"You'll scare him away."

"Yeah, I suppose I might." The man stopped singing. "Did I tell you about when I went to Scotland?"

"No."

"Went to Scotland just to go to Loch Ness. Well, that wasn't the whole reason, I had relatives, but that was the selling point. Spent a week out there, staring at the water. Just wanted to see Nessie."

"Did you?"

The man shook his head. "They say it's fake. A lot of scientists and other people say it's a hoax, and even the guy who shot that one movie said it wasn't real. Why would you say that? Even if you could prove it was a fake, why would you take it away from people like that?"

"I don't know."

"I spent seven days sitting there, watching the water. Never saw any hint of the Loch Ness Monster. But I bet he was down there the whole time, watching me. Best vacation of my life."

He resumed singing as they walked through the woods.

They stood outside the shack. Toby shone the flashlight on the door.

"Is he in there?" the man asked.

"He might be. Hey, Owen, I've got somebody for you to meet!"

The door opened, and Owen emerged. The monster rubbed his eyes sleepily, then frowned as he noticed the man standing next to Toby.

The man stared at Owen in pure wonder, lips trembling. "He's real," he whispered.

"Yeah."

"I can't believe I'm standing here seeing this."

Owen stepped out of the shack. Friend Friend?

"No," said Toby. "He's not."

"He's not what?" asked the man.

Toby ignored the question. "Do you want to touch him?"

Twenty years seemed to vanish from the man's face. "Yes!"

The man apparently had no fear as they walked over to Owen. Maybe he wanted this to be his last moment. Or maybe he was just too drunk to realize the danger.

Owen stood there, motionless, as the man ran his fingers down his chest, a tear trickling down his cheek.

Toby grabbed the man by the back of his shirt collar and shoved him to the ground. Then he kicked him in the spine. "Kill him, Owen! Hurry!"

Owen continued to stand there. The monster looked surprised and upset.

"Do it, Owen! He'll tell everybody! Rip him apart!"

The man cried out and tried to get back up, but Toby tackled him and held him down. He grabbed a handful of hair and slammed his face against the dirt.

"Owen, come on on!"

No.

"This is food! I'm giving you food! For fuck's sake, Owen, do something before he gets away!"

"I didn't do anything!" the man wailed.

Toby slammed his face into the dirt again. "Eat him, goddamn it! He's gonna tell the world!"

"I'm not! I swear!"

Toby twisted the man's arm behind his back until something snapped. The man screamed in pain. He deserved it. He was going to destroy everything.

"Owen, please please!"

The monster let out a roar and lashed out with his right claw. A large piece of the man's bloody scalp remained stuck to one of his talons as he did it again. The man's scream became much higher pitched.

Toby moved away from the man as Owen pounced upon him, raking his talons across the man's back. He opened his jaws wide and took the first bite, ripping off a large chunk of meat from the man's side.

"Make him stop screaming!" Toby shouted.

Owen rolled the man over and bit off his jaw.

Toby sat against a tree, shivering, and watched Owen devour the man. He wasn't sure when he actually died. He guessed that it didn't much matter.

"Had to be done," Toby whispered. "Right? You threaten my friend, you die. That's the way things work around here. Right, Owen?"

Owen ignored the question and continued eating.

Toby had some blood on his shirt. Head wounds definitely did their share of bleeding. He touched each spot.

"We probably shouldn't have done this," he noted with a slight giggle. "Not a wise idea at all. Nope. But that's you and me, Owen, a couple of kids always getting into mischief..."

CHAPTER T THIRTY-TWO.

Toby's hands, arms, and face were covered with lacerations, but he didn't care. It was completely worth it.

He'd placed every single bottle of beer in his refrigerator-at least twenty of them-into the kitchen sink, stacking them in a nice neat pile. Then he'd taken a claw hammer and smashed them to bits, bashing over and over until he had a sink full of glass shards.

It felt good good when pieces flew up and cut him. when pieces flew up and cut him.

When he was done, he wasn't quite far gone enough to just reach in there and scoop up the glass with his bare hands, so he got a towel and carefully moved the pieces from the sink to a cardboard box. He'd drive it to the dump and safely dispose of it there.

He should be a spokesperson. Travel to schools: Hey, kids, you should never drink alcohol. I did, and I woke up next to a mutilated corpse Hey, kids, you should never drink alcohol. I did, and I woke up next to a mutilated corpse! It goes without saying that when the first thing you see in the morning is a hollow bloody eye socket, you'll realize that your life is moving in the wrong direction. It goes without saying that when the first thing you see in the morning is a hollow bloody eye socket, you'll realize that your life is moving in the wrong direction.

He'd thrown up the entire contents of his stomach (including, it felt like, the lining) and crawled away from the sight of Owen leisurely chewing on the man's stillglistening intestines. When he felt that he could finally speak, he'd shouted at Owen, cursed him for what he'd done. Then he'd sobbed and begged his friend to forgive him.

Owen had growled at him when he tried to take his food away, so Toby decided to leave it alone for the time being. "I'll be back," Toby had promised. "Eat as much as you can now, because I'm burying the leftovers."

When he returned that evening, there wasn't much left on the bones. It was amazing how much Owen could eat. Toby dug a hole, now wishing that he'd saved the symbolic bottle-breaking act for after he needed to use his hands for manual labor, and hid the bones and scraps of the poor old man who just wanted to see a monster.

No, the old man who wanted to ruin everything.

The rest of 2005 was spent trying to cope with guilt while sober, and frantically trying to predict when the police would burst into his home.

Nobody even questioned him. Toby knew that it was probably because the man had no job, no relatives, and nobody would ever miss him, but he secretly liked the idea that the man might have been part of some top-secret government agency, working undercover, and that his disappearance would be discovered after the deadline arrived for him to file his report on the bizarre Owen-creature that had befriended a human.

2006.

Toby's cell phone rang while he leaned against a tree, sharing a bag of gummy worms with Owen. Wow. The phone company had promised outstanding reception, but it had never worked out here before. He glanced at the display and didn't recognize the number. Probably a telemarketer-naturally, they'd have the technology to boost the signal to try to sell him a magazine subscription out in the woods.

"Yeah?"

"Is this Toby Floren?" The voice sounded young, like a college kid.

"Who is this?"

"I'm Steve Crown. You probably have no idea who I am, but I run the website Three Window Giggle Fits."

"I don't know it."

"We've been around for about a year, and our hits are going up every single month. It's all original content. Right off the bat I want to say that we can't pay, yet, but it's great exposure and Kirk Hart who does our strip Wheelies Wheelies just got a major syndication deal." just got a major syndication deal."

"Why are you calling me?"

"It's the weirdest thing you've ever heard. I supplement my income by reading slush, and I was clearing out boxes of stuff from years and years and years ago that they were going to throw away. My job was just to make sure that they didn't have some old strip by Gary Larson or something that could be valuable. So I was looking through some of it, and I found Rusty & Pugg Rusty & Pugg, and there's this weirdness to it that I really tapped into. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, and I don't even get all of the punch lines, but it's got this odd, enchanting charm."

"You want to publish Rusty & Pugg Rusty & Pugg?"

"Yes. Online."

"Every day?"

"It doesn't have to be every day, but some sort of regular schedule. Fleece Fleece is weekly, and is weekly, and Crush Manhattan Crush Manhattan is three times a week, but is three times a week, but Wheelies Wheelies and most of our other strips are daily, although and most of our other strips are daily, although Wheelies Wheelies is the only one that does a Sunday strip." is the only one that does a Sunday strip."

"I'm in."

"May I ask how old you are?"

"Sixty-one."

"See, no offense, but you'll never get a major syndicate to pick you up. Me, I think that's awesome. I'm going to use that as a selling point."

When the conversation ended, Toby slipped the phone back into his pocket and turned to Owen. "Three Window Giggle Fits. What a shitty name."

Yes.

"But people are going to read my strip!"

Toby went out that afternoon and bought a computer. The salesperson, a girl in her early twenties, thought that it was unbearably cute that such an old man wanted to learn how to use a computer. He was pretty sure she sold him features that he didn't need, but the whole thing was gibberish and he pretty much just handed over his credit card.

The next week, he began taking classes.

2007.

Kirk told him that Rusty & Pugg Rusty & Pugg was getting 700 hits a day. was getting 700 hits a day.

"Is that a lot?"

"Third highest-rated strip on the site."

2008.