—I thought he was going to jump ship. I regretted the thought as soon as it came, but it came up nonetheless.

  A minute or two later, Woodstock alone shot back up through the grayness underneath our feet.

  “Phew,” he said, panting for breath. “I could not stand that guy."

  “Well, it took you long enough!” Chug said, finally rising to his feet.

  “I didn't expect you to make him run!” Woodstock explained. “He shot right past me, and I had no chance to reach him in time. I had to turn around and go back."

  “And not a second too soon.” Chug gave him a high-five.

  “Can someone fill me in on what the heck just happened, please?” I said. “Everything in the past ten seconds just fried my brain."

  “I Zone-Hopped Stark into a nearby Depression Zone,” Woodstock said. “And since it's his actual body and not his consciousness, he won't be going anywhere. At least, not until his buddies show up."

  “And disappearing?” I asked, hiding the guilt in my voice.

  “Think of it as short distance Zone-Hopping,” he explained. “I changed to smoke form and spread myself as thin as possible so he couldn't see me inching over to him. The distraction part didn't work too well, but the look on Chug's face was priceless."

  “Well, you took forever!” Chug said. I held back a laugh.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Woodstock said. “Let's go inside before my adrenaline wears off."

  37. When In School, Avoid Detention

  It took all three of us to push one of the giant doors open.

  It led us into a grandeur main hall that stretched on for as long as my eyes could see. White pillars lined the walls which offset a royal shade of blood red the walls were bathed in. In addition, golden tassels of thick rope draped from one pillar to the next. To complete the ensemble of style in the Academy, every now and then hung a picture—no, a painting. The walls were full of portraits. Each painting had a wood frame painted purple, and was draped with the same golden tassels.

  Down the hall on both sides were four tall archways. The arches closest to us on either side were much larger and opened into other hallways. The rest were shut with the same over-sized doors as the one we came through. The closed doors must have been to various classes—or whatever curricular activities Depression Agents engaged in.

  Maybe used to engage in, I thought.

  Once upon a time, it must have been a royal and regal environment. For creatures of Depression, I know, but…you just had to be there, okay?

  Now everything just looked...old. The paint on the doors and painting frames was peeling. The wood looked scratched and in some places, cracked or chipped away. Even the walls were fading from a deep red into a thin and pasty lighter shade.

  Just a few steps in, Woodstock poked me on the back. I turned around and saw he did the same to Chug.

  “Yo, amigos?” he said, glancing up at a painting of a young woman.

  Her hair was black, and would have went down to her shoulders if she didn't wear it like a raven's nest. The front of her hair looked like ridiculously long bangs that would have covered her face if someone hadn't cut it at a slant that allowed us to see one and a half of her sharp brown eyes. They were light. I might have mistaken them for hazel, but I knew my shades of brown. And the way they stared hungrily down at me solidified it all. (Err, not that all people with brown eyes stare hungrily...but she did.) The artist had also given the woman a small Mona Lisa-esque smile. Although this woman's smile felt more condescending than mysterious. Overall, she looked like the type of person who would have eaten you for breakfast, if she wasn't a painting.

  “What's going on?” I asked Woodstock, looking up at the painting.

  “I think I forgot some of the adrenaline outside,” he said, eyes stuck to the woman. “We might want to...” his voice cracked and he trailed off.

  “We're not turning back now,” Chug cut in. “You're the biggest out of the three of us. Adrenaline or not, you'll have to manage."

  “Besides that,” I said, trying to sound nicer than Chug, “You know stuff about this place. Like where to look for our friends."

  “Right, right,” Woodstock said, sticking his hands on his pockets. He paced back and forth a couple steps. “Let's find our friends.”

  He looked up at another painting of a stone-faced man whose eyes glared back down. I noticed his frame had a few more gold tassels on it than some of the others. Whoever the guy was, he must have been important.

  “Do you know those people?” I asked, pointing up at the man and the nearby portraits. Woodstock nodded.

  “Some of them,” he said. “That guy's a teacher. Or was. A lot of this place has that."

  “Has what?"

  “Or was,” Woodstock answered. “Stuff of the past.”

  At first, I was a little confused by his choice of words, but I just had to look back at the walls to get it. If the rest of this place was all like the paint and care that had gone into this building only to be left in ruin like this, then I understood what he meant.

  “What about those guys who are coming toward us right now?” Chug asked. I looked toward the door. Five guys, all wearing white dress shirts with red pants walked out of one of the rooms down the hallway. (I know those colors usually blend well, but on those guys? Ew.) One of them—who, for whatev
er reason had an open book sitting on his head—pointed at us and shouted something, then the rest started running at us.

  “We need to go,” Woodstock said. He pointed at the open archway on the right. “That way!”

  He didn't wait for us to move before he got running. The moment he did, the guys in uniform broke into a full-on sprint in our direction.

  “Stop!” one of them yelled. “No running in the halls!"

  “But they're running.” Chug pointed out.

  “The rules don't apply to them,” Woodstock said.

  “I don't get it.” Chug panted.

  I glanced back at the group of guys, and almost yelped.

  “They're gaining speed!” I said.

  “It doesn't matter!” Woodstock said. “Just run faster.”

  We followed Woodstock down the long hallway the arch led us into, although it was more of a long room than a hallway, until we reached a normal-sized door.

  “In there!” he shouted. We skidded to a stop and Woodstock grabbed the handle and yanked it open. Chug ran inside. His fear of small spaces must have been outclassed by his fear of people chasing him.

  “What good's a broom closet going to do?” I asked. “They can see us. We need to keep moving."

  “Just listen to me and get in!” He grabbed my arm and yanked me into the small room, pulling the door shut behind him. There was no light in the little closet, which was in fact full of brooms and other cleaning supplies.

  “Ow, that's my toe!” Chug said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Both of you move to the left a little bit,” Woodstock ordered.

  “There's no room!” Chug complained.

  “Just squeeze over, or I can't reach it,” Woodstock said. “If those guys get us now, it's all over."

  “Fine,” Chug grunted, moving over towards my direction. I backed up until I hit the wall—which wasn't very far.

  “Thanks,” Woodstock said, shoving past both of us, “Now, is it even still—whoa!” In the darkness, I watched his body trip over something. He hit the ground and a flash of light illuminated the room. Then just as quickly it shrank away, leaving us in darkness again.

  Only this time, Woodstock was gone.

  ✽✽✽

  “Woodstock?” I asked. No answer.

  “Wood?” Chug said. But he didn't reply. Outside the closet came a BANGBANGBANG against the door.

  “COME OUT NOW OR IT'S GONNA BE WORSE THAN DETENTION FOR YOU!” One of the guys yelled.

  “They're all out there now,” I said. “What do we do?"

  “What exactly is detention?” Chug asked. “And what's worse?"

  “You don't want to find out,” I told him. Then I moved around the little bit of free room Woodstock's disappearance provided. I tried knocking on the walls and moving supplies to figure out how he got out.

  “Amigos, through here!” his voice called out from the back wall.

  A loud crash came from the back wall, and then light began spill into the dark room. Behind a bunch of supplies and stuff hanging on the wall, I could see Woodstock's arm reaching out.

  “Hurry up!” he shouted.

  Advice we should have taken a moment sooner.

  I maneuvered around the mess of the room, inching to the small gap in the room when another crash came—this one from the closet door. A hand smashed a good hole in it and was now reaching for the handle.

  Instead, it grabbed my art bag. I tugged on it, trying to pull free. But I didn't have enough room to pull. That, and this was the same hand that just punched through wood. I wasn't exactly fond of my chances for winning this tug-of-war.

  Chug took his foot and stomped the hand until it retreated back through the hole.

  “And stay out!” he declared triumphantly. “Now MOVE, Lucy!"

  “I'm"—I grunted, trying to squeeze my body through the passageway—"trying. Just hold on, alright?” I pushed past the tall shelf of cleaning supplies and slipped through the passage way—and into a huge room. It wasn't as long as the hallway we'd just been in, but it was way larger overall. And full of giant shelves. There was one just next to the hole I'd come through, too, standing taller than another Lucy on top of my shoulders.

  I didn't get much of a look though, since Chug made it through the hole significantly quicker than I did. He barreled out of the closet and tumbled straight into my legs, knocking me to the floor.

  “Get up, guys!” Woodstock said. He pulled us both to our feet with a tug of his arm on our wrists. Then he ran across the carpet to the other side of the massive bookshelf. “We can't let them through!”

  He ran at the bookshelf with all his might and began to shove it. I thought he'd lost it. There was no way one person—no matter how bulky or stocky—was going to move this giant shelf filled with all these books.

  “Uhh, Wood?” Chug asked. “Are you, uh, you know..."

  “Shut up and help, or don't!” Woodstock grunted. Then the unbelievable part happened—the bookshelf moved. Chug looked at me, mirroring the same 'jaw-drop' expression I wore. It hadn't budged much, but enough to notice. I also understood what he was doing. We rushed over to help him move the impossible bookshelf until it covered the hole we just squirmed through a moment ago.

  “You think that's gonna hold them?” Chug asked, slumping to the ground against the side of the bookshelf.

  “Not if we sit here and wait for them,” Woodstock said. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “We need to keep moving."

  “No, it's time to pause,” I decided, joining Chug in leaning against the side of the bookshelf.

  Now, before you get mad at me, I understand those guys were still behind the wall. I also get that they were probably wicked strong since one of them punched through a door. But hear me out.

  Last time I was in the Dust, a lot of craziness was heaped on me at once. It took almost the whole time of being there to piece together all of what happened just because of the sheer scope of insanity (literally) and danger and shock I was in. This time, I thought I'd done a pretty good job of keeping up with the craziness. (Jury's still out on just how Stark survived. I was told I could die in a Depression Zone—even if I was in a TransPort.) But the three of us moving this massive bookshelf by ourselves? Across carpet? That—of all things, I know—was the last mental straw

  Just to give you guys a bit of the scope, this thing was about as tall and wide as a wall of a two-story house, and full of books on every shelf.

  “How did we move this thing?” I asked, shoving my pointer finger into Woodstock's face, and then jabbing my thumb at the huge thing we were leaning against.

  “Look closer,” Woodstock suggested, tapping his foot at the bottom of the shelf. I squinted my eyes and saw that the bottom of the shelf wasn't the bottom of the shelf at all. Then he slid his foot underneath it and I gasped.

  “The shelf...” I stammered, looking from him back to the bookshelf. “That giant thing, is floating?"

  “Not floating,” Woodstock said. “Hanging. From a set of installed levers and whatnot.”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Because—” Woodstock bit his tongue. “Never mind.”

  “Wait,” I pushed, sensing something weird. “How'd you escape that closet?” I asked.

  “That's because...” he studied the ground, hoping for an answer to dust off and present to me. Chug snuffed out his hope.

  “You haven't just 'been here before,' have you?” Chug asked. Woodstock shook his head, confirming the young teen's—and my—suspicions.

  He sat down next to the two of us, looking behind him first to make sure there was no one there.

  “I attended the Academy, okay?” Woodstock said. “But I left this place the first chance I got. It's full of bad things, ese."

  “The entire Dust is full of bad things,” Chug said, his voice filling with anger. He rose to his feet. “This place was a home for you...you weren't Abandoned at all."

  “I might as well have been,” W
oodstock said. “You don't know what it was like in here. Back when Disorder was free, this place was big. Depression Agents flowed out of him by the second."

  “That sounds...disgusting.” I said. Then I apologized for interrupting him.

  “Try not to get hung up on it,” he said. “Anyway, after they were made, they came here to develop their strengths. At the Academy, you found out what particular branch of power—or for you Topsiders, mental illness—you were aligned with. Then, after a series of tests and trainings, you could leave to find a host."

  “So you were a part of this back then?” I asked, looking around at the room with new eyes. Now I saw all the books for what they probably were: study material and techniques on how to drain Topsiders like me of all emotion and ability. This place was all for the good of depression and Disorder. “You were involved in all this evil?"

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding defeated. I hadn't meant to bring him down. Part of it seemed to be seeping into him just from being here. He'd seemed down since even the news of having to come back here. But the other half was from re-living this pain through our words. I didn't want that for him.

  I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. He flinched when I touched him and looked up at me. His eyes were dry, and even looked empty.

  “If talking about this stuff hurts,” I told him, “you don't have to tell us. Let's just get our friends and get out.” Woodstock's expression tightened a little, as if he were pulling himself back together.

  “Thanks,” he said, rising to his feet. “It's just, everywhere I turn—"

  “It's your past.” Chug finished. He was leaning against a bookshelf up ahead, his back to us. “We don't have time for memories, Woodstock,” he continued, his voice bitter. “Lucy's right. Let's get our friends and get out of here. Where do we look next?"

  Against the bookshelf we were leaning against came this thumping sound that repeated until something broke through the back of the shelf, shoving books and pieces of the gold-painted wood onto the floor. I watched as one hand started to feel around the hole, probably for another doorknob. Too bad he wouldn't find any. Sooner rather than later, two more hands punched holes in the wood, cracking that section of the wood a lot more. It also caused one of the smaller shelves inside the giant bookcase to split where one of the hands punched through.