"Yeah," I said, "there is."

He licked his bottom lip and laughed. "I ain't exactly hidin' my intentions, am I?"

Ajax let out a low rumbling growl.

"Not really, no. You forget. I'm in the same boat you're in."

He laughed, "But you ain't no fat man. I tried to eat a Twinkie yesterday, and threw it right up. A Twinkie, Oz. I love those damn things."

"Where'd you get a Twinkie?"

He smiled and put his hand over his mouth. "Oops. I let the cat out of the bag. Half my backpack is Twinkies. I stock up wherever we go and keep them all to myself."

I must have looked shocked and hurt because he immediately started to defend himself.

"You just don't know, Oz. I gotta have my Twinkies. Nothing I like more. *Cept maybe slicing you up and eating you up in a soup. Man, I have just been craving soup. Human soup."

That did sound good. It was my turn to drool. I lifted my hand to wipe the spittle from the corners of my mouth. I must have shifted my gaze enough in doing so for Wes to take the opportunity to rush me. He charged me like a bull. I didn't have time to react. His big meaty hand grabbed my shirt collar and yanked me towards him. The look on his face was the same I had seen on the old man when he was plotting to eat his prey. It was a sickening look of anticipation and joy.

"Nothing personal, Oz, but a fat man has got to eat."

His intention was to pick me up and slam me down on the pool table, but he was on his back on the floor before he could carry out his plan. Ajax's fang-filled mouth was just inches from his face.

"Get off me! I gotta eat!" He squirmed under Ajax's tremendous weight.

I looked down and happened to see his lower calf exposed. I pictured myself dropping down and quickly tearing the flesh from the bone. Just one bite. That would be enough. That might get me through the day. I considered the best way to approach it over and over again. Just bite, rip, tear, and eat. Bite, rip, tear, and eat. That's all it would take. I closed my eyes trying to shake the thought. I couldn't go through with it, could I? I could. Yes, I could. Nobody would blame me. The Flish was in me. I had an excuse. I felt myself smile, and I saw the Flish doing the same thing in my mind's eye... I wasn't about to let him win.

I stepped through the doorway and ran to another door down the short hall. It was locked, but it only slowed me down. My adrenaline was high. Two solid kicks near the door knob and the door popped open. I rushed through and found myself standing in the banquet hall. I took a few seconds to collect myself and let Throwaway June catch up. I yelled back at Ajax to keep holding Wes down.

"C'mon," I said to Throwaway June, noticing a slight change in her hair color and maybe the length, too. I couldn't be sure, but I figured it didn't really matter all that much.

"It's safe, Ajax!" I said once we reached the other end of the banquet hall.

A few minutes later the big gorilla was standing on all fours next to me. "Thanks," I said.

He grinned.

I patted him on the back. "I think it's time we talked about what to do if we don't... you know, make it out of here."

His nostrils flared, and he looked away.

"It's important," I said. "Archie and Bobby are upstairs. We gotta make sure they make it out of here. They lost their Keeper, so we need to have a backup plan..."

Ajax knuckle-walked away. I thought about making him listen, but in the end, I knew he'd do the right thing. He didn't need me to tell him what he had to do. I was about to follow him when I heard my name from the other end of the huge room. Wes stood in the doorway, and I could see that he was crying.

"I'm sorry, boy. I'm so, so sorry."

I choked back a tear.

"I can't hold out much longer, Oz."

I nodded. "None of us can."

"Lock me up. Chain me down. You gotta do something."

"Can't. Not unless I do the same to everybody, including me. Otherwise you'll be defenseless when one of us finds you, and trust me, one of us will."

He shook his head. "I don't care, boy. I used up my last drop of willpower. If I do anything to any of you... I just can't live with myself. I'd rather it be me."

"Wes!" I barked. "Gordy, April, even Tyrone, I can do without them. But when it comes time for me to stand and fight, I need you and I need Lou. I can count on you two. I don't care if I do look like a big juicy steak to you right now, I know you'll come through for me when I need you."

He roared and smashed his fist into the wall.

I left before I actually gave in to his pleas.

"You're making a mistake, boy!" were his parting words.

And I thought he was probably right. But what I didn't tell him was the minute I had heard him ask to be chained down, I was coming up with a plan to take advantage of the situation, and eat him myself.

I sent Ajax to get Lou. I no longer trusted the radio. Giving away my position did nothing but let the others know where they could find a meal. Actually, Tyrone and Wes were the only ones I had to worry about. April was locked in the closet, and Gordy wasn't going anywhere in the condition he was in. But Tyrone alone was enough to concern me. It seemed like he wanted to hurt me and everyone else for that matter even before the infection.

I sat on the floor near the front entrance. Every sound the old house made sent me into a defensive posture. I was sure Tyrone was coming for me. But, they all proved to be nothing. When Lou finally arrived, I was just one big frazzled nerve.

I didn't even say hello. I just started interrogating her. "What did you find out from Bobby?"

She looked a little offended that I didn't seem happy to see her. I was. Had I been myself I would have told her how much I missed her, more than she could possibly know. But I was way past being myself.

"As far as I can tell, there's some kind of king involved."

"What, like the king of England or something?"

"Not sure what he's king of, but he's either the Keeper or Creyshaw for this story."

"You don't know for sure? What have you been doing?" I sounded a lot harsher than I'd intended.

"Getting straight answers from Bobby isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world, you know? Besides, it doesn't do you any good to know who this king is because the Flish is already here. He... ate the Creyshaw, remember? It's too late. Keeper or Creyshaw, king does you no good."

"He hasn't made it all the way through," I said. "Don't you see? He's stuck in this house. Maybe the Creyshaw failed, but that only got him this far. It's got something to do with that stupid package..."

"Package?" Lou snapped her fingers. "That's right."

"What?"

"I asked him about the package and the only answer he would give is some little poem... I thought it was just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo."

"Nothing is just mumbo-jumbo in this world. What was the poem?"

She titled her head up and to the right as she tried to remember. I saw her silently mouth a few words. "From," she started. "From here to the next. From alive...no, wait. From dead to alive. He cannot find... detect. He cannot detect. For the package to arrive."

"From here to the next," I said. "From dead to alive. He cannot detect for the package to arrive."

"That's it," she said. "It doesn't make sense."

I repeated the poem to myself and then out loud a few more times. I got to the word detect. I didn't know why, but it made me stop. "Detect. Detect. Detect. There's something about that word."

"Well," Lou said, "it means to find or discover something, so it means we have to find the package."

"Maybe," I said, barely able to pay attention because I was so focused on that one word. Detect... It hit me. "Detective."

Lou nodded. "Yeah, they detect. It's actually in the word."

"No, you said a king, but that's not it. It's the king. Detective King."

"Who's Detective King?"

"He's the cop, back in the Land of the Dead. He's the one looking for Fish, only he doesn't know he's looking for Fish. He cannot detect for the package to arrive. Detective King can't find the package in order for Fish to arrive."

"But Fish is here?"

"No, he's here and he's there. Fish can't escape the Land of the Dead until he finds his package. He's nothing without his package. He won't leave it."

"How do you know?"

"You should see him when he doesn't have that package. He goes nuts without it."

Lou shook her head. "It doesn't fit the rules of the other Storytellers. A Destroyer can come forward when a Storyteller is captured, right?"

"That's the way Ajax explained it, but Tarek said there is a way to bind the Flish to the Keeper, to keep him from spreading his infection."

"What else did he say?

I didn't tell her that he said there was basically no hope, that I should kill her and the others and live my life craving human flesh, so I just told her that he was his regular chatty self and added that he wasn't a lot of help.

"How do we bind the Flish to the Keeper?"

I shrugged. "He didn't know."

She startled me by snapping her fingers. "It's King. He's got to be the Keeper."

I thought it over. "Maybe."

She tapped her finger on her lips. "And the package... maybe we have to get it to King. That's how we bind Fish to him, right?"

"We'll have to figure that out as we go. We've got to pick a strategy and go with it. This is the closest thing to a theory we've had since we've been here. I've got to go back to the Land of the Dead and find Detective King..." I stopped when I realized that just finding him wasn't enough. How was I going to talk to him? As far as I could tell, Fish was the only one who saw me in the Land of the Dead.

"Finding King's only part of it. What about the package? How do you get that to him?"

We had a lot to figure out with only four days left. "Bobby's got to know more," I said.

"I'll try," she said, but the look on her face said it all. Bobby had given her all the information he had. "What do we do in the meantime?"

"I need to find out more about Fish."

"Okay, how?"

"An old friend," I said.

Wes sat at one end of the dining table in the banquet hall, and I sat at the other. It was just enough distance to keep us from smelling each other. I hoped it would keep us from trying to tear each other apart.

Lou marveled at Wes's Throwaway sister Lou. She had heard stories about the woman for years, and meeting her or a version of her was weird for Lou.

"I thought you said I looked like her," Lou said.

Wes smiled. "When she was a youngster. This is her three kids later. She... puffed up a bit after that. But that's how she is in my mind, I guess."

"Ask him," I shouted from the other end of the table.

Lou lingered on Throwaway Lou's face just a second longer and then gave her undivided attention to Wes. "We need to know everything you know about Fish."

"Fish? The kind with gills and fins?"

"No," I moaned. "Albert Fish!"

He laughed. "Oh. That makes sense. Well, let's see... you're asking me to go way back. My uncle was a bit of nut. Into serial killers, believed in Bigfoot, thought Elvis was still alive. Off his rocker, really, but he was fun to be around."

I cleared my throat as loudly as I could.

"I think he's trying to tell you to speed it up," Lou said.

"This is part of my remembering process. I gotta set the mood. Albert Fish, died in the electric chair in... 1936. Convicted of killing six kids, I believe, but claimed there were hundreds. He usually abducted children society tried to hide anyway so he didn't get caught for years."

"Sick," Lou said.

"Yeah, he wasn't exactly the kind of guy you'd ask to babysit your kids. My uncle thought he was the worst serial killer of them all because he was so meek and mild. He looked like someone's grandfather. They trusted him. The weird part is that Fish claimed that he was the son of God and by eating the kids he was making sure they made it to heaven."

"His tools," I said. Knowing that I would have to shout to communicate with Wes, Lou and I had discussed the questions ahead of time so she could do it for me. The trouble was, she was just letting him babble on about unimportant stuff.

"Do you know anything about his tools?"

"His tools?"

"He always has them with him in the Land of the Dead," she said. "We thinks it's a way to beat him."

"You do, do you?" Wes asked looking at me. "Well, they were called his tools of terror. He butchered children with them. What else do you need to know?"