Hector Smith and Janine McDouglas is the same one that chewed up your Melissa. I think you were there for it. I think you saw the whole thing. I think you watched that animal kill your girlfriend, and you couldn’t save her, so you lied about the whole thing. Now why would you do that?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s not something people lie about unless they’ve got something to hide. Just like people don’t burn their clothes unless they’re trying to hide something, like bloodstains. I have a pretty vivid imagination, so I can see it clear as day. Out walking in the woods with your girlfriend. Everything’s nice and romantic. Maybe you’re thinking you’re going to get some, against a tree. Then something attacks her. You’re close enough that you get her blood on your clothes. But you don’t try to save her. If you tried to save her, you’d tell everybody what happened, wouldn’t you? No, you left her there. Before you knew she was dead you left her there, and you ran to save your own skin. Now how far am I from the truth?”
Toby tried to summon some tears. He thought of Melissa, screaming on the ground while Owen bit into her, and the tears arrived with little effort.
“Do you know what I hate worse than a liar? A coward.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Get out of my sight. And try to live with what you’ve done. I hope it’s a happy life.”
Toby saw on the news that they’d found the cave.
It was empty. One of the men in the group caught a glimpse of something hiding in the bushes nearby, but it ran off before he could get a good look. His quick glimpse did match the description Toby had given to the police.
He hadn’t described Owen in detail (“It was so dark, I could barely see anything!”) but he’d offered up a general sketch of what their culprit might look like. At this point, why lie? What was somebody going to say? “Look! There’s a giant hairy humanoid beast roaming around the neighborhood! But, no, wait, it doesn’t match the description Toby Floren gave. Must be a different monster. Let this one go.”
The mob-well, technically not a mob, but that’s how Toby chose to think of it-gave pursuit for a while. It was hard to run in the deep snow, though, and they finally gave up.
The chief of police, not hiding his annoyance at the reporters’ questions, explained that they couldn’t search the entire forest for one animal, but that cops would be working double shifts to protect their citizens.
“We’re out there, doing our best, but just be aware of the risk until this situation is resolved.”
Toby gave it a long, excruciatingly slow week before he went out to the woods to look for Owen. He called out his name. So what if somebody heard him? It wasn’t like Owen wore a name tag.
Nothing.
Owen had followed his instructions, which was a good thing, but Toby wondered if he’d ever come back.
C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
1975. Age 30.
“Thirty. I’m old.”
“Thirty is not old,” Mr. Zack assured him. “Do you know how many sins I’d commit to be thirty again?”
“Wouldn’t the whole point of being thirty again be to have the energy to commit more sins?”
“Well, different sins, anyway.”
Toby sat outside the cave, running his fingers through the melting snow.
“You were supposed to come back.”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“I understand. The problem is, you’re a great employee, probably my best, but not everybody is cut out to be a manager.”
Toby nodded. “I know. We’ve talked about it lots of times. For that kind of thing, you need social skills.”
“I’m not saying that you don’t have social skills, I’m saying-”
“You can say that I don’t have social skills. It’s all right.”
“You don’t have the skill set that would make you a good manager. How about that?”
“I understand. That’s why I need to leave.”
“I’m not going to hold you back. You’re getting a gold-plated reference from me.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Mr. Zack shook Toby’s hand. “I wish you nothing but the best. Maybe you’ll be able to hire me someday, when you’re a fabulously wealthy business owner.”
“Maybe.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Thirty years old. How did that happen?”
“He’s never coming back,” said Larry.
“Yes, he is.”
“He’s off having himself a hot summer fling with some other forest monster. How’s that for irony? He destroys your love life and then goes off and enjoys his own.”
“What if he got hurt?”
Larry considered that. “That seems reasonable. The lynch mob might have tracked him down. Skinned him, made bandanas out of his fur, sliced him open neck to groin and played keep-away with his insides. Then they felt bad about reverting to primal savagery and all took a vow to keep it a secret.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“His arm and eye did look pretty bad. You cleaned it up, but you can’t expect to just rinse out a bullet wound and have everything heal up like a paper cut. Think of the infection. How much pus do you think leaked out of his eye before he couldn’t take it anymore? Do you think his arm just sort of rotted off by itself, or is it still dangling there, flopping around, always getting in his way?”
“It’s time for you to go now.”
Larry shrugged. “Whatever. You’re the boss.”
Toby envisioned the ground splitting open. Withered hands grabbed Larry’s feet and pulled him beneath the surface. He looked kind of bored while they did it.
“Do you know what’s really sad?” Toby asked out loud, to nobody in particular. “Larry is probably my best friend at this point.”
“I’m going to be blunt: this isn’t working out.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“You’re not getting along with the others in the mailroom.”
“What? I haven’t had any problems with anybody!” Toby insisted.
“They say that you make them uncomfortable.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
Toby’s new boss, John Rydelor, frowned and looked nervously toward the door of his office, which was ajar. “Please lower your voice. You were hired on a six-week probationary period, and like I said in the interview, I believe that the only way to achieve success in business is through teamwork. The other members of the mailroom team have issues with you, and I’m going to respect their wishes.”
“Owen, you son of a bitch, how could you leave me? See what I did? I swept out your cave. It’s the first time your cave has been swept in fifteen years! Come on, Owen, I really need to talk to somebody!”
He’d resisted the idea of taking in the roll of film, which had remained hidden in his bottom drawer, to be developed. But if he couldn’t have his monster, he could at least have pictures from their first encounters. He’d just tell the employee at the photo booth that it was a guy in a mask.
It didn’t matter. The film was too old and couldn’t be developed.
“Hello?”
“Toby, it’s Mom.”
“Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”
“Your father’s had a stroke.”
They celebrated Thanksgiving in the hospital, three weeks early. It was always Dad’s favorite holiday. Toby wasn’t sure if Dad could smell the turkey or the mashed potatoes, but Toby liked to think that, at least in his mind,
