Nick Cutter - The Troop

But he couldn’t say this. It would terrify the boys. And yet he’d nearly told them anyway—sharing the terror seemed like the only way to defuse it, even minimally. But they were just kids. Even now, with the mainland and hospitals and help seeming so far away, Tim understood his obligation to these boys and to their parents. He must keep them safe. Scout’s honor.

“Are you okay?” Newton asked. “You and Max? Did anything… y’know, touch you?”

The boys stared at Tim, all probably wondering the same thing. Now, in the aftermath, Tim wondered why he’d done it. Not the operation itself, but involving Max. He’d told himself that he needed help—no surgeon operates alone. But now he was less sure.

“Tim?” Kent said, his eyes holding a rook’s sheen. “Did… anything… touch … you?”

Fuck off, you pushy bastard , the Undervoice spat.

“I don’t think so,” Tim said. “It happened very fast.”

Kent turned to Max. “You okay, man?”

Max nodded, eyes not leaving the ground. When Tim saw this, a cold, hard stone lodged somewhere in his diaphragm.

You made a mistake, Tim , HAL 9000 said. Don’t go compounding it .

“What happened?” Ephraim said. “Tell us.”

Tim nibbled his lip compulsively, as if his unconscious desire was to consume his own flesh. He caught himself, smiled queasily—his eyes shone in the firelight, hubbed by skin drawn tight over his sockets—and said: “I cut into the man’s stomach. The worm was in there. Nesting. It came out through the incision. It crawled up the man’s chest and wrapped around his neck. It…” He couldn’t stop swallowing. “Killed him.”

“You cut him up?” Kent asked, incredulous.

“I told you, it happened so fast.” Tim’s mouth was a dry wick, his spit all dried up. “It was like something out of a dream.”

“Amazing,” said Kent. The sneering derision was unmistakable. He sounded very much like his policeman father.

“I was scared,” Tim said. It came out as a whisper. He observed the boys’ faces clustered round the fire—all wearing matching looks of diminished respect—and wished he could take those honest words back.

“Yeah, well, this is no time to be scared, Tim,” Kent said.

Tim wanted to slap the mouthy little prick across the face, but his strength had utterly deserted him.

Mosquitoes jigged around their heads. Why aren’t they landing on me? Tim wondered. His hands were clean, yet they still felt sticky with goo; he felt it in the creases of his fingers, in his nail beds—an antic, wriggling itch. He closed his eyes and envisioned that goo drooling out of the worm’s cleaved body. The firelight glowed against his eyelids, lighting up the capillaries that braided under his skin.

“So it’s dead?” Newton said.

Max nodded. “Scoutmaster Tim cut it in half.”

“It was effectively dead before that,” Tim said. “Once the host is dead, the parasite dies, too.”

“Why would it do that?” Newton asked. “Wrap around the man’s neck and kill him? That’s like a baby strangling its mom or something.”

Tim gave a helpless shrug. “Worms don’t have any brains to speak of. Worms shouldn’t grow to that size. But that’s what happened. We saw it. You’ve got to trust the evidence of your eyes.”

Newton said: “Do we even know the guy’s name?”

His words fell like an anvil. Suddenly the man’s name seemed critical. The idea of a man dying as a stranger surrounded by other strangers struck the boys as staggeringly tragic.

“I want to go home,” Shelley said softly. “Take us home , Scoutmaster. Please .”

In the firelight, Shelley’s face molded into a beseeching expression— mock-beseeching? The expression rang hollow, inorganic and somehow clumsy, like an animal trying to replicate human endeavor: a bear riding a bicycle or a monkey playing a milk-carton ukulele. In Tim’s fevered mind, it seemed like the boy was purposefully stirring fear within the group by asking for something beyond Tim’s capacity to deliver.

“Tomorrow, Shelley. We can leave—”

“Why not tonight, Tim?” Shelley said, adopting Kent’s derisive tone. “Why can’t you get us home tonight?”

Because I’m too fucking tired, you awful little shit. Tired and hungry as hell .

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

Shelley stared at Tim—there was something insectile about his gaze. The wind gusted, blowing the flames slantways, and in that instant, Tim watched Shelley’s face liquefy like hot wax, the skin running, bones shifting and grinding like tectonic plates to arrange themselves into something infinitely more horrifying.

Kent said: “I want to see it.”

Tim said: “It?”

“The worm, Tim. I want to see the worm.”

“No.”

Kent gave his Scoutmaster a sidelong look, eyeing him down his hawklike nose the way a sniper stares down a rifle’s sights.

Without another word, Kent stood and strode off toward the cabin. Tim was dismayed to find he lacked the voice to stop him.

EVIDENCE LOG, CASE 518C

PIECE A-13 (Personal Effects)

Lab journal of Dr. Clive Edgerton

Recovered from SITE A (220 Makepeace Road, Summerside, Prince Edward Island) by Officer Brian Skelly, badge #908

PAGES 122–126:

Test subject 4. Beta series.

GUINEA PIG (Zoologix, Inc; breeding batch EE-76-2)

Subject’s pre-test weight: 1350 grams

/Date: 07.19/

07:00 Introduced modified hydatid (Genetic Recombination M3-11) via injection. Between 100 and 250 post-embryonic-stage eggs delivered via liposome vehicle. Subject is alert and energetic. Eyes are clear. Evidencing no overt signs of distress or pain.

08:00 Subject unchanged.

09:00 Subject unchanged.

10:00 Subject unchanged.

10:13 Subject emits series of squeals.

10:47 Subject appears disoriented. Bumping into bars of its enclosure. Emitting distressed squeals at a significantly higher pitch and with increased frequency.

11:07 Subject is observed chewing bars of its enclosure.

11:09 Subject is observed consuming cedar shavings lining its enclosure.

11:15 Subject is observed consuming own fecal matter.

11:22 Sizable evacuation of larval-stage hydatid via excretory tract.

11:41 Subject emits squeals reaching a prolonged high pitch before ceasing. [post-test note: subject vocalizations cease at this point]

11:56 Subject is observed consuming portion of left front paw. Eyes glazed. Breathing rapid. Overall bodily torpor. Subject appears either unaware of its actions or beyond pain. Bleeding is minimal.

12:03 First gastrointestinal rupture observed. Occurs along transmedial cleft. Fissure observed to be 1/8in. Quantity of adolescent-stage hydatid worms observed exiting the subject’s body.

12:08 Subject exhibiting signs of late-stage morbidity. Noticeable stiffening of joints, labored breathing, milky film developing on eyes. Subject’s mouth opening and closing repeatedly. Appears to be chewing on the air.

12:16 Second gastrointestinal rupture observed. 1/2in below original fissure. Large quantity of adolescent-stage hydatid worms observed extruding from subject’s stomach cavity.

12:19 Subject/host deceased.

12:22 Remaining hydatids deceased. Test concludes.

Test duration: 5 hours 22 minutes

Subject’s post-test weight: 490 grams

Total weight loss: 860 grams