be brought forth.
"OK, the drill first," he said, and they set to work.
Nathan held the animal steady while Ian whirred the electric drill to life. It descended with a dreadful certainty until it met the soft skin, gave infinitesimally, and with a yelp of shock began to machine the tip apart in spinning silver whorls. Ian relaxed his finger on the trigger and felt sweat form on this back, despite the workshop's slight chill.
"Okay," he said. "That's pretty cool.”
There was a natural groove in the frog's lower spine and Ian had Jeremy steady a chisel there while he whacked its end with a mallet. The tool did not leave a mark, nor did the frog flinch. Nathan looked anxiously into its eyes but they indicated nothing. Ian swallowed hard. Jeremy felt like the realm of the impossible, the place where he let his imagination run, had supplanted the real without him noticing.
Amid his rising excitement, he knew that things would not be the same for any of them.
They opened the bench vice wide and Ian slotted the frog inside. Ian was about to turn the handle when Scott said from behind them:
"What are you sick little bastards doing?"
Scott felt a wave of anger. Jeremy, whom he liked, had enthusiastically talked to him before about guns and explosives. He had gone outside to make sure they were not trying to construct a nuclear device. But torturing animals was unexpected and shocking.
"It's fine," said Nathan, who was smiling. Scott wanted to hit him then, and fought the impulse.
"No Nathan, it's not fine. Your little friends can get out of here and then we are going to have a long talk, my friend.”
Nathan looked downcast. Jeremy felt his elation peak. Freeing the frog, he picked up a saw from their tray of testing implements and readied it over the frog's throat.
"Watch this," he said, and they all did.
Later, Scott drove them through the streets. He had not spoken much since he had seen the saw drawn over the frog's thin neck without any ill effect. The boys had then enthusiastically shown him the amphibian was proof against crushing, piercing, burning or laceration. He thought in a rush: It's a mutant gene or something. The thing's skin has some extra enzyme, whatever. This explanation was the rock to which he would tether his mind.
Like the boys, his misgivings about harming the frog were quickly over-ridden by curiosity. They had eventually doused the frog in lighter fluid and set it to flame. The thing was still hot to the touch after they had quenched it in a bucket of water. It still had the same beatific expression, the wide mouth almost suggesting a smile. Scott killed the engine and looked a each of the trio in turn.
"Guys, we have to be real quiet about where we're going and what we're gonna see.”
The boys nodded solemnly. Scott smiled.
"You've used saws and drills. I know someone who can see just what this little sucker can take.”
Jeremy's tone was almost boastful, repeating a phrase he had picked up in a WW2 movie; the cocky prisoner taunting the Gestapo:
"Do your worst.”
They were at the house of Scott's friend Blackie. Blackie was a former army sergeant, a few years older than Scott. Where Scott's tattoo was small and high on his arm, Blackie's whole body was a riot of ink. Nathan took a strange pride in noting the garland of skulls he had seen on Blackie's wrist was now intertwined with a barbed wire cobweb at his elbow. This joining had been his suggestion.
Blackie's house was divided into two zones: living quarters above ground and a bunker belowdecks. The bunker seemed to serve a dual purpose, both as a shrine to Blackie's love of weaponry and the centre of his devotion to The Carpenters. Karen and Richard beamed down from tour posters and framed album covers while Blackie snapped open a khaki metal case. He looked askance at Scott.
"Kids are cool, yeah?”
"Yep," replied his friend with a nod.
"Okay," said Blackie, and produced a huge rifle which he promptly set to field stripping. Jeremy and Ian flew to the table immediately and began to question him frantically. Nathan fished the frog from his pocket and examined it again.
"You'll be fine," he said. "Don't worry about a thing.”
The frog opened its mouth slightly and looked at the rifle. Green-lit by a bench lamp fringed in camouflage netting, Blackie's glare was that of the eternal hunter.
"Right, this is a bolt action fifty cal. This round will penetrate light vehicle armour. Forget about brick walls and shit. As for frogflesh ... well my brothers, I would be saying your goodbyes," he said.
He had provided strips of woven tape to secure the frog and it was a quick matter to tether it to the wall of sandbags that covered one side of the bunker.
"Put these in.” Blackie handed out violet earplugs with a smile. Their excited muttering fell to the floor and was lost. Ian shot Nathan a smile.
The weapon fired, a whumping detonation the boys could feel through the plugs. More smoke than Jeremy would have thought likely issued from the wide-bored muzzle of the rifle and hung in the centre of the room. Blackie was ejected the spent casing, which spun out wide and to the floor. He then said the word "Clear" loudly and motioned the boys forward.
Nathan ran.
From halfway across the room, he could see that the frog was unharmed. Indeed, it was even moving slightly against its bindings. The bullet was another matter. Its brass jacket lay shredded on the ground, and all about were strewn its tiny metal innards in a fine powder: a massacre of ordnance.
Ian and Jeremy fist-pumped the air and whooped.
"Unkillable!" they shouted.
Blackie stood regarding the slain bullet for a moment before retreating to the shadows . Scott peered closely at the frog and hesitantly touched its skin.
"It's not even breathing hard," he reported.
Nathan smiled. Unkillable.
He high-fived his friends and reached to untie the animal.
"Grab those plugs again, lads," said Blackie.
Concentration marked his face as he methodically snapped shells into a shotgun by the table. Although wanting to protest, Nathan stayed silent. He knew they had already transformed Blackie's conception of the universe in a way he dare not guess. Blackie ensured the firing range was clear and emptied the shotgun's magazine at the frog in a rapid succession of blasts. After a quick inspection of his target, he whispered his astonishment in an elaborate series of curses. Then he turned and spoke to the trio.
"Where did you find this thing?"
Ian said "The river" before any of them could answer.
"The river," he repeated. "For tonight, I think I'll keep our little friend safe, what do you say?”
Ian's voice was measured and final.
"No. It's ours. We'll keep it safe.”
Blackie's bore a wide grin that revealed metal teeth sprinkled in his upper gums, a gargoyle made flesh.
"Good for you," he said softly.
With that he retrieved their frog from the tape. His every movement was deliberate with care, the boys saw, all violence now absent from his hands.
After the musty smell of canvas and gun-grease, the Spring night air was a revelation. Every breath was perfumed with the far-spilled odour of flowers. The boys' senses seemed razor-keen, and they tumbled in the front yard like wolf cubs. Scott took a long draught of his beer and glanced at Blackie, who had forgone their usual drinking accompaniment music of The Flayed Brigade. His friend, with a look of bemusement, said:
"I had almost forgotten what it's like.”
"What?" asked Scott.
"To know that anything can happen at any moment. Do you know that feeling?"
Scott nodded.
"I had almost forgotten," Scott repeated. "You can't see everything in this life, Scott. A Goddamn little frog can change everything.”
With that he laughed and returned to careful inspection of his beer bottle. Scott drained his own brew:
"I know. Like if something that small and insignificant can piss with nature, what can that mean for me?"
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Blackie seemed relieved to hear his own thoughts encompassed by his friend.
"Yeah. And what made that thing able to withstand a round that should have reduced the bastard to little flecks of red and green foam?”
"It's scary but also a bit ... exhilarating.”
"Exhilarating," Blackie snorted, and Scott knew their level of discourse had returned to a comfortable superficiality. They spoke no more of the frog, watching the boys enact their new-found sense of wonder in nameless play.
That night, Jeremy, Nathan and Ian shared the same dream. Their trench network was translocated to a warzone. Soldiers in mud-soaked uniforms crawled down through the maze of tunnels like great gray rats. Each boy found immediate glee and vindication in the visage. Then the viewpoint afforded by the dream changed, drawing backwards into sky misted with gray smoke. As their trench receded from view, huge explosions began to erupt in the diggings, obliterating all. Gouts of blood and flame escaped the earth. Below their parapets, a sullen Hell was bursting its bounds through fissures of bright fire.
The dream-view flew into the sky, revealing at once that the boys' trench was merely one bulwark in a vast front line that reached to the horizon. The size of the battlefield was unimaginable now as they raced to the heavens. Awed, they saw that their swirling dugout pattern replicated itself in ever larger instances. Gaping warrens still rent with shell-bursts diminished to mere cracks in the dirt of ever more immense trenches. It was an ocean whose denizens, from plankton to leviathan, differed only in scale. When comprehension of this sight failed them, the boys woke.
At school