Free Dweller by Jeff Strand Page A

than hurt, and deflected the countless blows with minimal effort. Nick apparently thought this was the funniest part yet, and even Larry continued to chuckle.
    Larry grabbed Toby’s nose and gave it a pinch.
    The laughter suddenly stopped.
    Toby didn’t remember taking out the hunting knife, or pulling it out of its leather sheath. But Larry now looked really frightened.
    Gripping the handle with both hands, Toby slammed the blade deep into Larry’s chest.
    For a fraction of a second, it felt almost euphoric. Then the reality of what he’d just done struck him, and he cried out in horror. “ Oh God, I’m sorry … I didn’t … oh God …”
    Larry lay there, eyes wide open in shock, body twitching. Toby wasn’t a doctor, but he knew exactly where he’d plunged the blade, and you didn’t survive when you had an eight-inch hunting knife protruding from your heart.
    “ Oh God … oh Jesus …”
    He looked up at Nick, as if for help. Nick had his hand over his mouth and looked as if he were hyperventilating. There was no more scorn in the bully’s eyes—just pure panic. Toby knew his own panic was even worse. He just wanted to curl up into a tight little ball and scream and scream and scream.
    But he couldn’t do that.
    Larry was dying. He couldn’t be saved. Maybe not even if there were an ambulance parked ten feet away, and definitely not all the way out here in the woods. No matter what he did to try to fix things, he’d murdered somebody. There was a bloody corpse on the ground next to him and he’d made it.
    Nick was the only one who knew what he’d done.
    If he let Nick leave this forest alive, Toby was going to jail.
    He couldn’t spend the rest of his life in prison. Not for somebody as cruel and worthless as Larry.
    Toby wrenched the knife out of Larry’s chest. He couldn’t look at the blade, couldn’t see the blood or he’d go insane and not be able to do this.
    There was no time for apologies or explanations. He had to move fast, get Nick while he was still in a state of shock. Toby rushed at the larger boy, feeling his rage return, rage at Nick for making this happen, for destroying his life. The rage felt a lot better than the fear, the helplessness.
    Nick turned and ran.
    In a voice that sounded muffled, as if he were speaking from inside a casket, Toby reassured him, promised him that everything was going to be okay, that he wasn’t going to hurt him, that Larry was fine. As Nick got farther away, Toby pleaded with him, did the begging he’d refused to do at gunpoint, said things that made no sense.
    Nick fell to the ground.
    Had Toby thrown the knife? No, it was still in his hand. Nick had just tripped, that’s all.
    Toby couldn’t even feel his foot as he ran over to the fallen boy. He swung down at him, jabbing the blade into the open palm Nick held up to defend himself. Toby stabbed again and again, the blade slashing Nick’s arms, his chest, his face. It took Toby a long time to stop.
    He was covered with blood. Dripping with it. If hewatched this scene from the outside, he’d be filled with revulsion at the boy with the knife. The deranged boy. The ghoulish boy. The psycho boy, drenched with red, the murderous little animal that should be shot in the head and dragged away, so that the sight of him wouldn’t horrify onlookers.
    Finally he crawled away from Nick, leaving the knife in the bully’s throat, and vomited.
    What had he done?
    It hadn’t happened. There weren’t two dead kids lying in the woods with him. There was no possible reality where that could be true.
    He was a killer.
    He’d murdered Larry and Nick. It wasn’t even self-defense.
    Toby looked back at Nick’s body, waiting for Nick to sit up, wipe the fake blood off his chin, and let out a shrill laugh at the uproarious practical joke they’d played. “Stop being so gullible, Floren! We aren’t really dead! A little runt like you could never kill us!”
    Nick remained dead on the ground.
    Toby rubbed his