Dweller (5 page)

“Hey!” said Larry behind him.

Toby stopped walking and turned around. Nick was also with him. “What?”

“I didn’t forget about what happened today.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I think you did.”

There had to be at least twenty kids watching, most of them the regulars who smoked just outside of school grounds. Normally, Larry had a look of sadistic pleasure on his face—now he just looked angry. Even a little twitchy. He clearly wasn’t leaving before a punch was thrown.

Knowing that the violence was inevitable was strangely liberating for Toby. If he couldn’t talk his way out of his problem, why not just say what he really felt? Yeah, it might increase the velocity and quantity of the punches, but did it really matter at this point?

“I didn’t do anything,” said Toby, speaking slowly and clearly. “I was at my locker, minding my own business.
You walked over there and tried to intimidate me. When Sam came over, you chickened out and ran away. If you want to blame somebody for your cowardice, blame Sam, he’s the one who scared you.”

Toby inwardly cringed and braced himself for a punch.

Larry’s look of anger deepened. “That’s not how it happened.”

“There were witnesses.”

“Yeah, well, there are witnesses now who are gonna see me kick your ass into the ground.”

“Uh-huh. They’ll be really impressed. How come you have Nick with you? I weigh sixteen pounds. You should be able to handle me without a bodyguard.”

“Are you
trying
to get hurt?” Larry asked.

“You’ve already made your decision. Your decision is to beat up somebody like me, because the only other way you’d win a fight is to start beating up girls.” This sentence came out with a bit more of a self-insult than Toby had intended, but that was okay. He sensed some admiration from the spectators. Granted, there were fewer looks of admiration than looks of astonishment that he was digging his own grave in this manner.

“You weren’t so brave when we dunked your head in the shitter,” Larry said.

“I was trying not to laugh. When Nick was peeing, I almost lost it. I didn’t know penises even came that small. It looked like one of those coffee stirrers.”

Toby sensed that a very serious line had been crossed. He kind of wished he hadn’t added the coffee stirrer part.

Both Larry and Nick drew back their fists at the same time.

Toby was aware of the phenomenon where time seemed to slow down at moments like these, but he’d never personally experienced such a thing. Yet time did indeed seem to slow down, and Toby imagined how this could be a turning point in his entire life.

Just before Larry’s fist struck his chin, he’d block the punch with his palm. The color would drain from Larry’s face as Toby wrapped his fingers around his fist. He’d catch Nick’s fist in the same way. Both bullies would gape at him with their pale white faces and let out a simultaneous whimper.

“Please do not crush our hands!” Larry would beg.

But the time for pleading would have long since passed. Toby would wink at the audience of students, and then squeeze with but a mere fraction of his strength. Their hands would ooze through his fingers like Silly Putty. Nick would pass out from the excruciating pain, but Larry would hang on, eyes bugging out of his head.

“Have mercy,” he’d whisper. “Please, Toby, show mercy to your inferiors.”

And there would be mercy. But not for a few more minutes.

Toby’s fantasy came to an abrupt end as his perception of the world—still moving in slow motion—narrowed to include only the sight of Larry’s fist speeding toward his cheek.

The slow motion ended.

The punch felt like it split open the entire right side of Toby’s face. He fell to the ground and instantly knew that any dignity he’d salvaged from this situation would soon be history, because there was going to be some crying involved. He couldn’t even conceive of a punch to the face hurting this badly without brass knuckles involved. At least he’d only felt one punch—Nick had clearly missed.

The two bullies hovered over him. “Do you give up?” Larry asked.

Of course he gave up! Toby nodded.

Nick crouched down, grabbed Toby’s arms, and pulled him to his feet. Then he wrenched Toby’s arms behind him, holding him in front of Larry.

“Mess him up!” Nick urged.

Larry punched Toby in the stomach, so hard that he
thought he was going to puke up his peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich from lunch. Instead, he dryretched and tried unsuccessfully to find enough breath to beg Larry not to hit him again.

The next punch was to the left side of his face. There were a couple of audible gasps.

Another punch to the face. It felt like bone cracked.

Larry no longer looked simply angry. The expression on his face was wild, crazed, closer to insanity than fury. He punched Toby in the stomach again, and Toby realized that he genuinely meant to hospitalize him. Or kill him.

His protest was cut off by the blow to the jaw. Tears streamed down his cheeks, mixing with blood.

Yet another punch, and an actual scream from one of the girls watching. Spittle dangled from Larry’s lower lip. He drew back his fist for another blow.

“Stop it!” Helen shouted. “This is way out of control!”

With the next punch, Toby felt consciousness starting to slip away.

“I said stop it! You’ll kill him!”

“Yeah, this is too much,” said Nick, releasing Toby’s arms. Toby felt as if he were floating in space for a moment, and then his face struck the ground. He just wanted to sleep.

“Fine, whatever,” said Larry. He lifted his foot as if to stomp on Toby’s skull, then apparently changed his mind and lowered it again. “Let’s get out of here.”

The bullies walked away. Toby lay on the ground, bleeding and crying and not really caring who judged him. He was vaguely aware of some classmates helping him up, and he may even have spoken to them as they helped him get home, but he couldn’t be completely sure.

Toby didn’t tell his parents or the school principal who beat him up. He didn’t need to. There were plenty of witnesses, and somebody (Toby hoped it was Helen, but he
had no idea who it actually was) ratted about exactly who was involved.

Nick was suspended for a week. Larry was set to be expelled, but Larry and his parents made the case that Toby had instigated the conflict with his insults, so Larry’s punishment was reduced to the same suspension that Nick received. He was also removed from the two classes that he shared with Toby. Toby was also out for a week—despite the sensation that his face had been mashed to frothy pulp, no bones were broken and there was nothing preventing him from returning to school except his grotesque swollen appearance. He’d tried to convince his parents that he needed another week of recovery time, but Dad thought it was best if things returned to normal as quickly as possible.

The morning that Toby returned to school, Dad took him aside.

“If you’re in a fair fight, I expect you to fight fair,” he said. “But if you’re ever in a mess like that again, you kick that son of a bitch in the nuts so hard that they burst. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Toby went to school, not telling anybody that he was carrying a knife for protection.

Oddly enough, getting beaten almost to the point of disfigurement had a positive effect on his popularity. He would’ve thought that you needed to
win
a fight to gain social status from it, but apparently the Orange Leaf High student body felt that he’d sufficiently proven himself against two much stronger opponents. He wondered what would happen to him if he’d actually thrown and landed a punch. Class president?

After a couple of days, his newfound popularity faded a bit, and the number of students willing to talk to him dropped. But still, he no longer needed to leave the empty chair between himself and the people who shared his table at lunch, and J.D. stopped being such a jackass.

Two weeks after his pummeling, he felt well enough to bring some food to Owen.

He’d filled his backpack with a variety of items, everything from a pork chop to a hard mint. He returned to his former vantage point outside of the cave and got the shotgun ready. “Hello, Owen!” he called out.

Nothing.

“Hello, Owen, Owen, Owen! It’s me, Toby! Come on out! I’ve got some treats for you!”

Toby hoped he wasn’t shouting at an empty cave. If Owen had moved on, that would be a serious bummer.

He called Owen’s name a few more times, then moved
on to Plan B. Instead of throwing rocks, he’d throw processed meat.

As he dug the package of bologna out of his backpack, Owen stepped out of the cave. The monster looked right at him, and its face seemed to light up, like Toby’s grandmother when they’d visit her in the nursing home, before she died a couple of years ago. It moved forward, then stopped suddenly, as if realizing that its behavior was too intimidating. Toby kept the shotgun very much in mind, but didn’t reach for it.

“Remember me?” he asked. Owen seemed to recognize him, but Toby was still pretty bruised up. Most likely that wouldn’t matter—an animal like this would probably recognize him by smell. “It’s your best friend, Toby. Sorry I haven’t been around, but for a while there, I was almost as ugly as you are.”

He held up the package of bologna. “This is called baloney. It’s made from parts of every animal you can think of. You’ll like it.” He peeled off the top slice and held it up. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to Frisbee this over to you, but we’ll see.” Toby decided that he probably should have tested its aerodynamic properties beforehand, so that it didn’t splat onto the ground two feet in front of him and cause the monster to rush over. Fortunately, the light wind was at his back and he figured he should be able to throw it far enough to keep himself in the safety zone.

He flung the meat disk at Owen. It sailed through the air with much more accuracy than Toby would have expected, landing just a few feet in front of its target. Owen pounced upon it, impaled the bologna upon the talon of his index finger, then scooped it into his mouth.

It looked back at Toby. The message was clear: “More, please.”

He threw the other slices of bologna at Owen, one after the other, with Owen stuffing them into his mouth as quickly as they landed. Toby was proud of himself—he
was pretty good at the throw, and none of the slices hit trees.

When the last piece was consumed, Owen looked at Toby again. The message was even clearer this time: “More,
now.
”

Toby threw the pork chop at it. “It’s got a bone,” he warned.

Owen chomped down on the pork chop, bone and all. He swallowed and looked at Toby expectantly.

Okay, the bologna and pork chop had been pretty safe bets. Now the real testing began. Toby took out a candy bar, unwrapped the foil, and held it up. “This is chocolate,” he explained. “It’s bad for dogs but I’m sure it’s okay for you.”

He tossed the chocolate at it. Owen devoured it with as much enthusiasm as he’d shown the meat, but then seemed to grimace.

“Not a fan of chocolate?” Toby asked. “It’s good stuff.”

Next up: an apple. A nice green Granny Smith one. Toby tossed it underhand to Owen, and let out a small yelp of amazement when the monster caught it. Owen held it between his fingers, inspecting it for about half a second, then popped the entire thing into its mouth. One crunch and a swallow later the apple was gone.

Owen enjoyed the other few pieces of food that Toby brought, particularly the raw bacon, which elicited what Toby took to be a smile. Owen gulped down the mint without chewing it. Toby took out his second-to-last item, a red-hot fireball candy, rolled it around in his palm for a moment, then decided not to push his luck and shoved it back into his pocket. He ended with a sure thing and tossed Owen a raw hamburger patty.

“That’s all,” he said, holding up his empty hand.

Owen let out a low growl. Toby wished he’d packed a little more food.

“I need to go,” Toby told him. “I’ll be back, though. I won’t be able to bring as much stuff next time, but I’ll definitely bring you a treat or two. Sound good?”

Owen continued to growl, and then licked his lips.

Toby waved. “Good-bye, Owen.” He continued waving in a slow, exaggerated motion, hoping the monster would mimic him. After a few moments he decided that it wasn’t going to happen and lowered his hand.

He turned and began to walk away. Then he heard shuffling behind him and knew that Owen was following him. He’d figured that this might be a risk, but hadn’t quite determined how he was going to handle the situation if it happened. Worst-case scenario, he could point the shotgun at the monster again, though he’d avoid that if at all possible.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t come. Stay by your cave. I’ll be back some other day.”

Owen gestured to his mouth. It was an eerily human gesture, although Toby wasn’t familiar enough with primate behavior to know if apes or chimpanzees did this kind of thing on a regular basis.

“No more food. You ate it all.” He wasn’t sure what the universal gesture for “you already ate all the food” would be, so he mimed chewing and then held up his empty hands again. That didn’t seem to get the point across. “All gone.”

He took a step backward. Owen took a step forward.

“Stay,” Toby said, pointing at Owen. “Stay there. Or, you can have the entire rest of the forest except for the part I’m using to get home.” He decided that he was saying too much and confusing the monster with his gibberish, so he repeated his previous command: “Stay.”

Another step backward. This time Owen didn’t follow him.

“Good,” he said, continuing to slowly move away. “Very good, Owen.”

When Owen was out of sight, Toby picked up his pace, just in case the monster changed its mind and tried to follow him again. On a purely scientific basis, he hadn’t really learned much, except that Owen liked to eat most stuff, but it was a trip into the forest well worth making. He’d definitely be back.

As Toby dragged bags of kitty litter out of the grocery’s stockroom, he realized that there were few things in the world more frustrating than having to work a stupid job when there was a fantastic creature in the forest just waiting for him.

“One of those bags is leaking,” his boss, Mr. Zack, pointed out.

Toby looked back. The trail of kitty litter was about thirty feet long.

“Trying to mark your path so you don’t get lost on the way back?” Mr. Zack asked with a smile.

“I’ll clean it up.”

He stood at his locker, trying to remember if he needed to bring home his history book, when Nick walked over.

“I need to talk to you,” Nick said.

“You’re not supposed to talk to me.”

“Look, I don’t blame you for being mad…”

“You don’t
blame
me? Well, that’s nice to know. I could barely sleep at night thinking that you might have negative thoughts about me. My conscience is cleared now.”

“I’m trying to be serious. What we did went too far. Everybody knows it. We got punished.”

“You got a dinky little slap on the wrist. One-week suspension. Oooooh, wow, I feel avenged!”

Nick let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m here to apologize, you little freak. Believe me, it’s a lot harder for me to apologize than it is for you to forgive me.”

Now Toby felt kind of bad, although it was a fleeting
sensation and he quickly reverted to intense dislike. He needed more than an apology to forgive Nick. He needed bags of gold.

Still, there was no reason to get himself beat up again. “Okay, so apologize.”

“I just did.”

Toby was pretty sure he hadn’t, but didn’t dispute it. He supposed that having Nick
not
wishing him dead was better than the alternative.

“Okay. Apology accepted.”

“But I need to warn you about something.”

“What?”

“Larry. He’s…there’s something wrong with him. It’s like he’s obsessed or something. I’m afraid of what he might do to you.”

“Seriously?” Social stigma or not, Toby wasn’t going to just let Larry hunt him down. He’d tell a teacher, or his parents, or the cops if necessary, but he couldn’t let fears about being dubbed a tattletale cost him his—

“No.” Nick let out a mean-spirited chuckle. “He doesn’t give a crap about a zit-faced loser like you. Don’t be so gullible, Floren.”

Toby had no response. He braced himself in case Nick intended to start throwing punches.

“By the way, somebody took a dump in your locker,” said Nick, chuckling again as he walked away.

For a second, Toby considered flinging one of his text-books at the back of Nick’s head. The thick hardcover history book would leave one hell of a skull dent. But, no. It would cause far more trouble than it was worth.

He tried to think of something biting and clever to shout after him, something that the other kids would chant for the rest of Nick’s high-school career, but the best he could come up with was “Fatso!” And Nick wasn’t overweight. So he remained silent.

Oh well. He didn’t need friends like Nick anyway. He had Owen.

As Toby trudged through the forest, he wondered if considering Owen his friend was kind of sad. Even having a
human
friend who didn’t talk and lived in a cave that took over an hour to walk to might be a little sad by itself. When you added the whole “monster in the woods” element, this might be absolutely pitiful. And scary.

Well…so what? It wasn’t as if he and the monster were making babies. If he enjoyed coming out and throwing food to it, whose business was it of anybody else’s? Except for maybe his parents, if things went terribly wrong and the monster devoured his intestines.

Screw ‘em all. Especially Larry and Nick. He wished he could toss Nick’s head over to Owen and see if he liked the taste better than chocolate.

Nah. If he was going to feed Owen, he should feed him something with higher nutritional content than Nick’s head.

Behind him, in his peripheral vision, he thought he caught a glimpse of movement. His heart gave a jolt and he quickly looked over there, but saw nothing.

Relax. You’re in the forest. Things move in the forest. Happens all the time. It’s those eerie stillnesses that you’ve got to watch out for.

He kept walking. He had maybe a mile to go before he reached Owen’s cave. Perhaps he could get Owen to relocate, find him a nice den of sticks or something.

More movement, from the same spot. He only saw the source of the movement for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to identify his follower.

Did Larry really think he was that oblivious?

Well, discounting the fact that Toby had walked this far into the forest without realizing he was being stalked…

He pretended not to have seen anything, then continued walking. Now what? Call him out? Run after him with his hunting knife, screaming incoherently?

He decided to keep going and feign ignorance until he came up with a really good plan.

Somebody else moved. So he had both Larry and Nick after him. Crap. They must’ve been following from a much farther distance and just now decided to sneak up closer.

No brilliant plans immediately sprung to mind. He needed something that would keep these psychos away from him forever.

Having a fanged, clawed, hairy beast jump out at them would be a pretty good deterrent against picking on him in the future, wouldn’t it?

Oh, yeah.

But, no, of course he couldn’t do that. Too many holes in the plan, and when it was time to reveal Owen’s existence to the rest of the world, he’d much rather do it on his own terms instead of the terms of a couple of bullies with wet crotches on their pants running shrieking to the authorities.

“Tooooooby,” said a ghostly voice behind him.

Damn.

“Tooooooby, why are you in the woods all aloooooone? Don’t you know you can get huuuuuuurt?” It sounded like Larry, who was clearly behind a large oak about a hundred feet away.

“I’ll call the cops.”

“Using what? A tin can and string?” This was Nick, who was behind a different tree.

“You’re not supposed to come near me,” Toby said.

“We’re not near you.”

“You wanna go to jail? Is that it? Do you think I’m not gonna tell the cops that you followed me? Get the fuck out of here!”

“But Toooooooooby,” said Larry. “That’s not verrrrrrrryniiiiiiiice! You shouldn’t use such ruuuuuuuuuude language!”

“I’ll scream,” Toby warned.

As the gales of laughter hit him, Toby wished he’d said just about anything else in the world but “I’ll scream.”
I’ll scream?
Had those words really come out of his mouth? Not “I’ll sic my monster buddy on you” or “I’ll smash your heads together like overripe nectarines” but “I’ll scream.” Even with the potential of another severe beating looming, Toby couldn’t help but focus on being absolutely mortified.

He quickly corrected himself. “I’ve got a knife,” he said.

“You really think that scares us?” Larry asked.

“It should.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You think I won’t use it, but I will,” said Toby. “It’s self-defense. I won’t get in any trouble.”

Larry sneered. “Oh, yeah? Self-defend yourself against this.” When his right hand came into view, he was holding a revolver.