In the bright beam, he could see the ground moving. Teddy gasped—it was an undulating carpet of bugs, all waving oversized pincers and upturned tails.
Scorpions!
He swung the flashlight in a full circle around him, scanning the heaving swarm of poisonous creatures. There were thousands of them, and he’d run directly into their midst. He took a tentative step back, and his heel made a loud crunch. Scorpions skittered away in every direction.
No more than a bee sting, he told himself, trying to stay calm. But what would a thousand stings do to me?
The scorpions were now scuttling across his tennis shoes as the throng closed in again around his motionless feet. At first, Teddy tried to delicately tiptoe into the open spaces between the horrible little creatures. But they kept crawling toward him, flooding the desert floor and filling every gap. So Teddy began to trot again, crunching with every step, high-stepping like a football player running through tires at practice.
His legs pistoned up and down, feet smashing scorpions into bits of shell and white jelly with every step, but they never touched the ground long enough for his tormentors to climb aboard. It was exhausting—he was already tired from fleeing the boys, and he knew he couldn’t stop or the scorpions would swarm over him in an instant.
But because he tried to keep the flashlight pointed straight ahead to see where he was going, he couldn’t look down, and when the ground suddenly dropped away, he toppled into a hole.
CHAPTER 22
The flashlight flew from his hand, its beam waving uselessly in random directions as Teddy plummeted for anxious seconds. It was just long enough to wonder if he was falling to his death, but then he hit the ground. Hard.
Teddy rolled over, groaning in agony. His left knee was throbbing—he’d twisted it in an awkward direction when he landed—but he desperately crawled for the flashlight, which had landed a few feet away. The horror of losing the light was stronger than the pain.
Luckily, he didn’t feel anything crawl over his bare hand as he reached along the ground. And when he grabbed the light and shined it around, he was relieved to see that he’d fallen clear of the scorpions.
Teddy got to his feet, favoring his knee, and looked around to see where he’d landed. He found himself in a trench that was about five feet wide, with walls that rose straight up on either side of him—ten tall feet of dirt, rocks, and sinewy tree roots.
There was no way he could reach the top, and he didn’t dare grab hold of the roots to climb—he certainly didn’t trust them. But it didn’t matter—a scorpion dropped over the edge of the trench, falling at his feet, and he suddenly didn’t want to go up anyway.
As if on cue, dozens more scorpions began to pour into the trench after the first one, dropping to the ground behind Teddy. The path was clear the other way, so he turned around and limped away as fast as he could in that direction.
Even slowed by his injured leg, he outdistanced the scorpions. But if he paused to rest, even for a second, they quickly began to gather behind him again. So he continued along the trench with the unpleasant feeling that the creeping little things were herding him onward.
As Teddy limped along, he began to notice a squishing sound with each footfall. Looking down, he saw that a trickle of brownish sludge was now running along the ground, and the air started to smell foul, like an outhouse.
This is a sewer trench, he realized. He started to feel nauseated and picked up the pace, hoping to find a way out of the trench.
Just then, Teddy began to hear a banging sound, and he came to a wooden ladder hanging down the wall to his left.
Upon closer inspection, the ladder seemed to be made of entwined roots, but they did not appear to be a random tangle—there were distinct rungs leading up to the top of the trench.
Meanwhile, the banging continued somewhere above him. It sounded like a hammer frantically smacking a nail.
Teddy hesitated, unsure what to do. He was suspicious of the tree-root ladder, even with the scorpions still trailing him, but the smell was getting worse, and the trickle at his feet had grown now to a steady stream.
All at once, the hammering grew much louder and even wilder. The scorpions scattered to both sides of the trench, fleeing up the walls.
“Uh-oh,” Teddy said.
There was a low rumble, and he whipped the flashlight around, illuminating a huge wall of sewage barreling down the trench toward him.
Teddy leaped onto the root ladder and climbed like mad for the top of the trench as the wave roared past beneath him. The murky filth kept rising as he made his way up and each rung began to unravel beneath his foot as soon as he stepped on it.
Up and up he climbed as the rungs dissolved, and with a great heave, he pulled himself up over the edge just as the sewage crested the top of the trench.
Teddy crawled along the trench’s edge, half-expecting to find himself in the middle of a sea of scorpions again. But they were gone. He was also surprised to find that he could see without the flashlight. It was dim, and there was no sign of a sun, but enough light was filtering through the blowing dust that he could shut the flashlight off and save the batteries.
Before him, the skeleton of a half-built home rose from the sand. But it looked all wrong.
The frame of the house was horribly distorted. Warped two-by-four boards curved up every few feet, arching into the air like a dead dinosaur’s rib cage. A crooked staircase rose in one direction, then turned and came back down without ever reaching the next floor. And because the walls were not yet filled in, it was impossible to tell where rooms began and ended. A tilted porch jutted out from the front of the home like a lolling tongue.
Atop it all, perched on the cockeyed, unfinished archway over the porch, sat Walter. He grinned down at Teddy.
“Scaredy! You made it.”
CHAPTER 23
Walter twirled a massive hammer as if it were a cheerleader’s baton. Like the house, the hammer looked like something from a twisted cartoon—its narrow handle led to a mallet-shaped head the size of a cantaloupe. But when Walter fumbled and dropped it, it hit the porch floor with a very real crash. It splintered the wood, leaving a gaping hole.
“Whoops,” Walter said with a smirk.
The hammer gone, he hoisted a circular saw with jagged three-inch teeth and a long cord that trailed away to nowhere. He pulled the trigger and it roared to life, seemingly without any power source. Walter haphazardly sliced through a board next to him, and it fell away, punching another hole through the porch.
“Watch out!” Teddy called.
“Or what?” Walter said. “This?” He revved up the saw again and, without flinching, whacked off one of his own fingers.
“Walter!” Teddy gasped. “Your finger! It’s . . .”
“What?” Walter shrugged. “C’mon, Scaredy, spit it out.”
“Don’t you see? You . . . you cut it off!”
“Uh-oh,” he said, chuckling and inspecting the empty space above the stump of his newly missing left index finger. “Same thing happened the day I came here, you know.”
There should have been blood—plenty of blood—but there wasn’t, and Walter didn’t seem any worse off with one less finger. Teddy had to take a deep breath to calm himself.
“Where is here?”
“Don’t you recognize it?” Walter said. “This is my place. Everybody here has a place, Teddy. You will too.”
Teddy shivered. “So I didn’t just imagine the construction site from 1970,” he said. “I was there.”
Walter laughed. “Wasn’t that fun?”
“You tried to lure me here that day,” Teddy said, suddenly angry. “You tried to get me to come to this awful place the same way you got here—through the sewer trench!”
“Awww, I thought we were pals.”
“You’re not my friend,” Teddy said, as much to himself as to Walter.
“It’s not just me,” Walter said. “Good ol’ Sloot gave it a try too. Even your big-bellied
buddy was working on you.”
“Albert?” Teddy breathed.
“Oh-ho-ho! I can’t believe you’re so naïve. He’s the one who picked you out! I laughed my buns off watching him try to coax you into the river.”
Teddy glared upward, wondering how he could have been so stupid.
“C’mon, don’t be mad,” Walter cooed. “We just want more friends.”
“So why didn’t you stay?” Teddy said. “Something grabbed you in the trench.”
“My turn was up. You see, a new kid like you can visit our time at the place we crossed over, but you can only see what happened to each of us once, and only for a few minutes. Enough time for us to try to convince you to come over too. But nobody could get you to take the leap. Too chicken, I guess. Bawk-bawk-buh-kawwwwk!”
“Too smart,” Teddy said.
“So smart that you came here on your own?” Walter chided him. “Welcome.”
He revved up the saw again and cut through the wooden archway on which he was sitting. The entire arch collapsed and he fell to the porch, landing on his feet.
“Tah-dah!” Walter said, raising his arms in the air like an Olympic gymnast after a big dismount. “Enough chitchat. I’m supposed to bring you to the tree.”
He started toward Teddy with the toothy saw still clenched in one fist. Teddy backed away, wondering how he could fight someone who could cut off his own finger without feeling any pain.
Then he realized that Walter’s finger had been gone since 1970. That was only a replay. But there was the punch Teddy had thrown in the dark when Sloot, Joey, and Oliver had jumped him. I gave Oliver that bloody nose, he thought. The boys can be hurt here.
As he backed up, his foot felt the edge of the trench. It gave him an idea. Teddy waved his arms, pretending like he was fighting for balance to keep from falling in.
“Where you going?” Walter taunted. “Back into the sewer? Ick.” He charged at Teddy, the circular saw roaring, its cord dangling between Walter’s legs.
“No,” Teddy snapped, suddenly crouching, more balanced and ready than he’d let on. “You are!”
In one swift motion, he dove and grabbed the saw’s cord, yanking it taut between Walter’s legs. Walter’s foot hooked the cord, and he stumbled, plummeting into the sewer trench.
There was a sickening crack as Walter hit the floor of the trench, where the sludge had drained away. All was silent for a moment, but then Teddy heard something even more gut-wrenching—Walter’s pleading voice.
He was no longer laughing. In fact, it sounded to Teddy like he was crying.
“Hellllp!” Walter begged. “I think my leg’s broken. Please. I can’t climb up—I hurt my finger. There’s scorpions down here. I wanna go home.”
It was hard to listen. Teddy realized that Walter’s pleas were what he must have said in 1970 on the day he disappeared—the dim world was replaying his disappearance.
But as sad as Walter’s cries made him feel, Teddy knew he couldn’t let him out. He was far too dangerous.
“I’ll look for you when I get free,” he called down.
“I’m scared,” came Walter’s shaky voice from below.
“I promise,” Teddy said, then he turned and walked away from the skeletal construction site.
As Teddy left, the frame of the house began to collapse, its timbers cracking like matchsticks and falling like dominoes. There was a series of tremendous crashes, then a strong wind carried in the desert sand to finish burying Walter completely.
CHAPTER 24
It somehow seemed inevitable that Walter would be buried in this world as he had been in life, Teddy thought as he trudged on through the drifting sand. But he still felt the loss as strongly as he had the first time, and he had to force himself to concentrate on his own dire circumstances.
He hoped that the layout of the dim world mirrored that of the real Richland, even in a rough, bizarre way. If it did, he was walking in the general direction of the river from the construction site. And if he found the river, he could use it to locate the A-house again.
With no scorpions or dead boys chasing him, Teddy stopped for a moment to rummage through his backpack and see what else he had that might help. His compass didn’t work, and the cell phone he’d packed blinked “no service.” It didn’t surprise him, and besides, even if he got hold of someone, he could never explain where he was.
He ate a granola bar and walked on, watching ahead for the river. This version of Richland was an empty place. There didn’t seem to be anything but desert wasteland between the A-house, Walter’s construction site, and where he hoped to find the river.
As he walked, he puzzled over what Walter had said—how they each had a place here in this world. If the construction site was Walter’s, Teddy thought, then the river must be Albert’s. He wondered where his own might be.
After a few minutes, Teddy’s theory of the river’s location proved correct—the great waterway appeared in the distance like a ribbon of ink winding through the sand. Darkness rolled off of its surface like mist, casting shadows along the bank. It’s glowing black, Teddy thought—the exact opposite of a river reflecting sunlight from its surface.
Drawing closer, he saw that the bare, sandy dirt gave way to gray, scrubby plants along the pebbly shore. Teddy stooped and picked up a rock—a potent weapon against other kids. Albert had seemed like the most harmless of the three boys, but perhaps it made him the most dangerous too.
“Albert?” he called. There was no response. The river just flowed past, eerily quiet for something so huge.
Teddy looked up and down the lonely bank, but there was no sign of the chubby boy. He hurled the rock into the water. The current quickly swept the ripples downstream, but Teddy saw a shape linger just beneath the surface. It was moving, but Teddy couldn’t tell what it was.
The shape in the water began to grow—it was coming closer. Teddy saw what looked like an arm, long and thin. He could almost make out a bony hand.
“Albert?”
He set one foot near the edge of the bank for a better look. The river crawled up the shore toward him and flowed over his foot. Teddy felt its current tug at his pant leg.
Suddenly, a large figure burst from the water. It slammed full-force into Teddy and knocked him backward onto the sand-and-stone bank, landing directly on top of him.
Teddy groaned and stared up into a familiar dripping face.
“Don’t go in the river,” Albert warned.
CHAPTER 25
“Okay,” Teddy wheezed, after his heart stopped pounding.
“Stay out of the water. I get it.”
“What the heck are you doing here?” Albert whispered.
“I was looking for you!” Teddy blurted out, squirming beneath Albert’s weight.
“Shhh,” Albert warned. “Keep it down.”
“What were you doing in the water?” Teddy asked loudly.
“Shhh . . . as in, shut up,” Albert said. “They’ll hear you.”
Teddy rolled Albert off of him, and not too gently. “Who will?”
Albert cast his guilty eyes downward. “The ones who want you to stay.”
“You and your buddies, right?”
“Richland isn’t all sun,” Albert continued. “There’s another side. A dark side.”
“And you’re part of it,” Teddy said, jabbing the chubby boy in the chest. Suddenly, he was furious with Albert. “You’re a fat, dead, stinking liar!”
Albert sighed. “I’m not totally dead.”
“Almost dead, then. Whatever. You tried to lure me into the water. You picked me out.”
“I didn’t have a choice. But I tried to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“I told you to bike away and forget me.”
“That’s not a warning,” Teddy snapped. “‘Hey, look out, I’m not just a chunky Star Wars fan, I’m dead. And I’m trying to make you dead too.’ That’s a warning.”
“I’m not dead,” Albert insisted.
“You disappeared in the river. They never found you. That sounds like dead to me.”
Albert looked away, staring out across the water. After a while, he spoke, as much to himself as to Teddy. “I live it over and over, but I never quite get dead. The bullies come, I go into the river, my feet get tangled in sunken branches, and I show up here.”
It was hard to be mad at someone who had to die over and over. It sounded lonely and sad. “So the branches grab you?” Teddy asked softly.
“They still have me. I can’t get loose.” Albert grew quiet, and Teddy put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
They stood on the shore in silence for a moment until Teddy felt the wind change direction. He looked up and saw a wall of swirling sand blotting out the sky, a tan curtain sweeping toward them.
“What’s that?” Teddy gasped.
“Sandstorm,” Albert said. “You’ve gotta get out of here.”
Upstream, Teddy saw shadowy dunes rising from the bank of the river like a wall. Tumbleweeds taller than himself began to bounce past, threatening to knock them into the water.
“We’re wasting time,” Albert said, his tone suddenly more serious than Teddy had ever heard it before. “The tree is near, and the others are coming. You’re fresh, full of life. It can feed on you for a long time before we have to start taking turns feeding it again. You’ve got to get away before they find you.”
“Away where?”
Albert pointed straight into the teeth of the swirling dust. “Back through the storm.”
“I’m not going into it.”
Albert frowned. “Look, I feel bad that you’re here. I really didn’t mean it. I want you to go back and have a life.”
As Teddy debated what to do, the long, thin arm he’d seen before in the water slithered toward the shore, groping for them. Teddy now saw that it was not an arm, but a gnarled, clawlike branch.
“Look out!” he said.
“Yep, it’s coming,” Albert said without looking toward the shore. “And I’m gonna catch it for this. Go. Don’t turn around. Don’t stop.”
The Dead Boys Page 7