Dweller (14 page)

Toby had named the child Scruffer. The female (he
thought) he named Esmerelda. The male (he knew) he named Brutus. There was no hidden meaning to these names; he just thought they were appropriate.

After dark, the creatures went into their den and went to sleep.

Boy, was it dark. Toby couldn’t remember ever having been in such complete, enveloping darkness. He couldn’t even see the moon through the trees. There could be thousands of snakes slithering only inches from his body. He had a flashlight, which he’d use when he got far enough from their camp, but maybe this was better as an “early in the morning, before they wake up” plan than a “late at night, right after they go to sleep” one.

And he was exhausted. Not a good idea to walk through the pitch-black forest when you were exhausted.

He’d sleep for a couple of hours and decide the best course of action from there.

He woke to Owen prodding him.

No, wait,
was
it Owen…?

A clawed hand grabbed his ankle, squeezing tight.

Toby screamed as he was dragged out of the shelter. It fell apart around him, branches scraping his face as the monster pulled his leg. He heard a hungry growl—it had to be Brutus.

He grabbed a branch—hoping it was a long one—and jabbed it forward. Felt like a direct hit. But the roar sounded like fury, not pain.

He jabbed a second time. Missed. His other arm brushed against his backpack, so he grabbed that by the strap and swung it as hard as he could. There was a satisfying
smack
as it struck its target. The claw released his ankle.

Brutus’s roar was still all fury.

He swung the backpack again, bashing Brutus in what he hoped was the face. Some warm, wet drops hit his stomach. And then Brutus’s talons raked down his leg, not scraping deep, but enough to rip through his jeans and almost certainly draw blood.

“
Owen
!”

He kicked. Something gave way beneath his shoe, and Brutus let out a sharp whine like a hurt dog. Toby scooted backward, wincing as his hands came down on rough branches. He thought he might have knocked out some of Brutus’s teeth, but he couldn’t be sure.

The talons wrapped around his ankle again.

He bashed his free foot against them. This time he
knew without seeing that he’d broken off at least a couple of the talons. Brutus howled.

Toby scrambled back until he collided with a tree. He immediately turned around, grabbed a branch to help pull himself to his feet, and began to climb, the backpack dangling from his shoulder. He’d never seen Owen climb anything, so maybe—

Brutus yanked him off the tree.

Then something yanked Brutus off him.

There was hissing and tearing and chaos but Toby tried to focus entirely on climbing the branches. Get up the tree, farther than Brutus could reach. Keep himself from being shredded just long enough for Owen to make everything all right.

A roar of pain. Owen.

Toby grabbed for the branch he’d been pulled from. Found it in the dark. Used it to steady himself as he stepped up onto the lowest branch and started to climb again. In his panic, he tugged so hard on the next branch that it snapped free and he nearly lost his balance, almost plunging into the bedlam below.

He kept moving.

The tree shook as both monsters slammed into it.

Toby climbed up a few more feet, just to be sure he was high enough. His left hand stung like crazy—he’d really gouged it bad on one of the branches.

He held on tight, trying to catch his breath as he watched the two black figures struggle. His eyes had only barely begun to adjust to the darkness, not enough to let him make out any details, but the sounds and the shapes were enough to prove that neither creature had any intention of letting the other live.

A wail from farther away. The child?

Toby let go of the tree with his bloody hand and unzipped the backpack, fishing out the flashlight. He turned it on and shone the beam downward, just in time to catch a glimpse of Brutus’s talons tearing across Owen’s chest.

Owen howled and returned the vicious favor.

They circled each other, snarling. Brutus dove at him, and both monsters rolled on the ground, clawing, growling, biting.

Toby watched the spectacle with horror.
Please don’t let Owen die
…

But a small part of him, a part that remained an eight-year-old boy, watched in amazement, unable to believe that he was actually getting to watch two bloodthirsty monsters battle it out in a death match.

Then he cringed as Brutus jammed his talons deep into Owen’s side.

Owen threw back his head and let out a sound of such intense distress that it felt like a crossbow bolt piercing Toby’s brain. Toby screamed Owen’s name, wishing he could do
something
to save his friend.

Owen clearly had no intention of giving up the fight. He lowered himself into a crouch, then locked his jaws onto Brutus’s leg. The other monster bellowed with pain and tried to shake him off, but Owen’s teeth remained deep in his flesh, not coming loose until Owen tore off six inches of bloody fur.

Toby threw the only thing in his backpack that had any real weight—his thermos. It was a perfect throw, cracking against the back of Brutus’s skull, but it didn’t seem to faze the monster.

Though Toby couldn’t see Brutus’s eyes, he could imagine them, bloodshot and red with rage. Brutus slashed Owen across the chest with his claws once, twice, three times.

Toby didn’t know what he could do to help, but he had to try something. He couldn’t just hide in a tree and watch Owen get ripped apart. Better to die on the ground. If he had to, he’d beat Brutus to death with the goddamn flashlight.

He climbed down a couple of branches, then jumped all the way. The light beam shifted as he landed, clearly
illuminating Owen’s face. Owen gaped at him as if to say, “
What the hell are you doing
?”

Brutus looked at him as well. Despite his blood-soaked fur and a protruding bone, the monster still appeared hungry.

Owen grabbed Brutus by the wrist and swung him into a different tree. Brutus’s elbow collided with the trunk, his arm snapping backward, bone bursting through fur.

And then Owen’s hands were in Brutus’s mouth, and he was pulling, Brutus’s teeth were embedded in his palms but Owen kept pulling, and Brutus’s tongue lashed back and forth, and blood dribbled between Owen’s fingers, and Owen’s eyes were squeezed shut and his jaws were closed tight as he struggled and struggled and then there was a wet
rip
as Brutus’s cheeks tore apart and a
crack
as the top half of his head was wrenched backward.

Owen released his grip, and the dead beast dropped to the ground.

Another wail.

Toby swung the flashlight beam around. Esmerelda and Scruffer stood there. Scruffer moved first, but within seconds both of them were cradling Brutus’s limp form.

Owen stared at them. He raised his palm over his eyes as Toby flashed the light in his face. Toby thought he’d caught a glimpse of a tear.

Toby took Owen by the wrist and quickly led him through the woods, away from there.

“I’m sorry,” Toby said, after they’d gone far enough that the howls of sorrow could no longer be heard. Owen said nothing.

It was a long journey home. They were both tired and hurt and, though Owen became slightly more communicative after their first afternoon nap, the monster seemed depressed.

Toby wondered if Owen would have followed him back to Orange Leaf had Toby’s plan to sneak off in the middle of the night been successful. He liked to think that Owen would have. And at least then it would’ve been Owen’s choice, instead of the way it was now, where he was banished from a society with a known population of three.

“We’ll really fix the cave up nice,” Toby said. “We’ll dig our own pond. How long can that take with claws like you’ve got? We’ll build ourselves a luxury resort right out there in the woods. What do you want to call it?”

Stop.

“Stop what?”

Stop talk.

“Fine. Whatever.”

“I know you’re busy being all sad and stuff, but I would like to take a moment to point out how unbelievably cool it was when you ripped that thing’s head in half,” Toby said.

That seemed to cheer Owen up a bit.

“Do you know what makes you such a good friend?” Toby asked. “The fact that without you, I’d be dead now. I’m not talking about you saving my life, because I definitely would have done that for you if our roles were reversed. Oh, yeah, I would’ve grabbed that thing by the jaw and tore its chin right off, mark my words. But what I appreciate most in our friendship right now is your animal instinct, because I never thought that this whole voyage was supposed to be a one-way trip, and so I wasn’t leaving any bread crumbs to mark my way home. I’d be dead right now. Completely dead. Wolves would be snacking on me, and forest monkeys would be tossing my clothes around. So thank you, Owen, for your innate sense of direction.”

Yes.

“Damn, but you’re a good conversationalist. Time to change your bandages.”

“Know what you need? A last name. I think you’ve earned it. Owen Smith? Owen White? Owen Jones? Owen Death-TeethBiter? When we get home, if we ever do, we’ll just march right into city hall and demand the necessary paperwork to give you a last name. How does that sound?”

“Are we there yet?”

No.

“Are you sure?”

Yes.

“Are we there yet?”

No.

“Are you sure?”

Yes.

The thermos was long empty, and they hadn’t found a stream or a pond or any water at all since yesterday. Toby was no longer sure that Owen was taking him back the same way. This could be really bad.

The sound of a car driving past.

Toby rushed up ahead, and emerged from the forest next to a paved road. He recognized the graffiti on the CURVE AHEAD sign, and returned to Owen.

“We’re
fifteen
miles off,” he announced. “I really wish you could hitchhike. I take back my compliments about your sense of direction.”

They continued walking through the forest together, following the road but staying deep enough in the woods that no passing vehicles would see the man and his monster.

The cave did not actually glow with an otherworldly golden aura, but it seemed to for a moment. Toby changed
Owen’s bandages again, gave the monster a hug, and then left him to get some desperately needed rest.

When Toby got home and looked at himself in the mirror, he nearly ran screaming from the house. Wow. That must be what feral people who’d been raised by wolves looked like.

He showered until the hot water was gone.

Then he slept.

Then he tried to figure out how exactly he was going to explain his absence from work.

“I don’t believe you,” said Mr. Zack, folding his arms in front of his chest.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Toby, I don’t believe you.”

“How can you not believe me? I’m all beat up!”

“Because when people are in car accidents, they call. Not necessarily the first day, but by the seventh day they usually think to pick up the phone.”

“I was in Maine!”

“They have phones in Maine. I’ve seen them. If you bring me a note from your doctor in Maine that says that you were in such bad shape that you couldn’t even make a phone call, or ask somebody to make a phone call for you, then I’ll reconsider. Otherwise, I have to follow my gut instinct that you’re lying. I’m happy to cut you lots of slack, you know that, but I can’t have people working for me who are unreliable. You can goof off and mouth off and boink your girlfriend in the stockroom, but…” He trailed off. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought her up. That was horrible.”

“It’s okay.”

“But you understand what I’m saying, right? You can’t disappear for a week and expect a job to be waiting for you when you get back.”

Toby nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

Toby sat on his couch, newspaper open to the classified ads. He’d circled a couple of items, but there wasn’t anything that came close to singing out to him.

He skimmed the ads again, just in case there was something amazingly exciting that he’d missed.

Nope.

He flipped back to the funny pages. Yeah, the comics were way more interesting than the classifieds. Even the ones without punch lines like
Gasoline Alley.

He liked to draw. At least, he used to.

Maybe it was time to restart his hobby…

1978

“And here in the last panel, he says, ‘Glub, glub,’ as they dunk him into the toilet.” Toby pointed to the carefully rendered artwork. “What do you think?”

No.

“But it looks like a toilet, right? Do you know how hard it is to draw a toilet and make it look three-dimensional?”

No.

“It’s a pain in the ass. I really wish you had a better sense of humor, because I need to test these gags out on somebody who can laugh at things other than me hurting myself.”

“Perfect!” Henry Lynch, an editor at the
Orange Leaf Times
, held up Toby’s work and examined it closely. “Absolutely perfect. Yes, you’re hired.”

Toby grinned. He’d cut himself pretty bad with the razor blade, trying to cut the newspaper copy to the exact specifications, and he’d gotten hot wax all over his sleeve when he did the layout, but he didn’t tell that to Mr. Lynch.

“I need to hire older people more often. Kids today, they have no patience for the art of newspaper layout.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Okay, which do you like better? This”—he held up the drawing of Rusty with a mustache and goatee—“or this?” He held up the drawing of Rusty, clean-shaven.

Owen offered no immediate opinion.

“Please don’t poke this one with your claw.”

When Toby completed his twenty-fifth satisfactory comic strip, he celebrated by making a homemade banana split with extra hot fudge, extra strawberries, extra pineapple topping, extra whipped cream, and three maraschino cherries.

He felt a little sick afterward.

Then he reread the strips in order and decided that none of them were even remotely funny. Instead of throwing them away, he taped them up on his bedroom wall, where they could haunt him and provide a constant reminder to do better.

“Look what I’ve got here. Oooooh yeah.” Toby took the Styrofoam container out of his backpack and popped open the lid. “Two New York strip steaks. One medium well, one rare. Mr. Zack still cuts me a special deal.”

He erased the pencil drawing of Pugg’s hand for the tenth or eleventh time. It was incredibly difficult to draw a dog holding a telephone receiver. Paws weren’t meant to hold telephones, he supposed.

After another half an hour, he got the details just right, and reached for the ink.

“Not that you asked, but I still don’t have a title.
Peanuts
doesn’t actually mean anything, as far as I know. Maybe I’ll call it
Tomatoes.
”

1979

“What do you know about proofreading?” Mr. Lynch asked.

“Uh, nothing, but I can learn.”

“Can you learn today? Helen’s having her baby early and I’m kind of stuck.”

“So what do you think of this? The strip wasn’t working out, but I did these five as a single panel. I think they’re pretty funny. I couldn’t get Rusty’s hair right so I got frustrated and added a cowboy hat, but it makes him more visually interesting, don’t you think? No? Do you even understand art?”

Toby reached for his glass of apple juice, spilled the bottle of ink all over the seventh version of the drawing he was working on, and used several words that he could never include in the comic itself.

“I’m calling it
Rusty & Pugg.
Not inventive, I know, but it has a nice rhythm to it, right?
Rusty & Pugg. Rusty & Pugg.
I’d read it, wouldn’t you? Also, I’m going back to the strip format instead of the single panel.”

Mr. Lynch tossed the newspaper on his desk in front of Toby. “I got three different complaints about this typo. It’s right in the headline. Makes us look stupid.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Raccoon has two
c
‘s.”

“It doesn’t have to. Both spellings are correct.”

Mr. Lynch frowned, then grabbed a dictionary from the corner of his desk and flipped through the pages. “I’ll be damned, you’re right. What the hell is wrong with these idiot readers?”

“I know there aren’t any monsters in it, but it’s pretty good, don’t you think?” asked Toby, flipping through the pages one by one.

Yes.

“I’m going to mail the samples off to a few syndicates tomorrow. Wish me luck, buddy.”

Happy.

“Me, too.”

1980

“Do you know what today is? I bet you have no idea. Exactly twenty years ago, I discovered your cave. Can you freakin’ believe that? We’ve known each other for twenty years! That’s crazy! It’s more than half of my life! And we’ve both got some gray hair to show for it.”

He scratched Owen behind the ear, which is where most of the monster’s gray hair had sprouted, though he also had small tufts on his shoulders. Toby hadn’t really noticed his own until his last haircut, when he looked at the pile of hair on the barbershop floor and saw more gray than black.

“To celebrate twenty years of friendship, I’ve decided that this bullshit about me walking four miles each way to your cave has got to stop. So look what I drew for you.”

Toby unfolded a large piece of paper and handed it to Owen. The talon of Owen’s index finger tore through the center.

“That’s okay, it’s just a copy. That’s the plan for your new house. Shack, to be more accurate, but it’ll be nicer than what you’ve got here. I’ve picked out a nice spot maybe a mile from my house, we’re going to cut down some trees, and we’re going to build you a nice new dwelling.”

“Hear anything yet?” asked Mr. Lynch.

“Not yet.”

“Not from anybody? How long has it been?”

“Nine weeks.”

“Well, if
Rusty & Pugg
gets picked up, I’ll happily cancel
Hagar the Horrible
to make room.”

“What are you drawing?” asked the woman, pausing to glance at his table as she walked to her own booth. Her tray had a single burger and fries—maybe she was having lunch alone.

“It’s a comic strip.”

“Oh, are you a cartoonist?”

“Trying to be.” Toby tilted the strip, which didn’t really help her see it better but gave him something to do with his hands. “The dog is Pugg and the human is Rusty.”

He sat there, watching nervously as she silently read the strip, which involved Rusty getting a letter from the IRS. She looked a couple of years younger than he was, had curly red hair, and had eyes that were such a beautiful shade of green that they seemed almost otherworldly.

Would she laugh at the punch line? Or at least smile?

He could imagine her smile. Radiant. Perfect white teeth.

“Hmmm,” she said, showing no sign of amusement as she looked away from the strip. “Interesting. Good luck with it.” She walked to her own table and sat down to eat.

Toby crumpled up the strip.

Toby had found a spot where he could make sufficient room for Owen’s new home by only cutting down three trees, which he was pretty sure he wasn’t actually supposed to be doing, so he hoped nobody would hear the crashes.

It was unlikely that anybody would. Somehow Toby and Owen’s forest had escaped the notice of the evil logging industry all this time (Toby liked to think that the loggers would
love
to ravage the land, but were frightened away by whispered tales of a deadly monster that lurked within) and he’d never seen a single human being out here during his walks, so he figured the risk of Owen being discovered was extremely low.

All of the exercise was keeping him in good shape, but
he was getting to the age where sometimes he was a little sore after getting back home from his visits. In another decade, he’d be thankful he’d built the shack.

He was a little concerned about bringing Owen closer to the populace…but, what danger was he really creating? If Owen wanted to leave the forest, he would, whether he was four miles away or one. As far as Toby knew, he’d never left the woods again after the…incidents, and was unlikely to leave it ever again.

“
Dear Mr. Floren, though we reviewed your materials with great interest, we regret to inform you
…”

As Toby chopped up the logs, Owen dragged them out of the way. Owen was strong and pretty good at basic manual labor but he wasn’t much of a tool user, or else Toby would have made him chop up the logs himself. Putting a sharp bladed weapon into his claws seemed like a potential descent into unnecessary amputation.

“Now, don’t expect indoor plumbing or electricity or anything like that,” Toby said. “We probably won’t have windows either—I don’t think you want any hikers peeking into your living room. Basically just think of it as a wooden cave that’s closer to my house.”

Like cave.

“I like the cave, too, but this is seriously overdue. Anyway, you’ll have a door, just like civilized people.”

This envelope was thick. Too thick to be only his samples back.

How thick was a syndication contract? With all of the complicated merchandising rights and stuff, he could easily see a contract being ridiculously thick.

Don’t get too excited
, he warned himself.
This could be a hundred pages of detailed description of how much they hated my submission, followed by a demand for me to never submit
them another piece of work for as long as I live, followed by a restraining order, just in case.

It wasn’t.

It was, however, just a form rejection, along with a free catalog from their parent company.

“You like it?”

No.

“Remember, it’s just the frame. It’s not the completed shack.”

Love it.

“That was incredible,” she said, as Toby rolled off her. “I just can’t even describe it. You made me feel like a woman again.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m in a state of shock at how good that was. We need to do this again. You’ll call me, right?”

“Do I get a discount next time?”

“If you become a regular, we’ll see.”

She fixed up her makeup as Toby got dressed. It was hard to be flattered by her confessions of bliss when he knew that he’d been laughably bad in bed, and when he knew she’d overcharged him but he’d been too embarrassed to negotiate.

And he knew the feeling of self-loathing would kick in as soon as he left the hotel room. But he also knew that it would fade by morning.

Three bills. Four pieces of junk mail. No self-addressed stamped envelopes.

Damn.

“Owen, hold it! Hold it, Owen! Owen, I’m losing it! Owen—!”

The entire north wall crashed to the ground.

“You suck, Owen.”

At least he could incorporate this into a comic strip.

“I’d like to start writing articles,” Toby said.

“That’s a great idea. I was thinking the same thing.” Mr. Lynch searched around his desk for a few moments, found a manila folder, and handed it to him. “Write up these obituaries and have them to me by three.”

Toby and Owen stood in the clearing, looking at what they’d accomplished.

The shack looked…well, it looked like crap. But it was sturdy, moderately furnished (including a mattress that Toby had dragged all the way out here, nearly throwing out his back), and—most importantly—a lot closer to Toby’s house.

“Welcome to your new home. Try not to bring too many bones in here.”

“
Dear Sir or Madam, thank you for your recent submission. Unfortunately, we no longer review unagented queries
…”

1981

“I’m not deluding myself, right? This is good stuff, isn’t it? I’m not saying it’s brilliant, but it’s better than a lot of the strips out there. You’d think somebody would read it and laugh. You’re not just humoring me, are you? I mean, I know you’re not the best person to judge punch lines, but you like the artwork, right?”

Pretty.

“Thanks, but it’s not supposed to be pretty. It’s supposed to be wacky and funny. I just don’t want to spend this much time on it if it’s not something that people are going to enjoy.”

In the dream, Owen slashed at the old man with his claws, slicing a red crisscross pattern across his entire body. The pieces of flesh tumbled to the ground as his grandchildren screamed. Then Toby was sitting in the front row of the funeral he hadn’t attended outside of his dreams.

“Whose fault is it when a wild animal goes berserk like that?” asked a woman seated directly behind him. Her voice had an almost musical lilt.

“Why, it’s Toby Floren’s fault, of course!” the man next to her replied.

“I agree. It’s every bit as much his fault as if he’d stabbed a knife into that poor old man and that poor young woman.”

“He should be severely punished,” the man said.

“You don’t understand…it’s not my fault,” Toby protested. “We’re friends. I don’t own him. Whatever he does, no matter how bad it is, is out of my…”

He realized that he was no longer dreaming and was in his bedroom, talking out loud. He wished that he could just wake up screaming, like a normal person did—at least in the movies.

Dear Toby,

Thank you for your submission of
Rusty & Pugg,
and our apologies for the delay in our response. Your talent as an artist is very evident from these sample strips. Unfortunately, though we enjoyed the art very much, we felt that the humor was weak and often confusing, and that neither Rusty nor Pugg had a strong enough personality to make the strip a success.

We wish the very best of luck in your future endeavors.

“I got my first personalized rejection!” Toby shouted.

Two self-addressed stamped envelopes were in Toby’s mailbox the same day. A thick one and a thin one. The
last two. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he’d been waiting all of this time, and got two acceptances the same day?

He tore open the first envelope, the thick one, and pulled out the cover letter: “
Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately
—” This one didn’t even have a salutation.

Okay. Down to one.

He opened the envelope, took a deep breath, and then wondered if he should take the letter to Owen’s shack so they could read it together. If this were good news—and Toby couldn’t help but feel that it was—they should share the joy. How awesome would it be to get the very last response, walk it all the way to the shack, and have it be an acceptance? They’d scream so loud that the walls of the shack would blow apart.