The Takers: Book One of the Oz Chronicles (2 page)

The message jolted me and I backed out of the bathroom. I whispered the slogan to myself trying to make sense of it. "Beware the Takers." The front door slammed shut. I told myself it was a gust of wind, but tightened my grip on my bat just in case. Above me, in the attic, I heard what I thought were heavy footsteps. Thump. Thump. Thump. Kimball began to bark. Chaos was breaking out all around me. I dashed down the hall and through the kitchen. "C'mon, Kimball," I shouted. "C'mon!" He ran after me. I opened the back door, and we exited the house like runners out of the starting blocks.

The backyard was enclosed by a six-foot wood fence with a padlocked gate on the side of the house. I could scale it with some difficulty, but Kimball was another story. I couldn't get him out, and I wasn't about to leave him. I pushed on the gate to see if there was any give. To my surprise, the gate pushed back. Kimball's fur on his back stood straight up and he began to growl just as he had done before. The gate shook violently. I looked around me. We were trapped.

"We've got to find a way out, Kimball."

He looked at me as if he understood me and then took off towards the back of the fence that lined a patch of woods. There was an area where the ground dipped and left a small crawl space underneath the fence. Had I not been sick and just shed twenty pounds, I would never have been able to fit, but given my new slimmer build, I followed Kimball through the crawl space with no problem. Safely on the other side, I heard the gate to the fence crash open.

I was exhausted but knew that we could not hang around to find out if whatever was on the other side of the fence could fit through the crawl space. Kimball and I quickly navigated our way through the thick mass of trees and bush until the fence was out of sight. I fell to my knees gasping for air next to a large fallen oak. Kimball made a small circle around me, panting, his legs wobbly and unstable. He could have collapsed at any moment, but he remained vigilant.

I rested for no more than two minutes. When I pulled myself up on my feet, my thighs burned and itched. My legs were getting exercise for the first time in more than a week, and they were protesting.

There are sounds deep in the woods that don't exist anywhere else on the planet. Traversing the dead pine needles and leaves, I heard crackles, crunches, pops, snaps, and thwacks coming from every direction. As long as Kimball wasn't alarmed, I remained relatively calm. He would know if real danger was afoot.

We reached the vacant lot at the back of our neighborhood, which put us about three blocks from my house. I wanted to lie down and take a nap. I wanted to be back in my parents' closet, still asleep, oblivious to what was happening outside. I wanted to be lying in my bed with my mother sitting next to me saying "Momma's little baby." I closed my eyes and hoped against hope that when I opened them I would be back in my house awakening from a bad dream.

I opened my eyes and found myself still standing in the vacant lot. Kimball was looking up at me with a curious tilted gaze. He barked as if to tell me to get myself together and keep moving. He was right. I was standing in an open field like a sitting duck. I moved to the house next to the lot and stooped down behind the front bush. A quick scan of the immediate area told me the coast was clear, I moved to the next house and then the next and the next, each time stopping and hiding behind the biggest bush I could find.

When I got to the Chalmers' house, just two houses down from mine, I did as I had done at all the others, I found a bush and bent down. I was about to move on when a noise caught my attention. It was a scream; a high-pitched squawk that at once chilled and confused me. I didn't want to even think it, but it sounded human. It came in waves and every once in a while would end with a horrible breathless cough. I lost track of Kimball while I sat and listened to the sound. It wasn't until I heard him scratching on the Chalmers' front door that I realized he was trying to get in their house. "Kimball, no," I whispered emphatically. He didn't listen. He continued to scratch at the door. "Kimball."

He worked his paw between the door and frame and finally got the door open enough to fit his body through. I jumped up and reluctantly moved up the porch and into the house. The Chalmers' house was in disarray, too, though not nearly as much as the Mueller's. The screaming was louder inside the house.

Kimball was at the top of the stairs by the time I walked through the door. With a great deal of difficulty I followed. The screaming grew more intense. Kimball galloped down the hall and stopped. When I reached him, he was calmly sitting at a door at the end of the hall. The screaming was clearly coming from the other side. I looked at Kimball. "A baby," I said. Before I had gotten sick, Mrs. Chalmers was pregnant. Had she had the baby while I was fighting my fever?

The door was locked. There was no way I could break it down. I ran into the bathroom and retrieved a bobby pin and straightened it out. I ran back to the door at the end of the hall and stuck it in the hole and jimmied the lock open. Kimball and I burst through the door only to find another flight of stairs. Kimball climbed them with ease. I did not. At the top of the stairs, I found a finished attic that had been turned into a recreation room. It had a pool table, a big screen TV, and a gaming computer.

Kimball's tail was sticking out from behind the big sectional sofa. The screaming had subsided. I walked over to investigate. I found what I was afraid I would find, a baby, and Kimball was licking its poor puckered little face.

I bent down and examined it. It was small, even small for a baby. I estimated it weighed maybe six pounds. It was wearing a diaper and blue shirt. A black crusty stub stuck out where its belly button should've been. I suspected the kid was hungry. A hungry, screaming baby is all I needed to worry about. I stood and scratched my head. I had no idea what a baby eats.

I turned to make my way down to the first floor of the house to find some baby food when I caught a fast moving blob rushing towards me out of the corner of my eye. I didn't even have time to raise my bat before it was on top of me. The weight of it sent me flying over the sofa. I lost my grip on the bat and it sailed over my head. Kimball started barking.

"Keep away from my baby," I heard.

I scrambled back and tried to find the bat. The thing that attacked me stood with the baby in its arms and I saw for the first time that it was Mrs. Chalmers. "It's me, Mrs. Chalmers. It's Oz Griffin."

She looked at me. "Oz?" She moved around the sofa. "Oz Griffin, is that really you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She fell to her knees still holding on tight to her baby. "Thank God. I thought we were the only ones left. Oh, thank the heavens above." She began to cry.

Kimball moved around the sofa and sat beside her. "What's going on, Mrs. Chalmers? I can't find my parents."

She gave me a strange look. "You don't know?"

"No, ma'am. I woke up this morning and nobody was home. Something…" I didn't want to say it.

"Something what?" she asked.

"Something chased me and Kimball at the Mueller's house."

She quickly stood and moved to the window. "It didn't follow you here, did it?"

"No, ma'am, I don't think…"

"Listen, to me, Oz," she interrupted. "This is very important." She was panicked which didn't do much for soothing my already fragile state. "Did you see this… thing that was chasing you?"

"No, ma'am. It was practically breathing down our necks, but I never got a good look at it."

"A good look at it or a look at all?"

"At all, I suppose."

She raced back to my side. "Listen to me, you have to be certain. Did you see it at all?" Her voice was soft but demanding.

"No, ma'am," I said.

She collapsed on the sofa. "Thank God."

"What's going on, Mrs. Chalmers?"

To my surprise, she unbuttoned her blouse and began breast-feeding the baby. "I wish I knew, Oz. I wish I knew." I turned away in embarrassment.

"Where is everybody? Where are my parents? Where's Mr. Chalmers?"

She began to cry again. "I don't know." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "How are you still here?"

"I don't know. I was sick. I don't remember much."

"That's right. You had mono. Your mother was so worried." The baby lay content in her arms. "The last time I saw her was when I went into labor with little Nate."

"How long ago was that?"

"A week ago, I guess. I don't know. It's been hard to keep track of time. The clocks don't work. The baby keeps me up most of the time. I think he's colic. I'm exhausted. I don't know if I'm coming or going half the time." She spoke as if it took all her strength.

"What was chasing me, Mrs. Chalmers?"

She looked at me as if I had asked some horrible state secret. "Oz, you mustn't speak of them. They… they know you when you know them." She said it as if it made perfect sense. "The less you know the better off you are."

"But I have to find my parents…"

"They're gone," she yelled. "Everybody's gone. There is not one single soul left in Tullahoma or in Tennessee or in the world besides us. They got everybody."

"I don't understand," I said.

"You don't need to," she said with a disturbing darkness in her voice. She had the look of someone who had gone completely mad. I remembered her as a beautiful woman, but now her face was a horrid combination of red and gray. She had heavy bluish bags beneath her eyes, and she had broken out with an awful rash on her forehead. Asking her further questions was pointless. She lay back on the sofa with the baby still suckling at her breast. "I have to get some sleep," she said. "You'll watch over me, won't you, Oz?"

"Yes, ma'am, Kimball and me will keep watch."

She almost smiled. "The baby should sleep, too. He won't be any trouble." She barely could finish the sentence before she fell asleep. The baby continued to feed.

I wandered over to the window to see if anything was happening outside. The streets were still deserted. I couldn't comprehend what was happening. Mrs. Chalmers only confused the matter more. She gave me more questions than answers. How could everyone be gone? Where did they go? This entire thing was insane. It occurred to me that this all could be a dream. That maybe the fever had driven me crazy. Maybe I was strapped to a bed in a hospital somewhere and this entire thing was just some demented fantasy of a brain that had been cooked by an abnormally high temperature.

I looked around the room. It was all too real to be a dream. This was happening. I couldn't deny that. I didn't know why or how, but it was real, and wishing it weren't wasn't going to get me anywhere. Mrs. Chalmers may have been right, my Mom and Pop were gone, but that didn't mean I couldn't find them or at the very least find out what happened to them.

I plopped down on a beanbag chair and watched Mrs. Chalmers and the baby. The little guy had zonked out just as she said he would. Kimball lay down beside them on the floor. His ears erect and scanning the immediate area for any unusual sounds. As my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, I struggled to stay awake and keep watch over Mrs. Chalmers and the baby as I had promised, but my desire to sleep grew more intense with each passing moment until finally, I slept.

***

I awoke to the sound of a door slamming. I shot out of the beanbag chair as quickly as I could. Mrs. Chalmers and the baby remained asleep. Kimball was up at the ready. The slam came again. It was coming from outside. I ran to the window and looked out. The door to the Wentleys' house across the street was opening and closing on its own. The trees were not swaying in a strong wind, and the piles of leaves on the side of the street remained intact. There was no wind. It was as calm as I had ever seen it.

Mrs. Chalmers woke up. "What is it?" she whispered. She carefully lifted the baby and gently laid him on the sofa. She stood with some difficulty.

"The Wentleys' front door," I said. "It's opening and closing… on its own."

"Get away from the window," she demanded, running in my direction. I didn't comply quickly enough so she yanked me aside. "They're trying to get you to notice them."

"Who?" I said. This time my voice was raised. I left no room for doubt. I was tired of the cryptic references. I wanted some answers.

"Never you mind," she said. "You have to stop thinking about them."

"Who…" I suddenly remembered the shattered bathroom mirror in the Mueller's house. "The Takers, is that what they're called?"

The gray and red coloring of her face was replaced by a pale shade of white. "How do you know their name?"

The slamming stopped.

She looked out the window. "They know we're here. They're coming." She ran to get her baby.

I turned to see who "they" were. I saw a shadow zip across the tree line in front of the Wentleys' front lawn. I could not see what or who cast the shadow, but judging by the trees, it was big, eight or nine feet tall. "What do we do?" I asked.

"Why did you say their name?" Mrs. Chalmers cried. "Why?" She held her baby and paced back and forth. "I won't let them get my baby. I won't let them," she said.

"We need a place to hide," I said. I had the bat back in my hand and nervously tightened my grip on it.

We heard a noise coming from the first floor. Kimball let out a short heavy "woof."

"They're in the house," Mrs. Chalmers said.

"We have to hide," I insisted.

"It's no use." She held out her baby. "Take him." A sudden calm had come over her.

"Mrs. Chalmers…"

"Take him," she said, her voice steady and forceful.

"But I don't know how to hold a baby."

She walked over to me. "Make a cradle with your arm."

I did as she said.

"Now, support his head in the crook of your arm."

He fit in my arm like he was made to go there. "Like this?"

"Perfect." She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. "His name is Nate," she said. "There's formula in the pantry in the kitchen." She backed away. "You stay here. I'll lock the door behind me."

"No, Mrs. Chalmers…" I started to cry. "Don't go down there. I don't want to be alone. I'm scared."