The Land of the Dead: Book Four of the Oz Chronicles by R.W. Ridley Page B

my friends.”
    “My responsibility? I’ve got Bobby to worry about.”
    “So,” I said. “Now you have Bobby and… what was your son’s name.”
    I could see the muscles in his jaw tighten. “It doesn’t matter because that’s not my son.”
    “I’ll watch him,” Bobby said. “I’m good with babies.”
    “No!” Archie shouted. “Turn him back.”
    I laughed. “It’s not up to me.”
    “Turn back!” Archie screamed at Tall Boy.
    Tall Boy had morphed into what looked like a five-year-old kid, and he was continuing to get smaller. His face was completely different. By the look on Archie’s face, he must have taken on the general features of his son.
    Archie stepped back, eyes glazed over, forehead wrinkled, and his face began to contort. I recognized that look. It was shame. He took one deep breath and whispered the name. “Max.”

ELEVEN
     
    I was hungry… no, that’s not the word for it. I was fixated on eating. My every thought began with me stuffing a hunk of food in my mouth and ended with me chewing frantically, a smile on my face, grease from the fat in the meat outlining my lips. I was insane with hunger, which didn’t bother me as much as what I always pictured myself eating. The meat was human… deliciously human.
    I thought these thoughts as I stared at Archie. He was wiry and didn’t appear to have a whole lot of meat, but I had seen the Skinner Dead eat. They always found enough meat on the bones. And all those zombie movies I had seen when the world was still normal; all those zombies loved the guts and the… brains.
    Brains! The thought stuck in my head. I had forgotten about the brains. My stomach growled. I would eat the brains first… no last. Yes, last. That would be my dessert. That is how I would finish my meal.
    “Stop!” I roared.
    Archie looked puzzled while Little Bobby was just terrified. He held onto what was once Tall Boy but was now a baby about a year and a half old.
    “Stop what?” Archie asked.
    I tried to think of a believable lie to tell him because I wasn’t sure how to break it to him gently that I planned on eating his brains as a sweet, scrumptious dessert. “I… can’t stop… I think I was talking to myself.”
    “You think?”
    “Forget it.” I picked up my backpack and crossbow. “I have to go.” Archie motioned toward me, but I halted him in his tracks by raising my hand. “Alone.”
    “Alone?” He grimaced. “Look, there ain’t no guide book on this whole Creyshaw-warrior thing. I got no idea what I’m doing.”
    “None of us do.”
    “Yeah, but you’re the only one that got your Storyteller to your Keeper.”
    “I was lucky.” I started to exit the room.
    “I need to know what to do!”
    I stopped. “Stay away from me. That’s what you do.” I caught a glimpse of little Bobby holding the baby, and Nate’s face shot up from my memory banks. “We’re bad people, Archie. That’s why we’re here.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    I shook my head. “You want to know how to be a good Creyshaw?”
    He nodded.
    “Don’t matter.”
    He waited for me to elaborate. Finally, he threw up his hands. “That’s it? Could you maybe be a little more cryptic?”
    I sighed. “The way I treated Tommy, the way I made fun of him, the way I made him feel like he didn’t matter… that’s why he created the monsters. I mattered so much I caused the end of the world.”
    “But…”
    “Creyshaw’s don’t matter, Archie. Our job is to become unnecessary. When you come up against it, when you have a decision to make, make the decision that gets you closer to not mattering.”
    I paused, hoping he would interject, but he was still too busy trying to process my advice.
    “Lou, Wes, and the others, they want to bring back our old world. They want everything to be the way it used to be. I do, too, but…”
    “But, what?” he asked.
    “It scares me, too. We bring back the world and everything is how it used to be. Why would we