The Troop

But Newton was too far gone. The pent-up sobs ripped out of his throat. They were the most wretched noises Max had ever heard. He put an arm around Newton’s shoulders and felt the tension: like grasping a railroad track in advance of the onrushing locomotive. He didn’t tell Newton everything would be okay because it wasn’t—it would never be as it had been. The past had a perfection that the future could never hold.

Max just let Newton cry.

His sobs trailed off. He drew a few hitching breaths and said: “Sorry, Max. That wasn’t very…” He hiccupped twice, exhaled steadily, and said: “…wasn’t very cuh-cool of me. WWAMD?” he said, more to himself than to Max. “He sure as hell wouldn’t cry like a baby.”

“I don’t think being cool really matters now, do you?”

Newton let go of one more shuddery breath. “No. I guess not.”

Max walked to the boat, cracked the motor casing. Inside were two small holes where the spark plugs should go. He thought of his dream—the two yellow dots glowing up from the dark pit…

His mind jogged. Two revelations joined in his head like puzzle pieces slotting into place.

“He must have eaten them.”

“What?” Newton said. “Who did? Ate what?”

“The spark plugs,” Max said softly. “The man. The stranger. He swallowed the spark plugs. Ate them.”

“Ate them? Why would he do—?”

Newton thought about the man—how cadaverous he’d looked, skinny as a pipecleaner. Thought about Kent and Shelley, too. Yes, he decided, the man probably was hungry enough to eat spark plugs.

“He ate them because he was hungry, huh?”

Max shrugged. “Could be. Or maybe he didn’t want to be found. Without spark plugs, the boat won’t start—right? Maybe he figured the best place to hide them was inside of himself.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I saw them, Newt. When the Scoutmaster cut him open to get the worm out. I saw them shining in… well, his stomach, I guess.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

TEN MINUTES later, they were in the cabin, standing over the dead stranger.

They tried to not pay much attention to the state of his body. It seemed wrong, somehow—desecrating him with their eyes. They tried to focus on him abstractly: as a puzzle or a riddle. They had to solve him in the easiest and safest way.

Still, they couldn’t help but stare.

His elbows and knees had been eaten away by something. That was the most obvious thing. Animals, insects? How could that have happened so quickly, though? Or perhaps the skin had been so thin that the bones had worn through all on their own, the way your knees will wear through a cheap pair of jeans.

His face had fallen into itself. It was distracting—they couldn’t drag their eyes away. Newton draped a dish towel over it.

“Do you think the worms are all dead?”

Max nodded. “They have to be—right? That’s what the Scoutmaster said. Once the host is dead, the worms die, too.”

Newton still seemed doubtful. “What about eggs? They might still be there, right? Eggs don’t need food, do they?”

Max set his fingertips lightly on the man’s wrist. “He’s cold. He’s been gone a long time.”

“Okay, but put something on your hands first.”

They found a pair of dishwashing gloves. Newton scrounged up two empty plastic bread bags.

“The gloves go on first. Then the bread bags overtop. Then I’m gonna tape your shirtsleeves to the bags so nothing can get in.”

“Good idea.”

The sun shone brightly through the cleaved roof, glossing insects that hummed over the body. Already the island was taking over the cabin. Mold edged up the walls, fungus grew in the cracks. Soon the foundations would rot and disintegrate. Maybe that was for the best, Max thought.

“Try not to breathe too deeply,” Newton said.

“Okay, fine. You’re creeping me out.”

Newton gave him a bewildered look. “Max, jeez—you’re about to reach inside a dead guy. You better be creeped out.”

Max pushed his fingers into the pasty lips of the wound, through a thin membrane of gelatinized blood and into the dead man’s abdomen. Cold oatmeal, he told himself. You’re just rooting around in a bowl of cold oatmeal.

The man’s insides had liquefied and turned granular; they didn’t seem to have any definition anymore, no organs or intestines—his hand moved through layers of cold, chunky tissue that felt a little like mashed bananas.

Mashed bananas, then. You’re looking for spark plugs in a big pile of mashed bananas.

Max’s hand slipped into a squelchy pocket. A rude farting noise. The air filled with a rotted, sulfury, swamp-gas stink. Max’s gut roiled but nothing came out—just a dry heave that filled his mouth with the taste of bitter bile. His hand closed upon something hard. He pulled it out.

“Holy crow,” Newton said.

The spark plug lay in Max’s cupped palm. It was smeared in pinkish-gray curds, but they could clearly make out the word Champion down its side.