Nick Cutter - The Troop

Or maybe there is: you just grow up.

And when you do, you surrender the nimbleness of mind required to believe in such things—but also to cope with them. And so when adults find themselves in a situation where that nimbleness is needed… well, they can’t summon it. So they fall to pieces: go insane, panic, suffer heart attacks and aneurysms brought on by fright. Why? They simply don’t believe it could be happening.

That’s what’s different about kids: they believe everything can happen, and fully expect it to.

Max knew he was at that age where disbelief began to set in. The erosion was constant. Santa Claus had gone first, then the monster in the closet. Soon he’d believe the way his folks did. Rationally.

But for now he still believed enough , and maybe that had kept him sane.

He was idly working all of this over in his mind when the screams started.

From the sworn testimony of Nathan Erikson, given before the Federal Investigatory Board in connection with the events occurring on Falstaff Island, Prince Edward Island:

Q: Please clarify something for the court, Dr. Erikson: So far as you were aware, you and Dr. Edgerton were working on a diet pill?

A: What do you mean?

Q: I’m asking specifically about the grant Dr. Edgerton received.

A: From the pharmaceutical concern, yes.

Q: And it was the only funding the Edgerton lab was receiving?

A: Yes.

Q: No.

A: Excuse me?

Q: No, it wasn’t the only funding the lab was receiving, Dr. Erikson.

A: I’m sorry, what…?

Q: Dr. Erikson, for someone who claimed to have a higher IQ than most everyone assembled at this hearing today, is it possible that you were unaware of the end goal of the very experiments you were administering?

A: Of course I know. I told you. A diet pill.

Q: Dr. Erikson, I’d like to show you something.

[Dr. Erikson is handed a piece of paper]

Q: Can you tell me what that is?

A: It’s a bank statement.

Q: It’s Dr. Edgerton’s bank statement. For the account that administers the operating costs of his lab.

A: Yes, all right.

Q: Now if you scan down, you will see the deposits made by the pharmaceutical company.

A: They’re here, yes.

Q: Now can you see the other single deposit—the one made on January second?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you tell me how much that one is for?

A: Three million dollars.

Q: Exactly?

A: Three million, fifty thousand, five hundred dollars. And forty-two cents.

Q: Can you tell me who made the deposit?

A: Is this a spelling test now? T.N.O. Printz Mauritz.

Q: Do you know what that company does, Dr. Erikson?

A: I have no idea.

Q: They are a military research firm.

A: Okay.

Q: Three years ago, they were subjected to a grand jury investigation. The company was indicted on charges of industrial espionage and selling goods to foreign despots for the purposes of cementing various puppet regimes.

A: I don’t keep up on any of that.

Q: As a company, they do not have the cleanest of hands.

A: If you say so.

Q: Dr. Erikson, may I ask you this: If Dr. Edgerton is the genius you claim he is, why couldn’t he keep the worms where they belonged—in a subject’s intestinal tract?

A: As I said, even worms are complex organisms. Terribly complex.

Q: But—and please forgive my ignorance—isn’t it the baseline nature of most tapeworms to remain in the gut?

A: Generally so, yes.

Q: Dr. Erikson, I will cut to the chase: Were you aware that Dr. Edgerton was in fact receiving competing grants? One from a biopharmaceutical company and the other from a military research firm? One of those companies was anticipating a diet pill. The other, Dr. Erikson, was anticipating a biological weapon.

A: No.

Q: Would it shock you, Dr. Erikson, to discover that I have in my possession correspondence between Dr. Edgerton and the CEO of T.N.O. Printz Mauritz discussing this very thing?

A: That would shock me a great deal, sir.

Q: Do you see how such a creature could, in certain engagements, be an ideal method of warfare? Setting ethics and humanity aside, of course?

A: I… I suppose I do.

Q: It would be traceless. It would spread rapidly: An eyedropperful into a public reservoir would do it, yes?

A: Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

Q: It could tear a country apart in short order, yes? Cause mass hysteria, destabilization, rampant infection, riots, fear, rage, secondary bloodshed in any order. It would defy both the letter and intent of the Geneva Convention—but it’s just a hypervirulent worm, yes? Nobody knows how it came to be. Mother Nature once again works her many strange wonders to behold, yes?

A: I had no idea. You have to believe me.

Q: Dr. Erikson, I am under no obligation to do any such thing. That particular question of belief is up to this court to decide.

SHELLEY WAITEDuntil Max and Newton went down to the beach before climbing out of the cellar. The gauzy afternoon light stabbed his eyes like cocktail swords. The dark suited him now.

Last night, he’d lain in the cellar and dreamed of darkness slipping over the world. A forgiving dark: you could do things in that kind of blackness and get away with it. Nobody would ever see you. They would only feel you, and you could feel them.

Shelley found Ephraim lying on the picnic table. The sight was a pleasant one. It meant his game was progressing nicely. In fact, it appeared to have entered endgame stage.

Shelley swayed lightly on his feet with a dreamy look on his face. “Nobody loves me,” he warbled, “everybody haaaates me…”

He ran a finger down the gash on Ephraim’s face. When the boy didn’t stir, he pushed the tip of his finger into it. His nail broke the gummy glue of blood. His finger moved inside the wound. He pushed harder, grunting lightly. His fingertip went through Ephraim’s cheek into his mouth—for a thrilling instant he felt the smooth enamel of his teeth.

Ephraim’s eyelids cracked open. Shelley withdrew his finger. It came out with a gooey sound, like pulling your finger out of a pot of wallpaper paste.

“Shel? You don’t look so hot.”

Shelley supposed he didn’t. At some point last night, he’d crept out of the cellar to eat the long timothy grass growing around the cabin. Down on all fours like a cow at its cud. This morning, he’d chased a plump pigeon along the beach, screaming and frothing at the mouth. The foam falling from his lips was white, tinted with green from the grass; it looked like the spume that washed up at the North Point jetty.

He hadn’t caught the pigeon, but later he’d fallen asleep and dreamed that he had. In the dream, he’d torn its feathered head off—but not before eating the black jewels of its eyes as it struggled frantically in his hands—laughing and hissing as the bird’s head separated from its body. He’d awoken to find his belly swollen to match his dream. The skin was pocked with lumps that looked like fledgling anthills.