Free The Dead Boys by Royce Buckingham Page B

the ground.
    The boys ducked out of the spotlight, and Teddy backed away, trying to protect them with the lamp.
    â€œTake the light off it,” Sloot warned. “You’re making it angry.”
    Before Teddy could respond, he heard a softer moaning from above. He moved the light to the left, and, to his horror, he saw a body hanging in lower limbs of the tree.
    It was a tall boy he didn’t recognize, but since it wasn’t Albert or Walter, he had a chilling idea who it might be. “Is that Lawrence?” he gasped.
    Sloot nodded, unsurprised.
    The clawlike branches cradled Lawrence, holding him in place while writhing leaves plastered his body like leeches seeming to suck out his energy the way a normal leaf might suck in the sun. The leaves shrank from Teddy’s beam, however, then popped off of Lawrence’s skin, leaving hideous red welts. Teddy continued to shine the light on the tree, and the branches themselves retreated, releasing Lawrence. The tall boy plummeted to the ground.
    Without thinking, Teddy darted forward to drag Lawrence out of reach. He kept the light pointed up at the grotesque tree to keep the branches at bay.
    As he pulled Lawrence away, Teddy turned to Sloot. “It uses you as . . . fertilizer?” he sputtered.
    â€œAh, you get it,” Sloot said. “It’s so much better when we don’t have to explain it, like we do with stupid kids.” He glanced at Oliver. “There’s not much light for it here in the dimness, you see. It needs energy, and we’ve got it. As long as there’s a new source provided every ten years or so, no one has to get completely drained. We take turns.”
    â€œWhat?” Teddy yelped. He began to back away from both the tree and the boys as the weirdness of the past three days became suddenly, terrifyingly clear. The snags waiting for Albert in the river, the roots that grabbed Walter in the sewer trench, the knothole that held Sloot like a puppet. The tree wasn’t stalking the dead boys—it already had them. And it was using them to lure a new victim . . . him.
    But Teddy hadn’t gone in the river, the trench, or the knothole. I never took the bait , he realized.
    The thought gave him hope. Holding out the light, he spoke more bravely than he felt. “You’re not gonna feed me to some plant!”
    â€œIt’s not a choice,” Sloot said. “You’re already here.”
    â€œNo way!” Teddy insisted. “It hates light, and I’ve got five hundred watts of tree-repellant power right in my hands.”
    â€œYeah,” Sloot said, “that’s a bit of a problem.”
    He motioned to Joey, who pulled out a well-worn Cub Scout pocketknife and grabbed the halogen’s cord.
    â€œWait!” Teddy cried, but it was too late.
    Joey cut the cord, plunging them all into dimness and swirling dust.

CHAPTER 21
    Teddy ran blindly. The grainy wind stung his eyes, and the deep sand pulled at his feet. He felt sure the boys were about to catch him, but then he heard Sloot yell from a distance behind him. “Let him go. The desert will send him back. He’ll want to come back.”
    Teddy tried to run straight to keep some sense of direction in the blowing dust. He sprinted until his breath came in gasps and his lungs hurt. When he finally felt he was far enough from the tree and the boys, he slowed to a trot so he could think.
    Maybe he could circle back to the house. It was how he’d gotten here—through the window.
    It has to lead back out, doesn’t it?
    As he jogged, the sand gave way to a crunchy surface like gravel, but softer. He still couldn’t see well in the dimness, so he slowed to a walk for fear of running headlong into something solid. He reached into his backpack for the small flashlight he’d packed. It was no 500-watt halogen, and the batteries wouldn’t last forever, but it was better than nothing.
    He clicked on the