The Dead Boys (15 page)

Teddy stared in horror at his own motionless body. There was a long gash in his leg, and his shorts were completely red. It looked like he'd already lost a lot of blood. The end of the sharp branch that had cut him was still buried in the wound, sucking out his life like a straw.

This is my place
, Teddy thought.

He knew instantly that he had to get himself out of the house or he'd die in this secret place and never be found, just like the other boys. He reached down and pulled the parasite branch from his torn flesh with a sickening
pop
. It squirmed against his grip, trying to worm its way back into his unconscious body, but Teddy wrestled it aside and pulled out his hatchet again. He gave it a firm chop, and the dismembered branch fell between the floor beams.

Heaving his own limp body up onto his back in a fireman's carry, Teddy turned to discover that the previously still attic branches had come alive and were weaving a wall between him and the broken window. The tree wanted him to stay.

But Teddy snarled, angry. He lowered his body onto the floor beams, stomped across the attic, and met the tangle of branches head-on. They blocked the window, but he swung the hatchet hard and severed two small limbs, spattering the beams with black, sappy fluid. His backswing caught a larger branch and cut it almost in half. It flopped like a beheaded snake, and the other limbs shrank from the weapon, clearing a path to the window.

Teddy hauled his body back up and dragged himself out through the broken glass.

Together, they tumbled down the slanted roof, out of control. The hatchet went flying as Teddy scrambled for a handhold.

He caught the edge of the rain gutter, but it gave way, sending him down to the ground. Still, his grip on the gutter slowed his fall just enough that he hit without feeling any bones snap.

Then his own body fell right on top of him.

The impact knocked him over, but Teddy quickly rolled to his feet. He looked for his body, but he didn't see it anywhere. He took a step and felt a vicious sting in his leg—the cut from the branch was now on his own thigh. Teddy pressed a hand to the wound and scanned the immediate area, but there was only one of him.

I reunited with my body,
he realized.

The physical wound hurt, but without the sharp end of the branch jabbed into his leg, it wasn't bleeding anymore. Teddy almost collapsed with relief. He was no longer dying.

But he was still trapped in the dim world, body and soul together. And the A-house was not a way out—it was meant to be his tomb, so Teddy knew he would never go back inside. Even if he'd wanted to, he wouldn't have the chance. The tree stood directly over him like an executioner in the barren darkness.

“There's no escape,” Sloot called. He stood a safe distance away from Teddy, still rubbing his head where Lawrence had slammed him into the wall.

Oliver stood behind him. “Anywhere you go, there it is,” he added.

Teddy balanced unsteadily on his injured leg and faced the two dead boys. “Well, you can tell that stupid, ugly, moldy thing to go rot.”

“Tell it yourself,” Sloot said.

A huge branch swooped down and buffeted Teddy from behind. He flew forward and landed facedown on the desert floor. But Teddy didn't stay down. He defiantly crawled back to his feet to face the monstrous tree.

“You're just a huge bully!” he yelled, spitting sand. “And I eat bullies for breakfast!”

He pulled the small flashlight and shined it up into the low branches. It wasn't much, but they squirmed under its light, parting to reveal Albert, the tree's next victim.

Teddy clenched his fist in rage—the tree was sucking the other boys dry, because it couldn't get him. He kept the light trained on the leaves, which were pasted all over Albert's body. They peeled themselves loose, shrinking away from the light until Albert dangled by a single branch, then dropped.

Albert landed in the sand at Teddy's feet. He was alive, but barely, his energy drained so low that he could not even lift his own neck. Teddy bent down and cradled Albert in his lap.

“I'm sorry,” Albert moaned through dry, cracked lips. “At first I did try to bring you here, but then you were nice to me, and I wished I hadn't. Now you're stuck, and it's all my fault.”

“I'm still your friend,” Teddy whispered to Albert, who stared up at him with eyes full of grateful tears.

But then Albert's eyes went wide, and Teddy turned just in time to see the branch that had struck him before swinging around again, this time whipping toward his head. Just in time, Teddy ducked down and met the branch with the flashlight beam.

The limb swung close enough to the flashlight bulb that it caught the brightest part of the beam. The light cut into the branch with a sizzling sound, leaving a shallow black scar three inches wide. The branch retreated, and the entire tree spasmed as though in pain, shaking the ground.

Teddy seized the chance to haul Albert up to his feet, but almost immediately, more branches began to descend. As thick as elephants' legs, they bent to the ground around the boys, blocking any path of escape. At the same time, thinner limbs snaked straight down toward them like hanging vines to grab them.

“Back to back!” Teddy snapped, leaning up against Albert so that they could see both directions. He'd hurt the tree with the flashlight, and it gave him hope that they could fight it. Teddy dumped the last of his supplies from his pack, desperate for anything else that could help them. All that was left were the crowbar, the spray bottle, and the rope. He grabbed the rope and crowbar for himself and handed the flashlight and bottle to Albert.

“What's this?” Albert asked.

“Weed killer,” Teddy said, then the pack of narrow limbs snatched both boys off their feet.

Teddy was tossed upward by the branches on a dizzying trip through the darkness, much faster than when Sloot first invited him into the tree for a view. Higher and higher he was passed, until he could no longer see the ground. In no time, he had lost track of Albert, who was being handled by other branches.

The limbs were not gentle with Teddy, but they moved him with enough care that he decided the tree was not planning to kill him yet. He noticed that the branches were growing thinner as they traded him from one to the next, and Teddy realized that he was nearing the treetop.

With a jolt, the last few branches halted his ascent, and he teetered in the dimness at the top of the tree. It was as if the tree was holding him up like a prize before draining him of his life.

But Teddy didn't wait for the leaves to latch on to him. Ever since he'd realized the tree was going to take him, his hand had been wrapped around the climbing rope. He slid one end through two of his belt loops and the other end around the treetop, where he tied a hurried knot.

He saw Albert about fifteen feet below him, also clinging to the trunk. He'd gotten loose from his branches and was holding the parasitic leaves at bay by burning them with the beam of the small flashlight and squirting them with weed killer, which made them curl and crumple.

For a moment, Teddy grinned, proud of Albert for fighting back, then he wrenched himself free of the small upper branches still holding him and fell.

He plunged downward for a dizzying moment before his rope caught and swung him into the trunk, where he fended off the impact with his feet. The branches tried to chase him, but the thicker limbs had trouble bending inward to grab him, and he swung the crowbar, smacking the smaller branches hard, cracking them or tearing off leaves with every blow.

By this time, Albert had wedged himself between the trunk and the base of a heavy branch. Teddy climbed back up a few feet and joined him.

“Now what?” Albert said.

Teddy didn't exactly know
what
, but his first thought was that they should get out of the tree. “We can climb down near the trunk where the branches can't bend easily to reach us.”

“It won't matter, Albert said. “They'll crush us when we reach the ground. Even if we get away, it will always find us.”

More branches were bending in their direction now, both from above and below, all straining to get at them. Teddy realized that many were too big to be beaten away with the crowbar.

“My hatchet is down there somewhere, and we can try to get Walter's saw,” Teddy suggested. “We'll cut the tree down!”

“No way.” Albert shook his head. “Its trunk is twenty feet wide, and its roots are everywhere—”

Just then, Albert went silent, horrified. He pointed past Teddy at the pitch-black, four-foot hole that gaped in the trunk of the tree directly behind him.

“The mouth!” Teddy gasped.

Around the great cavity in the tree the bark was split and cracked with age, and its rolled edges glistened with oozing black sap. The deep darkness inside hid all else. Teddy hung helpless before it, suspended by the rope.

“It's not a mouth,” Albert whispered. “No teeth, no tongue.”

“Hand me the flashlight,” Teddy breathed, too scared to speak any louder.

Albert passed it up. “Do you want the weed killer?”

Teddy grabbed the flashlight and took the spray bottle too, for good measure. “I'm just going to have a look.”

He shined the beam into the hole, revealing a leering face that stared straight back at him. It was Sloot. The angry boy burst from the darkness and grabbed Teddy by the throat.

“This is my place!” he yelled. “Mine! Find your own place to die!”

Teddy swung away from the trunk to escape, but Sloot came with him, one hand on Teddy's neck, the other wrapped around his waist. It was all Teddy could do to keep hold of the rope so their combined weight didn't rip his belt loops off and send them tumbling to the ground.

As they swung together on the rope, Teddy felt himself fading, losing strength to fight back or hold on—the constant attacks were finally taking their toll. But as he gasped for breaths that wouldn't come, he heard Albert shout, “Get off my friend!”

Then, miraculously, Teddy was free. Beneath him, Albert and Sloot plummeted through the tree, smacking against branches as they fell. Teddy realized that his chubby friend had jumped from the safety of his branch to tear Sloot off of him.

He heard both boys cry out in pain as the tree beat them viciously on the way down, seemingly punishing them for their failure to deliver a new victim. Teddy squeezed his eyes shut as he twirled slowly on the rope; he couldn't watch.

When their grunts and screams had subsided, Teddy opened his eyes. He was hanging directly in front of the hole again. He didn't have the strength to climb or the nerve to drop, and so he simply peered inside.