The Troop

There was something ghastly, something monstrously and soulsuckingly awful about Ephraim’s situation: alone and full of things, his only confidant a brooding, toxic boy—Creepy Shel, the girls at school called him; the Creepazoid; the Toucher—on a crackly walkie-talkie. A sense of despondency settled into him, marrow-deep.

“Eef, you still there?”

“Uh.”

“You hungry?”

Oh, fuck YOU, Shel. Rage boiled up Ephraim’s gorge—then transmuted swiftly into a fear so profound that beads of sweat squeezed from the skin of his brow, pop-pop-pop like salty BBs. Hugging his arms tight across his body, chest hitching, Ephraim rocked side to side. His dearest wish was to be home, safe in bed, with his mother humming downstairs as she cooked: meatballs, sausage and peppers, or even lobster, which he thought of as sea bugs and totally loathed. But the surety and safety, the calm cadence of his mother’s voice—yes, he missed that terribly.

The things. He felt them. Massing behind his eyeballs. Infesting his corneal vaults, twining round his ocular stems. Packing his sinuses, a wriggling white multitude, squeezing through his aqueous humors like tears. Spilling down his nose, down the back of his throat, million upon million gorging themselves, growing fat on him. Ephraim was crying now—yet he barely realized this.

“I can help you, Eef.”

Ephraim sucked back snot. “W-w-what?”

“I said—are you listening? Really, really listening? I said I can help.”

“H-how?”

In the still tranquillity of the island woods, wind stirring gently in the treetops, Shelley began to speak. His words were soft, honeyed, washing over Ephraim like a tropical zephyr. It all made so much sense.

Ephraim pulled his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket. His mother had bought it for him. It hadn’t been his birthday or Christmas—she got it for him just because. She never did that. Never enough money in the kitty. He’d sat on his bed, gazing at it in disbelief. He’d slipped his thumbnail into the crescent divot in each attachment and pulled them out. He’d loved the crisp snick they made clicking into place.

“Are you doing it?” Shelley asked. His voice sounded far away, ignorable.

“Yeah,” Ephraim snapped irritably. “Shut up, just shut up for a sec.”

Carefully, he unfolded the can-opener blade. He sat poised, the wickedly curved blade hovering a quarter inch above his skin, a few inches from the cigarette burn. His skin seemed to jump and shiver—as if things were tunneling beneath his flesh like roaches under a blanket. Bastards.

He dug the sharp silver sickle into the puffy flesh of his knuckles and drew it along the phalange bone on the back of his hand. The blade opened his skin up rather easily, leaving a dully sizzling line of pain. For a moment, the incision shone pale white like the flesh of a deboned trout. Next it turned pink before running red with blood.

The anger racing through his veins dissipated with the appearance of that blood, and with it went some of the fear—just like Shelley said it would. Which was good. Very good.

“Do you see it, Ephraim? You must see it, don’t you?”

Ephraim watched the blood trickle down his hand. He squinted. He was positive he’d seen something wriggle as the can opener cleaved through his flesh: a flicker of squiggling white, just like Shelley promised he’d see.

If he cut deeper next time, and faster, could he catch it? Pinch it, tug it out? It may be very big. Not as big as the one that had come out of the strange man’s gut but still, big.

He’d have to twist it around his fingers like fishing line and pull very carefully. He imagined tugging on the end coming out of his hand and feeling a dim secondary tug down by his foot, where its head was rooted. Tricky work. If it snapped before he got its head out, it would just wriggle away and respawn. He had to get the head. Once he got it, he’d squeeze it between his thumb and finger and squeeze. He’d shiver with delight as it burst with a meaty sploosh.

“Do it, Ephraim. Do it. Don’t be scared. There’s nothing to be scared of. You’re almost there.”

The squirming in his ears was maddening. He unfolded the knife’s corkscrew attachment. He idly raised it to his ear, edging the tip into his ear canal. The cold metal tickled the sensitive hairs—the cilia, they were called; he remembered that from science class. Lunate, too, he realized—God bless science class.