The Dead Boys (17 page)
“Look out!” Barnes cried in disbelief. “It's closing!”
As Teddy made a desperate grab for Sloot's hand, Sloot opened his eyes. He spoke in a low, leafy voice that was an echo of the tree's own groans in the wind.
“You're back.”
“No, I'm not back,” Teddy said. “I'm out. Come with me.”
Sloot's body continued to melt into the woodâit was getting tough to tell where the tree ended and Sloot began. His mouth spread into a hideous grin.
“No. You come in here with me, pal.”
Suddenly, Sloot reached out and grabbed Teddy's wrist with a twisted, wooden hand. Teddy fought to free himself from its grip as the edges of the hole pressed tighter on his chest. He saw he could not free Slootâthe tree had him, and it would have Teddy too if he stayed.
“I'm stronger than you,” Teddy said, as much to the tree as to the boy, and he wrenched his wrist from Sloot's weakening hold on him.
Just then, Barnes yanked Teddy out of the tree's mouth, and he flopped back into the lift's bucket. The hole squeezed closed behind him, narrowing until it was just a puckered knot in the wood.
“Down!” Teddy shouted, his voice shaking.
“Okay,” Barnes said.
Barnes jerked the lift lever, and the bucket rocked backward, moving safely away from the hole. “We don't need to come back,” he said, “do we?”
“No,” Teddy confirmed. “He's gone.”
EPILOGUE
Days later, Teddy awoke in his own room, amazed and delighted to find that he'd finally had a full night's sleep and that there was nothing any scarier to greet him than his fawning mother. He wolfed down the breakfast she'd made him and headed outside.
The police cruiser pulled up right on time, and Officer Barnes stepped out onto the sidewalk dressed in coveralls and leather gloves. Teddy limped down the walk to the patrol car. He still ached all over, especially where the tree had stabbed him. He wondered if that wound would ever completely heal.
“Morning, Teddy,” Barnes called. “How are you feeling?”
“Fabulous,” Teddy joked, rubbing his thigh. “How are the others?”
Barnes lowered his voice. “Okay, but they're under observation at the hospital,” he said. “Nobody's been told except their families. Understandably, they're very excited and very confused.”
“I'll bet,” Teddy agreed, then he glanced over at the sycamore tree. The tree was still tall and imposing, but its leaves had yellowed and wilted. Teddy was no longer drawn to it, nor terrified of it, he discovered. “Well, let's get on with it.”
“Great,” Barnes chirped. “I was worried you might be a little too overwhelmed by everything to go through with this so soon. You sure you're ready?”
Teddy nodded. “Ready as I'll ever be, I guess.”
Barnes handed him a pair of gloves, goggles, and a hard hat. “Good,” he said, “because I've got a crew with chain-saws waiting.”
They strode across the A-house lawn, where Barnes signaled to a man standing beneath the sycamore with the biggest chainsaw Teddy had ever seen. He pulled the cord, and the saw roared to life.
Teddy stood a safe distance away and watched, anticipating that the tree would be unnaturally tough and resist the chainsaw's teeth. But when the buzzing saw dug into the bark, it didn't grind against hard wood. Instead, dust flew in a cloud, and the trunk came apart in great, dry chunks.
“It's all coming down!” the man yelled, and he turned to run away.
The massive sycamore shuddered and swayed, but it didn't topple sideways, like a normal tree. Instead, it simply collapsed, falling straight down in on itself. And as the trunk and huge branches struck the ground, they disintegrated into powder, which rose in a cloud to obscure the entire A-house.
Teddy waited beside Barnes, wide-eyed and half expecting the tree's roots to crawl out of the maelstrom after him. But when the cloud cleared, there was nothing left but a pile of dust on the lawn.
“It was rotten to the core the whole time,” Barnes said.
“No,” Teddy corrected him. “It was starving.”
At that moment, a gigantic flock of seagulls from the river swooped in. They passed over the A-house, then rose into the sky like a single ghostly-white sheet. It was magnificent, and Teddy smiled for the first time he could remember in days. He couldn't wait to tell Albert.
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