The Troop

by Nick Cutter

Dumb is as dumb does, as his mother would say—which had always struck Shelley as a dumb expression, something only a dumb person would say.

There is an emotion that operates on a register above sheer terror. It lives on a mindless dog-whistle frequency. Its existence is in itself a horrifying discovery: like scanning a shortwave radio in the dead of night and tuning in to an alien wavelength—a heavy whisper barely climbing above the static, voices muttering in a brutal language that human tongues could never speak.

How could you hide from a murderer who lived under your skin?

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

“It’s love. Love is the absolute killer. Care. The milk of human kindness. People try so hard to save the people they love that they end up catching the contagion themselves. They give comfort, deliver aid, and in doing so they acquire the infection. Then those people are cared for by others and they get infected. On and on it goes.” He shrugs. “But that’s people. People care too much. They love at all costs. And so they pay the ultimate price.”

It came down to that flexibility of a person’s mind. An ability to withstand horrors and snap back, like a fresh elastic band. A flinty mind shattered.

“I’m just saying that sometimes the more you care for something, the more damage you do. Not on purpose, right? You end up hurting the things you love just because you’re trying so hard.

The thing that once went by the name of Shelley Longpre unfolded itself from a dark chalice in the rock. Crawling out like a spider, folding each of its long, pale limbs out, unpacking itself from its hiding spot with the showy grace of a contortionist.

That was how its legs looked: like bones wrapped in skin-colored Christmas paper.

Max withdrew, wounded for reasons he couldn’t quite process.

Gayyyyyy

“Do you know how hard it is to kill something? 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. I wish they did. I wish my friends had known that. Sort of, anyway. But I’m glad they tried. That’s part of being human, right? Part of being any living thing. You hold on to life until it gets ripped away from you. Even if it gets ripped away in pieces. You just hold on.”