The Troop

by Nick Cutter

  He couldn’t see them—but he would soon be able to feel them.

  EAT EAT EAT

  Oh yes. Shelley would eat. The fat one first, then the skinny one. Eat their eyes so they couldn’t see. Eat their feet next so they couldn’t run away.

  It would be a paradise. A beautiful new world. Everyone would be so much happier down here. It would be an adjustment, of course. But they could be useful.

  They could be daddies, too. Yes, they could all be daddies.

  What a lovely idea.

  THE SOUNDS caused the ventricles of Newton’s heart to seize up. He could actually feel them constricting with a painful squeeze.

  Long, liquid noises: slllllrp . . . slllllrp . . . sllllrp . . .

  “Flashlight,” Newton said. The word came out as a compressed nugget of sound.

  Max flicked it on. Stark whiteness washed over the cavern.

  Slllllrp . . . slllllrp . . . slllllrp . . .

  The boys’ faces were eggshell-white: it was as if fear had blown the blood right out of their skin. Their necks and arms were rashed with gooseflesh. The clammy rock trapped the sweet stink, making the boys dizzy with it.

  They were in a small antechamber. A hollow bubble in the rock.

  “There,” Newton said, pointing.

  The spark plugs sat in a shallow saltwater puddle in the middle of the chamber. Could it really be so simple? Max scanned the puddle for white wriggles. It was clear. He picked his way over, grabbed the spark plugs, and turned to Newton with a tentative, hopeful smile. The flashlight in his hands shone on the rock behind the other boy.

  He caught a sly flinching movement to the left of Newton’s waist. The spark plugs slipped from his numbed hands.

  Newton’s forehead creased as Max’s hand rose, one quivering finger pointing to the spot behind him. He wheeled suddenly, stumbling, and watched in horror as it emerged.

  The thing that once went by the name of Shelley Longpre unfolded itself from a dark chalice in the rock. Crawling out like a spider, folding each of its long, pale limbs out, unpacking itself from its hiding spot with the showy grace of a contortionist.

  “Yessssss . . .” it lisped, the hiss of an adder that crested and eddied.

  “. . . sssSSSeeeeeYeeeessssssss . . .”

  It was long in its extremities and bulbous at its middle. It was naked and translucent and webbed with huge blue veins that snaked over its body. Its arms and legs were nothing but bone wrapped in a thin sheath of skin. Trapped in the eye of terror, Max found himself thinking of the Christmas just passed. His folks had bought him a trombone. They’d wrapped it and put it under the tree. Of course Max knew what it was: a trombone wrapped in shiny paper looked practically the same as a trombone not wrapped in paper.

  That was how its legs looked: like bones wrapped in skin-colored Christmas paper.

  “EeeeeeYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS . . .”

  Its voice was the lonely squeal of a hermit. It scrabbled toward them with a leer of hideous glee, hideous hunger, hideous need. Its left eye was completely white: something had sucked the pigment out of the eyeball the way a child sucks the red stripes off a peppermint candy. Its right eye was as shriveled as a dehydrated pea; white threads licked and lashed in the wide raw socket, making a whish sound, sort of like wind-swayed grain in a farmer’s field.

  Max noticed clearly in its nakedness that its stomach was an obscenely pendulous appendage. The size of a beach ball, it swayed between its legs with a quivering expectant weight. Its rib cage jutted in monstrous fingers. Huge knobs of flesh seeped filth all over its shoulders; a belt of ulcerated boils encircled its hips. Max’s mind reeled—scant days and hours ago this thing had been a boy, not much different from him.

  Sllllrppp . . . sllllrppp . . .

  Its lips hung down like the lips of an old horse. Its teeth were gone; its gums hung in whitish rags from the roof of its mouth like the pith inside a pumpkin. It reached for Newton with extremely long fingers. It had nibbled its own skin off the tips. Its voice lost its sibilance as it rose to an insane gibber.

  “YEEEEEEEE!”

  Snapping out of his torpor, Newton managed to lash out with the spear. He struck the thing across its face; its skin tore apart in crepey rags. It mewled piteously and crab-walked around the edge of the chamber, its gut dragging along the rocks. The skin mooring its belly to its abdomen stretched and tore in thin fissures. Max was horrified at the possibility that it would burst apart. What in God’s name would spill out?

  “Go!” Newton yelled at Max.

  Max pressed his back to the wall and swung round. The Shelley-thing’s tongue darted out of its mouth: a gnarled root. Max wondered if it was trying to taste his scent the way snakes do.

  It scuttled toward Max with horrid speed and ferocity. He caught a glance of its back. Something was twined around its spine, like an electrical cord.

  One of its bony claws manacled round his ankle, and Max’s bladder let go. Warm wetness drained down his leg. The Shelley-thing seemed to sense that, too—it stared up with those alabaster eyes, keening and snuffling at Max’s calves. Max screamed and kicked it off. The flashlight slipped from his hands and hit the ground, spinning in lazy circles.

  Max caught hold of Newton’s arm and dragged him back toward the chamber’s mouth. His mind was yammering; soon the terror would weld it shut . . .

  The flashlight spun to a stop. Its glow climbed Newton’s madly backpedaling legs—then the Shelley-thing darted out of the darkness, squealing with the high excitement of a pig who’d found a truffle, clamping onto Newton’s right leg.

  “Let go!” he shrieked. “Get off me!”

  It kept squealing and clawing up Newton’s body. Newton felt the warm weight of its gigantic belly pressing between his own thighs. Beneath the sucking sounds, he could hear squirming ones—coming from the wet black hole of its mouth.

  “Oh Jesus Max it’s gonna—”

  When the Shelley-thing’s stomach ruptured, it did so with a moist ripping tear. Newton’s thighs and abdomen were washed in a warm broth of desiccated organs and shrunken intestines and untold multitudes of writhing alabaster.

  Newton screamed in terrified disgust as the Shelley-thing’s face relaxed into an expression of extreme contentedness.

  Newton kicked free and skated his heels over the slippery rock. The Shelley-thing toppled face-forward onto the cavern floor. It landed with a sickening crunch that collapsed all the tortured bones of its face.

  * * *

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

  Q: Admiral Brewer, I’d like to ask about your methods regarding Tim Riggs and the five boys who were on Falstaff Island when Tom Padgett arrived.

  A: Fire away.

  Q: I’d like to know why, during the entire course of the containment, you never tried to contact Mr. Riggs. Or, after his passing, why you didn’t make contact with the boys.

  A: For what reason?

  Q: To tell them what was happening. To let them know, if nothing else, that their parents were being forcefully detained as opposed to purposefully leaving them there.

  A: These points were duly considered and dismissed. We felt—I felt—it was best to institute a “look but don’t touch” policy.

  Q: You could have dropped a care package. Food and aid. Or notes written by their parents. That wouldn’t be “touching,” would it?

  A: If you’ll check the record of our conversation here today, you’ll recall that I said: Nothing comes, nothing goes.

  Q: But does that apply to information, Admiral? A virus cannot be borne on information.

  A: But hysteria can. Information isn’t always power. Information can do harm just as easily as ignorance. Say we’d told those boys what they were up against, okay? They may have gone—pardon my French—batshit.

  Q: Wouldn’t you concur, Admiral, that based on the evidence of the events as
we now know them, that some of those boys went batshit anyway?

  A: Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, yes, I surely can. Listen, tribunals like this get held because of men like me.

  Q: Define for our purposes “men like you,” Admiral.

  A: I’m talking about men who take a line and hold to it. Some people think that makes men like me inflexible. Hard-assed. At worst, inhuman. It’s true that the decisions men like me make can seem, from an outward perspective, to be that: inhuman. People will always second-guess you. Why did those people have to die? Why those forty-four in the SARS outbreak? Why those kids on the island? Well, that’s fine and I accept all that—the second-guessing, I mean, not the fact that every epidemic is going to have its fair share of deaths. It’s my hope and goal to have zero fatalities. But the fact is that unless men like me make those decisions, the questions asked in the aftermath might be a whole lot different. Instead of why did those forty-four have to die, it’s why did five million have to die? Why did the whole eastern seaboard have to die? At that point, nobody has the luxury of a tribunal. At that point, everyone’s just trying like hell not to get sick.

  Q: So you’re saying—

  A: I’m saying that the decisive actions of men like me make second-guessing possible. We’re the first-guessers. And sometimes that’s all it is: educated guesswork. We don’t know how bad it might get. We assess the risk, gauge what the collateral damage might be, try to minimize it, and then hold that course. I’m not saying it doesn’t make for some uneasy nights. But it’s what you have to do.

  Q: Admiral, I’d like to change course.

  A: It’s your circus. You can call the tune.

  Q: Wonderful. Admiral, did you know about Dr. Clive Edgerton and his experiments with the modified hydatid worm?

  A: Before all this? No.

  Q: Remind me: You did sit on the panel of the Board of Safety in the Fields of Communicable Diseases and Epidemiology, did you not?

  A: I have, as I’m required to by duty.

  Q: So then I find it odd that . . .

  A: Yes?

  Q: I find it odd you’d have no knowledge of Dr. Edgerton. I say so because the board—the board you sit on—is very aware of Dr. Edgerton. Two years ago, his name was brought up in conjunction with several other doctors. According to the board, the work of those doctors should be subject to a higher degree of oversight and scrutiny, seeing as their research could pose a significant risk.

  A: I don’t go to every meeting.

  Q: But they send you the minutes?

  A: Yes. I read them as thoroughly as I can, but my schedule is busy.

  Q: Admiral, what are your thoughts on the effectiveness of the mutated hydatid as it applies to warfare?

  A: I think it’s monstrous. It’s a monstrous question.

  Q: Yes, I’m afraid it is, but such questions need to be posed. You say it’s monstrous.

  A: I do indeed.

  Q: That’s not the question I asked you.

  A: I suppose it would be effective as a weapon. In certain, very prescribed situations.

  Q: Like on an island?

  A: What’s your name?

  Q: [name redacted]

  A: Well, [name redacted], if you are suggesting that I dragged my feet and somehow used those kids as—as what? Test subjects? If you’re suggesting that—

  Q: Admiral, does the name Claude Lafleur ring a bell?

  A: No. Why should it?

  Q: Master Seaman Claude Lafleur was one of your men.

  A: The entire navy is my men.

  Q: Master Seaman Claude Lafleur was stationed at the same base you operated out of. Lafleur’s daughter often babysat your children. You’re saying you don’t know Claude Lafleur?

  A: That’s right.

  Q: Claude Lafleur was a locksmith before entering the navy.

  A: You want to hurry this up?

  Q: As you already noted, this is my circus, Admiral. I’ll choose the pace. Some time ago, Claude Lafleur was given a four-day executive leave. That leave started the day before Tom Padgett escaped from Dr. Edgerton’s facility.

  A: Yes? So?

  Q: Are you aware that you signed Claude Lafleur’s leave papers, Admiral?

  A: I sign plenty of leave papers. I spend half the day signing papers.

  Q: Are you aware, Admiral, that Claude Lafleur’s fingerprints were found on the rear access door of Dr. Edgerton’s lab?

  A: You’ll have to speak to someone else about that.

  Q: Are you aware that we presently have Claude Lafleur in custody? Are you also aware that Lafleur has some fairly damning things to say?

  A: You’ll have to talk to my superiors about that.

  Q: Admiral, who are your superiors?

  A: [Witness maintains silence]

  Q: Are you saying that even admirals take orders from someone?

  A: [Witness maintains silence]

  Q: Admiral, just earlier you used a term I’d like to revisit. Monstrous. Perhaps you’d agree, Admiral Brewer, that purposefully releasing a contagion would be monstrous? And if Tom Padgett were that contagion, Admiral, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that Falstaff Island could be seen as no less than a giant petri dish, and the events that occurred there no less than an unsanctioned experiment—on children?

  A: [Witness maintains silence]

  Q: Wouldn’t that just be absolutely monstrous, Admiral? Wouldn’t that be the most inhuman thing you could ever imagine?

  A: [Witness maintains silence]

  * * *

  45

  NIGHTFALL GREETED the boys as they stumbled out of the cavern. In the silvery fall of moonlight, Newton saw that he was soaked in gore from the waist down. Revulsion swept over him in a dizzying wave.

  When Max approached with a handful of leaves—all he could find for Newton to clean himself off—Newton held his hand out.

  “Don’t come near. It’s too late—they’re all over me.”

  He could feel them inside his pants, prickling his skin with strange heat. They wriggled in the hairs he’d just started to grow down there.

  Max said: “What can we do?”

  “Get back to camp. I’ll wash up in the ocean. See if that helps.”

  THEY MOVED through the woods without a flashlight. Chilling noises emanated from the lacework of tall trees: hoots and scufflings and a frenzied cackle that rose up and up until it dropped to an ongoing buzz like an enormous hummingbird trapped in a rain barrel. Whatever was making those sounds couldn’t possibly be any worse than the Shelley-thing back in the cavern.

  When they got back, Max made a fire using shingles that had blown off the cabin roof. Newton went down to the water to wash. Max could just make him out past the moon-glossed shore. He sat cross-legged in the surf, scrubbing and scrubbing. He returned in only his underwear, which sagged wetly around his hips. There was a defeated hunch to his shoulders that freaked Max out.

  “I’m hungry, Max.”

  “I’m hungry, too, Newt.”

  “I think I’m hungrier than you.”

  SOMEHOW, THEY slept. In the witching hours, Newton sat bolt upright. His insides were alive and seething. He bit down on his lip until blood came.

  An hour later, Max awoke as Newton puked into a thicket of poison sumac. He was curled up on his side, breathing in rapid little bursts.

  “I took the mushrooms,” he said. “They do the trick.”

  Newton pointed at the puddle of vomit. Nothing but a thin smear of liquid tinged purple from the berries they’d eaten. It was alive with wriggling whiteness.

  “I figure one of the little buggers swum up my . . . my piss-hole.”

  He realized there was a better word for it, a scientific word that he probably even knew, but he was too dog-tired to think of it. Besides, piss-hole summed it up best. It was a hole that your piss came out of. Newton laughed to himself. Hah! For whatever reason, he found it deliciously funny. Piss-hole. Hil-aaaa-rious! WWAMD? He’d laugh at piss-hole, too, because it w
as the funniest word on earth!

  Maybe he was delirious. That, or those mushrooms had mind-bending properties. He tore out a clump of poison sumac and rubbed it on his leg.

  “What are you doing?” Max said.

  “It’ll give me something else to focus on. I can itch myself silly.”

  NEWTON ATE the rest of the mushrooms and was violently, frighteningly ill. He vomited with such force that the capillaries burst in his eyes and even his nose. By the time the sun came up, he looked washed-out and haggard, as though his innards had all been wrung out like wet washcloths.

  They lay together by the fire. Any time Max moved closer, Newton waved him back tiredly.

  “You’re going to catch it,” he warned.

  “I don’t care anymore.”

  Heat kindled in Newt’s eyes. “You should care. Don’t be stupid. You should care.”

  Max withdrew, wounded for reasons he couldn’t quite process.

  SOMETIME THAT morning, the black helicopter cut across the postcard-pretty sky. It dipped low, rotors throbbing, panning a circle around them. It was so close that Max could see the sunlight flashing off the pilot’s visor.

  “Help us!” he yelled as the blades whipped debris all around. “He’s sick! Can’t you see that? We need help!”

  The pilot’s face remained impassive. Max picked up a rock, threw it on a pitiful trajectory. It wasn’t even close. The helicopter banked southward and returned toward North Point.

  “Fuck you!” Max screamed as it retreated. “Go fuck yourself!”

  Afterward he collapsed. The adults were supposed to act in the best interests of the children. They had to know what was happening. Yet stubbornly, they did nothing but stand idly by.

  The adults were content to watch them die.

  “I wonder who built them,” Newton murmured.

  Max wiped his eyes. “Built what?”

  “The worms.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean,” Newton said, “they seem too perfect.”

  “They don’t seem perfect at all, Newt. They’re like the worst things on earth.”