"Flish," Mimic said. "He is the Flish."

Tall Boy tensed up.

"That mean something to you?" Wes asked him.

"He is the Gray Man," Tall Boy answered as if we should all know who is talking about.

"Gray, pink, blue," Tyrone said pulling a hunting knife from its sheath, "what difference does it make?" He stomped toward the stairwell.

"Wait," I said.

A roar came from a back room. We all flinched and turned to see Ariabod dragging April's limp body out of the room.

Tyrone sprinted toward them. "Let her go, you dumb ape."

Ariabod snarled and refused to let go of April's arm.

Tyrone stomped his foot. "Haa! Get out of here!"

Lou jogged toward them. "What are you doing? He understands you. You don't have to act like a lunatic."

Ariabod smacked the floor with his free hand.

"If he understands me, why doesn't he let her go?"

She stepped in front of Ariabod. "Because you're not the boss." She smiled and calmly said. "You can let go of her."

He shook his giant head.

"Looks like you're not the boss either," Tyrone said. He turned to me. "Well?"

"What?"

"You're the boss man," he said. "Start acting like it."

I raised an eyebrow. I was getting tired of his act. If I hadn't been so relieved to see April, I would have let him know exactly how I felt. I sighed deeply and said. "Let her go, Ariabod."

The silverback huffed and gently released April's arm, letting it flop to the floor. Ariabod eyeballed Tyrone as he moved away, and Tyrone returned the favor. It was clear they didn't like each other.

Lou bent down and examined her. "She's alive," she said.

The rest of us formed a semicircle around them.

Wes peeked over Lou's shoulder. "Looks white as a ghost."

Lou felt her forehead. "She's cold." She stood and motioned to Wes. "Pick her up."

Wes did so without asking why.

"C'mon," Lou said walking quickly to the stairs. "There's a bedroom on the second floor."

"Bedroom?" Gordy said sounding incredulous. "What about the Flish? We need to get the hell out of here."

Lou didn't slow down. "April's in no shape to travel. We'll hide out on the second floor. What are you afraid of? It's all of us against him."

Everyone except Gordy and me started following her up the stairs. Gordy looked at me. "It's not enough, is it?"

I wanted to tell him it was, but he would have known I was lying. Instead, I just ignored his question and started up the stairs.

SEVEN.

The fifteen of us fit comfortably in the bedroom that belonged to the original owner of the mansion. The furniture was an intense red and there was gold leafing on the walls. April was lying comfortably on the canopy bed with Kimball beside her. Lou and Mimic attended to her. The rest of the Throwaways assembled in the corner opposite the door to the bedroom. They mumbled to one another. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I could tell they were deeply concerned. Wes was laid out on a chaise lounge in the middle of the room. Ajax and Ariabod huddled near him. Tyrone sat in a chair keeping a wary eye on the gorillas.

I stood by the window that looked out over the property and searched through the darkness for any signs of unwelcomed visitors. Gordy startled me when he spoke.

"We need to talk about our friends."

I pulled my head out from behind the red curtain and followed his gesture to the Throwaways. "What about them?"

He snorted. "One of them morphed into one of us, that's what about them."

I looked at Mimic hunched over the bed trying to get as close to April as she could. "Okay, it's weird," I said. "But not much isn't weird in this world."

"It's more than weird," Gordy said struggling to keep his voice down. "It could be dangerous."

"Dangerous?" I asked.

"What if they're like pod people sent here to take our place?"

"Pod people?" I laughed. "Have you met the Throwaways? They're about as gentle as you can get. Can't see them taking our place. They barely have their own place."

"Exactly," Gordy said excitedly. "They don't have a place here. They don't fit in. If they become us, suddenly they fit in."

I muddled through his logic quickly and then waved him off. "I think you're reading too much into this..."

"Am I? April goes missing, and Mimic winds up looking like her. In case you haven't noticed, No-face's bump is now a nose. I'm pretty sure the one with a messed up half arm now has a messed up two-thirds arm."

I looked past him and examined the group of Throwaways. No-face's bump did now appear to have nostrils. I returned my attention to the world outside the window. "We'll keep our eye on it."

I could almost hear him grinding his teeth together in frustration at my lack of concern. "You suck as leader."

I didn't turn to him immediately. I felt an anger building up inside of me that would have led me down a path I didn't want to take. The painful ice cold blood of my Delon marking started to course through my veins. I sucked air in and held my breath until I felt the rage start to subside. Still, I didn't acknowledge him. I waited and waited until the feeling was completely gone. If he had pushed the argument, I probably wouldn't have been able to control it, but thankfully, he remained silent. Maybe he sensed what was bubbling up inside of me and wisely decided to back down.

I spoke calmly and slowly. "I didn't ask to be leader, numbnuts. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Since I've got no experience with this kind of thing, I'm going with my gut, and my gut tells me that the Throwaways aren't dangerous. In fact, my gut tells me we could use them."

He bit his lip and actually thought before he spoke, something he didn't do a lot of. "How can we use them?"

I shrugged. "I'll let you know when I know."

He threw his arms up in disgust. "Fine. But I'm watching them like a hawk, and I'm not going to be nice about it."

"Your choice," I said. I was about to look out the window again when I caught a glimpse of Tyrone's face. He was glaring at Ariabod. He squeezed and released the handle of his knife over and over again. "I think we need to worry about Tyrone more than the Throwaways."

Gordy looked over his shoulder at Tyrone. "Kid's messed up. Lou says he was really gaga over Valerie. He ain't been the same since she got killed."

"He's going to wind up doing something stupid," I said. "Get himself killed and who knows who else."

"What do you want to do?" Gordy asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing for now, but while you're keeping an eye on the Throwaways, keep another on him."

Gordy chuckled. "Safer watching the freaks. I'm pretty sure I can take them. That kid's had his heart broke and ripped out of his chest. He ain't got nothing to lose. He's liable to go nutbag crazy and kill me just for looking at him funny."

"Then try not to look at him funny," I said walking away and heading for the bed.

"You're a real big help," Gordy said.

"How's she doing?" I asked Lou as I approached the bed.

"She's warmed up a little. Her temperature's almost normal I think. Can't tell for sure without a thermometer. She's still a little delirious. Mumbling about the old man and someone named Grace."

"Grace?" I said looking at Mimic.

"You know the name?" Lou asked.

"The old man said something about Grace." In my head, I replayed every word he'd said down in the pool. "Jeremiah... Did she say anything about someone named Jeremiah?"

"No," Lou said.

"Nineteen nine," Mimic added.

"What?" Lou asked.

I thought for a minute. "Yeah, that's right. He said something about nineteen nine."

"Jeremiah nineteen nine," Mimic said without taking her eyes off April.

"Nineteen nine?" Lou sat on the edge of the bed. "Code?"

"Don't know," I said. "Sounded just like rambling to me."

Lou folded her arms and stared intensely at the canopy on the bed. "Jeremiah, Grace, nineteen nine."

I sat on the bed next to her. I got a faint whiff of her sweet scent and momentarily lost my place in time. I zeroed in on her neck. I had never noticed how... pretty it was. The thoughts running through my head started to make me feel uneasy. I cleared my throat in an effort to shake them loose and shouted, "He said Jeremiah was his favorite."

She jumped at the volume of my voice. "Oh... okay..."

"Jeremiah?" Wes barked from his lounge chair. "From the Bible?"

I twisted my head around. His hands were behind his head. He looked far too relaxed for a guy trying to survive the end of the world. "The Bible?"

"Yeah, the Bible. It's a book. You heard of it?"

I nodded absentmindedly. "Why would you think we were talking about the Bible?"

"It's the only Jeremiah I know," he said. "Old testament. A lot of death and destruction, if I remember right."

Lou and I looked at each other. We both said, "Nineteen nine" at the same time.

"It's a verse," she said.

"From the Book of Jeremiah," I added.

She jumped up and scanned the room. Spotting a dresser nearby, she ran to it as quickly as she could. She frantically started going through the drawers.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Looking for a Bible. There's got to be one here..." She giggled as she reached in and pulled out a black leather Bible. "I knew it!" She flipped through the book, stopped, turned a few more pages, and ran her finger up and down a page. "19:9," she repeated to herself a few times. "Ahhh! Got it!" She read silently. Her eyes narrowed. I could tell she was reading the verse a few times.

"What does it say?" I asked.

She looked up and simply shook her head as if to say she couldn't bring herself to read it out loud. Before I could stand, Gordy moved in and yanked the Bible from her hand. He sighed and found the verse. He didn't bother reading silently to himself first. He just blurted out horrible word after horrible word as loudly as he could.

"And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. " He peered up over the leather bound book. "Whoa!"

Every face in the room, even the blank one, froze.

"So, there is a dude in the basement who's into eating... people?" Gordy asked. "Why exactly did we decide to stay here?"

"Is he Skinner Dead?" Wes asked. The relaxed posture was gone. He was sitting up and rubbing his stubbly chin with his callused fingers.

"No," I said.

"Was he real... you know, alive?" Lou asked.

"I don't know..." I stood and stared at the floor as I tried to remember every detail of the old man. "The boy..." I said.

"What boy?" Wes asked.

"The dead boy, the one from before. The one that wanted us to follow him to the Land of the Dead, he and the others were there... in the basement. The old man wasn't too happy to see him."