by Nick Cutter
Shelley hacked a half-moon into Ephraim’s head. Blood of a shockingly vibrant red sheeted down the boy’s face.
“Thank you,” he kept mumbling with pathetic gratefulness as the blood bubbled over his lips. “Do you see it? Oh please find it. Thank you thank you thank you . . .”
Shelley was remotely disgusted by Ephraim’s behavior, but also fascinated. Ephraim’s psychosis had some weird narcotizing effect. He wondered: If he cut around Ephraim’s head until he hit the initial incision, could he tear his scalp off? Just like the Indians used to do. If so, would Ephraim even care?
The notion that he could be here for hours, hacking into a willing victim, sectioning Ephraim apart piece by piece, was thrilling in the extreme . . . and if things kept swinging his way, he wouldn’t have to dispose of the body as he’d done with Trixy. Once he’d relished Ephraim’s death, extracted from him the secrets Kent had witheld—and once Max and Newton were dead, too, a task he foresaw as daunting but still achievable—once they were all dead, Shelley would have their bodies all to himself. He could arrange them around the fire, posing their limbs and thumbing their stiffening faces into expressions he couldn’t quite comprehend, playing with the blood that wept like treacle from their wounds . . . or he could cut them to pieces and reorganize them—different heads on different bodies—insulting them in death by disgracing their corpses, which would be funny, terribly funny, so funny that the giggles started to rise in his throat again. Afterward he could leave them to the insects: their bodies would become shelter and nourishment for beetles and slugs and worms. Yes, they’d be worm food.
But Shelley had to be careful—the other two would soon return. Shelley thought he could hear their voices near the fire pit. He bit his lip, thinking.
Finally he said: “Wait here, Eef. I’ll be right back.”
He shambled around to the generator, rocking it to see if any gas was left. There was. He descended into the cellar and found an empty mason jar. Then he popped the valve on the generator and drained gasoline into the jar.
He returned to Ephraim and said: “I can’t cut it out, Eef. It’s too sneaky. The only way to get it is to burn it out.”
Ephraim’s eyes were very white and wide in the bloody mask of his face. Shelley’s words came to him as a revelation. They were the most sensible words anyone had ever spoken. Fire purifies all.
Shelley set the jar next to him.
“Burn it out, Ephraim. It’s the only way, my friend.” Shelley touched Ephraim’s twitching face with great tenderness. “You know that, don’t you? You’re my very best friend.”
Ephraim swallowed. For a moment it seemed he would bat Shelley’s grublike fingers away—but they dropped of their own accord. Shelley handed Ephraim his barbecue lighter.
“That’s okay,” Ephraim said, pulling out his Zippo. “I’ve got my own.”
Ephraim picked up the jar and held it over his head. It hung there a moment. His face shuddered as if under the pressure of deep internal forces, then it went slack.
“Thank you, Shelley,” he said. “You’re the only one who gets it.”
Ephraim’s hand tipped downward to saturate his flesh with gasoline.
38
BY THE time Newton and Max ran back to the cabin, Ephraim was on fire.
A towering cone of flame enveloped the body of a boy who suddenly looked small, shrunken, and trapped within it.
They bolted into the clearing only to check up by degrees: their feet lagging like cars rolling to an awkward stall. Their horror inspired inertness.
Ephraim was on fire.
A swiftly charring effigy. Their minds collectively yammered at them to do something but dear God, what could they do? The idea of shouting at him to stop, drop, and roll seemed quaintly absurd.
The flames swept up from Ephraim’s shoulders in orange wings. He was glowing and ephemeral: he might lift off the ground like an ember swirling up from an open fire. His flame-robed arms oared in lopsided circles. The sound of his legs scissoring the air was like sheets of very fine silk being ripped apart. Horribly, Max could see that he was inhaling the fire: flames were crawling down into his lungs, igniting them.
Ephraim crumpled to the ground. His legs kept kicking as if he were trying to step over a low obstacle.
When they finally acted, it was too late—had it ever not been too late? Max dashed into the cabin, heedless of the men lying dead inside, grabbed a sleeping bag, ran back, and dropped it over Ephraim, where he lay curled in a thatch of crabgrass. Plumes of meaty smoke drifted around the bag’s edges. One of Ephraim’s feet jutted from under the bag. The soles of his boots had fused into a smooth black sheen that resembled a slick drag-racing tire. A single point of flame danced on the tip of his boot.
When Max pulled the sleeping bag back, it was obvious at first glance that Ephraim was dead. The heat had curled his body up like when you toss a cellophane packet into a fire: his thighs were tucked tight to his chest like a child in the fetal position. His kneecaps appeared to be heat-welded to his forehead. His clothes were either burned off or fused through grisly alchemical processes to his skin. He was charred all over like something left too long in the oven. His features were erased the same way a mannequin’s would be if someone had taken a blowtorch to its head.
“Oh, Jesus,” Newton said. “Oh, Eef, Eef . . .”
Merciless bands of iron clapped around Max’s chest. His breath came in shallow jaggedy bursts. The shock was such that he could only stare at the body, coring a hole into it with his eyes.
“Where the hell’s Shelley?” Max said.
Max’s left eyelid developed a weird tic: the muscles kept clenching and releasing; it looked like he was trying to wink but couldn’t quite get his face to cooperate. He felt the anger boiling out of him—which was how he figured it must always happen. Pressure turned fear into rage as surely as pressure turns coal into a diamond. Fear was an internal emotion: it got trapped inside of you. You had to let it out. For that you turned to rage, the ultimate external emotion.
All rage ever needed was something to focus on—was this how Eef had gone through life, fighting this rage that was a kissing cousin to pure madness?
Shelley rounded the cabin. Seeing him, Max’s chest hitched in sudden shock—hic!
Max thought Shelley looked as if someone had located a hidden zipper down his back, tugged it down, and skinned thirty-odd pounds of meat from his bones before zippering the sagging shell back up again. He couldn’t help but notice the blood on his hands.
“Hey, guys.” Shelley waved chummily. The tone of his voice was faintly mocking.
“You.” Max leveled a finger at Shelley. “Where were you?”
“No place special.”
Shelley’s gaze fell upon Ephraim. If he exhibited any emotion at all, it was dry revulsion: the look a passing motorist might give roadkill.
“Where the fuck . . .” Max said, his words coming out in great livid gasps, “. . . were you?”
Shelley shrugged with his hands in his pockets: a carefree, maddening gesture. Huge boils the size of cherry bombs throbbed on his neck where his adenoids should’ve been.
“Stay away from him,” Newt whispered to Max. “He’s sick with it.”
But Max’s rage was all-consuming. The reek of gasoline wafted off Shelley. He’d done something.
“What did you do, Shel?”
Max thought: What did any of them really know about Shelley? He was a lanky, furtive boy who kept to himself with an inner intensity of evasion and secrecy. The other boys tolerated him but nobody would call him a friend. They didn’t make sport of him—not because he wasn’t mockable, with his thick-lipped vacancy and stunned inability to comprehend the simplest jokes.
“Stay away from him,” Newt told Max, a little louder.
Max continued to advance. He’d never really been in a fight. Eef got into scraps all the time. He was good at it, too. He was fearless—had been fearless. Ah, Jesus. This felt like more than a fig
ht to Max; the acid boiling through his veins told him so.
He reached for Shelley. He’d wrap his hands round his throat and squeeze until his windpipe collapsed. There were no adults to tell him no—besides, who says an adult wouldn’t act just the same?
One of Shelley’s hands released from his pocket. A quicksilver flash. Next, pain was sizzling along Max’s sternum just above his hipbones.
Both boys stared down. An inch of Shelley’s Buck knife was inserted into Max’s abdomen.
Max stared at it quizzically, his dizzied mind thinking: Now, that doesn’t belong there. The strangest thing in the world, being stabbed. Had he even been stabbed—or had Shelley simply held the knife out defensively and let Max impale himself on the blade?
He glanced at Shelley with a panicky grin that showed too many teeth. It was a grin that said: This was an accident, right? Things haven’t gotten this bad, have they? But Max saw the rancid emptiness in Shelley’s eyes and saw his own cheese-white reflection in Shelley’s dilated pupils and knew that yes, yes, things had gotten this bad.
Shelley’s arm flexed stealthily. Max pulled away but still a half inch of the blade divided the red sheets of muscle. Shelley’s expression was impassive, marginally curious. He could have been carving a roast or dissecting a pickled pig in science class.
A stick of wood whistled down and struck Shelley on the back of his skull. It landed with a solid whock!—the sound of a baseball struck with the sweet spot of a bat.
The knife slipped from Shelley’s hands. His knees buckled. His eyes rolled back so far in his skull that Max saw the quivering whites.
The wood slipped from Newton’s trembling hands.
“I had to,” he said. “He was gonna kill you, Max.”
39
SHELLEY STAGGERED up. A goose egg swelled on the back of his head: it was so huge that it stretched the hairs on his scalp apart to reveal the vein-snaked skin. A crazed, curdled light shone in the pit of each iris. He took a step forward, swooned like a man on the deck of a storm-tossed ship before falling down on his ass. He laughed—a thin, warbling titter that tapered to a drone.
“I’ll k-kill you,” he said between volleys of laughter. There was no real menace in his voice. He could have been stating a matter of his daily agenda. “Kill you both . . .”
A flash pot of rage exploded in Max’s chest. Blood was running from the stab wound to soak the hem of his underwear.
“You’ll kill us, huh? Is that what you’ll do, you crazy fuck?” He stepped toward Shelley. “What if I kill you first, huh, Shel? What if I kill you?”
Shelley cocked his head at Max. A predatory gesture—was he baiting Max? Shelley sucked back snot and hocked up phlegm. He opened his mouth and showed them the oyster of thick mucus on his tongue.
Max saw things wriggling in it.
Shelley’s mouth curved into a smile as he diddled the oyster around on his tongue.
“You’re sick, Shelley,” Newton said. Max figured he wasn’t just talking about the worms, either. “We found these mushrooms. You could take them. They might flush them out.”
Shelley’s head swung side to side like a pendulum—then he spat. Max dodged; the spit sailed past his leg. It hit the dirt and picked up dust. It’s squirming, Jesus his spit is squirming. Max’s first urge was to stamp on it like he would a revolting bug, but he resisted the impulse.
They backed away as Shelley struggled to stand. Max was sure he’d just keep hocking until he hit the mark—that, or bite them or even lick them. He’d infect them for the pure sport of it.
Max’s heels hit the edge of the campfire. The rocks forming the ring weren’t all that big. Some of them were fist-size, some smaller. He picked one up, testing its weight. It felt good in his hand. It felt mean.
Shelley was coming. Max pegged the rock. The muscles flexed over his rib cage and caused the cut on his belly to tear even wider. The stone whanged off Shelley’s knee. Max thought he saw something crumple and sag under his pants and wondered if he’d shattered Shelley’s kneecap—and in that moment he was so hopeful that he had.
Shelley squawked and fell, clutching at his leg. Max picked up another rock.
“The next one you’ll catch with your face, Shel,” he said. His voice was coolly businesslike, but his bloody hands were trembling.
Shelley hissed at them—actually hissed, like a vampire who’d had a cross jammed in his face. He scrambled away, retreating up the dirt path behind the cabin.
Max pursued, following Shelley until the path tracked into the pines. He paused—could Shel be waiting in ambush? Turning reluctantly, he doubled back to Newton.
“Where is he?”
“In the woods,” Max said. “He was limping bad. I might have broken something.” He considered this possibility, his lips forming a hard, thin line. “Good. I hope so.”
“What if he comes back?”
“I don’t know, Newt. I just don’t know.”
They turned their attention to Ephraim. The wind had blown the sleeping bag back over his body, which was a small mercy.
Max said: “We got to bury him, Newt.”
“Yes,” Newton said. “We ought to do that. It’s the only way he’ll get to Heaven.”
IT WAS dark by the time they put Ephraim in the ground.
But first Newton bandaged Max’s wound. The edges of the cut were clotted with dirt—Newton debrided them as best he could with salt water fetched up from the beach and dressed it with bandages from the medical kit. Blood seeped through the gauze almost as soon as he applied it. It would have to do. The medical kit was almost empty.
They buried Ephraim in the ground south of the campfire. It was softer, almost sandy. They used a collapsible shovel Newton had bought at the Army Surplus. When its handle snapped off, they used their hands.
When the grave was finished, they dragged Ephraim to it. The sleeping bag’s neoprene shell slid over the ground with effortless ease. At first, they were terrified the hole wouldn’t be deep enough and that they’d have to dig deeper while Ephraim’s body sat right next to them.
It was deep enough. They scooped dirt over and patted it down to discourage animals from digging the body up. Newton recited a short prayer that his mother often said. He didn’t know that it really applied, but it was the only one he knew by heart.
God in Heaven hear my prayer,
Keep me in thy loving care.
Be my guide in all I do,
Bless all those who love me, too. Amen.
Afterward their eyes were hot and dry. Max wanted to cry if only to release the tension in his chest. But his body wouldn’t release the tears because his mind wouldn’t allow it. It seemed inconceivable that Eef could be in a hole in the ground. Just last week Max had raced him across the monkey bars at recess. Eef won. Afterward they’d sat in the shade by the baseball diamond and ate their lunches. Eef’s mom had packed some crackers for him; they’d stuffed their mouths with the dry squares and seen who could recite the alphabet fastest. They were spitting out shards of cracker and laughing like mad. Eef had won that game, too. Eef won just about everything where Kent wasn’t involved.
Max and Ephraim would never hike to the bluffs behind his house, staring up at the stars as the shearwaters called from the cliffs; they’d never talk about girls and candy and their dreams and who’d win in a fight, Batman or James Bond. They’d made a pact to be friends forever, but forever could be so, so brief.
Max curled into a wretched ball beside the grave. Eef was dead. Everyone was dead or missing or insane. The cabin was in splinters and things were falling apart.
Which seemed so unfair.
Where were the adults? Max couldn’t believe someone hadn’t come for them yet. His parents were always nagging him to be on time, to be responsible and to think of others. Well then, what the fuck? His folks were full of shit. Or else they’d be here. And Kent’s parents—including his hot-shit policeman dad—and Newt’s and Eef’s, too. Didn’t they give a shit about th
em? Maybe they were all complicit in it. A plot. They’d all bought into it. Get them out to the island and cut off their escape route. Let nature take its course.
No. That was idiot talk. Their parents would never do that. The fact that they weren’t here actually spoke to how dire the situation must be. Because this wasn’t nature, was it?
This was something else.
Those things. The way they spread infection—the way they spread.
Newton got a fire going. The warmth helped the anger and confusion melt out of Max’s brain; they were replaced by exhaustion. He felt as if he were wearing one of those heavy lead coats the dental hygienist draped over his shoulders before taking X-rays.
He lay beside the fire. Almost instantly, he was fast asleep.
40
EAT EAT EAT EAT . . .
Shelley rose in the dead of night to hunt.
He’d found a cool, dark place to hide. He’d limped into the woods, clutching at his hurt knee. He eventually came upon a cavern burrowed into the island’s bedrock. It was deep and narrow and it held the tang of salt. Perhaps it was fed by an aquifer that led out to sea.
He lay in the sheltering dark, listening to the water trickle on the rock. This place suited him. It would be a wonderful place to give birth.
The boys. Max and Newton. Skinny and fat. Jack Sprat and his wife. They thought he was sick. They couldn’t be more wrong.
He wasn’t sick. He was simply changing into something entirely new.
He could feel it inside of him: a vast darkness, itchy-black, unfurling like the petals of a night-blooming flower. It would hurt. Oh yes. But then change always did.
The hateful boys had wounded him. They may have hurt his babies—but no, he could feel them squirming contentedly inside of him. Thank goodness.
The boys needed to die.
Shelley had been planning on killing them, anyway. He wasn’t sure it’d be much fun at this point, although it might provide the same fleeting thrill he’d experienced while drowning Kent: a fizzy, sudsy bath-bubble feeling in his veins. But now he’d kill them as a simple matter of principle. They had harmed him, which meant—inadvertently or otherwise—they had harmed his babies. And a father always defended his children.
