The Troop by Nick Cutter Page B

father had instilled, Kent held his hand out to max. “Give me the walkie-talkie, man. You know that’s the way it should be.”
    When max handed it over, Kent clapped him on the back. “Attaboy, max.” He swept his arm forward. “Tallyho!”
    sTuNg, max loafed back to his customary position. newton tugged on his sleeve.
“You didn’t have to give it to him, you know.”
“I don’t care. I don’t need it.”
“Yeah, but Scoutmaster Tim gave it to you. ”
“oh, shut up, newt.”
max regretted speaking so harshly, but there was something so . . . exasperating about newt. His hidebound determination to stick to “the rules.” like this thing with the walkie-talkie. Who gave a shit? It didn’t matter if Scoutmaster Tim had given it to max—they were away from the adults now. Different rules applied. Boys’ rules, which clearly stated: the big and strong take from the small and weak, period.
There was just something about newt that made max want to snap at him. A soft, obliging quality. A whiff of piteousness wafted right out of newt’s pores. It was like catnip to the average boy.
max felt a deeper, more inherent need to treat newt shabbily this morning. It had something to do with the strange man on the chesterfield and the tight unease that had collected in max’s chest when he’d gazed at him. Something about the unnatural angularity of his face, as if his features had been etched with cruel mathematical precision using a ruler and compass.
max’s mind inflated the details, nursing the image into a freakish horror show: now the man’s face was actually melting, skin running like warm wax down a candle’s stem to soak into the chesterfield, disclosing the bleached bone of his skull. max’s brain probed the tiny details, fussing with them the same way his tongue flicked at a chancre sore: the smashed radio (why had the man wrecked it?), the crumpled box of soda crackers in the trash (had the Scoutmaster eaten them?), and the itchy smile plastered to the Scoutmaster’s face, as if fishhooks were teasing his mouth into a grin.
max pushed these thoughts away. Scoutmaster Tim had made the right call by sending them off. It was easier out here: the dry rustle of leaves tenaciously clinging to the trees, the slap of waves on the rock face. He glanced at newt—his wide ass hogging the trail, each cheek flexing inside tight dungarees. He reminded max of a Weeble, those old kiddie toys.
Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down  . . .
newt never did fall down. He withstood the boy’s torments with stoic determination, which made it easier—newt could take it, right? Picking on newt uncoiled the tension in max’s chest. It was awfully selfish, yet awfully true.

9
    “WHaT WOuld you rather,” ephraim said, “eat a steaming cowflop or let a hobo fart in your face?”
    It was one of their favorite games, a great way to pass the time on long hikes. Had Scoutmaster Tim been leading, the game would’ve been far more vanilla— What would you rather: get bit by a rabid dog or swallow a wasp in your Coke can? —but now, no adults around, it took on a saltier tone.
    “What kind of hobo?” max asked. It was common to mull these choices from several angles in order to make an informed selection.
“How many types of hobos are there?” said ephraim. “Your run-ofthe-mill smelly old hobo, I guess, the ones who hang out at the train yard.”
“How big a cowflop are we talking about?” Kent called back.
“Standard size,” ephraim called back. The boys nodded as if that was all he’d needed to say—he’d perfectly set the size of this hypothetical cowflop in their minds.
“Is this hobo diseased or anything?” max asked. “like, his ass rotting out?”
“His morals are diseased,” ephraim said, after a pause to think. “But he’s been given a clean bill of health.”
“I’d eat the cowflop,” said newton.
“What a fucking surprise,” ephraim said.
eventually they all agreed that, of both