“Not yet,” Toby said. “You’ll get more, lots more, I promise. Just be patient.”
Owen growled louder.
“No.” Toby shook his head. “Don’t growl. Just follow.”
He kept moving without throwing another finger. Owen followed him at the same pace, and didn’t seem ready to pounce on him to get the meal sooner.
“Good boy,” Toby said. “Very good. Keep this up and you’ll get all kinds of scrumptious, yummy treats.”
The plan worked well enough that by the time Toby reached the bodies, he still had four fingers left. He tossed them to Owen, one after the other. His stomach never stopped churning.
“Here,” he said, pointing to Larry’s mutilated body. “Dinner for you.”
He quickly moved back, giving Owen plenty of room. The monster walked toward him a few steps, as if unsure what Toby was trying to say, and then saw the corpse. Owen dropped down to all fours over the body and thrust his face down onto Larry’s stomach.
Toby quickly turned away. It wasn’t enough. The sounds of ripping and chewing made him fall to his knees, dry heaving.
Could Owen eat all of this?
Not in one sitting, but he didn’t think that a creature so obviously hunger-driven would leave the bodies to rot. He’d take them with him, right? Toby had no idea. He might have totally screwed up his plan by doing this, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to try to take Owen’s meal away from him.
There really wasn’t anything he could do at this point except hope that Owen liked to clean his plate.
C HAPTER E IGHT
Toby lay in an excruciatingly cold creek, letting the water rush over him for several minutes, hoping it would take the blood away.
He couldn’t think of a good way to explain away his appearance beyond “I fell in a creek.” Fortunately, Mom and Dad were in the kitchen when he came through the back door, and Toby hurried across the living room before either of them saw him.
“Toby…?” Mom asked.
“Gotta go to the bathroom! It’s an emergency!” Toby said, rushing up the stairs.
He wadded up his wet clothes in a tight ball and hid them in the back of his closet. Tomorrow he’d burn them.
The broken nose he explained as a nasty fall. Mom and Dad both looked doubtful and questioned him relentlessly, but he insisted that it was a result of his own clumsiness, and that nothing would make him happier than to have them give Larry’s and Nick’s parents a call if the bullies had been the ones to injure him, but this time it was his own fault. They seemed to reluctantly believe his story.
He didn’t expect to have an appetite for dinner, but instead he was ravenous. He also didn’t expect to be able to sleep, but exhaustion beat out guilt and he was asleep minutes after climbing into bed.
The nightmares, however, were rapid-fire images of knives and blood and sharp teeth.
News of Larry and Nick’s disappearance had spread through the student body before classes even started for the day, and Toby wasn’t surprised to find himself pulled out of first-period history within two minutes of the bell. Mrs. Pendle, the secretary, took him into the principal’s office, where two police officers sat. One had a thick mustache and a friendly smile, while the other was clean-shaven and wore a scowl. Good cop, bad cop.
After some polite introductions by the good cop, the bad cop spoke: “When was the last time you saw Larry Gaige?”
“Yesterday after school, when he broke my nose.”
The bad cop raised an eyebrow. Toby had decided that trying to hide his adversarial relationship with Larry and Nick would be a mistake. Everybody knew about it. Pretending that they were friends would raise suspicion. Better to be open about his dislike-after all, he wouldn’t be telling the cops that he hated the dead kids if he were the one who stabbed them to death, right?
If his parents discovered the discrepancy in his story, he’d just say that he’d been embarrassed to admit that he’d been beaten up yet again.
“And why did he do that?” asked Bad Cop.
Toby shrugged. “Because he and Nick are jerks.” He’d mentally rehearsed this on his way to school. Are jerks. Not were jerks.
“You saw him with Nick Wyler?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“After school. They came into my backyard, started threatening me. Then Larry punched me.”
“Did you fight back?”
“Not really.” Toby tried to look suitably ashamed of his own physical inadequacies. “They’re big guys-both of them. If I’d had a baseball bat I would’ve bashed them in the face, but I didn’t, so…well, there’s a reason guys like that pick on guys like me.”
“It doesn’t sound like you liked them very much.”
“I don’t. They’re bullies.” Not gonna catch me using past tense, Bad Cop. “You heard about what they did to me before, right?”
Bad Cop nodded. “We did. Why do you think they did that, Toby?”
“I just said why. They’re bullies. That’s what bullies do. Didn’t you have them when you were in school?”
Bad Cop ignored the question. “What else can you tell me about what happened?”
“Not much. I was outside doing my homework, they came up and started saying, ‘You’re dead, Floren!’ I tried to get back inside but they wouldn’t let me pass, and then Larry punched me. They laughed their asses off and left.”
“Any idea where they might be?”
“Antarctica, hopefully. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish them dead or anything like that, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we got along and that I hope everything is fine. They’ve made my life pretty miserable.”
The officers nodded, although Toby couldn’t tell if it was a nod of understanding or a nod of “We’ve got our killer.” “One last question,” Bad Cop asked. “Did Larry say anything about his parents?”
“Not to me.”
“Okay. If you think of anything else, tell your principal and she’ll get in touch with us. We’ll let you get back to class now. I know you’ve got a test this morning.”
Crap! He’d forgotten about the history test!
“Thanks,” he said, and returned to class. He was amazed at how easily the lies had come, considering that he usually couldn’t even successfully lie about drinking one of Dad’s cans of Coke. He wasn’t proud of this, but he was certainly relieved.
Right before third period, everybody was marched into the assembly room. The principal explained that two students had gone missing, and that anybody who had any information should share it with her as soon as possible. Then all of the students were asked to close their eyes and silently pray for Larry and Nick’s safe return. Toby took that time to pray that his crimes wouldn’t be discovered.
By lunchtime, Toby had heard most of the story. Larry and his parents had been fighting in a big way ever since he got suspended. For years he’d been threatening to run away to New York City, and he’d apparently left a note on the kitchen table saying that he’d done just that. Two guns were missing from his dad’s collection.
Wow. So he and Nick had probably stopped by Toby’s place for one last bit of cruelty before running away from home. That would explain why they were willing to risk pointing guns at him in the woods, even empty ones, knowing that they’d almost certainly get expelled for it.
What did Larry want in New York City? To be an actor? A singer? To just wander the busy streets? He’d never envisioned Larry as having any ambitions beyond beating up kids smaller than he was.
