Nick Cutter - The Troop

Ephraim kept rubbing his fingers over his knuckles. The skin around the raw wounds was inflamed.

“Do you see anything?” he asked nobody in particular.

Max said: “See what, man?”

Ephraim said: “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Max and Newton exchanged a glance. Neither of them wanted to leave Ephraim, but they both knew they couldn’t force him to come. If they pressed too hard he’d lash out, maybe even hurt one of them. The group was casting off all inessential members, winnowing down to an unlikely core.

“What would you rather,” Max said. “Keep hiking and find some food or stay here alone, sitting on a rock—pouting?”

Ephraim shot to his feet, fists balled, chest butting into Max’s; he got so close that their chins touched, their noses, too—so close that Max could smell Eef’s breath, which was bad, yeah, but not sweet: just the regular bile-and-stomach-acid smell of a boy who hadn’t eaten properly in days. He saw the familiar fire in Ephraim’s eyes: less a flame, really, than jags of blue electricity crackling outward from his irises; it reminded Max of the plasma globe at the Science Center.

Ephraim’s fist rose with sudden swiftness, knuckles striking Max’s chin. It wasn’t a hard punch, but hard enough to snap his teeth together with an audible click . It didn’t hit Max’s knockout button, his legs didn’t even tremble—Ephraim took most of the steam off it—but it was a punch all the same.

Ephraim pushed Max away, as if their closeness might prompt him to lash out again. Max’s heart shuddered in his chest. He could feel the lingering imprint of his best friend’s knuckles on the underside of his chin: three perfect points still burning into his skin.

Ephraim’s jaw worked, his teeth grinding side to side; it appeared he might burst into tears.

“I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that, Max.”

Max rubbed his jaw. He’d never been punched before. “I know, Eef. It’s okay.”

Ephraim shook his head. “No it’s not. No. It’s. Not .”

The three boys stood in the greenish, claustrophobic light. Ephraim slumped back on the rock.

“We have to go, Eef,” Newton said softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to—”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But so… you’ll stay right here?” Newt asked.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ephraim repeated.

“Okay. We’ll be back soon.”

“Do whatever you want.”

Max and Newton left him. They slipped under the canopy of spruce fronds into the clearing beyond.

AFTER THEYwere gone, Ephraim sat motionless. The wind stirred the treetops, blowing pinecones off the boughs. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved one of the two remaining cigarettes, lighting it with the Zippo. It tasted disgustingly sweet, like the tobacco had been drenched in rancid syrup.

He tweezed obsessively at the swollen flesh edging his knuckles. He picked and twisted until fresh blood flowed. It dripped off his fingertips and pattered onto the brown needles. He scrutinized it for wriggles .

The pain was sharp but bearable. It felt really good. Really necessary . Idly, not really aware of his actions, Ephraim angled the cigarette until its burning ember drew near the flesh of his wrist. He felt the heat but wasn’t alarmed by it. Touching his skin, the ember made a sizzling sound like bacon in a frying pan. The stink of burnt hair, the vaguely sugary smell of crisped skin. The ember left a blackened divot, pain radiating from it like the rays of a cartoon sun. Endorphins and adrenaline washed through Ephraim, calming him somewhat—but the feeling didn’t last.

They were inside of him. Somehow he both knew and didn’t know this unavoidable fact—or he knew and yet hoped with every ounce of belief that he was wrong.

I saw something, Eef. Under your fingernail .

Shelley’s words drilled into his head, blistering his brain like a branding iron. How could Shelley see anything ? Dark in the cellar, a storm shaking the earth. But Shelley’s words had only reinforced Ephraim’s own belief: they’d gotten inside.

Simple math: Kent was sick. He’d punched Kent. They’d shared blood. Ephraim may as well have thrown open a door and said: Welcome to the party!

At first there had only been one… a tiny, white, hungry guest squirming contentedly in the half-moon of his fingernail. And Ephraim would’ve permitted it to live in his fingernail, if it promised to stay under the nail like a pet in a glass bubble. Ephraim was generous—he could give up that much of his body. He’d even show it to his friends to gross them out: Look, guys, I’ve got a new friend . He’d let it have his whole finger, even; plenty of men back home on the island were missing fingers—they’d get pulled off on factory lines, shredded in tractor gears—so okay, no big loss.

But these things weren’t content with a fingernail, a finger, a hand, or an arm. They wanted the whole enchilada.

Ephraim thought about those little white tubes bending toward him in the cabin. He’d stood mesmerized, swooning in fear as those shimmery strands floated toward him. Ephraim’s heart-blood had seized, veins feeling like they’d been pumped full of quick-dry cement. He hadn’t moved an inch. None of the other boys had stepped in to save him, either. Scout Law number two: A Scout is loyal to the king, his country, and his fellow Scouters . Well, fuck that. Ephraim’s fellow Scouters hung him out to dry, even his so-called forever friend.

But he wasn’t mad at them, really. Would he have stepped in if those threads had drifted toward Newton—even Max? He blamed himself for acting like a stupid stunned cow. That inward-looking anger crystallized into rage, which then transformed quite suddenly into fear.

Ephraim was as terrified as he’d ever been in his life. Something was inside of him—he was almost positive of that now. Locked up behind his skin. Incubating. That something had become somethings . Multiplying and feeding and breeding . That was how any living entity increased its numbers, wasn’t it? They were having sex inside of him, like those disgusting snakes in the rocks. Things were fucking inside his skin right this instant.

He’d never had sex himself. Sure, he’d gotten his hand up Becky Scott’s skirt on the baseball bleachers behind the Lions Club before she’d protested about being a good Baptist girl—of course, she’d taken his hand and put it there in the first place. Ephraim realized girls couldn’t be understood the way boys could be, but still, he’d been looking forward to touching a girl again, to reexperience that light-headed sensation of his heartbeat shivering every inch of his skin. But that seemed less likely now. Because of the stranger, and the Scoutmaster. And Kent. And now himself?

Their sly squirming infested his ears. The surface of his flesh trembled as they moved beneath it—or was that just the dappling of the sunlight on his arms? No: they were there . But they were being sneaky about it. Burrowing inside of him like rats in the walls. Chewing away at the insulation and gnawing at the foundation.

He stared at the crook of his elbow. A fat blue vein pulsed there. He put his thumb on it to stop the blood flow. The beat of blood through his vein seemed out of line with the beat of his own heart. Like something else had commandeered it.

We could share . Ephraim directed this desperate plea into his body like a phantom radio signal. Share ME — my body. Okay? But like, you can’t do to me what you did to Scoutmaster Tim. You really shouldn’t have done that. Maybe you can’t help yourselves? I get it. I have control issues, too. We could — what’s the word? Like, live together. But you can’t… you better not… don’t you fucking eat me!