Jeff Strand - Dweller

“Have mercy,” he’d whisper. “Please, Toby, show mercy to your inferiors.”

And there would be mercy. But not for a few more minutes.

Toby’s fantasy came to an abrupt end as his perception of the world-still moving in slow motion-narrowed to include only the sight of Larry’s fist speeding toward his cheek.

The slow motion ended.

The punch felt like it split open the entire right side of Toby’s face. He fell to the ground and instantly knew that any dignity he’d salvaged from this situation would soon be history, because there was going to be some crying involved. He couldn’t even conceive of a punch to the face hurting this badly without brass knuckles involved. At least he’d only felt one punch-Nick had clearly missed.

The two bullies hovered over him. “Do you give up?” Larry asked.

Of course he gave up! Toby nodded.

Nick crouched down, grabbed Toby’s arms, and pulled him to his feet. Then he wrenched Toby’s arms behind him, holding him in front of Larry.

“Mess him up!” Nick urged.

Larry punched Toby in the stomach, so hard that he thought he was going to puke up his peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich from lunch. Instead, he dryretched and tried unsuccessfully to find enough breath to beg Larry not to hit him again.

The next punch was to the left side of his face. There were a couple of audible gasps.

Another punch to the face. It felt like bone cracked.

Larry no longer looked simply angry. The expression on his face was wild, crazed, closer to insanity than fury. He punched Toby in the stomach again, and Toby realized that he genuinely meant to hospitalize him. Or kill him.

His protest was cut off by the blow to the jaw. Tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing with blood.

Yet another punch, and an actual scream from one of the girls watching. Spittle dangled from Larry’s lower lip. He drew back his fist for another blow.

“Stop it!” Helen shouted. “This is way out of control!”

With the next punch, Toby felt consciousness starting to slip away.

“I said stop it! You’ll kill him!”

“Yeah, this is too much,” said Nick, releasing Toby’s arms. Toby felt as if he were floating in space for a moment, and then his face struck the ground. He just wanted to sleep.

“Fine, whatever,” said Larry. He lifted his foot as if to stomp on Toby’s skull, then apparently changed his mind and lowered it again. “Let’s get out of here.”

The bullies walked away. Toby lay on the ground, bleeding and crying and not really caring who judged him. He was vaguely aware of some classmates helping him up, and he may even have spoken to them as they helped him get home, but he couldn’t be completely sure.

Toby didn’t tell his parents or the school principal who beat him up. He didn’t need to. There were plenty of witnesses, and somebody (Toby hoped it was Helen, but he had no idea who it actually was) ratted about exactly who was involved.

Nick was suspended for a week. Larry was set to be expelled, but Larry and his parents made the case that Toby had instigated the conflict with his insults, so Larry’s punishment was reduced to the same suspension that Nick received. He was also removed from the two classes that he shared with Toby. Toby was also out for a week-despite the sensation that his face had been mashed to frothy pulp, no bones were broken and there was nothing preventing him from returning to school except his grotesque swollen appearance. He’d tried to convince his parents that he needed another week of recovery time, but Dad thought it was best if things returned to normal as quickly as possible.

The morning that Toby returned to school, Dad took him aside.

“If you’re in a fair fight, I expect you to fight fair,” he said. “But if you’re ever in a mess like that again, you kick that son of a bitch in the nuts so hard that they burst. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Toby went to school, not telling anybody that he was carrying a knife for protection.

Oddly enough, getting beaten almost to the point of disfigurement had a positive effect on his popularity. He would’ve thought that you needed to win a fight to gain social status from it, but apparently the Orange Leaf High student body felt that he’d sufficiently proven himself against two much stronger opponents. He wondered what would happen to him if he’d actually thrown and landed a punch. Class president?

After a couple of days, his newfound popularity faded a bit, and the number of students willing to talk to him dropped. But still, he no longer needed to leave the empty chair between himself and the people who shared his table at lunch, and J.D. stopped being such a jackass.

Two weeks after his pummeling, he felt well enough to bring some food to Owen.

He’d filled his backpack with a variety of items, everything from a pork chop to a hard mint. He returned to his former vantage point outside of the cave and got the shotgun ready. “Hello, Owen!” he called out.

Nothing.

“Hello, Owen, Owen, Owen! It’s me, Toby! Come on out! I’ve got some treats for you!”

Toby hoped he wasn’t shouting at an empty cave. If Owen had moved on, that would be a serious bummer.

He called Owen’s name a few more times, then moved on to Plan B. Instead of throwing rocks, he’d throw processed meat.

As he dug the package of bologna out of his backpack, Owen stepped out of the cave. The monster looked right at him, and its face seemed to light up, like Toby’s grandmother when they’d visit her in the nursing home, before she died a couple of years ago. It moved forward, then stopped suddenly, as if realizing that its behavior was too intimidating. Toby kept the shotgun very much in mind, but didn’t reach for it.

“Remember me?” he asked. Owen seemed to recognize him, but Toby was still pretty bruised up. Most likely that wouldn’t matter-an animal like this would probably recognize him by smell. “It’s your best friend, Toby. Sorry I haven’t been around, but for a while there, I was almost as ugly as you are.”

He held up the package of bologna. “This is called baloney. It’s made from parts of every animal you can think of. You’ll like it.” He peeled off the top slice and held it up. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to Frisbee this over to you, but we’ll see.” Toby decided that he probably should have tested its aerodynamic properties beforehand, so that it didn’t splat onto the ground two feet in front of him and cause the monster to rush over. Fortunately, the light wind was at his back and he figured he should be able to throw it far enough to keep himself in the safety zone.

He flung the meat disk at Owen. It sailed through the air with much more accuracy than Toby would have expected, landing just a few feet in front of its target. Owen pounced upon it, impaled the bologna upon the talon of his index finger, then scooped it into his mouth.

It looked back at Toby. The message was clear: “More, please.”

He threw the other slices of bologna at Owen, one after the other, with Owen stuffing them into his mouth as quickly as they landed. Toby was proud of himself-he was pretty good at the throw, and none of the slices hit trees.

When the last piece was consumed, Owen looked at Toby again. The message was even clearer this time: “More, now.”

Toby threw the pork chop at it. “It’s got a bone,” he warned.

Owen chomped down on the pork chop, bone and all. He swallowed and looked at Toby expectantly.

Okay, the bologna and pork chop had been pretty safe bets. Now the real testing began. Toby took out a candy bar, unwrapped the foil, and held it up. “This is chocolate,” he explained. “It’s bad for dogs but I’m sure it’s okay for you.”