Ephraim had run to the truck and babbled into the CB radio. He was still babbling for help when the paramedics showed up.
That was the closest Ephraim had ever come to death until last night. And the dead man here (who the hell was he, anyway?) had been so much worse because he had been so much more final. The dead man couldn’t get skin grafts and a hair weave like the workman could. All that lay in wait for the dead man was a lonely hole in the dirt.
And now Scoutmaster Tim was pretty sick, too. Maybe the same way the dead man had been?
They’d locked him in that stupid closet; Ephraim hadn’t quite felt right about it—he got carried away, was all. And now Kent looked like he’d been attacked by vampire bats in the night; they’d sucked a gallon of blood out of him and soon—
He inhaled deeply. Held it. Let it go.
10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1
Are you angry, Eef? came his mother’s voice. Or are you scared?
Ephraim realized that those emotions existed on two sides of a razor-thin line. One bled into the other so easily.
Anger. Keep Out.
Fear… Keep Out?
It’s always good to have a little fear, son, especially at your age, he heard his mom say. Fear keeps you honest. Fear keeps you safe.
Ephraim stubbed the cigarette, dug a small hole in the earth—a little grave for my coffin nail, he thought cheerlessly—and buried the butt. He headed back to the campfire, confused in his thoughts.
From the sworn testimony of Nathan Erikson, given before the Federal Investigatory Board in connection with the events occurring on Falstaff Island, Prince Edward Island:
Q: Dr. Erikson, please describe the discussion between Dr. Edgerton and yourself regarding the selection of a human test subject.
A: I wouldn’t really term it a discussion at all. Edgerton said he was doing it and I could come along for the ride if I wanted.
Q: And you agreed?
A: In for a penny? But I also thought… maybe I could help things somehow. Keep it under control.
Q: You could have kept it under control by informing the police.
A: I could have.
Q: But you didn’t. Why not?
A: It’s a tough thing to describe. Now that I’m away from it, the answers are so simple. Men like Edgerton are obsessives. Notions of right or wrong have this awful way of draining away to irrelevance with men like that. The only things that matter to them are answers. Progress. Unlocking doors. And if you can’t unlock them, you just kick at them until they give. I guess I was sucked up in it, too.
Q: Tell me how Dr. Edgerton went about finding Tom Padgett, the first human test subject.
A: It wasn’t so hard as you might think. It’s amazing how many people are so down on their luck they’ll take just about any offer that’s flung at them. Edgerton went to bars. Not the campus bars where the fresh-faced, rosy-futured kids drank. The scumpits on the edge of town. He… trolled, is I guess the word. Threw his bait in the water and waited for a bite.
Q: He told Padgett his plan?
A: Not right off the bat. He did it in stages. I don’t know the exact run of their conversation. You’d have to ask Edgerton.
Q: Dr. Edgerton is not an easy man to get a straight answer out of.
A: Edgerton just brought Padgett back one night. Guy smelled like he’d been marinating in a tub of Old Grouse. Edgerton explained it all calmly and evenly. He’d take the injection and sit in the room. We’d monitor him. If things got out of hand, we’d call a doctor—never mind the fact that no doctor on earth had a cure for what Edgerton would stick him with. Edgerton handed him a nice fat envelope. I don’t know how much cash was in there. I guess it was enough.
20
THE COOLER was discovered two hundred yards down toward the shore. There was no physical evidence to indicate it had been dragged: no zigzag lines through the soft dirt or trampled weeds. This suggested it had been picked up and carried to its present spot. It lay overturned in a patch of purple-pink shrubs.
But the crude way that the food had been shredded did suggest an animal. The hot dog packages had been torn open. Raw rags of the granular pink meat lay scattered about the cooler, alit upon by listless late-October flies. M&Ms were strewn around like multicolored jewels.
Ephraim kicked dirt over a half-chewed hot dog. His jaw was set at a sideways angle, his eyes hooded.
“Fuck it. Boat’ll be here soon.”
The boys walked down to the shore. They hadn’t packed their bags—none of them wanted to go inside the cabin, though none of them spoke those words. The air was crisp, with a soft undernote of peppermint. The face of Newt’s Timex Ironman read 8:23. The boat was scheduled to arrive at 8:30.
Kent slumped on a boulder carpeted with moss that resembled the fuzz on a tennis ball. When he was sure nobody was watching, he pinched some moss and stuffed it into his mouth. He didn’t know why he’d do such a thing. It shamed and disgusted him.
He was just so damned hungry.
Newton sidled up. Cautiously he said: “You okay, K?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look a little green.” Newton gave him a chummy smile and pointed to the water. “Like me when I get seasick. The rest of my family have great sea legs, but not me. When the boat gets swaying, I just toss my cookies. Lose my lunch every time.”
“Newt, screw off.” Kent gave Newton a look more pleading than threatening. “Okay? Please?”
He turned away and caught Shelley gawping at him. That same vapid look as always—was it, though?
Kent had been sure the others were asleep when he’d woken last night. The growl of his stomach had drawn him out of a deep slumber: an aching burr like a chain saw revving endlessly. He’d sat up with his hands reflexively clawing his belly.
His eyes had darted to the cooler. Next he’d glanced at the other boys, scrutinizing them carefully. They were asleep, Newton snoring loud as a leaf blower.
His gaze had been drawn helplessly to the cooler. The hunger was like nothing he’d ever known. Beyond an ache. More like an insistence. A summoning. There was a big, dark pit inside of him—something that had started out as a pinprick hole but had rapidly grown into a vortex, the equivalent of a violent tornado, but instead of the random objects that a twister pulls into its funnel—trees and mailboxes and lawn mowers—the one inside of him was sucking at his own insides, his liver and kidneys and lungs and stomach, with the incredible pressure of industrial machinery.
Kent had been terrified that if he let it go on much longer, the hole would suck clean through him—out of him.
He’d stood silently and crept to the cooler. His heart beat a staccato hi-hat behind his rib cage. His bladder was so tight he thought he might piss himself. Kent had forced himself to exhale softly—otherwise his breath would escape in shrill peeps like a baby bird calling for food. And what did baby birds eat? Worms. Their mothers chewed them up in their flinty beaks and regurgitated them. Worms just like the one that still lay on the cabin floor next to the dead man. Except not that big. And not so maggot-white. It would take a million birds to eat a worm that huge.