The Troop

Shelley scuffed his feet over the charred grass. It was best to leave no evidence. Take only photos, leave only footprints. He worked carefully, reflecting on the fact that this—what he’d just started with the Scoutmaster—was something new entirely. Something terribly exciting.

Spiders couldn’t tattle on you; mice couldn’t squeal—well, they could… but now Tim, he might just tell the boys what Shelley had done. But Shelley had an innate sense of leverage, a sixth sense he must’ve been born with; he understood that people in compromised positions were less believable. And even if the boys did believe Tim, or only a few of them—Max might; Newt definitely would—well, Shelley wasn’t sure that mattered now. He felt the pull of the island in his bones, a strong current anchoring him to it. The sun crawled over the water, and Shelley felt this day, which had only begun, might go on forever.

The boys had not yet stirred. When they did, talk would turn to tiresome matters: when the boat would show up, how badly their folks would flip out, the identity of the dead man in the cabin. Most of all, they’d talk about how they’d be safe, real soon.

But Shelley was positive the boat wasn’t coming.

Shelley wasn’t particularly intelligent, at least according to the methods society had developed to measure that. He’d scored low on his IQ test. In school, he earned Cs and the odd D. His teachers gazed upon his pockmarked cheeks and slug-gray eyes and pictured Shelley fifteen years later in a pair of grease-spotted overalls, his slack and pallid moonface staring up from the oil-change pit at a Mr. Lube.

Shelley was aware of their opinions, but it didn’t trouble him. Shelley was actually happy with this perception. It made it easier to engage in the behaviors that gave him pleasure—though he failed to experience pleasure in the ways others did.

Shelley was far more perceptive than most gave him credit for. His impassive face was the perfect disguise. His expression hadn’t changed when he’d seen the dead man on the chesterfield, but his practical mind had immediately aligned it with the black helicopter that had hovered overhead during the hike.

He had also aligned the thick white rope that had come out of the dead man with the thin white rope that had come out of his dog’s bum a few years ago.

Shogun, the family sheltie, had gotten into some spoiled chuck in a neighbor’s trash can. He passed a seven-foot worm weeks later. Shelley was home alone when it happened. He heard Shogun yowling in the backyard. He found the dog squatted in the zinnias. A white tube was spooling out of his butt, some of it already coiled up in the cocoa shells his father had spread over the flower beds.

Shelley crouched down, completely fascinated. He flicked at the white tube, mesmerized. The thing wriggled at his touch. Shelley giggled. He flicked it again. Shogun reared and snapped at him. Shelley waited, then touched the tube again. Flicking and flicking it gently with one finger. It was slick with the dog’s digestive juices. Shogun mewled pitifully and craned his skull over his haunches to stare at Shelley with wounded, rheumy eyes.

After shitting it out, Shogun tried to bury the worm. Shelley shooed the dog inside. He wanted to study it. It was dying very fast. Its head was a flat spoon shape. Many smaller spoon shapes branched off the biggest spoon: it looked like a Venus flytrap—the only plant Shelley found even remotely interesting. Each of the spoons had a slit down the middle studded with tiny translucent spikes. That must’ve been how it had moored to the dog’s intestines… fascinating.

Shelley thought back to that sunny afternoon in the garden, Shogun’s plaintive yipping as that greedy tube spooled out of its bottom. He was filled with a certainty as keen as he’d ever experienced.

The boat wouldn’t come. Not today. Not for a while. Maybe not ever.

And that was just fine with him. That meant he could play his games.

And if he played them patiently enough, carefully enough, he might be the only one left to greet a boat when—if?—it did show up.

He turned his vaporous test-pattern face up to the new sun. It was warm and not unpleasant. It would be an unseasonably hot day. New life could grow in this kind of heat. He walked back to the fire to rejoin the others.

19

WHEN THE boys awoke, the cooler was gone.

It contained all the food Scoutmaster Tim set aside. Wieners and buns. A six-pack of Gatorade. A bag of trail mix. Hershey’s Kisses. All they had left until the boat arrived. Max had placed it next to the fire the previous night. When they woke up, it was gone.

“Where the hell is it?” Ephraim said. He stamped around the campsite, knuckling sleep-crust out of his eyes. “I’m hungry, man.”

The others roused themselves slowly. Their sleep had been fitful, thanks to the ominous howls and sly scuttlings of the wild creatures lurking beyond the fire’s glow.

Newt said: “The cooler’s missing.”