The Pure: Book Three of the Oz Chronicles (7 page)

A slash of light reveals a portion of
his face. It is... purple. His eyes are milky white. He is Délon. I ready
myself for an attack.

“You are the key to the Source! I must
have the Source!” It steps into the full light. His body is as feeble as his
silhouette hinted. His face is cracked and wrinkled. When he talks, I can hear
his blackened tongue rubbing against his mandibles.

“The Source?”

“Yes. The Source!” He groans. “I cannot
take this endless loop. The Source. Bring me the Source.”

“I don’t...”

“You don’t know what it is. I know that.
You’ve told me more times than I can count.”

“Why would I help you?”

He pounds the clay wall next to him. He
is on the verge of a fit, but restrains himself. He points to the corner of the
cavern where the purple faces are peering out at me. “I’m too tired to escort
you over there. See for yourself.”

I hesitate. I take a step in that
direction and then pause. I wipe my muddy hand across my face. I resume my
journey to the darkened corner. As I get closer, I discover the purple faces
are attached to disembodied heads crammed into the clay walls of the cavern. I
am so mesmerized by them that I don’t see the body on the gurney until I nearly
run into it.

I look at it closely. The face is hidden
beneath a shunter. It is a young boy, fifteen... sixteen. It’s me. A young
curly headed boy of the same age, so caked with mud that he blends in with the
cave wall, steps out of the black corner. Gordy.

“I’m watching him for you,” he says.

“You’re real,” I say not knowing if it’s
true.

He looks at me strangely. “Well, duh.”

“I don’t understand. Why am I here?”

“To help us decorate the place, why do
you think, you moron. C’mon, we can’t keep doing this.” He directs his
attention to the old Délon. “Can’t you give him some kind of memory jolt or zap
or whatever? We go through this every time.”

“I’m not a magician!” The Délon shouts.

Back to me. “Listen,” Gordy says. “The
purple pile of puss needs the Source to get his power back. You are the key to
the Source. He knows it. I know it. General Roy knows it. Every Destroyer on
the planet knows it.”

“Destroyer?”

“Monsters, freaks... the things the
Storytellers created to get back at the world for treating them like a pile of
dog crap. Understand?”

I look at myself lying on the gurney. I
shake my head.

“It’s not important.” He puts his hand
on my shoulder. “Focus. The Source. You have to find it. The Délons have got
you trapped in here.” He taps the shunter, and it squeals. “This little guy is
drilling out your brain and replacing it with purple mush. Everything you think
is real ain’t real. You got to find a way out and get back to finding the
Source, and you got to do it soon because I am bored out of my ever-lovin’ mind
down here.”

I turn and watch as the old Délon begins
to wheeze and cough. “Why is he helping us?” I ask.

Gordy stifles a frustrated scream. “Oz
Griffin meet the Pure. Pure meet Oz Griffin.”

“The Pure?” I say. I examine his twisted
body. “Canter wasn’t lying.”

“He was,” the Pure croaks. “He always
lies.”

“He said you were alive.”

“He had no idea it was true. No one
knows I’m alive.”

“What am I?” Gordy snaps. “Chopped
liver?”

“Pardon,” The Pure moans. “No one of
real consequence knows.”

“Nice,” Gordy says shaking his head.
“After all I’ve done for you, and this is the thanks I get? Insults? You ugly
bag of bones.”

With that, the Pure leaps across the
cavern and lands on Gordy forcing him to the ground. “I should tear open your
skull and dine on your useless gray matter.” The Pure is indeed not as feeble
as he looks.

Gordy screams.

I push the Pure off of him. The old
Délon snaps his mandibles in anger and frustration.

“What is our deal?” I ask the Pure.

He looks at me. He is breathing heavily
and staggering. The leap across the room drained what little energy he had.
“Your world for the Source.”

“My world?”

Gordy stands. “Home, Oz. Home.”

“You mean...”

“Everything as you remember it. As I’ve
told you a thousand times before. Your world.”

My mind tries to grab hold of the
concept, but I can’t. A lump forms in my throat, and I fight back a tear. “I
don’t remember.”

“You do,” Gordy says. “Or you can
again.”

“How?”

He walks over to the nearest clay wall
and writes with his finger -
Millie B. Story
.

I read the name over and over again.

“Who...”

“Shhhhh,” he says. “The next session is
about to start.”

The light slowly begins to lose way to
the darkness. Within a matter of seconds, it is pitch black. I soon hear
muffled voices from overhead. I stand on my toes to see if I can hear the
voices more clearly.

My eyes begin to acclimate to the
darkness. Slowly, I can make out shapes. A mop handle, a shelf with cleaning
supplies. I am back in the janitor’s closet.

“Getting sleepy, now,” Dr. Graham’s
voice says traveling down from the vent. “Almost there. You’re feeling relaxed
and safe. Safe, Archie. We are back in the woods with your friends.”

“We didn’t fair too well without Lou and
the others. Barely a week had passed when April squatted in a patch of poison
ivy. She was covered in red welts.

“Tank caught a nasty cold shortly after
that. He was snorting, sniffing and basically leaking mucus from every hole in
his head.

“We found a box of fruit cocktail behind
an abandoned backwoods convenience store. The cans were rusted and beat up, but
I was hungry so I took a chance none of the others would. I threw up for three
days.

“Little Bobby was the only one who
seemed to be doing better. His bite was on the mend , and he was in general
good spirits. For most of the waking day, he sang the only song he knew, ‘I’ve
Got Friends In Low Places.’ And by the second hour of the first day he took to
singing, the rest of us hoped to the heavens above that Garth Brooks had
survived the end of the world so we could find him and give him the beating of
a lifetime for writing that damn song.

“His choice of song did lead to an
interesting conversation though. April began to wonder out loud where all the
famous people were. The ones she used to read about in supermarket tabloids and
on the Internet.

“‘Lord, I hope not,’ Tank said with a
nasally tone. ‘That girl wasted all her pretty in normal times. I can’t imagine
God would give her a second chance.’

“I laughed. ‘What makes you so sure
God’s got a hand in what happened here?’

“Tank gave me a perplexed look. ‘God’s
got a hand in everything.’

“‘Those crab things we saw,’ I said.
‘And the purple... people and the Bashir.... You think God’s got a hand in
that, too?’

“Tank spat a big gob of snot on a nearby
tree. ‘I ain’t a preacher. Don’t know nothing about the Bible. I just know what
my momma taught me. God is everywhere and has a hand in everything.’

“‘What about Angelina?’ April said
ignoring our religious discussion. ‘You think she made it?’

“Tank’s eyes lit up. ‘Now, that I
wouldn’t mind. She was pretty and smart and did stuff for poor people... or
something to that effect.’

“‘Oh, and Brad, too,’ April said
excitedly. ‘I bet he made it.’ “‘Ahh, don’t nobody need him around,’ Tank moaned.
‘I’d like a crack at that Angelina without him interfering.’

“April howled with laughter. ‘Angelina
wouldn’t have you if you were the last man on earth.’

“‘Hell,’ Tank said. ‘I ain’t far off.’

“‘What about Archie,’ April said. ‘He
might like to hook up with her.’

“I shook my head. ‘Nah, Tank can have
her.’ The truth was I was still in love with my wife. The end of the world
didn’t change that. Tank was welcome to all the Hollywood starlets and models
and beauty queens we came across. My heart belonged to the one and only woman I
ever loved.

“‘I hope Homer Simpson is still alive,’
Little Bobby said. ‘He was funny.’

“We all stopped to look at him.

“‘What?’ he asked.

“Tank was about to say something, but I
stopped him. ‘Nothing, Bobby.’

“Tank, April, and I began to laugh as we
resumed our travels.

“That’s how we traveled most of the
time. We talked about nothing important and stopped to laugh at little Bobby
whenever the occasion presented itself. We were living as trivially as we did
when we had bills to pay and movies to see and games to watch. Nothing had
really changed. It felt wrong at times, but most of the time it felt like we
were doing exactly what we were supposed to, not matter. As far as we knew, all
the folks that mattered, the scientists, the politicians, the doctors, the
engineers, were all dead or worse. The best we could figure is we were alive
because we didn’t matter. In all our travels, we didn’t come across one person
who made a difference in normal times. Those people seemed to be gone. Our
greatest survival skill was having no skills at all. I guess sometimes it pays
to have no ambition.

“Now of course Tank wouldn’t agree that
he didn’t matter. He was a truck driver after all. Drove a big rig. Delivered
everything from lumber to stuffed animals from coast to coast. He mattered.

“Never mind that driving big rigs ain’t
a skill that matters a lick in this world. He still thought highly of himself.

“And April was a sorority girl who made
average grades and excellent excuses for all her shortcomings. Her only real
skill was doing things that would make her parents ashamed and then keeping
them closely guarded secrets.

“Little Bobby’s uselessness was
self-explanatory. He thought two plus two was penguin for hell sake, and his
greatest wish was that a cartoon character was still alive.

“I was no better. I only wanted to
become an electrician so I could make enough money to support my family. Seeing
how there was no longer electricity , and my family was gone, I was just as
useless as the rest of my band of survivors. Maybe more.

“In the middle of finding a thousand
different reasons for feeling sorry for myself, I heard a swishing sound and
then felt a hard whack against my ear. I reached up to soothe the sudden rush
of pain. ‘Ouch!’ I drew my hand back. My fingertips were coated in blood. ‘What
the...?’

“‘Arrow,’ Tank said pointing to a tree
in front of us. ‘Get down!’

“April, Tank, and I dropped to the
ground. Little Bobby approached the tree. ‘Where did that come from?’

“Tank grabbed his hand. ‘Get down, damn
it.’ He yanked Little Bobby down to the ground. ‘Someone’s out there.’

“We waited, breathing heavy, afraid to
move. Finally, April spoke.

“‘Why are they shooting at us?’

“‘They don’t like us,’ Tank said.

“‘Who’s shooting what?’ Little Bobby asked.

“‘Shhhh,’ I said.

“I could hear movement. I couldn’t
determine where it was coming from, but it was slow and deliberate and headed
toward us. The light sound of voices muttering carried through the forest
floor.

“‘They’re coming,’ Tank said.

“Sounding panicked, April said, ‘What do
we do?’

“‘Stay calm,’ I said fighting every
instinct in me to start bawling my eyes out.

“Little Bobby stood up. ‘Look, people!’

“Tank reached for him, ‘Get down, you
idiot.’

“A sound similar to air being sucked
through a straw suddenly came at us. I didn’t know the source of the sound
until I watched the arrow go through Tank’s hand.

“Tank flopped on the ground cradling his
wounded hand with the other. April screamed and crawled to the closest, fattest
tree. Bobby looked on in an odd wonder.

“I jumped up. ‘Hey! Stop! Please!’ I
realized anyone who would fire arrows first and ask questions later probably
wouldn’t be swayed by my use of the word please, but I figured it couldn’t hurt
to throw it in.

“‘Who are you?’ A man about fifty feet
away asked. His face was painted with green and black paint. It was hard to
distinguish his age. He had an arrow cocked and ready to fire.

“Little Bobby smiled and waved. ‘I’m
Bobby. I used to ride horses.’

“‘Ahhh, don’t pay any attention to him,’
I said. ‘We’re nobody. We’re just passing through.’

“‘Shoot them,’ a woman’s voice cried
out.

“‘No, no, that won’t be necessary,” I
said. ‘We’re harmless, really, I promise. We didn’t know we... had violated...
actually, I’m not quite sure what we did, but if you let us go, we’ll try not
to do it again’

“A group of six men and one woman
emerged from the woods. All but the woman had arrows drawn. They wore shabby,
dark clothes and their faces were covered with black and green paint.

“I turned to Tank. ‘You all right?’

“He held up the hand with the arrow
still lodged in it. ‘What do you think?’

“‘Yeah, boy!’ One of the men yelled.
‘Jerry got the big one through the hand.’

“‘I got the puny one on the ear. Bloods
still dripping,’ one of the other men proclaimed.

“‘Don’t count,’ the woman said. ‘You
were aiming for the head.’

“‘The ear’s the head,’ the shooter
insisted. I could tell now that he was young. Maybe mid-teens.

“‘Not hardly,’ the one they called Jerry
said. ‘That’s a miss.’

“The teenager growled. ‘That ain’t fair.
I get points for the head.’

“‘You get half a point for the ear,’ a
man’s voice replied. An older gentleman from the rear of the pack moved ahead
of the others. He was taller and bulkier than the others. I got the immediate
sense he was in charge. He walked over to Tank, grabbed his wounded hand and
inspected it. ‘Nice work, Jerry.’ He turned to the young man to his left. Jerry
beamed with pride.

“In a sudden graceful movement, the
older man twisted the shaft of the arrow sticking out of Tanks hand and with
the flick of his wrist broke it in half. Before Tank could protest, the man
jerked the arrow out of Tank’s hand.

“‘Round ‘em up,’ the man said. He walked
over to the boy who had been bragging about hitting me in the ear with an
arrow. The older man slapped him across the face. ‘Don’t ever aim for the head,
boy.’

“‘I’m sorry, Carl.’ The kid was almost
in tears.

“‘Sorry, nothing. You’re smarter than
that, Kip. We need people to tend to the compound. A man with an arrow in his
head isn’t going to do us much good, now is he?’

“Kip shook his head.

“Carl poked him in the temples with his
thick index finger. ‘Think, boy. That’s all I ask.’

“Kip nodded, sweat formed on his painted
forehead. He was afraid for his life. I had seen that look too many times since
the world ended not to recognize it.

“The others in the group forced us to
our feet and into a line. They weren’t concerned about treating us delicately.
Injured or not, they pushed and shoved us until we stopped struggling. I was
first in line. April was behind me, followed by Bobby, and Tank brought up the
rear. Our captors walked on either side of us, talking amongst themselves, but
never addressing us. Tank asked them what they wanted and where they were
taking us, but stopped after Carl ordered someone in his group to shut him up.
One of them did so by punching Tank in the gut.

“April whimpered as we walked. She
reached out to grab my arm for comfort once, but the girl in the group
immediately slapped it away and told April to shut up. I looked at her and
tried to muster up the courage to tell her to leave April alone, but when we
locked eyes, I chickened out and quickly turned away.

“‘This group seems kind of useless,
Carl,’ the girl said.

“‘Everyone’s got a use,’ Carl replied.
‘Whether, soldier, servant, or bait to lure in our enemies, everyone can
contribute.’

“‘I can do a cartwheel,’ Bobby said
excitedly.

“‘Shut up,’ Tank groaned.

“Our captors laughed. ‘A cartwheel,’ one
of them repeated. ‘That’ll come in handy,’ another one said.

“‘Want to see?’ Bobby said with an air
of pride.

“With a simple raising of his hand, Carl
stopped the group. He approached me. Without expression, he said, ‘Shut the
retard up.’

“He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t
have to. I got the message. I bit my lip and stepped around April to get to
Bobby.

“He had the biggest toothiest grin I
hadn’t seen since I found him hiding in an abandoned stable outside of Mobile,
Alabama. ‘They want to see my cartwheel,’ he said.

“I shook my head. ‘Later, Bobby. Right
now you got to be quiet.’

“He didn’t get it. He began to giggle
excitedly. ‘I haven’t done it in awhile.’

“‘Bobby, listen to me...’

“He held his hands above his head. ‘I’ve
got to get my hands right. That’s the important part.’

“I pulled his arms down. ‘Bobby, no!’

“‘Leave him alone,” April choked out
between sobs.

“Carl motioned for one of his lackeys to
do something to shut Bobby up. The lackey reached behind his back. I didn’t
wait to see what he was going to pull out. I cocked my fist back and punched
Bobby in his bite wound. He shrieked in pain.

“‘Shut up!’ My stomach tied in knots.
‘Nobody wants to see your idiotic cartwheel. You get it? You’re a stinkin’
retard, Bobby. Just shut up or I’ll make sure the skinner dead eat you next
time. You understand?’

“He was in too much pain to answer. Tank
looked at me with terrified awe. In all the time we had been together, I had
never flipped out like that.

“The lackey backed off. When he turned
around, I saw the handle of a hunting knife sticking out of his pants. I felt a
little better for what I done to shut Bobby up, but just a little.