The Troop

KENT SET off from the fire at a determined clip. He figured Tim may try to stop him, but more and more it seemed he lacked the resolve. Tim was scared. He’d said so, practically blubbering his guts out around the fire.

Kent wasn’t scared, though. Hell, no. It wasn’t any part of his character. They needed a proper leader right now, not a big ole ’fraidy-cat.

The other boys would follow. Kent was positive. All it required was for him to take that first step. Who the hell was Tim, anyway? In the view of Kent’s father, Mr. Timothy Riggs was a lonely middle-aged fairy. Not a pedo—Jeff Jenks would cut his own balls off before he’d leave his kid in the woods with one of those. No, according to “Big” Jeff, Tim Riggs was probably just a willowy, sorrowful queer who lived alone in his big house on the bluffs.

You’ve got every right to see what’s inside that cabin, son—every legal right! Kent heard his father saying.

Don’t let this noodle-wristed flamer make that decision for you. Not now, with the stakes this high. Don’t you see what he’s done? The quack’s cut open a complete stranger—gutted him, field-dressed the poor bastard like a five-point buck; he’s admitted as much—and now he wants to cover up his act. A man is dead, son! It’s up to you to get this under control. What, Tim’s going to stop you?

“Listen, Kent, it’s a total mess in there,” Max said from behind. “I mean, a dead guy. No joke. Why the hell do you want to see it so bad?”

“I wanna see it, too,” came Shelley’s voice from someplace in the dark.

Kent laid his hands on Max’s shoulders the same way his father did when one of his deputies got a case of the jitters.

“Max, I need to see. Okay? If I don’t see what the problem is, how can you expect me to deal with it?”

Max’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, but—”

“But nothing. We have every right.”

“Okay, but you better put gauze over your mouth and eyes.”

“Why?”

“Infection.”

Kent nodded somberly. “Yeah. Good thinking.”

Tim had nearly caught up. Kent heard his labored breathing like a sick Pekingese. “Kent Jenks! If you set one foot inside that—”

Kent shouldered his way through the door. The smell hit him like a ball-peen hammer. Sweetly fruity top notes, rancid decay lurking underneath.

The man lay on the chesterfield with his wrists and ankles bound. His shirt was slashed open, his white flesh glazed with sludge. He would look almost peaceful if not for those skinned-back lips setting his mouth in a horrible leer. He looked like a man holding a carnal secret.

A segment of the worm lay on the floor. To Kent, it looked like a much bigger version of the condom he and Charlie Swanson had once found under the football bleachers at Montague High. Charlie had poked the condom with a stick. Sluggish late-summer flies took flight, their drone thick in Kent’s ears. What is it? he’d said. Charlie said: You’ve never seen a ’domer? You pull it over your wick before you screw a chick so you don’t get her preggers.

Charlie had two older brothers. He knew

things. Kent remembered feeling vaguely ashamed of his innocence. Also, a little sick.

But the sight of the man stunned him now. He was dead. Maybe Kent had expected it to be like his grandmother’s funeral: Grandma lying restfully in a mahogany coffin in the beige parlor while a pianist played “Nearer My God to Thee.” Serene with her eyes closed and her cheeks gently rouged.

This man was graceless in death. A ring of purple bruises encircling his neck. A brown shitlike mess leaking out of his side. One eye wide open, the other at half-mast like he was tipping a dirty wink. Fruit flies shimmering over his wound to drink the sweet filth. The man had died unloved and without dignity.

Kent wished he could act as his father would have right now. He’d cordon off the area and call for a forensic appraisal. He’d grab a bullhorn and calmly say: Disperse, people. Nothing to see here.

But that wasn’t true, was it? Jesus, there was everything to see here.

Fear stole into Kent’s heart like a safecracker. It embarrassed him—he’d pushed for this outcome, hadn’t he?—but right then he wanted to take it all back. He wished he were on the mainland, safe in his bed with his Labrador retriever, Argo, sleeping soundly beside him. He wished for that with every atom of his body.

Tim plowed through the throng of boys, splashing rubbing alcohol on the fronts of their shirts.