His wonderful discovery would be nothing more than strips of flesh under a microscope. Its jaws would be on display over the mayor’s fireplace.
Maybe he should keep it a secret for a while longer. Why let everybody else ruin his discovery? And his forest? The best part of the forest was that nobody really ever went in the area near his house. His only close neighbor was Mrs. Faulkner, who now relied on a walker and hardly ever went outside. Some lady came in once a week to bring her groceries. If people knew about the monster, the forest would be swarmed with tourists and scientists and everybody. He’d lose his favorite place.
He could study the monster. Get better pictures. Try harder to communicate with it. And if it did attack, he’d rather be the one who shot it than some police officer. Why should they get the honor?
That’s what he’d do. Enjoy the monster all by himself for now. There was plenty of time to let the rest of the world know.
“I had a great big bean burrito for dinner last night,” Larry said, leaning in his desk toward Toby just before economics class started. “After we dunk you, you’ll have to shave your head to get rid of the smell.”
Despite a desperate need to use the facilities, Toby stayed out of the restrooms for the remainder of the day.
Toby didn’t need to throw rocks after school. The monster sat on the ground, right outside of its cave. It looked up as Toby approached but didn’t stand. Toby double-checked the shotgun to make sure the safety was off, and kept it pointed at the dirt as he walked forward, stopping at the same fifty-feet-away point he’d used last time.
“Hi again,” he said. “It’s Toby. Remember me?”
Wow, that thing had big teeth.
“Do you have a name?”
Toby wondered if there were others like it. If not, would it even need a name?
“I’m going to give you a name, if you don’t mind,” Toby informed the monster. “I’m sure it’s not your real name, but I should call you something, don’t you think? And you can name me whatever you want. So for now, I’m going to call you Owen.” He pointed at the monster. “Owen. That’s you. Do you like it?”
Owen-the human Owen-was the closest Toby had ever come to having a real friend. They’d met in sixth grade. Toby had been impressed by his ability to create paper airplanes that could sail all the way across the classroom, and even more impressed by his stealth in doing so without being seen by the teacher. For about three months, they went to each other’s houses every day after school, and spent the night most weekends, and had a great time.
One Saturday morning, they were playing catch with what remained of a baseball that Toby had cut apart to see what was inside. Owen’s throw was off center and the baseball bounced off Toby’s shoulder. In a momentary flash of fury, Toby grabbed the baseball off the grass and hurled it at Owen as hard as he could, bashing him in the face. Owen ran for home, blood gushing from his nostrils. Toby chased after him, yelling out apologies.
Owen had run inside and slammed his front door shut. When Toby knocked, Owen’s mother angrily sent him away. Toby, sick to his stomach, had gone home and tried unsuccessfully to read comic books for the rest of the afternoon.
Owen refused to talk to him the next day. Toby didn’t have much experience, but he didn’t think this was the way friendships were supposed to work, at least with boys. They were supposed to pick up right where they left off, as if nothing had happened. Owen wasn’t playing by the rules.
They didn’t speak again for the rest of the year. Then Owen’s dad got a job all the way over in Nevada and they moved away.
Toby had been so stupid. The baseball hadn’t hurt that bad.
“Do you understand anything I’m saying, Owen?” he asked the monster. “If you understand me, nod your head. Nod your head like this.” Toby nodded his head, slowly and emphatically.
Owen the Monster stood up.
“No,” Toby said in a firm voice. “Don’t stand. Nod your head.” He nodded some more.
Owen raised his arms high into the air and let out a howl. Whether it was frustration or rage, Toby couldn’t tell, but it was most definitely not a good howl.
“Fuck!” Toby screamed. He turned and limped away as quickly as he could.
There was another howl. This one sounded sorrowful.
Don’t forget about the shotgun, you idiot!
Toby spun back around, but with his panic and sweaty hands the shotgun slipped out of his grasp. Losing his weapon concerned him for a fraction of a second. Then his concern immediately switched to his wrapped ankle as the wooden stock smashed against it, creating a fireball of pain that brought tears to his eyes and nearly knocked him to the ground. He cried out, lost his balance, and braced himself against a tree.
He didn’t have a legitimate frame of reference, but based on his mother’s description of the pain of childbirth, he felt like he were having a baby through his ankle.
Oh, God, it hurt.
Having the monster’s fangs slowly sink into his flesh probably hurt worse, though, so he scrambled to pick the shotgun back up. He glanced over his shoulder to see how close he was to having it take a nice generous bite out of him, and saw that Owen still stood in front of the cave.
Why wasn’t it coming after him? It had some injured prey, right within eyesight. Toby deserved to get eaten, just for his ridiculous incompetence.
Owen made a coughing sound.
No, not a cough. That was a laugh. A goddamn laugh. That thing was laughing at him!
That was a lot better than it trying to rip him apart, but still…
Or maybe it had just been a regular snort. It was impossible to say. Either way, Owen wasn’t coming after him, and if he wasn’t attacking now, while Toby was lying there like a complete buffoon, he probably wasn’t going to attack at all.
He clenched his teeth together as tightly as he could to keep from crying out again. You really weren’t supposed to drop a shotgun on a sprained ankle. He wondered if he’d broken it. He stayed on the ground, waiting for the agony to subside while watching closely to make sure that Owen didn’t change his mind about going on a rampage.
The pain took several minutes to fade to a manageable level. Toby grabbed a branch and pulled himself to his feet. His whole foot was throbbing. He wiped the tears from his eyes and forced a smile. “You may have to nurse me back to health, big guy,” he said.
The movement was slight, and almost certainly not what Toby thought it was, but he was positive that Owen nodded.
It was cool, yet unspeakably freaky.
“So do you mind if I take a few more pictures?” he asked. “I don’t want anybody to see them, so I probably won’t get them developed right away, but I should take them now just in case you…I don’t know, migrate or something.”
He dug his camera out of his backpack. As long as the flash didn’t scare or enrage Owen, he should be able to get some good shots before he hobbled back home. Owen leaned forward just a bit as Toby looked through the camera, but the monster had been photographed before without ill effect and it didn’t seem to mind this time. Toby took eleven or twelve pictures then tucked the camera away.
“I’ll come back,” Toby promised. “Probably not tomorrow, since by then my foot will be the size of your entire body, but soon.” It felt kind of weird to be making a promise to a creature that couldn’t understand what he was saying, that had no apparent emotional attachment to him, and whose desire to devour him remained an active possibility, but he couldn’t help himself.
Maybe he’d injured his brain instead of his foot.
Dad was already home when Toby got back. That wasn’t such a good thing.
“Any special reason you’re walking around in the woods with my shotgun?” Dad asked as he walked inside.
“Fake hunting.”
“Fake hunting?”
“You know, pretending to hunt.”