The Troop

HAL 9000 spoke up: Timothy Ogden Riggs, are you sure you’re making the right decision? I think you should stop.

The new, conflicting voice—the Undervoice, as Tim now thought of it—boomed back: How could you stop now, even if you wanted to? Don’t you want to know, Tim? Don’t you NEED to know?

The blade slit through bands of taut sinew to reveal the stomach lining. Milky-pale and fingered with blue veins. Tim was reminded of childhood trips to his Scottish grandmother’s home and the boiled sheeps’ stomachs she’d laid out on the kitchen counter, waiting to be made into haggis: they had looked like deflated, overthick birthday balloons.

Jesus… Jesus Christ.

Tim wished so dearly that he were in a hospital right now, a sterilized surgical suite with nurses and orderlies buzzing about like helpful bees. Most desperately of all, he wished the blade weren’t in his hand.

It doesn’t have to be, Tim, HAL 9000 said softly. Just put the blade down. Take Max’s hand—or maybe you shouldn’t touch him, just in case. Stitch this poor man up and leave the cabin. Both of you. Just go.

The Undervoice, nasty and baiting: You fucking coward. Grow a set of balls, man! In for a penny, in for a pound—and you’re neck-deep now, sonny boy!

Tim drew the blade along the stomach lining. A gout of gray ichor oozed around the lips of the incision like congestive mucus. Then… more white. Another layer of tightened white flesh.

“…gauze,” Tim said tentatively.

Max put a square in his hand. Tim dabbed away the warm ichor. The smell was horrible, like rancid grease. This made no sense. He’d cut into the stomach, hadn’t he? He hadn’t expected to find a dark vault, but he had expected a cavity, an expulsion of pressurized stomach gas… something.

It seemed as if he’d simply sliced into a secondary layer of stomach lining—which was impossible. Was this man’s stomach the equivalent of a Russian doll, stomach inside stomach inside stomach?

Something very disturbing is happening here, Tim. HAL 9000’s voice, indistinct and watery. Something is horribly, drastically wrong…

Tim felt a species of fear enter his heart that he hadn’t felt since his stint as a foreign aid doctor in Afghanistan. Although he’d been scared most of his time there, it had at least been a coherent fear: fear that a bomb might come whistling out of the chalky desert sky and through the canvas roof of his jury-rigged triage ward, or fear that some human grenade might dash inside their compound and pull the pin on himself.

But the fear he felt now was childlike, dreamy. There was no reference point to it. The man was just sick—that was all. He didn’t have multiple stomachs. There had to be a rational cause for all of this. It was a serious occlusion, of course… but there was no reason, really no reason, for his eyes to be drawn to that ribbed whiteness within the duller whiteness of the stomach’s lining and for his mind to fuse shut at the possibilities…

…Jesus, he was hungry.

Why had he given the boys all that food? They would be fine until the boat came. But he needed it. Now. He’d packed it and paid for it. By rights it was his.

Tim stared at his patient. The man’s lips were so thin that they’d twisted into a permanent grin. He seemed to be laughing at Tim. Mocking his hunger.

Hey, buddy, the Undervoice piped up. What would you do for a Klondike bar?

“Shut up,” Tim croaked.

Whoa! No need to get testy. The voice had gone vile and poisonous. You deserve a break today, pal. Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun…

“Scoutmaster Tim…”

Tim couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s face. Lying there like a ghoul. Smiling.

“Tim? Tim! Tim!”

Tim turned dazedly toward Max. The boy’s eyes were bulging out of the whitened mask of his face. His nostrils were dilated like a bull’s before it charged at a red cape.

“Wha…?”

Which was when Tim felt something touch his hand. Which was when he looked down.

Which was when he saw it.

Which was when he screamed.

13

MAX SAW it first. A white stub protruding where Scoutmaster Tim had made the incision.