Dweller - Jeff Strand [4]
“Oak trees.”
“Yes, but look exactly where I’m pointing. Even if it’s just a bunch of trees, you should be able to find things to help you find your way. What do you see?”
“Three of those trees kind of look like a W.”
“Exactly.” Toby’s father took him by the hand. “Watch for that kind of thing and you won’t get lost.”
They weren’t able to find the pocketknife. His father frowned when Toby described the monster yet again, but Toby couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t making it up and he hadn’t imagined it and now that he was already in trouble he wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t seen it. As they looked for the knife, he watched for traces of the monster—footprints, hair, a fang, anything—with no success.
Dessert was apple pie. Not one of his favorites, so Mom and Dad weren’t that mad at him.
The restriction on going into the forest by himself was lifted a week later. It was three more days before Toby summoned the courage to actually do it. He stayed well within sight of the house, and encountered no sign of the monster.
Summer ended. Toby returned to school and thoughts of the monster faded.
By the time summer returned, he occasionally laughed to himself about the silly time when he’d imagined seeing a hairy, clawed, fanged beast in the forest.
CHAPTER TWO
1960. Age 15.
When Toby next met the monster, Toby’s hair still had traces of Nick Wyler’s urine. Nick hadn’t actually peed on Toby, thank God, but he’d seasoned the toilet bowl before Toby’s head plunged into the murky depths.
“C’mon, hurry up!” urged Larry Gaige, moments before the dunking. Larry was far and away the biggest creep at Orange Leaf High. His physical build would’ve made him football-team material, if he had any interest in fighting other kids his size. He held Toby against the wall of the bathroom stall, with Toby’s head pressed next to a detailed but inaccurate drawing of a vagina.
“I’m trying!” Nick insisted. He stood next to the toilet, trying to relieve himself but suffering from performance anxiety. Toby personally had always had a real issue with the lack of doors in the bathrooms, so he could understand why it might be difficult for Nick to pee with two other guys in the stall.
Toby struggled some more, mostly for show. He was short, thin, and outnumbered, and knew he wasn’t getting out of this bathroom undunked unless a teacher happened to walk in, searching for smokers. Calling for help was not an option. Larry got his thrills by causing humiliation, not pain, but he would hurt you if he had to.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” said Larry, kicking Nick on the back of the leg. Toby heard a few drops hit the water and a few more hit the seat.
“Why don’t you do it? I haven’t had enough to drink today.”
“Are you kidding me?” Larry gave his friend a look of absolute disbelief. “Just yank the stopper out of your dick and take a piss!”
“Maybe if you left the stall for a minute…?”
For a moment, Toby thought that Larry was actually going to let him go so that he could focus his attention on beating the crap out of Nick. His optimism was quickly extinguished as Larry slammed him against the wall hard enough to make him bite his tongue. He winced and tasted blood.
The sound of a healthy stream of urine hitting the toilet water filled the stall. Nick was cured.
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Larry. “We’ve gotta hurry up.”
“I can’t stop once I’ve started!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Just let me finish!”
Larry stood there, visibly fuming, as Nick continued the challenging process of relieving himself. Toby kept praying that a teacher or some other adult visitor would walk in and question the presence of three teenage boys sharing a restroom stall, but as the stream slowed to a trickle and then to a spatter, Toby knew his moment of extreme indignity had almost arrived.
Larry shoved Nick out of the way before he was completely done. Nick punched him in the arm. “I bought these pants with my own money!”
Ignoring his friend, Larry pushed Toby to his knees in front of the toilet bowl and then quickly pushed his face toward the aromatic liquid. Toby