Nick Cutter - The Troop

The man’s face had been black, but that was not its birth color: it was the lumpen, withery, rotted black of a banana forgotten at the bottom of a fruit bowl. Had he touched that face, Tim was certain his fingers would’ve sunk into it. The man’s nose looked as though it had been subjected to enormous pressures, or else eaten away by something: a caved-in pit above his lips, which were cracked and bloated and coated in unknowable glaze.

Tim’s breath had locked in his lungs, his upflung eyes finding his mother—who was obviously scared, too, a fact that deepened his own fear.

The man had been sick in a way that didn’t seem possible—nothing on this earth, not disease nor the elements nor the tortures of mankind, could do that. He looked like a man who’d been abducted by a vengeful alien race who’d done terrible things, reduced him in some unspeakable way, then delivered him back to earth in order to examine how the rest of his species would react.

He’s seen hell , was Tim’s childish thought.

Worst of all were the man’s eyes—always the eyes, wasn’t it? A calm ongoing shade of brown, and the most awful part was that something continued to live in them—because normally there’d be nothing, right? Defeated and foggy and unthinking, to match the body. But these eyes harbored a remote intellect, a keen awareness. Which was the scariest part: this man had to confront the devastation of his body. He was cognizant of his own ruin. How could he possibly cope with that?

The man didn’t ask for anything. He simply watched, those coolly considering eyes socked in that tragedy of a face, until they passed from sight.

As he remembered this, the veil of disquiet that had settled over Tim shifted and something terrible peered through from the other side—the squirrelly, squealing face of terror. That man’s nightmarish face. Then it was gone.

Tim slipped into an uneasy sleep. Sometime before dawn and without quite realizing it, he rose out of the chair and stumbled to the cupboards.

News item from the Montague (PEI) Island Courier , October 21:

The military descended upon the tiny town of North Point (pop 5,766) early this morning. Residents awoke to Armored Personnel Carriers rumbling down their sleepy streets.

“They chewed right through the pavement,” said Peggy Stills, owner of the Island Cafe on Main Street. “The street’s full of holes.”

The convoy made its way to the North Point dock. A barrier was swiftly erected, encompassing the waterline and outlying areas. A pair of Apache helicopters were spotted sweeping the waters off North Point.

Shortly after 10 a.m. an official dispatch was released, stating that traffic on the waters north of the island was strictly prohibited. A message was sent over the emergency nautical broadcast channel alerting watercraft; the waters off North Point are trafficked by commercial fishing vessels and the occasional ocean liner.

Requests for information from on-site military personnel were rebuffed. The Courier has attempted to contact a military press agent, but to this point this reporter’s calls have gone unanswered.

THE BOYSrose with the drowsy half-light of dawn. The moon hung in its western altar like the last melancholy guest at a dinner party, who was too lonely to leave.

None of them had slept well. They’d heard Scoutmaster Tim come inside with the man—the man hadn’t spoken, but they could smell him: a syrupy foulness like the juice at the bottom of an amusement park trash can. As the Scoutmaster busied himself beyond the bunkroom door, Kent had sat up on his elbows.

“I better check it out.”

Kent Jenks always had to check “it” out. Made no difference what “it” happened to be; Kent was suffused with the unshakable conviction that things would be better if he intervened—as if, by dint of his presence, the situation would come under control. He’d been this way since Beavers, and because Kent was bigger and carried an air of prepossession that could come off as menacing, the other boys typically bowed to his will.

It was the same at school. Kent was the kid who’d butt in front of you at the water fountain— literally butting, a solid hip-check that’d send you flying—saying I got cuts with a chummy backslap, his voice a full octave lower than anybody else’s. The boy who’d grab your sandwich off the waxed paper your mom wrapped it in, take a humongous bite, and go You mind? , flecks of egg salad spraying between his lips. He wasn’t truly mean-spirited, though. Max thought of him as a Saint Bernard: big and slobbery, a bit dumb and oblivious to his own strength, but his heart was usually in the right place. Kent constantly threw down these gauntlets, though, and dared you to run them. Most days it was easier to surrender your spot in line or bite of sandwich.

Lately Kent had been testing how far he could challenge adults. He’d raise his hand in class, grinning sunnily while asking the teacher: Are you suuure? He’d started to call teachers by their first names, too. It wasn’t Mr. Reilly in homeroom anymore—it was Earl. The boys were waiting for the day when Kent sauntered into the teachers’ lounge, took a bite of the gym teacher’s lunch, and said, You mind, George?

When Kent had gotten out of bed and crossed the bunkroom to the door, only Newton had spoken up.

“Better not, Kent. The Scoutmaster—”

“Shut up, flapjack,” Kent had shot back, so casually that you couldn’t even call his tone dismissive: more like how you’d shush a yappy dog. “If I wanted your opinion, I’d—”

“For real, bro,” Ephraim had said. “Don’t go out there.”

Kent blinked, his head cocked at an inquisitive angle. Ephraim was the only boy who worried him—there was something a bit crazy about Eef, this jittery powder-keg quality that made Kent uneasy.

“Gimme one reason why not, man.”

Ephraim just said: “Because.”

“That’s it? That’s the reason— because ?”

“Yep,” Ephraim had said.

“Thanks, Eef,” said Newt.

Ephraim said: “Shut up, pork chop.”

Next Scoutmaster Tim had entered the bunkroom and told them that their asses better remain in bed. Soon after came the commotion: the stranger’s scream—“ Reeeeaaagh !”—followed by a scuffle, a crash, and the acrid smell of smoke wafting into their room, mingling with the sweetly rotten stench.

Kent had leapt out of bed, attacking the door with savage shoulder-butts; it wouldn’t budge, but Kent kept flinging his body at it, the way he always did—hurling his unthinking bulk at any obstacle with the ironclad surety it’d eventually buckle. He’d only quit when the Scoutmaster threatened to tell his father; Kent stepped away from the door breathing like a bull, his wide-set and faintly bovine eyes reflecting dull smokeless hate.

Around four in the morning, Newton had sat bolt upright in bed. He’d been awoken by the noise of cupboard doors opening and slamming shut. Next had come… crunching sounds? Monotonous, plodding, softly grinding.

“Max?” he’d whispered. “Max, you awake?”

“Go to bed, Newt,” Max said from the bunk below, his voice so thick with sleep that his words ran together: GotobedNewt .

Newton had been shocked that Max and the others were able to sleep with those smells and awful noises beyond the door… maybe Max was just pretending to sleep to avoid talking about them. Maybe he’d thought sunlight was a cure-all.