Dweller - Jeff Strand [29]
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.
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