The Troop
By Nick Cutter
4/5
()
About this ebook
“The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best.” —Stephen King
Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. A horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected…or one another.
Part Lord of the Flies, part 28 Days Later—and all-consuming—this tightly written, edge-of-your-seat thriller takes you deep into the heart of darkness, where fear feeds on sanity…and terror hungers for more.
Nick Cutter
Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
Read more from Nick Cutter
The Deep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Heaven: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Side: A Collection of Mysteries & Thrillers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handyman Method: A Story of Terror Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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Reviews for The Troop
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What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a creepy and intense horror novel that keeps them on the edge of their seat. The book explores the dark parts of the mind and the hidden thoughts that people have. It is not for the faint of heart, with vivid descriptions of violence and gore. Some readers found it disturbing and had to take breaks while reading. However, many loved the book and found it to be a highly recommended read for horror fans. Overall, it is a haunting and gripping story that leaves a lasting impact.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That's what mortal terror felt like, he realized. Tiny fingers tickling you from the inside.
-Chapter 13
The dividing line between genius and insanity is very thin and quite permeable--which is why so many geniuses descend into madness.
-Chapter 33
It came down to that flexibility of a person's mind. An ability to withstand horrors and snap back, like a fresh elastic band. A flinty mind shattered.
-Chapter 36
Wow. This book is creepy and I couldn't put it down. There were times when I was cringing and trying to read a little faster just to get through a part - like when the sea turtle was attacked and during the vivd descriptions of the effects of the contagion.
This is very old school horror - gritty and bloody and gross. And it doesn't let up for all 358 pages. If you are squeamish, then this book is not for you. The sickness tears people apart and Cutter describes every detail vividly. He doesn't hold back, not one bit.
However, this book isn't all about gore. There is a psychological component to the story. The group dynamics are fascinating. Each boy has his own back story that gives the reader insight into his actions on the island. Many times, it had me thinking of Lord of the Flies. But you add in this contagion and the stakes are raised immeasurably.
I kept trying to figure out who, if anyone would survive the island. But, it wasn't easy. Cutter kept that secret well hidden until the very end.
So, if you are a fan of creepy, gory horror that doesn't let up, then you need to read this book.
I will leave you with this quote that really resonated with me:
They'd made a pact to be friends forever, but forever could be so, so brief.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm hypoglycemic - I have to eat on a pretty tight schedule, and it's a new thing for me. Which means this book messed with me so bad. This is probably one of the very, very few horror books that made my stomach turn so hardcore. You wouldn't think being hungry would be so creepy - and you'd be very wrong.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely Frightening!!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop has been likened to a blend of The Ruins and The Lord of the Flies. The Ruins is perhaps one of the better contemporary horror stories, and The Lord of the Flies will always be considered one of the best pieces of allegorical literature to be written. The Troop may try to be both, but. ...The basic story, about a group of scouts on a camping trip on an unpopulated island who are confronted by exposure to a deadly contagion, is promising. The author, Nick Cutter, provides us with character sketches of the five boys, interspersing the story with flash-forwards of media discussions of the events that took place and their aftermath.As a horror/suspense story the book shows promise. It may start off a bit slow, but as the reader progresses, the story becomes quite interesting. As an allegory, however, the book doesn't quite make it, as contrivances get in the way of making a coherent whole of various threads that are woven through the story. The Lord of the Flies this isn't.All in all, however, this is an interesting tale, and one that could make for a very good movie.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Troop should come with a warning label: “Read at your own risk. Some scenes are so disgusting they may make you sick to your stomach.” However, that type of warning label might detract some readers from picking up this thrilling and terrifying story. To avoid the novel because of a few nauseating scenes would mean missing out on a compelling story about greed, survival, and the depths to which people will sink to achieve both.The action starts immediately with the newspaper articles about the Hungry Man and his strange antics. The palpable sense of foreboding hits the reader full force when the scene moves to the Hungry Man’s point of view, and readers instinctively know that whatever answers await to be uncovered are not going to be good. Tension continues to build through each shift in point of view and each jump in time. The imaginative use of interview transcripts and news articles published after the events on Falstaff Island provide readers with important clues as to the scope of the issue and its origins. They also add to the ongoing horror as readers understand just what faces the boys on the island. Indeed, what the boys must face is the stuff of which the worst nightmares are made.The Troop is the type of story during which there is no respite from the terror or the suspense. Readers hoping to catch a break during one of the shifts in narrator find themselves sucked into a different type of horror than the recently departed scene. Mr. Cutter draws on man’s ability to do unimaginable harm in the name of “the collective good” to add depth to his old-fashioned monster story and does so with aplomb. In the end, determining who or what exactly is the monster is the question that will haunt readers for days, if not weeks, upon finishing the novel.The Troop follows a fascinating trend in apocalyptic pandemics wherein the origins are something innocuous that falls prey to the machinations of businesses and/or governments. Mr. Cutter brings together this trend with an acerbic commentary on the greed which drives such genetic manipulations. His brilliant portrayal of fear, the unspeakable actions of the infected, and many gruesomely realistic descriptions create an unforgettable novel that grips and haunts readers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Simple premise. A boy scout troop on an isolated island off Prince Edward Island. A contagion spreads rampant across the island.I'd initially wondered whether this was going to turn out to be a story for pre-teens. Uh, no. While it was mainly about kids, it was vulgar and violent at times, and definitely not geared toward kids.My final word: Creepy and gross with a Dean Koontz-esque kind of feel, I really enjoyed this story. It's a quick read, fun and will make your skin crawl! It's rare that you find a horror novel that not only has a good plot, but is so well executed and written.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Troop by Nick Cutter is a horror book that mixes a Lord of the Flies scenario with a contagion scenario. It starts off interestingly enough with a boy scout troop heading for a camping excursion to an isolated island off the coast of Canada. Disaster is unknowingly headed their way in the form of a dangerously infected man.The first hundred pages or so is spent largely getting to know the boys in the troop and waiting for disaster to literally wash up on the shore of their island. It’s largely successful in getting to know the boys and developing a certain amount of suspense and dread. Unfortunately, the character development pretty much stops there and the rest of the novel descends into gross outs and cruelty rather than suspense or horror. The boys settle into sort of cookie-cut out characters. A Breakfast Club for horror. The nerd, the athlete, the angry kid, the pyschopath, etc.The infection or contagion brought to the island is at first interesting, but becomes less frightening and more disgusting as the book goes on. A similar sort of fright was recently done much better by Seanan McGuire (as Mira Grant) in Parasite. Cutter goes over the top here and creates revulsion rather than fear. Flash forwards that cover the investigation after the fact and show both how the contagion (for lack of a better term to avoid spoilers) was created and how life in the hometown of the boys changes after the incident are well done. They are in fact, far more interesting than the events on the island. Unfortunately, they are confined to a few pages in between chapters. If the story were reversed, with the events on the island told briefly through flashbacks, I believe the book would have been far more interesting and more frightening. The Troop aims for terror but settles for disgusting. I would not have bothered finishing if I hadn’t agreed to review it. I’ll give it credit for an interesting beginning, but it’s all downhill from there. There are far better reads out there than this one. Not recommended.I received an advance copy of this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This story is stomach turning but really hard to put down. It involves a group of five 14 year old Scouts with their Troop Master, who are dropped off on an island offshore Prince Edward Island. It is October and they are there for a weekend of hiking and honing their survival skills under Tim Riggs, who also happens to be the town's family doctor. The five boys range from the nerdy Newton to the jock Kent, best friends, Ephraim and Max and the solitary, creepy Shelley. Very early into the story the "hungry man" shows up in a boat and the fun begins. There are some passages that I could not read because they were skin crawling, but overall this is a very compelling story. I especially liked the technique of interspersing the story with news accounts or post investigation transcripts. Highly recommended. Nick Cutter is a pseudonym for Craig Davidson.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I first read the author blurbs for The Troop, I wasn't convinced that this book was as twisted and disgusting as everyone made it out to be.Boy, was I wrong.The reviews are legitimate. This is a horrifically disturbing, gruesome, shocking novel. If you're on the squeamish side, I do not suggest reading this book. If you think you can handle it, but aren't entirely sure...you might end up putting the book down a few chapters in. It's like a death-defying roller coaster, the type of coaster you will only ride if someone dares you to.There's not much to discuss in terms of plot, since the initial premise gives you a good idea of what's about to transpire. A small group of fourteen-year-old scouts on an isolated weekend retreat. A man harboring a fatally destructive tapeworm inside his intestines. The man stumbles upon the group during their weekend outing. I think you can figure out where the story goes from there...What amazed me about this book was how it rose above the stereotypical gross-out horror novel. In a gross-out novel, everything feels wooden and/or gratuitous, and after a while even the most die-hard reader can start to feel numbed and jaded towards the disgusting murder scenes. The Troop, however, combines complex characters with precise, evocative language and a shockingly realistic premise. Think Cabin Fever meets Lord of the Flies, remove the campy humor, and increase the intensity tenfold.It's the literary equivalent of watching a horrible car accident unfold. You know nothing good will come of this. You are exposed to every gory, gruesome detail you can possibly imagine. You know even more horrible tragedy is waiting at the end of the line. And yet you can't bring yourself to look away.Not a novel for horror newbies, and not a novel for readers who aren't sure if they can handle that level of freak-out. But if you're a seasoned horror fan, this one is NOT to be missed! It's Grade-A terror at its finest, and I'm putting this one very high on my list of all time horror favorites.Readalikes:The Ruins - Scott Smith. The classic survival thriller takes a gruesome turn when a group of college students are stranded amongst ancient ruins in Central America and discover a viciously invasive species of plants living amongst the rubble.Parasite - Mira Grant. Whoever thought genetically-engineered tapeworms were a good idea?? This novel has more of a science-fiction angle to it, but there's still plenty of horror and gore to appeal to readers with strong stomachs.Infected - Scott Sigler. Another terrifying blend of body-invasion horror and science fiction that will shock even the most hardened genre readers.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I like to start my review while I am still reading, or trying to read a book. I think the vote by everyone that this book is disturbing. I can not say that for me it is great disturbing, as I am finding it boring disturbing. The boys are off on their own and I really do not care if they fall off a cliff. This e-book was provided by NetGalley for a honest review, so I hope I do not burn any bridges, as I am new. Let me get back to it...
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I think if you like Stephen King's books, you will like The Troop. This book has some very dark threads running through it that are very reminiscent of Stephen King and the way he writes. Not to mention the thrills and chills factor to the book. Very creepy at times, but also I couldn't stop turning the pages! I can speak from personal experience when I recommend not reading this book while eating, though. It will make you lose your appetite for just about anything! I am really big on characters being believable, and in this book, Mr. Cutter perfectly captured a group of 15-year-old boys. That awkward age between young and trying to be grown up. And he have them each such varied and distinct personalities. One I despised, and the others I liked more, to varying degrees. The ones I liked, I cheered for the whole time, of course. The story itself also came across as believable, though freaky. But not so freaky that I wouldn't believe it's not possible for real, either. Books like this always make me wonder what is really going on out there in the world of science that we don't have a clue about. I definitely think this is an author to watch! This is quite a book, and it definitely lived up to my expectations, which were high for this one. Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and I am never compensated for my reviews.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I devoured the book in a couple days. ( no pun intended ) It was gruesome, intriguing, shocking, and at times made me feel like leaving the lights on for the night. Other times, it brought tears to my eyes. One scene in particular was very heart-wrenching. Without spoiling it, let me just say that as the story progresses the boys will have to go to unbelievable lengths to try and obtain food. Try is the keyword here, since their attempts will fail miserably, and as a result an innocent creature dies in unimaginable pain. Other scenes were so full of gruesome details, I had to skim through the paragraphs, in order to keep my stomach from revolting. The experiments conducted by the scientists on the gorilla stand out to me as being the most disturbing, probably due to the fact they were documented in such a cold, unmoved voice. Overall, I thought the story line and characters were well developed, and I'm hoping the book will be made into a movie some day. Quick warning though : Do not read this book when you're out camping.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I don't usually read the horror genre, and now I remember why. This book is just creepy! But it was awesome at the same time. I found myself reading late into the night because I couldn't put it down in spite of myself. It's the story of a scout troop that goes on their annual camping trip only to be attacked by a worm. Sounds crazy, but this was no ordinary worm! It was a genetically engineered species of tapeworm that ate it's victims from the inside out. That's all the plot I will share. If you are fans of horror, this is the book for you!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5THE TROOP by Nick CutterAs someone who has not only been a huge lover of the horror genre since my early teens I have read my share of not only what I consider to be ‘the greats’ but also so many floundering novels that go absolutely nowhere. It amazed me that an author will take any subject and create a flimsy horror novel around it. My top 5 favorite horror novels of all time, in my opinion are CARRION COMFORT by Dan SimmonsSUMMER OF NIGHT by Dan SimmonsIT by Stephen KingTHE RISING by Brian KeeneAnd SURVIVOR aka MOTHER’S MILK by J. F. Gonzales. Finally, I can add another nasty little piece of horror fiction to the fray. THE TROOP by Nick Cutter which is a pseudonym for a bestselling author of novels and short stories, according to the back flap of the book cover. There are very few dark roads or avenues not already taken by other authors in the genre but Mr. Cutter found a detour right to that place at the base of your spine. That chill. That moment when you gasp at a scene you just witnessed play out in your head by words of sheer talent. Scoutmaster Tim Riggs who is the local town doctor volunteers to lead a troop of boys, five in all on a camping trip to an island off the coast of Canada. On their first night there a man so thin ‘one could almost see through him’ stumbles into their campsite and onto the cabin they all share. Being man swore to heal the sick, Tim attends to care for this man. He is ravenous and begins to not only eat the furniture but also any insect or bug that he comes into contact with. Imagine this man as a weak domino and what effect he will have on this weekend which quickly turns into an event of pure survival. Mr. Cutter takes the best of intentions not only by the doctor but also a few of the boys and creates such scenes of horror and mayhem, as sick as it is, I was in awe!!!!At the center of this novel lies science gone badly awry. There is such a nasty but highly entertaining premise behind what caused this domino effect and how it might actually happen one day if science has its way. Think, in many ways, Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD, 1930’s rendition of THE THING and Stephen King’s IT. Maybe with a splash of LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding and the schockly film from the early 70’s CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS all rolled into one fine, scary read.In the acknowledgements Mr. Cutter pays homage to Mr. King and states that he doesn’t believe Mr. King will ever read his book. READ THIS Mr. King!Jim Munchel
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Right off the top, I have to say - I had this review written and then discovered they had changed the cover from the original - which was much better in my opinion. But what's inside is good, no matter what the cover looks like. Nick Cutter is a pseudonym for a Canadian author Craig Davidson. His latest novel is The Troop. Remember last week I said I liked scary stories? Well, this one filled the bill - and more. Five Scouts from Troop Fifty Two set off with Scoutmaster Tim for a weekend camp on isolated Falstaff Island, Prince Edward Island. Their first night there, a gaunt, skeletal man appears and begs to be fed - he's so very, very hungry. The reader alone is privy to his thoughts..."Would they come for him? He was their failure - a human blooper reel - but also the keeper of their secret. And he was so. so toxic. At least, that's what he overheard them say." Okay, great set-up eh? Isolated island, scary, weird guy showing up and five fourteen year old boys left to face whatever has come to camp on Falstaff Island with them. "And so when adults find themselves in a situation where that nimbleness (of mind) is needed ..well they can't summon it. So they fall to pieces: go insane, panic, suffer heart attacks and aneurysms brought on by fright. Why?" They simply don't believe it could be happening. That's what's different about kids: they believe everything can happen, and fully expect it to." But, there's dissension among the troop as well. Cutter has given us five protagonists - all with their own strengths and weakness. A bit predictable - there is a smart one, a fat one, a psycho one, etc. But Cutter does an excellent job at fleshing them all out and making them quite believable. The infection process is squeamishly nasty - I found myself doing the book version of covering your eyes with a pillow whilst watching a scary move - I started skimming the visceral, detailed descriptions. It's not something I usually do, but Cutter had me squirming. While the boys are trying to figure what's going on, Cutter employs a good tactic to let us, the reader, know the truth. Newspaper articles, police reports and classified documents are interspersed throughout the scenes on the island. (As I noted the locations used in the book, I realized I had visited many of them!)The Troop is classified as a horror book - not my usual genre. But it was undeniably addicting. The cause of the contagion/virus/mutation is revealed by the final page. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry - it's an excellent social comment on human behaviour. Fans of Stephen King would love this book. (And King himself says The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best." Think Lord of the Flies paired with Scott Smith's The Ruins.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is probably one of the creepiest books I've read in my entire life. I could not put it down, even as it was scaring the wits out of me. A scout troop on a weekend outing to a remote island. Great fun, right? When a gaunt, ill appearing and ravenously hungry stranger appears at the door of their cabin, things go from unsettling to weird to downright horrifying. It's Lord of the Flies, The Ruins and Alien rolled into one with a chaser of Dexter for dessert. I have already recommended it to my horror group. Stephen King is right- this IS old school horror at its best.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow! Is about the best word I can choose for this book. I have never experienced so many emotions with one story that brought both fascination and revulsion all in one setting. It became so real for me that I became psychically ill at some of the heavier parts of the book. This was an amazing read for me because it told the story of a small group of boys and their scoutmaster. It told of their ungodly experiences on an isolated island. While on the island a stranger washes ashore and seeks help. There scout leader, being a doctor by trade, attempts to help the stranger. When it is obvious the man is very ill the scout master tells the boys to leave. Quickly the disease that inflicts the stranger begins to infect the scouts and their leader. Fighting for their lives the boys are faced with a terrifying entity that will stop at nothing to quench its hunger. It hunts down each and every person as it devours everything in sight. Will anyone survive this horrible illness? Will this frightening disease spread throughout the rest of the world?The first thing I want to say is this book was an insane read that found me having to take a break at some points in the book. It became so descriptive that I was able to envision it my mind and the scenes played out like a movie in my head. That was both disturbing and awesome at the same time! I was surprised time after time on how the author chose to grow the story. In some way it was similar to the book, ‘Lord of the Flies’, but in my personal opinion it was better. It was more realistic in its graphic details and gave wonderful examples of how fear can change a person. Emotions affect all human beings and some of the cruelest creatures on this planet are children. As both a mother to three children and a past Girl Scout member I easily got wrapped up in this book. I could see this being an awesome, yet horrific movie in the future. Nick Cutter really gives Stephen King some competition and Nick’s work is both refreshing and new to me. I see much success in this author’s future works and I will be keeping my eyes open for his books! I must give a quick thanks to both the author and goodreads for sending me a copy to review. It was much appreciated and I had a great time. I highly recommend this book to all avid lovers of both the horror and thriller genre.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A bioengineered virus is out of control! A troop of Boy Scouts is exposed to a dying man who was infected with the disease! Who, if any, of the scouts will survive? Will any of them ever see their families again? How far will this disease spread? How many people will die? The book was compelling and not totally predictable, as many of this genre are. I really enjoyed the mix of characters including the "typical kids" in the scout troop. Trying to guess who would survive was great fun! Yes Mr. Cutter, I do believe that you have something here and also bet that Stephen King, who you were inspired by, would like your book! I know I did!
I received this book free from Netgallery - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When reading The Troop, you can’t help but make comparisons to the classic Lord of the Flies. A group of young boys are alone on an island off the coast of Canada with only their rudimentary survival skills keeping them alive. The boys are Boy Scouts, on an isolated island with their troop leader, the local doctor, camping and attempting to gain more merit badges.On their first night a stranger staggers into the campsite. He is hungry, very hungry. He is obviously dying from an unknown illness which has the Scout Leader perplexed. The boys remain quarantined from the stranger for the night, but when they wake in the morning, things have changed for the worse.Each of the boys has their own distinct personality. There is the leader, the nerd, the fixer, the angry boy and the creepy one. Perhaps a little stereotyped, but still, each character was well developed and believable. As the social order breaks down, they have choices to make, conflicts to resolve and deeds to accomplish all in light of their own strengths and weaknesses.Providing some interest, between the chapters were excerpts from a future court case, diary passages and newspaper articles which provided both background and a glimpse of what was to become of the boys. Beware, there are some gruesome scenes in this book. Scientific animal experimentation and cruelty perpetrated against animals by one of the boys makes for some uncomfortable reading. But the overall pace, the unexpected touches of humour and the general creepiness of this story will definitely keep you reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boy Scouts and their scoutmaster camp on an island where the boys are to hone their skills in survival techniques and earn their merit badges. But when an emancipated man shows up; things go from bad to worse. Will what they’ve learned help them survive and will they ever get home?This is a horror story at its best. Touted as “Lord of the Flies” meets “The Ruins” is no exaggeration. Once the terror begins it doesn’t stop; and the reader is either terrified and/or disgusted. The descriptive narrative goes all out to the grotesque and one needs to have a strong stomach. The characters are well developed and the boys act as fourteen year olds act. There are also chapters outside of the island story to let the reader know what is happening since the troop hasn’t the slightest. I found this story to be very entertaining in a ghastly sort of way. Move over Stephen King.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five boy scouts and their scoutmaster are enjoying a camping trip on an isolated island off the coast of Prince Edward Island.The first night out, a man, so deadly thin he looks more like a skeleton covered in flesh-covered paint, shambles to the cabin and begs for something to eat. The scoutmaster, a doctor, immediately realizes the man is sick but with no illness that he can recognize. His first instinct is to send him back into the forest but his oath to do no harm takes over and lets him in. Thus begins one of the best horror stories I have read in a very long time.The Troop, by author Nick Cutter, is more 'ick' than 'eek' but, make no mistake, this is horror at its finest, more frightening because it is plausible. It's an experiment gone wrong...or maybe not...and the five boys, just on the cusp of manhood, are forced to fight a horror, well, I was going to say beyond imagination but, unfortunately, too easy to imagine. The motto of the boy scouts may be 'Be prepared' but no one could be prepared for this.The boys and their scoutmaster are likeable with one exception - like all good horror movies set on isolated islands, there is a psychopath in their midst, a boy with dark disturbing hungers who may have found the perfect 'friends' to share them with. And author Nick Cutter really knows how to ratchet up the creep factor even in his descriptions:“The beach was a bonelike strip unfurling to the shoreline. The sea advanced up to the shore with a series of minute sucking inhales. It sounded like a huge toothless creature swallowing the island.” One caveat, though: normally, when I review a really good horror tale, I suggest locking your doors; with The Troop, I would recommend not eating. Trust me on this and thank me later.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Well what can I say - this book is not for the squeamish! The story line is about a group of boy scouts on a deserted island for a couple of days, doing the Scout thing. Things go really wrong when an unknown man arrives on the island - infected with a hybrid worm that eats you from the inside out. This gore is really heavily descriptive, and will have your skin crawling (or is that the worms beneath your skin???).The characters are very real and all interesting in their own right from the Scout leader who is the towns doctor to each of the boys and those held accountable for the ensuing disaster. Disaster? No horror! The boys are so real, and the story is told from their perspective mostly. Shelley's sociopathic side, Ephraim's insanity, the braggart Kent, Max and Newton the weakest links. You don't know who will survive until the dying moments of the book. This book is well written, suspense driven, and addictive. You just have to keep reading. I love how the Court Case and the News articles are interwoven through the story, adding depth and intrigue. I felt incredibly sad when reading the final pages telling of the aftermath. I was given an advance copy of this book to provide my honest opinion - I loved it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We all have our own ways of dealing with anxiety and depression. One of mine for the former is to kick back with an audiobook and lose myself in World of Warcraft. This week, my audiobook of choice was Nick Cutter’s The Troop. I first discovered Cutter last year after receiving an arc of Little Heaven, which I enjoyed immensely. Naturally, I was not let down with this title.
It’s a fairly short listen, coming in at just over eleven hours. Narrated by Corey Brill, the book tells the story of a bunch of kids and their mentor after a strange encounter with an emaciated man. From there, things spiral downward in a rather interesting turn of events and readers watch the usual trope that comes into play when the threat of apocalypse hangs over a town – or in this case, island. The fact that the cast is mostly teenage boys? That’s of no consequence.
The Troop is what I call a “last man standing” story. I suppose that’s comparable to “final girls” when you think about it. These kids, because that’s all they are, find themselves facing a horror they cannot truly comprehend, and with the military working in favor of the greater good, are on their own. Naturally, that means we’ve got some deep psychological stuff that’s going to go on, as well as several scenes of last minute survival habits – such as harming animals. And, of course, there’s madness tinting this books periphery.
I really enjoyed this approach to a horror story born of what originally begins as a good deed (though clearly is not toward its end). The characters had their own flaws and represented the different types of kids we’re likely to find in a high school class – only, of course, without the presence of any females.
Once again, Cutter has impressed me with his ability to make me cringe, among other things. I definitely look forward to getting my hands on more of his work in the future. Also, the audiobook is worth it. Corey Brill has a gorgeous voice. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was disappointed in this book. It was well written and had some great horrific moments but the plot was mostly ridiculous. I didn't really buy into the boys on the island at all. Seemed to contrived and over the top even for a horror novel. I wanted to like it more but every time it got rolling a character would do something that would leave me shaking my head. The best I can say is I finished it which means it survived my 100 page rule but just barely.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A troop of scouts on their annual hike to Falstaff Island, off Prince Edward Island, encounter the Hungry Man. After that, it all goes horribly wrong for the young boys and their scoutmaster.
This is hardcore horror--a roller coaster ride through a nightmare that doesn't let up. It's tightly plotted, with a spare style suited to its grisly subject. As an added treat, the author convincingly evokes the peculiar culture of prepubescent boys.
The Troop isn't for the squeamish or the feint of heart, but for a particular breed of sick puppy.
Me? I devoured it in a matter of days. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There are not many books that can make me feel truly, deeply disgusted in one chapter and almost teary in the next. Cutter's work is a step above most horror novels, and although I wouldn't liken him to King as most have, he's in a genre of his own. Perhaps closer to Lindqvist in tone and form. This book is remarkable for the stamp it's left on me. I cannot say enjoyable because as other reviewers have noted, the gritty, no-holds-barred description and realism made me squirm and feel rather ill. But I look forward to Mr. Cutter's next work.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When I started The Troop, I wasn't entirely sure what kind of a horror story it would be. There was mention in the blurb that it was a bit Stephen King-ish (which I must admit is what drew me to it as I'm a huge fan of his). However, what kind of horrendous event could occur to a Boy Scouts troop on an island cut off from the mainland? O_O Let me first say that this is NOT a book for children...unless you want them to have nightmares for the foreseeable future (and you're okay with adult content like coarse language and mild sexual themes). I can't get into a lot of detail about what kind of bioengineered sickness the infectious man who happens on the island has but let me just say that it isn't one I would have ever dreamed up and it was plenty scary. I've been talking about this book all week and every time I mentioned the newest development I got varying degrees of shock and disgust. I LOVED THIS BOOK. If you like horror of the gory kind with a mix of the psychological thriller then you'll enjoy this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop by Nick Cutter (pseudonym) is a true horror novel full of enough graphic, gory, disgusting scenes to make anyone's stomach heave. If you are a fan of terror novels it's highly recommended.
In The Troop something is very hungry. When the emaciated man shows up in Prince County diner on Prince Edward Island, and can't get enough to eat, it raises suspicions. It is the beginning of a nightmare for a boy scout troop camping out on Falstaff Island, PEI, when the hungry man steals a boat. Looking like death itself he ends up on Falstaff island, and comes to the scout's cabin looking for food.
The boy scouts are led by Dr. Tim Riggs. The five boys - Kent, Ephraim, Max, Shelly, and Newton - are all Venture Scouts and around 14 years old. They have known each other their whole lives. This camping trip is probably their last trip together before they all begin to go their separate ways. When Tim hears the boat approaching the island he knows two things. It is a boat and that he and the boys had no weapons other than knives and a flare gun.
When the skeletal wreck of a man shows up, Tim knows instinctively that this man is sick in some unnatural way that he has never encountered. It sends a spike of pure dread down his spine and he knows that this man is unclean. What the scouts don't know is that the military has been tracking the sick man. They know about the bioengineered nightmare the man's body contains, the threat it poses, and they cordoned off the area, establishing a no-fly, no-watercraft zone. It means the scouts are left to face the unknown terror on their own.
Cutter uses excerpts of newspaper clippings, interviews, journal entries, and magazine profiles interspersed in the story to provide background information or give extra insight into Dr. Clive Edgerton's scientific experiment gone terribly wrong. This works quite well in the story. We're privy to information the scouts don't have but we also gain extra insight into the scouts themselves.
Clearly, the scouts themselves are all obvious stereotypes of various types of teens. This is blatant enough that it does seem formulaic and you know that in reality these kids would not still be in scouts together. This didn't bother me because the point of the novel is the gruesome story and the terror it induces as you read.
The Troop is not for the faint-hearted or anyone with a sensitive stomach. There is some pure terror along with blood and guts and gore. Cutter is graphic in descriptions of scientific experiments on and abuse of animals. Most importantly, if you have any squeamishness over worms, skip this one.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Gallery Books via Edelweiss for review purposes. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Received as an ARC from Simon & Schuster for an unbiased review via NetGalley 08/06/2013.
The Troop is not made for the faint of heart. Cutter skilfully develops a plot which not only creates emotional connections with Max, Ephraim, Shelley, Kent and Newton, but also describes with disturbing realism the gore, bloodletting and violence each boy experiences. I would not suggest this in any way to younger readers, and most certainly not to anyone who dislikes books centered around genetically modified parasites developed to be both aggressive and massive.
The story begins by introducing you to Tim, the scoutmaster and the boys’ reason for visiting Flagstaff Island, PEI. Scout Troop 52 is your typical fun loving, boyishly aggressive group that’s perhaps on their last summer outing before the summers on Flagstaff Island are memories far in the past. Tim is a forty-something single man, who the locals think is gay but a proficient doctor. It is he who arranges the yearly trips like clockwork, and teaches the boys about wilderness survival. Each year is very much the same, until this year when a man stumbles into their camp, and hell breaks loose (literally?).
Although fantastically written, well researched and extremely scary, it’s unsettling how candid the author can be about subjects that are perhaps socially unaccepted homicidal tendencies. I had a hard time putting this one down, but also had to leave the lights on when I went to bed. Unlike most books we see today in any theme, Cutter lives up to his name by cutting out all the unnecessary details and developing a story that is both frightening, heart breaking and revolting. The story had some very touchy subjects, as well as shockingly well described animal abuse, homicidal behaviours and unsavoury decision making on the part of both a major character and some minor characters. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scout Master Tim Riggs is taking his Boy Scout Troop for their annual camping trip on remote, deserted Falstaff Island. Unknown to him and his scouts, someone else is on the way to the island, a man carrying a bioengineered monster inside him. When the creature bursts free, the scouts find themselves in a swiftly disintegrating situation between the creatures and their own worst tendencies.Nick Cutter is a crazy talented horror writer. The man is a master of visceral, gut churning horror. The Troop is a grotesque (I mean that in the best possible way) mixture of Lord of the Flies, Jurassic Park, and The Andromeda Strain. The creatures are single-minded and horribly efficient, but the scouts, freed from any adult supervision, are nearly as monstrous. Horror fans, this book is for you. I’m so happy to see the genre reinvigorated by new authors like Nick Cutter. If you are queasy or you shy away from blood, guts, and gore, then maybe consider looking elsewhere. If on the other hand, you find yourself longing for a shit yourself scary monster story, then look no further.
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The Troop - Nick Cutter
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The Troop, by Nick Cutter, Gallery BooksFor my brother,
Graham
Adults are obsolete children.
—DR. SEUSS
This head is for the beast. It’s a gift.
—WILLIAM GOLDING,
Lord of the Flies
PART 1
THE
HUNGRY MAN
Headline from The Weird News Network, online edition, October 19:
THE HUNGRY MAN OF PRINCE COUNTY!
By Huntington Mulvaney
Fearsome news, dear readers, from one of our loneliest outposts—the tiny fishing community of Lower Montague, Prince Edward Island. A forlorn, foreboding spike of rock projecting into the Atlantic Ocean.
The perfect location for devilry, methinks? Thankfully for you, we have eyes and ears everywhere. We see all, we hear all.
Sadie Adkins, waitress at the Diplomat Diner in Lower Montague, had her late-model Chevrolet truck stolen from the restaurant’s lot last night by an unnaturally emaciated thief. Adkins placed a call to our toll-free tip line after her entreaties to local deputy dawgs were cruelly and maliciously rebuffed, deemed—and we quote—ludicrous
and insane.
I know who stole my damn truck,
Adkins told us. Starvin’ Marvin.
An unidentified male, with close-cropped hair and baggy clothing, entered the Diplomat at 9 p.m. According to Adkins, the man was in a severe state of malnourishment.
Skinny! You wouldn’t believe,
Adkins told our intrepid truth-gatherers. "Never in my life have I seen a man so wasted away. But hungry."
Adkins reports that the unidentified male consumed five Hungry Man Breakfast platters—each consisting of four eggs, three buttermilk pancakes, five rashers of bacon, sausage links, and toast.
He ate us out of eggs,
Adkins said. Just kept shoveling it in and asking for more. His belly must have swelled up tight as a drum. He . . . well, he . . . when I came back with his third platter, or maybe it was his fourth, I caught him eating the napkins. Ripping them out of the dispenser, chewing and swallowing them.
The unidentified man paid his bill and left. Shortly thereafter Adkins went outside to find her truck stolen—yet another malicious indignity!
I can’t say I was too surprised,
she said. The man seemed desperate in every way a man can possibly be desperate.
She fell silent again before adding one final grisly detail:
I could hear something coming from inside him—I’m saying, under his skin. I know that sounds silly.
The unidentified man remains at large. Who is he? Where did he come from? The people who know—and longtime readers know who we’re talking about: the government, the Secret Service, the Templars, the Illuminati, the usual shady suspects—aren’t forthcoming with info . . . but we’re beating the bushes and scouring secret files, investigating every legitimate tip that arrives at our tipline.
Something evil is afoot in sleepy Prince County. No man can be that hungry.
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1
EAT EAT EAT EAT
The boat skipped over the waves, the drone of its motor trailing across the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The moon was a bone fishhook in the clear October sky.
The man was wet from the spray that kicked over the gunwale. The outline of his body was visible under his drenched clothes. He easily could have been mistaken for a scarecrow left carelessly unattended in a farmer’s field, stuffing torn out by scavenging animals.
He’d stolen the boat from a dock at North Point, at the farthest tip of Prince Edward Island, reaching the dock in a truck he’d hotwired in a diner parking lot.
Christ, he was hungry. He’d eaten so much at that roadside diner that he’d ruptured his stomach lining—the contents of his guts were right now leaking through the split tissue, into the crevices between his organs. He wasn’t aware of that fact, though, and wouldn’t care much anyway in his current state. It’d felt so good to fill the empty space inside of him . . . but it was like dumping dirt down a bottomless hole: you could throw shovelful after shovelful, yet it made not the slightest difference.
Fifty miles back, he’d stopped at the side of the road, having spotted a raccoon carcass in the ditch. Torn open, spine gleaming through its fur. It had taken great effort to not jam the transmission collar into park, go crawling into the ditch, and . . .
He hadn’t done that. He was still human, after all.
The hunger pangs would stop, he assured himself. His stomach could only hold so much—wasn’t that, like, a scientific fact? But this was unlike anything he’d ever known.
Images zipped through his head, slideshow style: his favorite foods lovingly presented, glistening and overplumped and too perfect, ripped from the glossy pages of Bon Appétit—a leering parody of food, freakishly sexual, hyperstylized, and lewd.
He saw cherries spilling from a wedge of flaky pie, each one nursed to a giddy plumpness, looking like a mess of avulsed bloodshot eyeballs dolloped with a towering cone of whipped cream . . .
Flash.
A porterhouse thick as a dictionary, shank bone winking from fat-marbled meat charred to crackly doneness, a pat of herbed butter melting overtop; the meat almost sighs as the knife hacks through it, cooked flesh parting with the deference of smoothly oiled doors . . .
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
What wouldn’t he eat now? He yearned for that raccoon. If it were here now, he’d rip the hardened rags of sinew off its tattered fur; he’d crush its skull and sift through the splinters for its brain, which would be as delicious as the nut-meat of a walnut.
Why hadn’t he just eaten the fucking thing?
Would they come for him? He figured so. He was their failure—a human blooper reel—but also the keeper of their secret. And he was so, so toxic. At least, that’s what he overheard them say.
He didn’t wish to hurt anyone. The possibility that he may already have done so left him heartsick. What was it that Edgerton had said?
If this gets out, it’ll make Typhoid Mary look like Mary Poppins.
He was not an evil man. He’d simply been trapped and had done what any man in his position might do: he’d run. And they were coming for him. Would they try to capture him, return him to Edgerton? He wondered if they’d dare do that now.
He wasn’t going back. He’d hide and stay hidden.
He doubled over, nearly spilling over the side, hunger pangs gnawing into his gut. He blinked stinging tears out of his eyes and saw a dot of light dancing on the horizon.
An island? A fire?
NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY REPORT
Falstaff Island, Prince Edward Island
Situated fifteen kilometers off the northern point of the main landmass. Highest point: 452 meters above sea level. 10.4 kilometers in circumference.
Two beachheads: one on the west-facing headland, one on the northeastern outcrop. A granite cliff dominates the northern shore, dropping some 200 meters into a rocky basin.
Terrain consists of hardy brush-grasses, shrubs, jimsonweed, staghorn sumac, and lowland blueberry. Vegetation growth stunted by high saline content in the island’s water table. Topsoil eroded by high winds and precipitation.
Home to thriving avian, marine, mammal, reptile, and insect life. Pelicans, gulls, and other seafowl congregate on the northern cliffs. Chief stocks: salmon, cod, bream, sea bass. Sea lions bask off the island in the summer, drawing pods of orcas. Small but hardy indigenous populations of raccoon, skunk, porcupine, and coyote. These specimens are likewise smaller and leaner than their mainland counterparts.
A single winterized dwelling, government-owned and -maintained, acts as an emergency shelter or host to the occasional educational junket.
Absent of full-time human occupation.
2
TIM RIGGS—Scoutmaster Tim, as his charges called him—crossed the cabin’s main room to the kitchen, fetching a mug from the cupboard. Unzipping his backpack, he found the bottle of Glenlivet.
The boys were in bed—not asleep, mind you; they’d stay up telling ghost stories half the night if he allowed it. And often, he did allow it. Nobody would ever label him a killjoy, and besides, this was the closest thing to a yearly vacation a few of these boys ever got. It was a vacation for Tim, too.
He poured himself a spine-stiffening belt of scotch and stepped onto the porch. Falstaff Island lay still and tranquil under the blanket of night. Surf boomed against the beachhead two hundred yards down the gentle grade, a sound like earthbound thunder.
Mosquitoes hummed against the porch screen. Moths battered their powdery bodies against the solitary lightbulb. The night cool, the light of the moon falling through a lacework of bare branches. None of the trees were too large—the island’s base was bare rock pushed up from the ocean, a sparse scrim of soil on its surface. The trees had a uniformly deformed look, like children nourished on tainted milk.
Tim rolled the scotch around in his mouth. As the sole doctor on Prince Edward Island’s north shore, it wasn’t proper that he be caught imbibing publicly. But here, miles from his job and the duty it demanded, a drink seemed natural. Essential, even.
He relished this yearly trip. Some might find his reasoning strange—wasn’t he isolated enough, living alone in his drafty house on the cape? But this was a different kind of isolation. For two days, he and the boys would be alone. One cabin, a few trails. A boat dropped them off with their supplies earlier this evening; it would return on Sunday morning.
It almost hadn’t happened. The weekend forecast was calling for a storm; weather reports had it rolling in off the northern sea, one of those thunderhead-studded monsters that infrequently swept across the island province—half storm, half tornado, they’d tear shingles off houses and snap saplings at the dirt line. But the latest Doppler maps had it veering east into the Atlantic, where it would expend its fury upon the vast empty water.
As a precaution, Tim had ensured that the marine radio was fully charged; if the skies began to threaten, he’d radio the mainland for an early pickup. In truth, he disliked the necessity of the shortwave radio. Tim had strict rules for this outing. No phones. No portable games. He’d made the boys turn out their pockets on the dock at North Point to ensure they weren’t smuggling any item that’d link them to the mainland.
But considering the weather, the shortwave radio was a necessary evil. As the Scout handbook said: Always be prepared.
A bark of laughter from the bunkroom. Kent? Ephraim? Tim let it go. At their age, boys were creatures of enormous energy: machines that ran on testosterone and raw adrenaline. He could barge in there, shushing and tut-tutting, reminding them of the long day ahead of them tomorrow—but why? They were having fun, and energy was never in short supply among that group.
Fact was, this trip was as necessary for Tim as it was for his charges. He was unmarried and childless—a situation that, at forty-two, in a small town harboring precious few dating prospects, he didn’t expect to change. He’d grown up in Ontario and moved to PEI a few years after his residency, buying a house on the cape, learning how to string a lobster trap—See? I’m making a genuine effort!—and settling into the island rhythms. Hell, his voice had even picked up a hint of the native twang. Yet he’d forever be viewed as a come-from-away.
People were unfailingly friendly and respectful of his skills, but his veins swam with mainlander blood: he bore the taint of Toronto, the Big Smoke, the snobby haves to PEI’s hardscrabble have-nots. Around here, it’s as much a case of who you’re from as where you’re from: bloodlines ran thick, and the island held close its own.
Mercifully, his Scouts didn’t care that Tim was a come-from-away.
He was everything they could possibly want in a leader: knowledgeable and serene, exuding confidence while bolstering their own; he’d learned the native flora and fauna, knew how to string a leg snare and light a one-match fire, but most crucially, he treated them with respect—if the boys were not quite yet his equals, Tim gave every impression that he’d welcome them as such once they’d passed the requisite boyhood rituals. Their parents trusted Tim; their families were all patients at his practice in North Point.
The boys were tight-knit. The five of them had come up together through Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, and now Venturers. Tim had known them since their first Lodge Meeting: a quintet of five-year-olds hesitantly reciting the Beaver pledge—I promise to love God and take care of the world.
But this would be their last hurrah. Tim understood why. Scouts was . . . well, dorky. Kids of this generation didn’t want to dress in beige uniforms, knot their kerchiefs, and earn Pioneering badges. The current movement was overpopulated with socially maladjusted little turds or grating keeners whose sashes were festooned with merits.
But these five boys under Tim had remained engaged in Scouting simply because they wanted to be. Kent was one of the most popular boys in school. Ephraim and Max were well liked, too. Shelley was an odd duck, sure, but nobody gave him grief.
And Newton . . . well, Newt was a nerd. A good kid, an incredibly smart kid, but let’s face it, a full-blown nerd.
It wasn’t simply that the boy was overweight; that was a conquerable social obstacle, no worse than a harelip or pimples or shabby clothes. No, poor Newt was simply born a nerd, as certain unfortunates are. Had Tim been in the delivery room, he’d’ve sensed it: an ungrippable essence, unseen but deeply felt, dumping out of the babe’s body like a pheromone. Tim pictured the obstetrician handing Newton to his exhausted mother with a doleful shake of his head.
Congratulations, Ms. Thornton, he’s a healthy baby nerd. He’s bound to be a wonderful man, but for the conceivable future he’ll be a first-rank dweeb—a dyed-in-the-wool Poindexter.
All boys gave off a scent, Tim found—although it wasn’t solely an olfactory signature; in Tim’s mind it was a powerful emanation that enveloped his every sense. For instance, Bully-scent: acidic and adrenal, the sharp whiff you’d get off a pile of old green-fuzzed batteries. Or Jock-scent: groomed grass, crushed chalk, and the locker room funk wafting off a stack of exercise mats. Kent Jenks pumped out Jock-scent in waves. Other boys, like Max and Ephraim, were harder to define—Ephraim often gave off a live-wire smell, a power transformer exploding in a rainstorm.
Shelley . . . Tim considered between sips of scotch and realized the boy gave off no smell at all—if anything the vaporous, untraceable scent of a sterilized room in a house long vacant of human life.
Newton, though, stunk to high heaven of Nerd: an astringent and unmistakable aroma, a mingling of airless basements and dank library corners and tree forts built for solitary habitation, of dust smoldering inside personal computers, the licorice tang of asthma puffer mist and the vaguely narcotic smell of model glue—the ineffable scent of isolation and lonely forbearance. Over time a boy’s body changed, too: his shoulders stooped to make their owner less visible, the way defenseless animals alter their appearance to avoid predators, while their eyes took on a flinching, hunted cast.
Newton couldn’t help it. A trait burdened to his DNA helix, inexcisable from his other attributes—which, Tim gloomily noted, were numerous but not valuable at his age: Newton was unfailingly kind and polite, read books, and made obvious attempts at self-betterment—the equivalent of an air-raid siren blaring in a tranquil neighborhood: NEeeeerd-AleeeRT! NEeeeerd-AleeeRT! Tim felt incredibly protective of Newton and was saddened by his inability to help . . . but an adult protecting a boy only opened that boy up to further torments.
Tim stepped down from the porch to turn off the generator. Mosquitoes zeroed in; he felt them at the back of his neck like drunks at the bar set to guzzle their fill. He slapped them as he walked around the back of the cabin, his fingers brushing the log wall for balance—he’d drank that scotch too fast . . .
Here they came, the mosquitoes alighting on every bare inch of skin, sinking in their proboscises and injecting itchy poison. He stumbled upon the generator, barking his shin on its metal housing, fumbling for the switch while swatting at the hovering bloodsuckers; after an increasingly distracted search—he paused to wave at what felt like a massing sheet of insects—he thumbed it off.
The porch light dimmed. In the new darkness, the mosquitoes seemed to multiply exponentially; Tim felt them everywhere, their bloodless legs dancing on his flesh, the maddening whine of their papery wings filling his ears. He slapped wildly, barely tamping down the sudden yelp that rose in his throat. A semisolid wall pulsed on every side—a buzzing, biting, poisonous shroud. In his ears, tickling his nose, fretting at the edges of his eyes.
Bloodthirsty bastards . . .
Grasping blindly for the door, Tim flung it open and staggered into the screened-in porch. He slapped himself down the way a ranch-hand whaps the dust off after tumbling from a horse, relishing the soft crumple of the mosquitoes’ bodies.
Tim let out a ragged exhale that ended as a mirthless laugh. His hands were sticky with pulped insects. He thought about Gulliver tied down by thousands of Little People—a scene that had never stirred fear in him until now. The prospect of being beset by thousands, millions, of tiny assailants was actually quite terrifying.
In the new silence, he heard a steady drone rolling across the water—the sound of an outboard motor. An emergency on the mainland? No. Someone would have radioed him first.
He went inside and checked the shortwave radio. It gave off a low hiss that indicated a functioning frequency. Outside, the motor’s burr intensified.
Tim lit a Coleman lamp and sat on the porch. He clawed at the whitened bumps on his neck, wrists, and hands. A shiver rolled up his legs and through his gut, which clenched painfully as gooseflesh broke out on his arms. He laughed—a confused, gooselike whoonk!—and smoothed his hands over his skin, which was pebbled like orange rind. His bladder tightened with piss as the pleasant scotch taste soured in his mouth.
It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.
Carl Jung. Undergrad psychology. Jung, Tim would later conclude, was a blowhard and a crank and anyway, his theories were of limited value to a small-town GP whose day-to-day consisted of administering flu shots and excising ingrown nails from the toes of windburnt fishermen. As such, Tim had forgotten the name of Jung’s book and the name of the professor who’d taught it—but the quote came to him whole cloth, the words leaping from a dark cubbyhole in his memory.
The wickedness of others becomes our own . . .
Tim Riggs stood in the screened patio, vaguely uneasy for no reason he could lay a finger on—the wind called a mordant note through the sickly trees while other, less explicable sounds scraped up the beachhead toward him—waiting for that unknown wickedness to arrive.
3
EAT EAT—
Dark. So dark.
Empty.
Before, there had been light. He’d been following it. Moth to a flame. Now it was gone. Just this insane eye-clawing darkness . . . and the hunger.
The man crawled up a stony beach, skidding on the water-smooth pebbles. The rocks were slick with cold, snotlike algae. He scooped it up and shoveled it into his mouth, sucking the dark green strings through his lips like a child slurping egg noodles.
There! Skittering along, its exoskeleton glossed in the moonlight. A sand crab. His hand closed over it—its ocean-coldness wept into his flesh—and stuffed it between his lips. He felt it dancing along his tongue with its hairy little legs. He bit down. A gout of salty goo squirted in his mouth. Its pincer snipped the tip of his tongue in a death spasm, bringing the penny-bright taste of blood; he swallowed the twitching bits convulsively, the spiny exoskeleton tearing into the soft tissues of his throat—which felt so thin now, nothing but a fleshy drainpipe, the skin stretched tight as crepe paper over his esophageal tube.
A path materialized, tamped down through the waist-high grass. A black-bodied spider sat on a blade of grass. He pinched it between his fingers before it could get away and ate it up. Very nice, very nice. Succulent.
He squinted. A box sat angled at the hillside, its shadow tilting against the shapeless night. Its geometries were too perfect for it to be anything but man-made.
A feeble pinprick of light emanated from within.
4
"YOU GUYS ever hear about the Gurkhas?"
Ephraim Elliot’s face hovered in the flashlight’s glow like the disembodied head of a sideshow oracle. The other boys lay propped up on their elbows, listening intently.
"They’re these elite soldiers, right, from Nepal? Little guys. Five foot tall. Munchkins, practically. Crazy buggers. They’re trained from the time they’re infants to do one thing and do it well—to kill. The Gurkhas are crack-shots with a rifle. They can peg the pollen off a bumblebee’s ass at a hundred yards. They are masters with the kherkis, too—a long curved knife they keep wicked sharp. They can split a human hair with their knives . . . split it into thirds."
Seriously, Eef ?
said Newton Thornton, his pillow-messed hair sticking up in tufts.
You bet,
Ephraim said soberly. What hardly anyone knows is that a planeload of Gurkha warriors went down off the coast. They were on their way home after a very hairy mission—trench warfare, heads spiked on sticks, that sort of thing. These guys were driven half-crazy by the blood, right? The government of Nepal would probably have locked them up in a funny farm so they wouldn’t kill and maim anybody . . . but they never made it home. The plane went down over the ocean right around here.
Shelley Longpre listened intently. The usual gray of his eyes—which most often resembled chunks of dirty ice—were now hard and bright with interest.
Ephraim said, "They could even be here. This island. It’s isolated, quiet. Hardly anyone comes to Falstaff Island except the odd fisherman or, well . . . us. The scouts of Troop Fifty-Two."
Max Kirkwood raised three fingers of his right hand and recited solemnly: I promise to do my best, to do my duty to God, the queen, and to obey the laws of the Eagle Scout troop.
Their bodies were never found,
Ephraim said, smiling at Max. "If they’re still alive, they would be total batshit madmen by now. But even if they were here, stalking this island, there’s a way to save yourself. The Gurkhas attack at night, okay? Always. They sneak into your cabin silent as death. They hover over your bed and feel your bootlaces. If they’re laced over and under . . . Ephraim drew his thumb across his throat, a slitting motion.
But if they’re laced straight across, same way the Gurkhas lace them, they’ll let you live. He yawned.
Well, good night, guys."
His flashlight snapped off. Soon afterward, a body thumped onto the floor. Ephraim’s flashlight pinned Newton in a halo of stark light, lying in a heap beside his boots.
Ephraim said: I knew you’d crack, Newt!
Newton sat up awkwardly, rubbing his knees. His skin was even pinker than usual in the flashlight’s glow: piglet-pink.
Jeez, well . . .
Newton bowed his head, rubbing his eye sockets. You ought to be ashamed, Eef, telling that creepy stuff . . .
Kent Jenks cried, Newt, you bed-wetter!
Shelley merely watched with an owlish expression, large yellow-tinted eyes staring from the milky oval of his face. Not smiling or laughing with the others—a blank test pattern of a face, expressive of nothing much at all.
Boys, hey! Come on, now,
Scoutmaster Tim said, stepping into the room. It’s all fun and games until someone falls out of bed. What say we call it quits for the night, okay?
Newton stood, still rubbing his eyes, and heaved his bulk into the top bunk—but not before checking his bootlaces to make sure they were laced straight across.
Go to sleep, fellas,
Scoutmaster Tim said. Newton thought he could glimpse signs of strain on his Scoutmaster’s face: a vaguely panicked cast to his eyes. Big day tomorrow.
The door shut. Wind raced over the sea, howling around the cabin’s edges. The logs groaned, a melancholy note like the hull of an old Spanish galleon buffeted by ocean waves. The boys lay in their bunks, breathing heavily. Ephraim whispered:
Gurkhas gonna get you, Newt.
5
TIM HEARD the man before he arrived. Heard him coming at a tortured shamble like a disoriented bear stirred from hibernation.
By nature, Tim was calm and unflappable—a valuable personality trait for a doctor, whose day could swing from soothing and treating a boy with a simple case of measles to inserting a tracheal stent in the throat of a girl who’d gone into anaphylactic shock following a bee sting. He’d spent nearly a year in Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders—had he been rabbity by nature, there was no way he’d have lasted that long. His mind naturally gravitated to the most likely causes, and from there coolly cataloged the possible effects.
Fact One: a boat had arrived. Could be one of the boys’ parents—had Newton forgotten his asthma inhaler? Likely not, seeing as Newt rarely forgot anything. Could be a ship had gone down—had a trawler capsized while netting pollack in the westerly seas?—and the boat contained its bedraggled survivors.
Tim’s mind snapped into triage mode: if that were the case, they’d need medical attention; he’d stabilize them here, on the beachhead if need be, and radio for a medevac chopper.
Or it could be a drunk from the mainland who’d lost his way on a night-fishing jaunt. Unlike the drunks in Tim’s hometown who’d hit the fleshpits once the bars shut down, the good ole boys around here hit the water. Slewing across the ocean in open-motor skiffs, bellowing like bulls as they skipped across the waves—that, or they’d drop a fishing line and low-cycle the motor, trawling at a leisurely pace. A few years ago, a winebag named Lester Hamms froze to death on his boat; Jeff Jenks, North Point’s chief of police, discovered Lester seven miles off the cape, skin crystalline with frost like a piece of unwrapped steak in a freezer, his ass ice-welded to the seat, a pair of frozen snot-tusks poking out his nostrils. Lester’s boat was still puttering along; before long it would’ve hit the tidal shelf and been carried out to sea—Tim pictured his frozen corpse bumping along the shore of Greenland like a grisly bit of driftwood, a polar bear giving it a curious sniff.
Whoever it was, Tim was sure he or she posed little threat . . . ninety-nine percent sure.
Fact Two: he and the boys were on an isolated island over an hour from home. No weapons other than their knives—blades no longer than three and a half inches, as outlined in the Scout Handbook—and a flare gun. It was night. They were alone.
Tim eased the porch door open with his boot. It issued a thin squeal—eeeee-ee-eee—like a rusty nail pried out of a wet plank.
He edged around the cabin, heartbeat thrumming in the veins down his neck. Mosquitoes wet themselves in his beading sweat. He should’ve brought the lamp, but a signal broadcasting from deep within his reptile cortex said: No light. Don’t make yourself visible.
Unsheathing his Buck knife, he pressed it flat along his thigh—his sensible self thinking: This is ridiculous; you’re being idiotic, totally paranoid. But the primal and instinctive part of him, the part ruled by the lizard brain, issued only a mindless buzz like a hive of Africanized bees.
Wind howled along the earth, attaining a voice as it gusted around the rocks and spindly trees: a low muttersome sound like children whispering at the bottom of a well. It whipped up the back of Tim’s legs, icy tongues chilling him to the core. He squinted at the tree line, sensing something, the shadows coalescing to attain a certain weight and permanence.
A shape materialized from the tangled foliage. Tim inhaled sharply. By the light of an uncommonly bright moon, he beheld a creature stepped fully formed from his blackest childhood nightmares: a rotted monster who’d dragged itself from the sea.
It wasn’t much more than a skeleton lashed by ropes of waterlogged muscle, its flesh falling off its bones in gray, lace-edged rags. It lumbered forward, mumbling dully to itself. Tim’s terror pinned him in place.
The thing shambled through a shaft of moonlight that danced along the tall grass; the light transformed the nightmare into what it truly was: a man so horrifyingly thin it was a miracle he was still alive.
Tim stepped from cover without thinking, driven by the instinctive urge to offer aid. Hello? You all right?
The man turned his brightly burning gaze on him. It was a gaze of mindless terror and desperate longing, but what really spooked Tim was