Dweller (4 page)

“Good-bye,” he told it. “I guess I’ll…see you around or something.”

Now came the tricky part: turning his back on it.

Toby backed up a few steps, keeping his eye on the monster, but he knew he couldn’t watch both the uneven path and the monster at the same time. He turned around and slowly walked away, imagining his ears as finely tuned robotic instruments, capable of hearing the slightest movement behind him. If the monster exhaled, he’d hear it. If the monster blinked louder than necessary, he’d hear it. If the monster did anything at all…

He heard it.

He spun back around, withstanding the urge to aim the shotgun. The monster took another step toward him. It didn’t look like it was trying to be aggressive or threatening—it was simply following him. Still, nonaggressive or not, Toby couldn’t have a monster following him home.

“Shoo!” he said. “Go away!”

The monster stood in place. It clicked two of its talons together, and Toby felt some fresh perspiration run down his back.

“Don’t follow me,” Toby told it. “I’m going home. You can’t come.”

The monster licked its lips.

Shit.

Should he run? Should he blow a hole in its face? Should he wet himself and perish?

None of those sounded good. Well, the running part sounded good, but not on a sprained ankle.

“Stay,” Toby warned. “Staaaay.” God, he hoped that the monster didn’t think he was being condescending.

He waited for a few moments, until he decided that the monster wasn’t going to keep moving toward him. He turned his back on it once again and resumed walking.
Robot ears…robot ears…

He made it a few steps before he heard some rustling, but when he spun around the monster was still standing there. Just normal forest rustling. No imminent peril. He returned his attention to the path ahead.

There were seven more false alarms before the monster was finally out of sight. Toby walked home, feeling relieved to still be uneaten…and absolutely exhilarated by his encounter.

Toby lay in bed, his injured foot elevated on a couple of pillows. His camera rested on his bedside.

He hadn’t told his parents about the monster. They’d believe him—they’d
have
to, at least after he developed the picture and showed them the proof, but he just didn’t feel like sharing his discovery quite yet.

It was
his
monster.

If he told people about it, he’d probably be famous, but then the government would swoop in there and capture it. They’d either throw the monster in a cage and study it, or break out their scalpels and start slicing it up. His wonderful discovery would be nothing more than strips of flesh under a microscope. Its jaws would be on display over the mayor’s fireplace.

Maybe he should keep it a secret for a while longer. Why let everybody else ruin his discovery? And his forest? The best part of the forest was that nobody really ever went in the area near his house. His only close neighbor was Mrs. Faulkner, who now relied on a walker and hardly ever went outside. Some lady came in once a week to bring her groceries. If people knew about the monster, the forest would be swarmed with tourists and scientists and everybody. He’d lose his favorite place.

He could study the monster. Get better pictures. Try harder to communicate with it. And if it did attack, he’d rather be the one who shot it than some police officer. Why should they get the honor?

That’s what he’d do. Enjoy the monster all by himself for now. There was plenty of time to let the rest of the world know.

“I had a great big bean burrito for dinner last night,” Larry said, leaning in his desk toward Toby just before economics class started. “After we dunk you, you’ll have to shave your head to get rid of the smell.”

Despite a desperate need to use the facilities, Toby stayed out of the restrooms for the remainder of the day.

Toby didn’t need to throw rocks after school. The monster sat on the ground, right outside of its cave. It looked up as Toby approached but didn’t stand. Toby double-checked the shotgun to make sure the safety was off, and kept it pointed at the dirt as he walked forward, stopping at the same fifty-feet-away point he’d used last time.

“Hi again,” he said. “It’s Toby. Remember me?”

Wow, that thing had big teeth.

“Do you have a name?”

Toby wondered if there were others like it. If not, would it even need a name?

“I’m going to give you a name, if you don’t mind,” Toby informed the monster. “I’m sure it’s not your real name, but I should call you
something
, don’t you think? And you can name me whatever you want. So for now, I’m going to call you Owen.” He pointed at the monster. “
Owen.
That’s you. Do you like it?”

Owen—the human Owen—was the closest Toby had ever come to having a real friend. They’d met in sixth grade. Toby had been impressed by his ability to create paper airplanes that could sail all the way across the classroom, and even more impressed by his stealth in doing so without being seen by the teacher. For about three months, they went to each other’s houses every day after school, and spent the night most weekends, and had a great time.

One Saturday morning, they were playing catch with what remained of a baseball that Toby had cut apart to see what was inside. Owen’s throw was off center and the baseball bounced off Toby’s shoulder. In a momentary flash of fury, Toby grabbed the baseball off the grass and hurled it at Owen as hard as he could, bashing him in the face. Owen ran for home, blood gushing from his nostrils. Toby chased after him, yelling out apologies.

Owen had run inside and slammed his front door shut. When Toby knocked, Owen’s mother angrily sent him away. Toby, sick to his stomach, had gone home and tried unsuccessfully to read comic books for the rest of the afternoon.

Owen refused to talk to him the next day. Toby didn’t have much experience, but he didn’t think this was the way friendships were supposed to work, at least with boys. They were supposed to pick up right where they left off, as if nothing had happened. Owen wasn’t playing by the rules.

They didn’t speak again for the rest of the year. Then Owen’s dad got a job all the way over in Nevada and they moved away.

Toby had been so stupid. The baseball hadn’t hurt
that
bad.

“Do you understand anything I’m saying, Owen?” he asked the monster. “If you understand me, nod your head. Nod your head like this.” Toby nodded his head, slowly and emphatically.

Owen the Monster stood up.

“No,” Toby said in a firm voice. “Don’t stand. Nod your head.” He nodded some more.

Owen raised his arms high into the air and let out a howl. Whether it was frustration or rage, Toby couldn’t tell, but it was most definitely not a good howl.

“Fuck!” Toby screamed. He turned and limped away as quickly as he could.

There was another howl. This one sounded sorrowful.

Don’t forget about the shotgun, you idiot!

Toby spun back around, but with his panic and sweaty hands the shotgun slipped out of his grasp. Losing his weapon concerned him for a fraction of a second. Then his concern immediately switched to his wrapped ankle as the wooden stock smashed against it, creating a fireball of pain that brought tears to his eyes and nearly knocked him to the ground. He cried out, lost his balance, and braced himself against a tree.

He didn’t have a legitimate frame of reference, but based on his mother’s description of the pain of childbirth, he felt like he were having a baby through his ankle.

Oh,
God
, it hurt.

Having the monster’s fangs slowly sink into his flesh probably hurt worse, though, so he scrambled to pick the shotgun back up. He glanced over his shoulder to see how close he was to having it take a nice generous bite out of him, and saw that Owen still stood in front of the cave.

Why wasn’t it coming after him? It had some injured prey, right within eyesight. Toby deserved to get eaten, just for his ridiculous incompetence.

Owen made a coughing sound.

No, not a cough. That was a laugh. A goddamn laugh. That thing was laughing at him!

That was a lot better than it trying to rip him apart, but still…

Or maybe it had just been a regular snort. It was impossible to say. Either way, Owen wasn’t coming after him, and if he wasn’t attacking now, while Toby was lying there like a complete buffoon, he probably wasn’t going to attack at all.

He clenched his teeth together as tightly as he could to keep from crying out again. You really weren’t supposed to drop a shotgun on a sprained ankle. He wondered if he’d broken it. He stayed on the ground, waiting for the
agony to subside while watching closely to make sure that Owen didn’t change his mind about going on a rampage.

The pain took several minutes to fade to a manageable level. Toby grabbed a branch and pulled himself to his feet. His whole foot was throbbing. He wiped the tears from his eyes and forced a smile. “You may have to nurse me back to health, big guy,” he said.

The movement was slight, and almost certainly not what Toby thought it was, but he was
positive
that Owen nodded.

It was cool, yet unspeakably freaky.

“So do you mind if I take a few more pictures?” he asked. “I don’t want anybody to see them, so I probably won’t get them developed right away, but I should take them now just in case you…I don’t know, migrate or something.”

He dug his camera out of his backpack. As long as the flash didn’t scare or enrage Owen, he should be able to get some good shots before he hobbled back home. Owen leaned forward just a bit as Toby looked through the camera, but the monster had been photographed before without ill effect and it didn’t seem to mind this time. Toby took eleven or twelve pictures then tucked the camera away.

“I’ll come back,” Toby promised. “Probably not tomorrow, since by then my foot will be the size of your entire body, but soon.” It felt kind of weird to be making a promise to a creature that couldn’t understand what he was saying, that had no apparent emotional attachment to him, and whose desire to devour him remained an active possibility, but he couldn’t help himself.

Maybe he’d injured his brain instead of his foot.

Dad was already home when Toby got back. That wasn’t such a good thing.

“Any special reason you’re walking around in the woods with my shotgun?” Dad asked as he walked inside.

“Fake hunting.”

“Fake hunting?”

“You know, pretending to hunt.”

“You’re wandering around the woods with a sprained ankle and a loaded shotgun pretending to hunt?”

Toby shook his head. “I took the shells out.”

He’d left them in until right before he exited the forest, just in case Owen was silently following him and preparing to pounce, and had almost forgotten the detail of emptying the gun before he walked back in the house. He looked like less of a foolhardy idiot explaining the situation if the gun was unloaded.

“You’re a strange kid,” Dad said.

“Genetics.”

Dad frowned.

“Sorry,” Toby said.

“No need to apologize. It’s all recessive traits.”

Toby grinned and walked upstairs to get washed up for dinner, forcing himself to keep the limp to a minimum.

Toby hadn’t broken his ankle, but the next day it was abundantly clear that another trek into the woods anytime soon was out of the question. He’d be lucky to make it to school.

“Hey, Cripple, how’s it going?” asked Larry. Toby had been lost in thought as he took books out of his locker, and the bully’s sudden appearance startled him so much that his history book fell to the floor. Larry laughed louder than merited by the humor of the situation as Toby reached down to retrieve it.

“Fine,” said Toby, hoping he would just go away.

“What’s that?”

“I said fine.”

“What’s that? You said you were looking for somebody to kick your ass?”

This wasn’t typical Larry behavior. He usually saved
his intimidation attempts for more private settings. It wasn’t his style to harass somebody right in the middle of the hallway—Toby’s injured foot must have been boosting his courage.

“No.”

“No what?”

“No, that’s not what I said.”

“Then what did you say?”

“I said fine.”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard that you want me to beat the shit out of you.”

Toby sighed. Someday he’d like to get Owen on a leash, bring him to school, and turn him loose on jerks like Larry. He wouldn’t be cruel—he’d pull Owen away before his jaws and talons got down to the bone.

Larry smacked him on the shoulder. Not too hard, but hard enough to jostle him a bit. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“Hey!” It was Sam Conley. He wasn’t captain of the football team, but he was one of the more popular players. Toby didn’t know what position he played.

Larry glared at him. “What?”

“What are you doing picking on a kid with a hurt foot? Pick on somebody who can fight back, you chickenshit.”

“Screw you.”

Toby glanced around. At least fifteen other kids were watching the altercation.

“You wanna start something with me?” Sam asked. “Because I’ll be more than happy to finish it.”

Larry stood there for a moment, trying unsuccessfully to stare him down. Then he shrugged. “Forget this. I’ve got better things to do.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Larry gave Toby a “you’re dead” look and then walked away.

Toby’s face felt as if a fly landing on it would burst into
flame. It was almost more embarrassing to be rescued with everybody watching than to be bullied. Still, it couldn’t hurt to have a football player on his side. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

Sam regarded him with disgust. “Stick up for yourself, man. That’s just pathetic.”

Toby immediately imagined himself delivering a lengthy, profanity-laden monologue where he verbally reduced Sam to a pool of sizzling goo. Then he imagined the goo reconfiguring into the normal Sam, whom Toby proceeded to punch in the face repeatedly, accompanied by loud cheers and whistles from his classmates.

Instead, he said: “Whatever.”

News of Toby’s upcoming beating apparently reached 85 percent of the Orange Leaf High students before word made it to Toby himself. Reportedly, Larry and Nick planned to “meet” him right after school and administer a severe pounding as retribution for Larry’s mild humiliation.

“I didn’t do anything to them!” Toby protested, when a girl named Helen informed him of the afternoon schedule.

“They’re still planning to get you,” Helen said, in a tone that suggested “This is kind of worrisome and not nearly as funny as the idea of you having your head dunked in the toilet” but also “I plan to get good seats.”

What was he supposed to do? Too many people were aware of the situation for him to sneak past the bullies after school, and getting a teacher involved wasn’t an option. Unless Sam offered to do battle for him, which was unlikely, he was in serious trouble.

The rest of the day passed very, very slowly.

It wasn’t as if there was a huge crowd gathered outside to witness his destruction, but there were certainly more kids lingering in the schoolyard than usual.

C’mon
, Toby thought,
somebody had to have alerted a
teacher to this.
Sure, given the choice most kids would opt to see a fight, but wasn’t there even one peer who said something to an authority figure? Or were the teachers fully aware of what was happening and placing bets back in the teachers’ lounge? He figured the odds against him were 1,500,000 to 1, but that would be one hell of a payout if he threw a lucky punch.

Toby kept his head up high and limped toward the sidewalk. Almost any other day, he gave thanks for the fact that he didn’t have to take the bus. Today, he’d be more than happy to sit up front and be pelted with spitballs and boogers the entire ride.

As he walked off school grounds, he sensed that somebody was quickly coming up behind him. The amused reactions of the onlookers contributed to this perception. He didn’t look back, just kept walking at his normal—that is, normal with a sprained ankle—pace, resisting the urge to run for it.