Why was Nick going with him? They must have had a pretty strong friendship.
Screw them. Screw both of them. They deserved to be digesting in Owen’s stomach right now. If they were going to run away to New York City, then they might as well have been killed by Toby, who had a legitimate grudge against them, instead of some random drug dealer.
Justify it all you want. You’re still a murderer.
Toby spent the rest of the day lost in fantasies where the knife got stuck in its sheath. Larry and Nick pointed at him and laughed while he fumbled around, trying unsuccessfully to withdraw the blade. They left him in the woods, enjoying a good hearty chuckle at his incompetence.
He called in sick at the grocery and walked out into the woods, hoping that the bodies were gone. Please, please, please let Owen have cleaned up my mess. It didn’t have to be flawless-he just didn’t want to find dozens of body parts strewn among the trees.
Except for some bloodstains, Larry and Nick were gone. Toby almost cried with relief.
Though he wanted to walk to Owen’s cave to investigate, he also wanted to spend as little time in the woods as possible until things calmed down. Thanks to the “runaway” element, the police wouldn’t be searching the forest for corpses. They’d be trying to find motorists who might have picked up a couple of unpleasant hitchhikers. Toby was far from safe, but he was much better off than he was yesterday. He walked back through the woods into his backyard.
Then he remembered the severed finger he’d left behind, cursed, and headed back into the forest.
It was still there. He felt intense revulsion as he picked it up, despite having handled severed fingers galore yesterday. It just wasn’t something you got used to, and now the finger had a fairly rank odor. He brushed off the tiny ants that swarmed over the parts that had no skin, and then-
Owen stood in the cave entrance, looking at him.
This was the closest Toby had ever been to the monster. Not close enough for Owen to reach out and slit Toby’s throat with one of his talons, but close enough that Owen could be on him in seconds. Close enough that he could see that one of Owen’s talons was split, and that he had a tiny bare patch over his left eye.
Toby was much less scared than he would have anticipated. “Hi, Owen,” he said.
The monster rushed at him.
Dear God, he hadn’t fed it enough. Even two dead bodies weren’t enough to quell its ancient hunger. Toby was going to be ripped to shreds, scraps of flesh flying high into the air as Owen tore him apart, hunting for the tastiest pieces. His skeleton would be dragged away and dumped into a bone pit. And because he was a double murderer, he was hell-bound for certain.
Owen stopped just inches from Toby. The monster lowered its head, and then rubbed its forehead against Toby’s chest. Affectionately.
Toby didn’t know what to do, so he stroked the fur on Owen’s arm. Owen made a sound that wasn’t exactly a purr, but was definitely a happy sound. It was kind of like a growl without hostile intent.
“You’re welcome for the food,” Toby said.
The sense of guilt was huge, almost unbearable at times, but no matter how bad the nightmares got, and no matter how much it felt like something was eating away at his stomach from the inside, he couldn’t deny that life at school was much more pleasant with those creeps dead.
He could go to the restroom without fear. He wasn’t constantly worrying about being humiliated. If he could go back in time and change his murderous actions, he would, no doubt about it, but still, not having Larry and Nick around was kind of nice.
And after about a week, he started to realize that he just might get away with it.
He’d been questioned once more, this time by the good cop working alone. It wasn’t much of an interrogation, just a couple of follow-up questions that didn’t even require Toby to lie. No, he hadn’t seen Larry or Nick in the past week. No, they hadn’t tried to get in touch.
It poured rain three days that week, almost as if the heavens were trying to help wash away the evidence.
Soon, Larry and Nick stopped being a daily topic of conversation at school. Though the MISSING signs with their pictures stayed up on telephone poles, the signs faded and weren’t replaced. Toby wanted to tear them down so he wouldn’t have to see them, but didn’t dare take the risk of somebody seeing him. A transfer student took Larry’s empty seat in economics class.
He still saw blood on his hands that wasn’t really there. But overall, it was a better world without those bullies.
“What are you drawing?” asked J.D.
Toby shrugged. “Nothing.”
J.D. reached across the table and snatched Toby’s notebook. “Ooooh, a big scary monster! That’s what I used to draw when I was in first grade, too! Hey, Elizabeth, check this out…”
C HAPTER N INE
“Don’t look at me like that. You know I can’t get out here every day. It’s not my fault you don’t have any other friends. If you’d get out of the cave once in a while, you might get to socialize more often, you know? Meet a nice elk or something, get some interspecies lovin’ going on. Where’s your Owenetta?”
Owen patted his belly.
“You ate her? Really? That’s pretty darn rude. You’re not supposed to eat your mate, unless maybe you’re a black widow or something.”
Owen patted his belly again, more insistently this time.
“Okay, okay, I was only kidding. Jeez. I know you’re hungry. And today I’ve got a special surprise for you.” Toby tapped his foot on the blue cooler. “You’d better like it, because this ice was heavy.”
He took the lid off the cooler, pushed aside some of the ice cubes, and pulled out the carton of ice cream. “This is Neapolitan,” he explained, “so you get chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry all at once. You’ll love it.”
Owen reached for the carton. Toby slapped his hand away. “Not yet. We’ve got to do this right.” He took a pair of ice-cream cones out of his backpack. “All right, one of them broke, but since I’m such a nice person I’ll give you the unbroken one.” He dug around until he found the metal scoop, then opened the carton. Owen growled.
“Have a little patience. Good things come to those who wait. How many monsters in the woods do you think have people bringing them ice cream? Not many. You are a fortunate soul, Owen, and when you taste this delicious treat, all of your problems are going to fade away.”
It was jacket weather, but no snow had fallen yet, and even in the cooler, the ice cream was starting to melt. It was easy to get out a nice big scoop. Toby made sure he got all three flavors, and then plopped it onto the cone.
“Here you go, sir,” he said, handing the cone to Owen. “Don’t eat it too fast or you’ll get a headache.”
Toby was somewhat less than surprised when Owen popped the entire cone into his mouth. Owen’s eyes widened, as much as his sunken eyes were capable of widening, and then he gave Toby an enthusiastic thumbs-up sign.
“Yeah, it’s good stuff, isn’t it?” asked Toby. “It’s better if you savor it, though.”
He prepared himself a cone, just strawberry, and slowly licked it. “See? Lick. It’s way better like this, and it lasts more than a third of a second.”
Owen made a grab for Toby’s cone, but he held it behind his back. “No. There’s more, but you have to wait until I’m done with mine. You know that.”
Owen patted his belly.
“Seriously, you need to chill out about this whole food thing. I’m hungry, too, but you don’t see me trying to shove you around to get fed. We need to develop your gourmet tastes. Any animal can just shovel food into its mouth. You should learn to appreciate fine cuisine. Like this ice-cream cone.” He turned it in a slow circle as he licked.
Owen watched him carefully, not taking his eyes off the cone.
“Stick your tongue out,” Toby said, sticking his tongue out as far as he could.
