Free The Dead Boys by Royce Buckingham Page A

reach.
    â€œTeddy, wait!” It was Sloot’s voice.
    â€œSloot!” Teddy called out. “Over here! Quick. They’re all around us.” He swung the light back and forth, expecting Henry Mulligan to leap out and grab him at any second.
    â€œLower the lamp,” Sloot called. “It burns our peepers, pal.”
    â€œOur?” Teddy turned the lamp toward the ground so that it cast only a faint circle of light, enough to see by, but not so bright.
    Two pale eyes appeared in the blackness. Sloot melted from the shadows and eased toward him, squinting. “This is a dim place,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Teddy asked. But before Sloot could answer, he heard footsteps to his left. “Watch out!” he warned, and he raised the light.
    Sloot stepped to him, squinting in the halogen’s blinding beam, and pushed the light back down toward the ground. “Stop, Teddy,” he pleaded. “It’s us.”
    Sloot motioned to the darkness, beckoning forward his unseen companions. A second boy crept from the shadows, then a third. They were pale and hollow-eyed. The third one had a bloody nose. They were about Teddy’s age, and he was relieved to see that none were Henry Mulligan or from his gang.
    Sloot patted them on their backs as they joined him and Teddy in the faint light. “Joey and Oliver, this is Teddy. He’s here to help us.”
    Teddy gasped. “The other boys from the cemetery!”

CHAPTER 19
    Joey and Oliver nodded, but didn’t speak. Joey fidgeted, while Oliver wiped blood from his nose with his shirtsleeve.
    â€œNot too chatty, I’m afraid,” Sloot said. “But they’re very glad you’ve finally come here, believe me.”
    He smiled. It was an odd, crooked smile.
    â€œBut where is here?” Teddy swung the halogen around. All he could see was blowing sand in all directions. He’d been taken too far from the A-house to see the old home in the darkness.
    â€œHalfway between,” Sloot said. “Not bright like life, not black like death. Just . . . dim.”
    Teddy didn’t push it. By now he cared less about where he was than about how to get out. But whatever was after him had clearly brought the other boys to this place. Maybe they could tell him what it was if they could all get to someplace safe to talk.
    â€œWhere are Albert and Walter,” Teddy asked, “and the last one? It’s Lawrence, right?”
    Joey and Oliver looked at each other. They murmured as though they knew something.
    Sloot waved the boys silent. “Lawrence is in the tree. We weren’t sure you’d be coming.”
    Teddy checked the dangling cord from the halogen to his backpack to make sure it wouldn’t catch on anything again.
    â€œSeriously, we should all go,” he said. “But I don’t want to leave without everyone. And who were those dark people that attacked me? Was it Henry Mulligan and his friends?”
    The boys shot furtive looks at one another again. It made Teddy nervous.
    â€œServants of the tree,” Sloot answered finally.
    As he spoke, a low, loud groan rose behind Teddy. Sloot glanced upward, looking fearful and angry at once.
    â€œHe’s here, isn’t he?” Sloot shouted up into the swirling dust and darkness.
    The hairs on the back of Teddy’s neck stood on end. He pointed the halogen up to the sky, revealing a massive shadow, which towered over them.
    It was the tree.

CHAPTER 20
    The sycamore was so big that Teddy had simply mistaken it for a wall of darkness. But now it was revealed by the light in all of its horrible glory. The ragged trunk twisted skyward, more than fifteen feet wide. Its thick bark was crusty and cracked with open scars that oozed inky sap. Overhead, gnarled branches jutted in all directions, their tips well beyond the reach of Teddy’s light. Its deep bass groans echoed in the blackness and shook