Nick Cutter - The Troop

He reached into the puddle, grabbed one spark plug—

The flare went out. Max’s heart seized.

It sputtered alight again. The top was wet now; water dripped down into the tube, dousing the phosphorus. He reached for the other plug, wrapped his fingers around it—

The flare went out again.

Something dropped from the cave ceiling, crawling and clacking on the nape of his neck. Max let out a choked sound of disgust before the flare caught again. He knocked the thing off his neck. One of those huge black beetles. As soon as it hit the floor, it was lit upon by white strands. Max looked for the chamber mouth and—

The flare went out. Jesus oh Jesus no —he stood blindly, tripping, slipping on a patch of slime in the dark. He stumbled back and nearly fell—his arm reached out for balance and collided with something that felt like waterlogged fatback…

The flare sputtered alight. In the bloodlike luminescence, he saw he’d touched the Shelley-thing. His fingers had sunk into the flesh of his back. Its skin was flabby, greasy, seeping nameless noxious fluid.

The skin cracked slightly down the Shelley-thing’s spine. Max saw something flex underneath.

He turned to flee. The air was alive with floating strands. He waved the flare desperately, catching a few: they sizzled up like ghost fuses.

He heard a hideous skin-crawling sound. A splitting, rending sound. He froze. He pictured it being made by the Shelley-thing as it pulled itself up. It was the sound of its body disconnecting from the rocks, its burst-open chest cavity dangling syrupy strings of ichor, twisting with worms while it lisped Yeeeeeesssssss …

Max couldn’t bear to turn around. He feared if he turned and saw that , all would be lost. The terror would crystallize into a hot barbed nut in his brain. Maybe it would just be better to go mad and have done with it for good and all.

With the greatest courage he’d ever summon, Max wrenched his head slowly around.

The Shelley-thing’s body was moving, but the movement was coming from inside.

One foot in front of the other, Max .

It wasn’t Max’s own voice in his head now: it was Newton’s.

It’s just five steps. Four maybe, if you take long strides. Go on now. It’s okay .

Max obeyed, moving quickly and silently. Every nerve ending was on fire and every synapse in his brain was on the brink of rupture, but he managed to slip around the chamber walls until his ass hit the tunnel mouth.

The last thing Max saw in the glow of the sputtering flare before racing up the incline was the skin cracking and splitting down the Shelley-thing’s back. A huge white tube, just like the one that ripped out of the stranger a lifetime ago, was twisted round the gleaming spine bone: it looked like a flag that had gotten blown round a pole in a high wind.

Max watched it unfurl with slow elegance and rise into the dark air. It stood stiff as a bloodhound’s tail with the hunt running hot in its blood.

WHEN MAXgot back, Newton was awake. A patch of gauze was taped clumsily over his eye. The other eye stared at Max balefully.

“You left,” he said reproachfully.

“I got the spark plugs.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

Newton looked thinner already. A jarring sight: Newton Thornton, the pudgiest boy in school, with winnowed cheekbones that looked as if they’d been carved out of basalt. The wind blew his loose clothes around his body.

“Who needs Deal-A-Meal cards,” he said, catching Max’s look. “Richard Simmons is a…” Newt managed to smile. “…a fucking pussy .”

He sat on a rock, humming a tuneless song, while Max fiddled with the boat’s motor. Night was already coming down; the cold seeped under their collars and iced the skin cladding their spines.

“I’m hungry like you wouldn’t believe, Max.”

“You should try sucking on a pebble. My mom says that’s how the Indians used to control their hunger. When they were on a vision quest or whatever.”

Newton plucked a pebble off the shore and popped it into his mouth.

“Salty,” he said. “And stony .”

They laughed a little. Max turned back to the motor. He screwed the spark plugs into their holes and snapped the covers shut.

“I swallowed the pebble,” Newton said. “Oooops.”

“Suck on another one,” Max said, struggling to maintain a casual tone of voice.

The jerry can of gasoline was where he’d dropped it yesterday. He unscrewed the motor’s gas cap and let the gasoline glug-glug down, making sure he didn’t spill any. He could hear grinding sounds over his shoulder. He was very worried they were being made by Newton chewing on a pebble.

“You should gather whatever you need,” he said, not daring to look. “We should leave soon.”

“You don’t even know that the motor will start,” Newton said tiredly. “It probably won’t.”

“Why would you say that, Newt? Why wouldn’t it start—why wouldn’t you hope it’ll start?”

Max turned and saw Newton regarding him with tragic eyes.

“All I mean is,” Newton said, dropping his chin and staring down, “even if it does start, you should go alone.”

“What a stupid— Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m sick, Max. And if I’m sick, maybe they won’t let you go back home. Because they’ll think you’re sick, too.”

“ They meaning who?”

Newton shrugged. “Come on, don’t be dumb. Whoever’s out there. The police. The army. The guys in the helicopter. Whoever is making sure nobody comes to rescue us.”

“Well, maybe I’m sick already too. Who cares? They can cure us.”

Newton shook his head knowingly. “If you were sick, you’d feel it.”

Max came over and set a hand on Newton’s shoulder. The heat radiated through his clothes. That awful sweetness wasn’t so bad coming off Newton. It smelled a little like Toll House cookies.

“I’m scared, Max,” Newton said softly.

“So am I, Newt.”

Max was afraid that if he left without Newt, they—whoever they were—wouldn’t allow him to come back. Which meant Newton would die here. Curled up inside the cabin, perhaps, or in the cellar, like an animal that sought the darkness to die. He would die in pain, but more important and much worse, he would die alone. Newt didn’t deserve that. Newt was a good person. He should live a long time. Marry and have kids. Teach them all the nerdy things he knew. Be happy. That was the only fair outcome.

But if Max left without Newt, he was positive he’d never see him again.

This fear of abandoning Newt was more profound, if less visceral, than that which he’d experienced back in the cavern: if Newton died, it meant all the terror and frustration and rage they’d both experienced had been for nothing.

If they couldn’t leave together, what had they done any of it for?

Max said: “You sit at the front of the boat, okay? I’ll sit at the back. We won’t touch. They won’t have any reason not to take me.”

Newton smiled gratefully. “That sounds like a very good plan, Max.”

IT WASdark by the time Max eased the boat off the beach into the slack tide.

It took a few hard cranks to get the motor going. Smoke belched from the engine housing. For one heart-stopping instant, it seemed the bearings would fry and the motor might seize… but after a few rough revolutions, it settled into an even cadence.