throwing food to it, whose business was it of anybody else’s? Except for maybe his parents, if things went terribly wrong and the monster devoured his intestines.
Screw ‘em all. Especially Larry and Nick. He wished he could toss Nick’s head over to Owen and see if he liked the taste better than chocolate.
Nah. If he was going to feed Owen, he should feed him something with higher nutritional content than Nick’s head.
Behind him, in his peripheral vision, he thought he caught a glimpse of movement. His heart gave a jolt and he quickly looked over there, but saw nothing.
Relax. You’re in the forest. Things move in the forest. Happens all the time. It’s those eerie stillnesses that you’ve got to watch out for.
He kept walking. He had maybe a mile to go before he reached Owen’s cave. Perhaps he could get Owen to relocate, find him a nice den of sticks or something.
More movement, from the same spot. He only saw the source of the movement for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to identify his follower.
Did Larry really think he was that oblivious?
Well, discounting the fact that Toby had walked this far into the forest without realizing he was being stalked…
He pretended not to have seen anything, then continued walking. Now what? Call him out? Run after him with his hunting knife, screaming incoherently?
He decided to keep going and feign ignorance until he came up with a really good plan.
Somebody else moved. So he had both Larry and Nick after him. Crap. They must’ve been following from a much farther distance and just now decided to sneak up closer.
No brilliant plans immediately sprung to mind. He needed something that would keep these psychos away from him forever.
Having a fanged, clawed, hairy beast jump out at them would be a pretty good deterrent against picking on him in the future, wouldn’t it?
Oh, yeah.
But, no, of course he couldn’t do that. Too many holes in the plan, and when it was time to reveal Owen’s existence to the rest of the world, he’d much rather do it on his own terms instead of the terms of a couple of bullies with wet crotches on their pants running shrieking to the authorities.
“Tooooooby,” said a ghostly voice behind him.
Damn.
“Tooooooby, why are you in the woods all aloooooone? Don’t you know you can get huuuuuuurt?” It sounded like Larry, who was clearly behind a large oak about a hundred feet away.
“I’ll call the cops.”
“Using what? A tin can and string?” This was Nick, who was behind a different tree.
“You’re not supposed to come near me,” Toby said.
“We’re not near you.”
“You wanna go to jail? Is that it? Do you think I’m not gonna tell the cops that you followed me? Get the fuck out of here!”
“But Toooooooooby,” said Larry. “That’s not verrrrrrrryniiiiiiiice! You shouldn’t use such ruuuuuuuuuude language!”
“I’ll scream,” Toby warned.
As the gales of laughter hit him, Toby wished he’d said just about anything else in the world but “I’ll scream.” I’ll scream? Had those words really come out of his mouth? Not “I’ll sic my monster buddy on you” or “I’ll smash your heads together like overripe nectarines” but “I’ll scream.” Even with the potential of another severe beating looming, Toby couldn’t help but focus on being absolutely mortified.
He quickly corrected himself. “I’ve got a knife,” he said.
“You really think that scares us?” Larry asked.
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You think I won’t use it, but I will,” said Toby. “It’s self-defense. I won’t get in any trouble.”
Larry sneered. “Oh, yeah? Self-defend yourself against this.” When his right hand came into view, he was holding a revolver.
C HAPTER S EVEN
A gun. Larry actually had a gun. What the hell was going on here? These were supposed to be bullies, not killers!
He glanced back at Nick to see his reaction to this insanity. Nick held a gun of his own, pointed right at Toby.
Toby wasn’t sure how to react. To his surprise, he felt more anger than fear, although there was still plenty of fear. He wanted to simultaneously attack, cry, and, yes, scream.
Larry and Nick slowly walked toward him, guns raised, moving in such a deliberate manner that it almost looked choreographed. Should Toby run? There was plenty of tree cover, but he couldn’t come close to outrunning them, and even with a lot of weaving he’d have a bullet in the back before he made it 500 feet.
“Quit playing around,” said Toby. “Those could go off. That’s manslaughter.”
“Only if it’s an accident.”
They couldn’t really intend to shoot him. It just wasn’t possible. The whole situation was out of control, but it wasn’t that far out of control, was it? Though he’d brainstormed quite a few ways he could die, being hunted as human prey by two of his classmates wasn’t one that had ever occurred to him.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“We’re going to make you pay,” Nick said.
“You’ll go to jail.”
“Not if they don’t find your body.”
“They’ll know it was you.”
“You think so? I’m not so sure. I bet you didn’t think we’d come after you with guns, did you?”
“And my dad’s got connections,” said Larry.
They continued walking toward him. Toby wasn’t even able to fantasize of a scenario where he heroically defeated the two villains. If they were serious, he was dead.
But of course they weren’t serious. They couldn’t be.
“Get down on your knees,” said Larry.
Toby shook his head. “No.”
“You know what would get you down on your knees fast? A bullet. Have you ever seen somebody’s kneecap shatter?”
“There’s bone and blood everywhere,” Nick said.
“It’s horrific.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“And it really, really hurts.”
“You won’t do it,” Toby insisted. “I’m not stupid.”
“What’s more stupid?” Larry asked. “Falling for a joke, or getting shot in the knees because you were too dumb to realize that we meant what we said?”
It was a solid point. At the same time, there was a very large chance that Larry and Nick were just playing around, and a very small chance that they genuinely intended to shoot him if he didn’t comply. Before he gave them yet more fodder for ridicule, he was going to make absolutely sure that-
“On. Your. Knees.” Larry’s eyes looked cold and dead.
Toby knelt down on the ground. Now he was absolutely terrified.
