Page 49

Ten years ago, Hollis had broken his arm. He’d been climbing a tree, stepped on a dead branch, and fell like a comet to the ground. He could still hear the echo of the crack.

There he lay on his back in the grass, in an agony so sharp that his brain filled with static. He knew he must be seeing the trees above him, blue sky, white clouds. But the pain was so large he was blind with it. Only red, orange, and black remained as he was pulled from the ground and rolled into his father’s truck.

Horror was the same.

Intellectually, he knew he was screaming. He could surmise what had happened and guess at what sort of creature “Walt” was. He could see the world lurching forward as they jolted toward his house. Spared a bit of scientific curiosity about what sort of thing had happened with the very human body Walt had previously been wearing.

But at the front, drowning out everything, was fear.

Animal and instinctive. Gnaw-your-arm-off-to-free-yourself sort of stuff.

But Hollis couldn’t even gnaw. He couldn’t do anything but scream and think.

Walt had walked him home that first night. Waited until he put his key in the door to make sure it was his house.

Asked about his friends, family, and behavior. Said, “ That’s good to know. ”

Food and shelter. Hollis had never asked what kind. He never thought he needed to.

Maybe Walt was going to eat his body, maybe that was what he did to that other guy. Sucked him dry until he was so brittle. Hollis remembered the foot and the crisp sound of its separation. Another wave of nausea hit him so bad that it made Walt stop and lean against a fence to catch his breath.

“I eat normal food, Hollis. That other thing had nothing to do with eating.” Walt panted. “Quit trying to make us throw up.”

Hollis hated that Walt was using his voice. It made him roar in anger and beat against the inside of himself.

Walt sank to the ground and wrapped his arms around his chest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. A feeling of calm settled over them, disorienting and unwanted.

Furious, Hollis twisted in the exact way Walt told him not to, and Walt stopped what he was doing immediately.

Fine.

Walt’s inside-voice again, and that accent.

Walt picked up the pace. He walked up Hollis’s stairs like he did this every day and rummaged Hollis’s keys out of his pocket. He opened the door and closed it sharply behind him.

“Where did you go?” Hollis’s mother called.

To Hollis’s despair she was waiting up for him again at the kitchen table.

Walt turned Hollis’s body and walked it inside.

TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES! Hollis howled.

Walt bent and began undoing Hollis’s laces.

“I felt a bit stir-crazy,” Walt said. “So I just went around the neighborhood. It’s only been about twenty minutes.”

Hollis’s ma got up and opened the cabinet. She pulled out a mug and filled it from the pot sitting on the stove.

“Here, take some milk with you to bed. It’s too cold to be wandering around so late,” she said softly.

Hollis flinched as his mother kissed Walt on the side of the head and placed the mug in his hands. He wanted to push her away, warn her, shout, fight, anything. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t .

Walt took the mug and used Hollis’s face to smile.