The Troop

by Nick Cutter

The dividing line between genius and insanity is very thin and quite permeable—which is why so many geniuses descend into madness.”

You throw your body at the world. The world hits back. The world wins.

Adults were scared of different things: their jobs, their mortgages, whether they hung out with the “right people,” whether they would die unloved. These were pallid compared to the fears of a child—leering clowns under the bed and slimy monsters capering beyond the basement’s light and faceless sucking horrors from beyond the stars. There’s no 12-step or self-help group for dealing with those fears.

That’s what’s different about kids: they believe everything can happen, and fully expect it to.

Nothing wants to die. Things cling to their lives against all hope, even when it’s hopeless. It’s like the end is always there, you can’t escape it, but things try so, so hard not to cross that finish line. So when they finally do, everything’s been stripped away. Their bodies and happiness and hope. Things just don’t know when to die.