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 Walter Sithol is a fourteen-year-old boy
growing up in rural Alabama during the mid 1970’s. He and
his two best friends, Jimmy and Mothball, seem to be average,
if not a bit mischievous, teenaged boys. They sneak out of
their houses at night, ring doorbells and run, and spy on
neighbors. They are especially fascinated with (and frightened
of) a homeless man that they nickname The Troll, who silently
wanders the streets of Woodley and lives under the railroad
tracks in a dilapidated shack near the Tallapoosa River.
Their parents have cautioned them to stay away from The Troll,
but those warnings only help to fuel their curiosity.
Other than some of their pranks (and Mothball’s strange obsession with wanting
to keep a chicken alive after decapitating it) the boys lead relatively normal
lives. Or so it appears at first. But after an overnight camping adventure near
The Hanging Woods, Jimmy’s sinister dark side starts to emerge. Once Walter and
Mothball experience Jimmy’s disturbing antics firsthand, they decide to teach
him a lesson.
One night, while playing on a rope swing at the river—and only a little upstream
from the Troll’s shack—Walter and Mothball implement their plan. But things go
terribly wrong. Before they can begin to grasp what has happened, the police
are involved, yet the boys manage to escape suspicion. However, The Troll becomes
a prime suspect and looks like he’ll take the fall for the boys’ misdeeds.
After the mishap at the river, their lives are irreversibly
altered as they fight not only amongst themselves but also with their consciences.
A downward spiral of lies, deception, and deceit consume them as they try to
cover their tracks and stay one step ahead of the police. But the police might
not be their biggest threat. As it turns out, their biggest threat might be one
another. Through a series of twists and turns, they learn that not only are they
keeping
information from their parents and the authorities, but from each other
as well.
Click here to read Chapter One
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