Nick Cutter - The Troop

Nobody had an answer—not for what happened to Mr. Walmack or his boat, or for anything that’d happened since that strange man staggered out of the sea two nights ago.

Nothing made sense anymore. Everything existed beyond logic.

The cigarette boat sank and was gone in a matter of seconds.

BEFORE THEYentered the woods, Newton stepped inside the cabin. He needed his field book and the rope. His heart was beating like a tom-tom. Fat beads of sweat popped along his brow before he even walked through the shattered doorframe.

Don’t do this , his mother’s voice chimed in his head. Please. This is so very dangerous, Newt .

Newton’s mom had always been protective of her only son. Elizabeth Thornton was crowned Miss Prince Edward Island the day after she’d fallen pregnant with Newton. “Fallen pregnant” was a common phrase on the island: as if local women were constantly toppling off things—stools, ladders, cliffs—and getting knocked up on the way down. The man who’d done it was a “contest stylist”: a fey grifter who mentored unwitting contestants. For a fee, he’d teach them to Vaseline their teeth to a pearly shine or strap packing tape around their breasts to give the proper “uplift.” Such men trailed along the pageant circuit like gulls following in the wake of a crab trawler, picking up scraps.

This particular stylist put a bun in Elizabeth’s oven the night before the Charlottetown Spud Fest. He was gone the next day, no different from the itinerant potato pickers who descended on the island like locusts in the fall only to blow back to the mainland on the first winter wind. Newton never asked after his father. He and his mother made a tiny perfect circle, and he was happy within its circumference—and as for those skills a father might’ve taught, well, there was Scoutmaster Tim, who struck Newt as a far better (surrogate) dad than a contest stylist could ever be.

Complications during the delivery led to severe scarring of her uterine walls. Newton would be the only child Elizabeth would ever have.

Some people around here have lots of kids , she’d tell her son. It’s like they’re trying to get it juuuust right — the perfect child. Well, I got that right off the bat! I guess this was God’s subtle way of telling me I didn’t have to try anymore. I can always find another man, but I’ll never be able to find another son .

Oh hell, and could Elizabeth find another man. All she’d have to do is step outside and whistle: they’d come running from all directions with flowers and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate clasped in their callused hands. Elizabeth Thornton was a pure stunner. Another common phrase—“Island women are like Christmas trees: nobody wants them after the twenty-fifth”—didn’t apply to her: her face had taken on a luminous haunted quality as she’d aged. It only intensified her beauty. She had no shortage of suitors despite being saddled with a teenager—even one as oddball as Newton.

But she resisted all advances and lived alone with her son in a small house on the edge of town. She was happy. Her son was happy. But Elizabeth was a perpetual worrywart. Much to Newt’s chagrin, she wanted to drape him in bubble wrap before sending him out into the world. She didn’t even approve of him being in Scouts. But it was the only social outlet he had—the kids at school could be so cruel; the sons of lobstermen and potato farmers didn’t understand her sensitive boy. At least Scouts was better than Newt spending his afternoons in the woods alone, cataloging ferns and tubers.

“You be careful,” she’d told Newton at the boat launch before he’d left for Falstaff. She kissed his forehead and mussed up his hair. “Don’t eat any funny mushrooms or chase after things that might bite you.”

“Mom, please ,” Newton had said, mortified.

Her voice was in his ear even now, ever present, as he made his way through the storm-splintered cabin.

Newt — oh Newt my baby boy, this is not a good idea .

What choice did he have? His books were in here. The rope, too. Without them they might starve. And Kent might die just like the Scoutmaster had.

For a fleeting instant, Newton had a very un-Newtlike fantasy: he pictured himself stepping into a throng of well-wishers, his fellow Scouts sitting gratefully in Oliver McCanty’s boat, which Newt had fixed and piloted back to the mainland. Next the mayor would pin a badge on Newt’s chest in a ceremony at town hall, Scoutmaster Tim’s portrait in a gilt-edged frame, his mom waving from the crowd, Max and Ephraim safe and thankful—his friends now—Newt demurring when the mayor called him a true hero, saying only: “It was all due to my Scouts training, sir.” This silly self-obsessed fantasy left him feeling a little embarrassed.

The cabin roof bowed in a rotted arc to touch the floor—or nearly so. There was still a portion where it failed to reach: a jagged lip where the fungal-encrusted shingles didn’t quite touch the floorboards. Newton knew that on the other side of that lip—maybe only a foot away—lay Scoutmaster Tim’s body. And the last time he’d seen Tim, he’d been writhing with… Newton didn’t want to think about it. But the first real threads of terror had now begun to squirm into his belly. An awful silence sat heavy within his chest—it was mirrored by the same awful silence on the other side of the roof where the Scoutmaster lay.

Or was it entirely? Newton was almost positive he could hear something .

Newton, oh my baby get out of there get out of there this instant!

He thought of Sherwood, his cousin. Tall, stout-shouldered Sher, all roped in farm-boy muscle. Which made him think about Alex Markson, the boy he’d made up on Facebook—a fusion between Sherwood and himself.

What would Alex Markson do? Newton wondered. He turned it into an acronym: WWAMD?

So… WWAMD in this situation? Alex wouldn’t be afraid—no, Alex would be afraid, because Alex was most certainly a sane person with the correct instincts for self-preservation. But Alex would do whatever was needed. He’d do the right thing.

How could the worms still be alive if their host was dead? Shouldn’t be possible, right? Newton stared at the lip between the shingles and the floor. A fleeting band of light traced along its edge…

Yes, there , he swore he saw movement. Tiny wavering shadows flitted through the light.

Then he heard the noises like cockroaches scuttling and shucking in a bowl of not-quite-solidified Jell-O. Saliva squirted into his mouth, bitter and tangy as the chlorophyll in a waxy leaf. He felt faint with fear. His stomach flooded with cold lead as his testicles drew up into his abdomen.

Get out of here right NOW!

It wasn’t his mother anymore—this was the lizard brain speaking, the cold voice of survival. He went jelly-legged: the bones felt as if they had been reduced to marrow soup. Pure fear invaded his mind, creating a carnival of terrifying images. Visions of clean-picked skulls and empty sockets, huge white worms barreling out of inflamed tunnels like hellish bullet trains, long, tubelike hands slipping from the shadows reaching for… for…

A shuddering groan escaped Newton. He put his hand over his face and stumbled back. His ass hit the cabin wall and he yelped in surprise.

“Newton?” Max called out anxiously. “You okay?”

Newton swallowed with difficulty. It was so good to hear Max’s voice—to remember that the world was bigger than this cabin with its collapsing angles and alien sounds that made Newton’s skin scream.