Dweller - Jeff Strand [54]
“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.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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