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  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 squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath as his face dipped into the warm water. He gagged and desperately tried not to inhale as the toilet flushed and the water swirled around his head.

  Once the water had completely exited the bowl, Larry let go of his neck. He and Nick walked out of the stall, laughing. Another scrawny twerp successfully humiliated.

  Could’ve been worse. Had been worse, several times. Still, Toby’s cheeks burned from shame and he felt like he was going to throw up as he coughed and gagged and gasped for breath.

  Toby left the stall, turned on one of the faucets, and tried to rinse the piss out of his hair. He could tattle on those jerks and get them suspended, but suspensions were temporary, and there wasn’t much the school board could do if the bullies decided to lie in wait for him next to his front porch with tire irons and broken bottles.

  Okay, he didn’t actually believe that Larry and Nick would kill him, or even hospitalize him. The most violence they’d inflict was a hard punch to the stomach, maybe some light bruises elsewhere. But there was a code of honor at Orange Leaf High: you didn’t rat out your peers. Not even awful, reprehensible, deserve-to-die peers. Nobody liked a rat fink. If Toby went to his parents or a teacher, he’d be scorned by every kid in school.

  He was already the Weird Kid in a school that was severely lacking in other weird kids. If he became the Weird Kid Who Was Also A Rat Fink, he might as well kiss any glimpse of hope for making friends—real friends, maybe even a girlfriend—good-bye. He didn’t have many friends in elementary school or junior high, but at least the kids there talked to him, sometimes. But most of his halffriends had gone to West End High, and his out-of-the-way address put him in the Orange Leaf High district, so he was starting over.

  Anyway, someday he’d get Larry and Nick back. He was doing chin-ups every day. He could do eleven or twelve of them now. By the end of the year, who knew how big his muscles might be?

  “Time for a dunking!” Larry might say, pulling Toby into the stall. Toby would drop to his knees, and Nick would laugh and laugh at how easy it was to overpower him. But, oh, how his laughter would stop when Toby suddenly used his brute strength to rip the toilet right out of the floor!

  “Holy cow!” Nick would scream. “How many chin-ups has he done?”

  Toby would smash the toilet into Larry’s face, shattering the porcelain and splashing its abhorrent contents all over him. As Larry dropped to the tile floor, unconscious, Nick would stand there, paralyzed with fear.

  “Please don’t kill me,” Nick would whimper.

  Toby would shake his head and chuckle. “I’m no killer,” he would say. But then he would give Nick a stern glare, a glare that chilled Nick’s blood. “Dunk yourself.”

  “But I’ll be shamed and ridiculed!”

  “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

  Nick would thrust his own head into the toilet, sobbing like a baby. Toby would watch him flush and flush and flush, inwardly amused but far too mature to point and laugh. Perhaps he’d allow the other students to file through the restroom to witness the defeat and learn from it, or perhaps he’d keep it to himself and merely raise an eyebrow at Larry and Nick when they started to get out of line. Either way, Toby Floren would be the victor.

  But that would be later. For now, he had to go back to class with wet hair and embarrassment scorching his cheeks.

  A few of the other kids snickered as Toby returned to history class, but Mr. Hastings didn’t say anything about his appearance or tardiness.

  During lunch, kids continued to snicker when they looked at him, even though his hair was dry. Clearly, Larry and Nick had shared the uproarious news of their latest conquest. Toby hoped for a sympathetic glance from somebody, anybody, but didn’t receive one. At least a couple of the kids who smiled in his direction had been dunkees themselves.

  He sat in his usual spot at the corner table, doodling in his notebook while he ate a roast beef sandwich. There weren’t enough tables in the lunchroom for him to sit by himself, so he sat with his standard group, but an empty seat separated him from the others.

  At least his sandwich was good. Mom had made an outstanding dinner last night, and the leftovers were even better in sandwich form.

  “What’re you drawing?” asked J. D. Jerick, through a mouthful of potato chips.

  “Nothing.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Toby shook his head. He’d fallen for this before. J.D. had expressed an interest in his art, and Toby had proudly explained exactly how the robot’s jet pack functioned in zero gra
vity. Then J.D. had let out a donkeylike laugh, grabbed Toby’s notebook, and showed it to everybody at the table. Robots weren’t cool at Orange Leaf High.

  “C’mon, I just want to see what you’re drawing.”

  “No way.”

  “I’m not gonna do anything.”

  Toby closed his notebook. There wasn’t much he could do when he was overpowered by physically imposing bullies like Larry and Nick, but J.D. was a different kind of bully, and Toby wasn’t threatened by him at all.

  J.D. made a lunge for the notebook, but Toby slid it out of the way. “Just let me see it, Zit Farm. What is it, naked pictures of the teachers?” He raised his voice. “You really shouldn’t be drawing naked pictures of teachers, Toby Floren!”

  Toby gave him the finger.

  “By the way, you reek. What have you been doing, swimming in the toilet?”

  Toby gave him the finger with both hands.

  “Loser,” said J.D.

  Toby returned his attention to his notebook and his sandwich while the other kids at the table laughed. Why were they on J.D.’s side? Couldn’t they see that he was a complete cretin?

  He sketched for a few more minutes, knowing that J.D. was watching him and wasn’t going to let the matter drop.

  “What’re you drawing?” J.D. finally repeated.

  Toby held up the picture: a hand giving the finger.

  J.D. frowned, obviously not thinking that the drawing was very funny. Toby grinned, but stopped grinning when he saw Mr. Hastings staring right at the drawing from across the lunchroom. The teacher made a beeline toward him, and Toby knew that his day was about to get even worse.

  Toby wanted to take a shower when he got home, but he wasn’t up to explaining the need for the shower to Mom. He also didn’t want her to think that he had a different, much more private reason for taking a shower at an unusual time. Though he supposed he could just make something up, he’d probably get caught in the lie—he had an active fantasy life, but his skills at deceit were almost nonexistent.

  “I’m home!” he shouted out, hurrying up the stairs to his room and hoping that Mom wouldn’t ask him to sit with her in the living room and talk about his day.

  “Do you have any homework?” Mom called up to him.

  “Lots!” he called back. He dumped his backpack on his bed, then pulled out the unnecessary books. He had to do about twenty math problems, a 250-word essay on chapters six and seven of Robinson Crusoe, and study for a history quiz. No problem. He picked up the backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed back downstairs.

  “Where are you going?” Mom asked. She was seated on the living room couch, half watching television while writing a letter. She wrote to Grandma once a week, every week, and had ever since she married Dad, even though she hadn’t mailed the letters for a couple of years.

  “Woods.”

  “I thought you said you had homework?”

  He lifted his shoulder, bouncing the backpack. “It’s in here.”

  “Oh, okay. Good.”

  Toby grinned. “See how easy your life is, having a son who’s so diligent about his homework?”

  “It is. It’s very relaxing.”

  “Because, you know, there are a lot of dumb and lazy kids out there.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be back before Dad gets home.”

  Toby walked about half a mile into the woods, to his favorite spot. Two trees had grown together at the base, forming a surprisingly comfortable seat where the trunks split apart. He set his backpack on the ground, sat on the trees, and began to work through some math problems. Math was his least favorite subject outside of physical education, but he liked Mr. Hesser’s nerdy sense of humor, and paid enough attention to ace every test. His report card was always straight A’s except for music. He enjoyed playing the trumpet but was very, very bad at it.

  He completed the math problems, then started on his essay. He’d already finished the entire book—he didn’t like reading books a chapter at a time, and even if the book wasn’t anything spectacular he usually found himself reading through to the end. This one he loved.

  He finished up the essay, then spent a few minutes studying for his history quiz. The forest was a wonderful place to study, free of distractions, and it didn’t take much time for the material to sink in. He put his books aside, ran through a list of mental questions and answers to test his knowledge, then stood up, satisfied. Now he could enjoy the rest of his evening.

  Then he remembered the sensation of his face splashing into the contaminated water, and his mood soured.

  Jerks.

  What was wrong with them? Why was humiliating a fellow student their idea of a good time? What pleasure could they get from doing something like that?

  Well, admittedly, Toby would get a lot of pleasure from dunking Larry’s and Nick’s heads in a toilet, preferably the same toilet at the same time, but that was purely revenge based. He hadn’t done anything to them to deserve this.

  Jerks. Creeps. Idiots.

  Forget about them, he thought. Why let a pair of bullies ruin his evening? His homework was done, he didn’t have to work at the grocery store tonight, it wasn’t raining, the weather hadn’t turned cold yet, and he had the entire forest at his disposal. Screw ‘em. He was going to enjoy himself.

  He walked for a while, but it didn’t make him feel any better, so he picked up his pace to a jog. He kept his eyes on the ground so that he wouldn’t trip—the forest wasn’t exactly the safest jogging environment, and Toby had extreme tendencies toward being a klutz.

  He was only able to jog for a few minutes before he got a stitch in his side, so he rested for a moment until the pain faded, then resumed his jog. Boy, was he in terrible shape. This was embarrassing. He hoped the woodland creatures weren’t laughing at him.

  There had to be a way to get back at the bullies without risking a broken nose. What if he bought them each a “Thank You” card for the toilet incident? That would really mess with their minds. It could be a really colorful card, maybe with a piece of chocolate inside, presented to them with no trace of irony. Something like that might really fuel their sense of paranoia. They’d wonder exactly what he had planned for them. Their stomachs would hurt whenever they saw him. It would be glorious!

  “What does this mean?” Larry would ask, reading the card for the seventy-third time. “Has he gone deranged? Or does he have a ghastly fate in store for us?”

  “I don’t know!” Nick would answer. “But the suspense may drive me mad!”

  Toby felt a little better as he ran.

  His dad always got home at 7:15 sharp, which gave him another two hours to goof around in the woods. Maybe he’d see how far he could get in an hour. He spent a lot of time in the woods and knew the few square miles behind his house well, but it was a vast forest that offered new discoveries all the time. Mostly just different trees, but still…

  He moved through the woods for about half an hour, alternating between jogging, walking fast, and a couple of brief bursts of sprinting. He should probably join track at school. Might make him some friends. Or one friend.

  He stopped running.

  Something was lying on the ground in front of a small clearing. Toby walked over to investigate. It was a wooden sign, lying on its side, mostly covered by bushes. The red lettering had faded to almost the same gray color as the wood, but the words were still legible: DANGER. KEEP OUT.

  Wow.

  A couple of years ago, Toby had discovered an old rusted car, right there amid the trees. It had looked like something from the 1930s. He’d spent long nights wondering how it got there. Rationally, he knew that the answer was straightforward, that there had probably just been a path at one time that had since been abandoned and overgrown. But there were dozens of much more interesting scenarios, and they’d captured his imagination until a few weeks later when he found the deer carcass. He’d searched the vehicle thoroughly, but alas, there was no hidden stash of mobster ca
sh.

  DANGER. KEEP OUT. promised something even more exciting.

  What could it be? An abandoned mine? An old bunker filled with explosives?

  Toby slowly stepped through the clearing, which was a circle about fifty feet in diameter, watching his feet to make sure he didn’t walk in a bear trap or something like that. The clearing itself seemed to be devoid of anything interesting. He walked around the perimeter, then walked across it several times, but didn’t see anything that looked even remotely worthy of the sign.

  They wouldn’t put out a sign like that for no reason. There had to be something. Maybe it was the former site of a horrible plague.

  No, even in ancient times, people probably took stronger precautions against the spread of a plague than simply putting out a wooden sign.

  He kept searching the area, but there was nothing. What a rip-off.

  What if the sign had been moved? He just needed to keep searching. He continued to walk around the area, not going quite so far as to crawl around on his hands and knees, but making sure he was searching thoroughly. If there were something great out here, he was going to find it.

  About five minutes beyond the sign, he found a path. A narrow uphill path that looked recently used.

  Well, maybe not. There weren’t any distinct footprints or broken branches or anything specific to indicate that somebody might have recently taken a stroll around here. Still, Toby had a weird feeling, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint, that he wasn’t the only person to have used this path today.

  This meant that, as a rational, intelligent human being, his best bet was to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

  Instead, he stepped onto the path and followed it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The path ended at the entrance to a cave. A cave! Toby knew there were caves out in this forest somewhere, but there weren’t supposed to be any within walking distance of his house. How could something like this have eluded him all this time? He could’ve been hanging out in a cave for years!