by Nick Cutter
“What the hell?” Ephraim’s face settled into an expression between bafflement and fear. “What just happened right now?”
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.
25
BEFORE THEY entered 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.
“I’m okay. Just stay outside. Be out in a sec.”
Newton realized that he could just get the hell out—it was one of the perks of being a kid, wasn’t it? Kids could abandon anything at any time with no real repercussions.
Except there were no adults around anymore. And he had work to do.
He edged down the wall into the bedroom. There, his books were on the far side. A sleeping bag lay five feet beyond his right foot. He hunkered down and crab-crawled toward it. He heard those distant popgun pops—Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!—and imagined those weightless
ribbons surging through the air toward him. He crawled faster, a desperate moan swelling in his chest.
He reached the sleeping bag and pulled it over him. Just before he did, he saw the air above him shimmering with luminous squiggles. He lay under the bag, inhaling the scent of its owner: stale sweat and pine sap and illicitly smoked cigarettes, so it must’ve been Eef’s.
Newton rose with the bag tucked over his head. Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! He oriented himself, swallowed his fear—a plum stone lodged in his throat—and shuffled toward the closet with the bag held up like a shield. The squirming was very loud now, even through the cloth of the bag; it sounded eager and agitated at once.
Even though his heart was beating hard enough to shudder every bone in his body and adrenaline-rich sweat was dumping out of every pore, Newton advanced patiently and cautiously. God, somehow the worms were still alive, still firing off their pfft! fusillade. Newton figured they must be spores or eggs or something—a way for the worms to infect you from far away. On the peripheries of his vision, he could see the odd ribbon go floating past.
Don’t breathe them in don’t breathe in at all get out of here now now NOW NOW NOW
His toes hit the edge of the collapsed closet. The tip of Scoutmaster Tim’s index finger lay beside his right foot. He flung down the sleeping bag and backpedaled madly as it settled over the Scoutmaster’s body.
The pfft!s were muffled by the bag. The Scoutmaster’s arm jutted from beneath it. Frozen at an unnatural angle, fingers like craggly bits of driftwood washed up on the beach.
Newton hustled over to his knapsack and made sure the nylon rope was still inside. His field book was a little water-fattened after the downpour, but still legible. He quickly checked to see if any of the ribbons had gotten on anything. No, he was clean. He stuffed the book in his knapsack, gave everything a final once-over, and hightailed it outside.
* * *
News item from the Montague (PEI) Island Courier, October 22:
MEN ARRESTED AFTER BREACHING MILITARY’S QUARANTINE ZONE
Two men were placed under arrest following an incident that occurred several miles off the northern coast of North Point.
Reginald Kirkwood, 45, and Jeffrey Jenks, 43, both of Lower Montague County, were taken into custody by military police officers shortly after 10 a.m. this morning. Both were charged with Grand Larceny and direct contravention of a State of Emergency Order. The former charge carries a minimum sentence of five years under the Canadian Criminal Charter.
According to eyewitness accounts, Jenks—the town’s police chief—and Kirkwood, its county coroner, stole a boat belonging to Mr. Calvin Walmack. Mr. Jenks piloted the boat across the 3-mile stretch separating the mainland from Falstaff Island, which remains under quarantine due to the potential presence of an unknown biological threat.
Exact details remain undisclosed, but available evidence suggests their boat experienced mechanical difficulties that hindered their progress. The boat was chased down by a pair of military patrol boats and both men were taken into custody.
Due to the proximity to the island and the potential for biological transfection, the boat was scuttled using an incendiary device.
The arrestees are the fathers of Kent Jenks and Maximilian Kirkwood, members of Scout Troop 52—which also includes Shelley Longpre, Newton Thornton, and Ephraim Elliot, all 14 years of age. They were accompanied to Falstaff Island by their Scoutmaster, Tim Riggs, 42, North Point’s resident MD, last Friday evening for a weekend field trip. They have been isolated on Falstaff Island since the quarantine zone was established.
Calls to the military attaché’s office went unreturned as of press time.
* * *
26
THEY SET out just after noon. Three boys: Max, Ephraim, and Newton.
Max checked on Kent beforehand. Still huddled in the cellar under the tarp—his body looked like it was vanishing into the cellar wall, oozing into the hard-packed dirt, as if the wall had grown a mouth and was consuming Kent the way a spider eats a fly: injecting corrosive poison, dissolving the guts, and sucking them out with a long, needlelike proboscis.
“We’ll be back soon,” Max told him. He stood on the final step before the cellar floor, keeping his distance. “We’ll find something to make you better, okay?”
Kent said nothing, just watched with eyes hard and dry as pebbles.
Shelley was missing. They called his name a few times, halfheartedly. No response.
“Should we go anyways?” Newton said.
“Why shouldn’t we?” said Ephraim.
If the boys felt a vague uneasiness over Shelley’s whereabouts—more and more it seemed best to keep him in plain sight—his disappearance gave them an easy excuse to leave without him. What harm could it bring?
Maybe he really did walk into the sea, Newton thought, not unhopefully, then quickly chastised himself for it.
Newton took the lead. Max and Ephraim didn’t question this. After seeing him emerge from the cabin sweaty and near delirious with fear, his knapsack slung triumphantly over his shoulder . . . it was tough not to measure him a little differently.
The afternoon was bright but cool. Most of their clothing was inside the cabin, damp and unwearable. Ephraim had a Windbreaker. Newton only had one dry shirt.
They walked along the southern skirt of the island following the shore. Strands of kelp washed up on the rocks, looking like disembodied green hands clawing their way out of the sea. Ephraim peeled a strand and looked questioningly at Newton.
“Yeah, it’s edible, Eef.”
Ephraim nibbled an edge. “Holy crap, Newt!”
“I said it was edible,” Newton said. “I didn’t say it was any good.”
Max peeled a strip off a flat rock. “Hey, it’s not bad,” he said, chewing. “Salty. Like beef jerky from the sea.”
Ephraim took another crackly bite and chewed morosely. “Whatever. I’m hungry enough to eat a bear’s asshole.”
Soon after saying this, Ephraim lapsed into a moody silence. He kept rubbing his knuckles on his pants.
“You okay, man?” Max said.
He put a hand on his shoulder. Ephraim shivered as if a spider had crawled down his back. At first Max thought it was because of what’d happened outside the cellar—that awful snap between them, something Max had felt to his core. But that wasn’t it, was it? A cold species of relief washed over Max, only to be replaced with dread. Was Eef . . . ? Max gave Newton a worried look as his hand slid off Ephraim’s shoulder.
“Feeling real weird, man.” Ephraim’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. “I’m not really feeling like myself.”
“Yeah, none of us are,” Max assured him.
“Max is right, Eef. With what happened to the Scoutmaster and now Kent . . . we just got to hold it together a little while longer, is all.”
Ephraim gave Newton a bemused and slightly shaken look. “Newton Thornton, professional pep-talker,” he said bleakly.
They climbed a hillside that crested to a flat rise studded with boulders and hardy tufted shrubs. The air was perfumed by the salt wind that gusted across the table rock. The ground was pockmarked with holes. Each hole was dug down to a tight gooseneck bend that obscured its occupants from view.
“Prairie dogs?” Max asked.
“Are we on a prairie?” said Ephraim. “Where are the cowboys, Tex?”
“Shut up,” Max said irritably. “Cowboys aren’t all on the prairies anyway.”
Ephraim laughed and scratched his elbows. He’d scratched through his Windbreaker. Max noticed blood dotting the torn nylon.
“Not prairie dogs,” said Newton. “Birds. I’ve read about them. Instead of making nests in trees, they burrow underground.”
Max said: “Can we catch one?”
Newton looked doubtful. “I’ve never seen a rope trap for birds—you need box traps for those, with chicken wire. I don’t think it’d be worth it. They’re pretty much just bones and feathers, right?�
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Max thought about those dead shearwaters on his kitchen table and said: “Let’s not bother, okay?”
“Whatever we do eat out here, you can bet it’s going to be a bit weird,” Newton said. “We ought to be prepared for that.” He smiled gamely. “Just think of it all like chicken or something.”
They crossed the plateau to a granite shelf overlooking the sea. The clean mineral smell of the rock hit their noses. Sunlight filled in the slack water between the waves in mellow gold. White ospreys took flight from their cliff-side nests, arcing over the water.
Ephraim kicked a stone over the edge. It clattered down the cliff and nearly crushed an osprey nest sitting on a jagged outcrop. Ephraim pointed at the trio of brown-specked eggs in the nest and said:
“You want to climb down for those? I could go for a three-egg omelet.”
Newton looked dubious. “There’s nowhere to tie the rope. If you slip, it’s a long way down.”
Ephraim picked his tongue along his upper teeth, still considering it. “I’d have to share the eggs with your fat ass, Newt—wouldn’t I? I do all the work and you horn in on the reward.”
“You can have them,” Newton said stiffly. “I just don’t think it’s worth getting hurt over.”
With the prospect of eggs fading, they wandered down a switchback descent that emptied into a salt marsh to the east of the cliff. The ocean water leached into a mucky terrain of buckled trees and diseased-looking hummocks. A rotten stench boiled up from the long grass, which was exactly the sort of grass Newton hated: the serrated-edge kind that raked your shins when you walked through it in shorts.
They trudged through, trying to avoid soakers. Their boots cracked through skeins of crusted bile-colored salt that looked like the scum topping a pot of boiled meat. Late-season grasshoppers flung themselves off the grass and stuck to the boys’ clothes with their barbed legs. Newton flinched every time one pinged off his hips.
