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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Winter was the only season every Lake-Lander feared…In a post-apocalyptic America, a community survives in a national park, surrounded by water that keeps the Dead at bay. But when winter comes, there's nothing to stop them from crossing the ice.Then homebody Peter puts the camp in danger by naively allowing a stranger to come ashore and he's forced to leave the community of Wranglestone. Now he must help rancher Cooper, the boy he's always watched from afar, herd the Dead from their shores before the lake freezes over.But as love blossoms, a dark discovery reveals the sanctuary's secret past. One that forces the pair to question everything they've ever known.An action-packed and thought-provoking debut, for fans of Patrick Ness, Marcus Sedgwick, DREAD NATION and The Walking Dead.
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For Shaun
Contents
Reviews
Shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards
Shortlisted for the YA Book Prize
Longlisted for the Branford Boase Award
* * *
“Part zombie epic… part gay love story… a sophisticated new voice.”
The Times, Best Books of the Year
“Zombie thrills combine with an achingly tender gay love story”
Observer
“Sublime and affecting.”
Starburst
“Fresh and compelling and totally immersive.”
Sunday Irish Independent
“Thrilling zombie epic meets gorgeous gay love story. The world-building is deft, the writing poetic … this is very special!”
William Hussey, author of Hideous Beauty
“A bucolic, intimate twist on the zombie/post-apocalyptic story.”
David Owen, author of Grief Angels
“Charlton’s fantastic debut […] is both a page-turning zombie thriller and a beautifully drawn gay love story.”
iNews
“Wranglestone is terrifyingly good.”
Attitude
“A complete treasure of a book – page-turning, stunning writing, an extraordinary setting and with a gorgeous love story at its heart.”
Lisa Heathfield, author of I Am Not A Number
“Wranglestone by Darren Charlton holds an extra special place in my little gay heart.”
George Lester, author of Boy Queen
Chapter One
Peter was born into a world of unwelcome visitors. And winter on Lake Wranglestone sure as hell was one of them. Just when the bears had started to leave for higher ground, those damned dark clouds came down off the mountains, carrying something far worse inside.
Peter drove his axe into the woodpile and looked out across the water. The lake, tucked in between the Great Glaciers to the north and the Shark Tooth mountains of the south, was among the most remote of all the refuges built for the nation’s National Park Escape Program. A dozen little islands, all peaked with pine, dotted the deep blue eye of the forest.
His island, Skipping Mouse, on account of it being the smallest, was down one end. Eagle’s Rest, where Cooper lived, was all the way up at the top. On a clear day, you could watch him skimming stones in nothing but his undershorts, but not this morning. Fingers of icy cloud hung so low over the water that the islands disappeared inside them. Peter steadied himself on the grip of the axe. The lake took on a special eerie feel now that the year was dying, and the air was thick with log smoke and bull elks grunting. But there was something else.
A loon bird wailed like a wolf in the night.
A canoe broke through the mist.
A moment later, it came.
“No,” Peter whispered. “Not yet. Please go away. I’ll be real good, I promise.”
A single snowflake bobbed over Peter’s head and settled on the blade of the axe. He chewed the skin around his fingernail and the snowflake dissolved to nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. It just wasn’t. Soon more snow would be on its way. More than just the snow too.Soon theywould come.
Peter swung round, furiously scanning the shoreline. Over on the mainland, yellow leaves shimmered down from silver branches like sunlight on water. The lake clapped the rocky shore. He sighed. At least there was no sign of the ice forming yet. Their clawing hands couldn’t get to the islands for now. But the big freeze was coming and it was coming fast, and no one was going to dig out their box of sleigh bells and Christmas stockings for First Fall. Not any more. Not ever.
Peter turned back. Above him, candlelight twinkled from inside the island’s piney chamber. They were safe in their little timber tree house. The six wooden stilts that held it up there in among the pine cones and black squirrels were built to withstand a heavy knock, even a herd. That’s what his dad had always promised him anyways. Not that it made much difference. Nothing stopped those stilts from looking as flimsy as matchsticks at this time of year. But then winter was the one season every Lake Lander feared. Not because Montana was about to get colder than a bald eagle’s gaze, but because the Dead could make it across the lake’s frozen waters.
Chapter Two
“First Fall, huh?” came a gravel voice from behind.
Peter swung round and watched the canoe approach the island. It was a stranger’s. An old man lifted up the wooden paddle and sliced it back down through the water. The flaps of his trapper hat swung about his face like the ears on Bud’s old bloodhound, Dolly. He looked just as harmless too. But he’d got a good pace going and hadn’t asked for permission to come ashore yet, so Peter made his way down to the water’s edge.
“Who goes there?”
“Permission to land?” said the old man, hoisting the paddle out of the water. “Yes, yes. Permission to land.”
Peter glanced back up toward the tree house. He shouldn’t really be letting strangers anywhere near the island on his own. But his dad was nowhere to be seen.
“Bah!” bellowed the old man. “You can make up your own mind, can’t ya? You’re a big boy.”
“Yes,” said Peter, without convincing himself. “I’m sixteen.”
“And you’re real handy with an axe too.”
“You think?”
“Sure.”
Peter shrugged. “I s’pose.”
“No suppose about it.”
“Well, I’m trying my best.”
“Better than trying.”
“I’m trying real hard.”
“I can see that. Broad shoulders n’all.”
Peter creased the corner of his mouth into a half-smile and looked down. Darlene had told him that if he wore extra-thick knit it’d fool the eye into thinking he had the same broad shoulders as Cooper in a T-shirt. But he was nothing like Cooper. Nobody was. Peter braced his hand across his bony collarbone and wondered if he’d be lucky enough to spot him out on the lake today. He hadn’t seen him for a few days now, three and a half to be exact.
The old man rested his paddle across the width of the canoe, smiling broadly.
The canoe glided into the shallows under its own momentum and grazed the shingle below.
“No,” said Peter. “I’m skinnier than an aspen mauled by beavers. But I patch up all our socks, and I know how to make a quilt out of old shirts and sweaters big enough to cover a king-size bed and make sure all the colours match up and complement real nice too.”
The old man pulled off his trapper hat in an I’ll bedarned kind of way and used it to wipe the sweat off his bald head. “Well, fancy that,” he said. “And a good thing too. We all need a use, a trade in this world. But I gotta admit, it is kinda unusual for a boy. You must take after your ma.”
“No,” said Peter quietly. “She’s dead.”
“Too bad. Then who do you get it from?”
Peter shrugged. He didn’t know what made him this way any more than anyone knew why the planet had become a walking graveyard all those years ago, just before he was born.
A moment passed in awkward silence. The sun broke behind a passing cloud and dazzled across the water like starlight.
“Anyhoo,” said the old man. “I take it I got permission to land?”
Peter looked up, embarrassed that he’d forgotten his manners, and rushed down to yank the nose of the canoe on to the shore.
“Oh sure! Sorry.”
The old man wiped his hand across his thigh and thrust it forward. “Ben.”
“Peter. Nice to meet you.”
The old man nodded as if to say likewise and whipped an old blanket off the front of the canoe to reveal a big pile of stuff. He was a trader. The lake was full of them in the summer months. Whether it was rare essentials like cooking pots and flare guns, or novel trinkets from the old world like CDs for shaving mirrors, there was nearly always something to find if you rummaged deep enough. And, just as long as Peter didn’t dwell on how traders had to raid dead people’s homes for these items, he always looked forward to their visits.
“Anything take your fancy?” asked the old man. “We got pairs of boots in all sizes, a Swiss army knife complete with a corkscrew and some good old titty porn with all its pages intact.”
Peter pushed the bundle of magazines aside and started to rifle through the rest.
“Oh, they were so sure the internet had killed off print,” the old man went on. “But then the world blew its fuse and look who’s laughing now!”
“I guess,” said Peter, none the wiser. “Do you have a needle and thread?”
“You’re a right little homebody, ain’t ya?”
“It doesn’t matter what colour it is.”
“Well, I’m not too sure we do, Peter.”
“I mean, it does matter. You don’t want to mend a pair of white socks with black cotton if you can really help it, but anything will do really.”
The old man looked up into the pines toward their tree house. “And what have you got to trade anyhoo?”
“We got a freshly hung deer,” said Peter, distracted by a neatly stitched gingham oven glove.
“Uh-huh.”
“And I made a dreamcatcher out of some twigs and eagle feathers.”
“Right.”
“I can show it to you if you like.”
“Bet you got it looking real nice in that there tree house of yours.”
“Yes,” said Peter. “Dad felled trees for a bunch of logging companies before the world went dark. The cabin’s made out of solid pine. Real good grain apparently. And he made the roll-up rope ladder too. The Restless Ones can’t climb up it, but the bears will have a good go.”
“Is that so? Well, I bet it’s real cosy.”
“Oh yes. It’s just the one room with an outhouse round the back. But we’ve got a log burner and some old deer hide in the middle of the floor to make it soft underfoot.”
“Well, lucky ol’ you.”
Peter continued to rummage through the pile. A few things caught his eye, but he’d made serious mistakes before by trading hard-hunted meat for things his dad decided were frivolous. He put the oven glove back on the pile because nobody had ovens any more and kept looking. After a while, his fingers came across something small and plastic, and he pulled out a toy animal. Peter turned the black and white striped horse over in his fingers and wondered how such a thing was ever possible out there in the world.
“Aha!” said the old man. “Zebra.”
Peter looked into his eyes and smiled. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Zee used to be for zebra, on kids’ alphabet charts, I mean. But now zee just stands for—”
“Yes.”
Peter held eye contact with the old man for a moment and a silent understanding passed between them. Nobody knew what was worse: being too young to remember what life was like before the world was turned upside down or being old enough to have to live with the loss. But this wasn’t the first time Peter had felt someone look inside him and wish their memories were as short as his.
Tears welled in the old man’s eyes. Peter noticed just how bloodshot and tired they were and wondered if he should invite him in to sit by the fire.
Snow drifted over the canoe. Heavier now.
“Suppose you’ll be battening down the hatches if the snow keeps up like this,” said the old man, clapping his hands together to warm them.
Peter looked out toward the islands where the other thirty or so Lake Landers lived, and nodded.
“Yes. Once the lake’s frozen over, we’re in for the long haul.”
“How d’you even manage to defend yourselves? I know you’ve got a tree house n’all, but if a herd of Rotters came toward ya, I mean.”
“The watchtower mainly,” said Peter, pointing at the middle of the lake where the vast wooden structure stood. “The military built it when everyone had to abandon the towns and cities, and they turned all the national parks into refuges.”
“Yup, I remember. And you’re the lucky few who get to live here, huh? I heard Yosemite and Yellowstone damn near bust they were so full.”
“I don’t know,” said Peter. “Why, which park have you come from?”
“You must all be scientists and neurosurgeons the world can’t live without.”
“I s’pose.” But the truth was Peter had never really given it much thought.
The old man held eye contact. “Well, fancy that.”
Peter smiled. An awkward silence passed between them so he quickly filled it.
“We don’t even let the Restless Ones get this far. As soon as one of them breaks cover from the woods, we shoot on sight.”
“Just like the old infomercials told us to do, before our television sets went dark.”
“I heard,” said Peter. Except it was hard to imagine how TV even worked, or the internet, or planes or electricity or anything.
“Yup. IF YOU SEE SOMEONE WHO DON’T LOOKRIGHT, CLOCKIT.KILLIT—”
“RID THE WORLD OF IT!” said Peter, nodding. “My dad taught me it was better to forget my pants in the morning than ever to forget that.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed, but he wasn’t smiling any more. “Uh-huh. We all got told a lotta things back then.”
“So people use the watchtower for fishing and diving in the summer months, but in the winter, we’re scanning the shoreline like hawks on the wind. They don’t stand a chance.”
“I see. And what about others approaching the lake? Not the Dead, I mean, just good clean folks looking for sanctuary.”
“There’s a strict vetting procedure. All newcomers have gotta report to Henry over on Cabins Creak.”
The sun disappeared behind a cloud and the water dulled to a murky grey. Peter became aware of just how much cooler the air was when, all of a sudden, he felt a searing, stinging pain in his side. He looked down and watched the old man yank a bloody knife out from inside him.
“I’m sorry, boy,” said the old man as if he genuinely meant it. “But who are you people? I brought my wife here on good faith we’d both be taken care of and you’re not even wearing the snowflake.”
Peter’s legs gave way beneath him. He grabbed on to the nose of the canoe for support. It was only then that he realized the old man wasn’t alone. Another blanket stirred at the far end of the canoe.
“It’s gonna be OK, Martha,” said the old man. “This nice boy was just being careful we were who we said we were. He’s gonna let us up now. I’m sure our ol’ knees can manage the rope ladder.”
Peter fell forward on to the canoe all woozy. The air was suddenly so cold. He stared into the man’s eyes, but there was no menace or evil hiding inside them, just the most practised look this world knew: need. Peter tried to push himself free of the canoe, but the old man clapped his hands down on top of Peter’s to keep him there.
“It’ll be over for you in seconds,” he said. “I promise.”
He wiped the bloody blade across his leg. His eyes scanned Peter’s body, deciding where to stick it next. They glanced at his chest. Settled on his neck. But before the blade could find its way there, Peter heard a sudden swooshand the knife fell from the man’s hand.
An arrow jutted sharply from the old man’s face. Peter watched gore seep out of his punctured eyeball and ooze down toward the quill. His life left him in seconds. Peter felt his own consciousness leave him, but his dad’s footsteps pounded across the ground behind him and he fell backward into his arms.
“He said I was good with an axe, Dad. I’m sorry.”
“Damn it, Pete,” said his dad, helping him up. “You don’t need a stranger to tell you that.” He saw the blood and gasped. “Shit, Jesus. Darlene’s got our first-aid kit. We’ve gotta get you over to her place quick.”
Peter felt his body being lifted up, then lowered down into the canoe. His dad tossed the old man’s body overboard, then scrambled in too. He was barefoot and hadn’t even changed out of his white long johns yet. For some stupid reason, it crossed Peter’s mind that his dad’s black stubble was too thick now, too thick for Darlene to take any interest in him anyhow. Before he had time to mention the old man’s wife, Peter felt the canoe push away from the shore. He drifted off to the sound of the paddle cutting sharply through open water.
Chapter Three
Peter woke behind his eyelids. He couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a moment or two, but it was so quiet he thought he’d come round at Darlene’s place. But he hadn’t.
The canoe rocked gently from side to side, and he realized they were still on open water. He listened for the sound of the paddle cutting a quick course across the lake. But it didn’t come. They weren’t moving any more. Peter felt the cold kiss of snow on his face and slowly opened his eyes.
Snowflakes tumbled out of the low-hanging clouds, luminous somehow against the dark grey behind them. Peter blinked to clear them from his eyelashes and listened to a loon wail somewhere further off across the lake. But something wasn’t right. He went to move and a searing pain bit into his side. Then he remembered the attack.
“Dad?” he cried, clutching the bloody wound. “Dad!”
There was no answer. He hoisted himself up on to the heel of his hands, falling back against the nose of the canoe. His dad was nowhere to be seen, but Peter wasn’t alone.
The old woman was leaning over the side down the other end of the canoe. The blanket that had hidden her before was now crumpled at her feet. A powder-blue nightgown patterned with maple leaves fell across her bony frame. Tresses of long grey hair spilled into the water obscuring her features so Peter couldn’t tell if she was alarmed or not. She didn’t appear to be.
He clutched his side again and swung round to face the direction of travel in case his dad had gone ashore to fetch the first-aid kit from Darlene. But they were still some distance away from her island. He turned back round. The paddle had drifted away from the canoe, too far out to reach. However, the old woman was unconcerned by any of this. She ran her fingers dreamily through the still water, seemingly unaware of his presence or her missing husband even. Peter looked out toward the mainland, scanning the trees for movement. His dad was still nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s my dad?”
The old woman didn’t speak.
“Martha, isn’t it? Please tell me.”
The snow fell thickly now, forming fluffy clumps on top of the old woman’s grey hair. But her focus stayed on the water and she said nothing.
“Martha,” he said. “Miss Martha, please.”
Peter pressed one hand to his wound, ready to stand, then stopped. The skin on the woman’s legs was blotchy, like moss on stone. Her shins were black and mottled where the blood had stopped circulating and dropped with the weight of gravity. But this wasn’t because of old age. It was a result of her death.
Peter froze. His unblinking eyes burned. The horror of what occupied the very same space as him forced them even wider and they glassed over with tears. He shuffled back into the nose of the canoe, quietly tucking his knees up under his chin so as not to alert the thing, suddenly aware of the surrounding water and just how much distance it placed between him and safety.
He looked down at the thing’s black legs and felt the warmth of his own piss seep into his groin, helpless to do anything about it. Only that didn’t matter now. He was completely alone out here with one of them and he had to do something. He parted his lips to let his breath escape and looked up. But a pair of black eyes were already on him.
He’d seen eyes like that up close once before. His earliest memory was of his dad showing him a weasel. He’d held the animal up by the scruff of its neck and asked Peter to say what he saw. When Peter said he saw a ‘fluffy wuffy’ and reached out to cuddle it, his dad dropped the weasel into the middle of the livestock pen and watched it tear a rabbit’s throat out. The life bled out of the animal in seconds. When his dad held the weasel up for the second time, with its bloodied torso twisting in his fist to break free, its black eyes bored right through Peter. There was no connection passing between one creature and another. Nature was cold and it was harsh and it didn’t give a damn about your being there.
And so it was with the Dead. The creature at the other end of the canoe might have looked like an old woman – it carried her flesh, it wore her skin – but it was no such thing any more. It was a monster hiding in an old-lady costume.
The Restless One watched Peter through strings of grey hair. The whites of its eyes were so dark both eyeballs appeared to be all pupil.
Peter recoiled. “Clock it,” he muttered. “Kill it. Rid theworldofit.Clockit.Killit.Ridtheworldofit.”
He fingered through the pile of stuff for a sharp object, something to stab it with. But before he could find anything, something slapped the surface of the water.
The Restless One’s head turned back toward the lake. Peter scrambled to his knees and peered over the side. One of its hands was still absent-mindedly stirring the surface of the water. The other was holding a foot. Peter stared at the body floundering in the darkness beneath the surface of the lake and his dad’s pale face burst through, gasping and spluttering for life.
“Pete!”
His dad’s hands slapped the surface of the water. He tried to break free, but this only made the Restless One tighten its grip further. His dad gulped. Water flooded his mouth and his head disappeared back beneath the surface. The Restless One lunged forward, pulled down by the weight of the body dropping into the depths below. The canoe bucked. Water breached the side, swilling across the vessel’s wooden ribs at Peter’s feet. But the thing still didn’t let go.
Peter swung round. He needed to find a weapon and he needed one fast. The paddle was still out of reach. He looked at the bundle of magazines sloshing at his feet. If only he could find something heavy enough, he could dash the thing over the head and push it overboard. If that’d work. Even then it might not let go and end up dragging his dad under with it.
Peter dropped down to his hands and knees, frantically scrabbling through the sodden pile. There was nothing. Nothing at all and he couldn’t believe this was even happening and he didn’t have a clue what to do. He’d never set foot off the islands, let alone dealt with one of them before. But, before he was able to come up with anything, anything useful at all, another canoe rammed right into the side of theirs and flung Peter backward.
Someone jumped aboard, their boots landing squarely inside the canoe. They didn’t even rock it. There was only one person who could do that. Peter couldn’t even balance on a beached log in a summer breeze, but this wasn’t the way with Cooper. They were roughly the same age, give or take a month or two, but while Peter’s dad still hadn’t let him anywhere near a rifle, Cooper could pop a row of tin cans into the air simply by smiling at them.
Peter scrambled up on to his elbows.
“I’m fine, Cooper,” he said. “I was just about to do something.”
But Cooper had it covered. Ropes of matted blond hair swished forward, covering his face. His muddy fingers popped the knife sheath secured to his belt, but his eyes never left the Restless One once. His fist took the handle as easily as someone would grip a door handle and he drew his machete clean out.
Cooper swung the blade above his head.
It sliced through the air.
The Dead One’s head toppled off its shoulders and plopped into the water. It was so much heavier than Peter had expected, more like a boulder than a ball. He scrambled backward, panting wildly, and his dad broke the surface of the water. There was a gasp and his white fingers clenched the lip of the canoe. But Peter never saw his head emerge. The world started spinning and he passed out.
Chapter Four
News of the incident would spread fast. Cooper’s dad, Bud, said as much when he stormed up the steps to Darlene’s place, cursing the boy who’d have his son digging two burial holes deep enough for the whole community to shit in so early of a morning. One unexpected witnesswithahottongueandthewholelake’llbebuzzinglikeflies round a rotting carcass. And he was right. Nothing scared folk more than a weak link in their system. Not even the big freeze.
Peter drew a blanket tightly round himself and paced the length of Darlene’s porch while his dad and Bud argued inside. He leaned over the wooden railing and watched fat snowflakes tumble over the lake like feathers after a pillow fight.
Darlene’s island, Boulder, was barely even an island at all. A single grey rock rose out of the water like the hump of a whale. A timber plinth to store firewood and canoes had been built on top. Perched on that, its four corners sticking out either side, was a tiny wooden chalet. With its porch, wind chimes and rocking chair, the chalet looked so impossible balancing there it was as if it had dropped clean out of the sky. But it was perfect.
On those long summer nights, when the stench of dead flesh wasn’t carried across the lake by the wind, it was hard to imagine the world was anything other than bobbing fireflies and leaping salmon. Except, if the shouting inside was anything to go by, that was everyone’s problem with him. Peter was sixteen and yet he was practically the only Lake Lander never to have set foot on the mainland.
“He needs to wise up, Tom!” barked Bud. “He needs to get his hands dirty. He needs to get his hands real dirty real quick and wake up to the fact that no stranger’s ever dropping by for warm milk and cookies—”
A chair scraped violently across the floorboards.
“Bud, he knows that,” said his dad, cutting in.
“Does he?”
“Of course.”
“Bah! He didn’t check the back of the canoe, let alone have the wherewithal to kill that thing. Hell, he didn’t even check for a trader’s permit. He’s too darn nice.”
“He’s sixteen.”
“Yeah. More or less the same as Cooper. He’s gotta learn.”
“He’s sixteen, Bud.”
“He’s a liability is what he is,” Bud growled. “He coulda got us all killed.”
Peter slumped into the rocking chair and pushed it back and forth. Bud was right. As the truth of the matter bubbled up inside him, Peter pictured his dad’s pale face staring up at him from the black water below and tears ran down his cheeks. He leaned forward. His side was still hurting, but the wound wasn’t as deep as it could’ve been. Darlene was out hunting on the mainland when they finally got to her place, but Bud had done a good job stitching him up. The pain had now numbed to a kind of dull ache that was somehow less painful than all the feelings he had crashing around inside him. Peter pulled the cuff of his sweater over his fist to wipe his face and looked at the bundle of old bones and saggy brown skin splayed out at his feet.
Bud’s bloodhound, Dolly, was so old that when she lifted her chin up off the floor at the sound of her master’s voice, her skin struggled to follow. But she must have heard him ranting a hundred times before. The tips of her droopy ears didn’t even make it off the floor before she let out a deep huff and slumped back down to sleep again.
“That’s it, old girl,” said Peter, patting her gently. “You’re better off dreaming about your good old hunting days.”
Dolly sighed a deep sigh and the arguing went on. Peter pushed his foot down, rocking the chair to and fro, to and fro, and looked out over the lake while his dad and Bud decided what to do about him.
The wind chimes tinkled gently from the wooden beam.
The snow kept tumbling.
On the mainland, snow had started to settle across the rocky shore and pines, making the boughs droop. A squirrel scampered from one branch to another, causing a shelf of snow to catapult on to the rocks below. Peter leaned forward in his chair. He looked beneath the row of pines lining the shore and stared deep into the shadows to places in the woods where the world grew dark.
Up in the forest canopy, the animals were free to come and go as they’d always done. A network of branches for miles around gave them passage through the wilderness and kept their homes safe. The forest floor was an entirely different story, however. Sure, the Lake Landers had made paths through the woods lined with hanging tin cans and cutlery that clinked like an alarm bell whenever anything went by. But the dense undergrowth of pine needles and dead branches always crackled to the sound of a hundred shuffling feet. The forest belonged to them.
Peter looked away and not for the first time tried to picture his mom’s face where there wasn’t any memory of one. He hated them for that. He hated them so much. The Lake Landers came from all walks of life and they didn’t always have much in common with each other, least of all with him. But if the end of the old world had done one bit of good, it was that it had brought peace, uniting everyone against the monsters that had driven them here. Peter drew his blanket tighter round his body and the unfamiliar sound of clacking heels hit the steps up to the porch.
Darlene flopped a rabbit carcass over the railing and stood there, adjusting her red hair back over her shoulders.
“Darlin’,” she said. “What are you doing lurking around my porch like a racoon in winter?”
“Hey, Darlene.”
“Now I’m not saying that hearing a bunch of men arguing about me doesn’t bring back a lot of fond memories, but what the hell’s going on in there?”
Peter looked down at Darlene’s heels. “Tell me you didn’t go hunting in those.”
“No,” she said, kicking them halfway across the deck. “Found them on some dead thing back in the woods and for a moment there it took me right back to Saturday nights at Randy’s Rusty Spur. Now you might think that was just the name of some no-good bar, but you’d be wrong. God, that boy got around.”
Darlene leaned back against the railing, gazing at the shoes wistfully. But the thought didn’t linger. She drew a knife from her belt, stabbing the wall next to a set of deer antlers she kept above the front door, and proceeded to hang the shoes heel up criss-crossing each other.
“But that girl’s long gone.”
Peter placed the blanket over the back of the rocking chair and held out the bottom of his sweater so Darlene could see the bloodstains.
“Jesus,” she said. “What happened?”
“Me and dad just had an accident.”
“Looks like more than an accident. You both OK?”
“Not really. Dad and Bud are inside arguing about it now.”
“Arguing about what?”
“An old man pretended to be a river trader.”
“OK,” said Darlene. “But he asked for your permission to land, right?”
“Course.”
“And you made him keep his hands up in the air while you checked for his permit?”
Peter glanced sideways and said nothing. He’d gone over this with Bud enough times already.
“Dang it, darlin’,” said Darlene, putting her hands on her hips. “You can’t be too trusting.”
“I get it.”
“In the winter, we watch the Restless Ones. The rest of the year—”
“We watch our own,” said Peter. “Yes, I know.”
“I dunno, maybe serving greasy grills and whatnot in some low-rent diner stood me in good stead for this life, but I ain’t never had cause to trust a single soul unless they gave me a reason to. The only difference now is we’ve got the ones without a soul to watch out for too. Either way you look at it, people are people, Peter, and here we are still fightin’ each other.”
Peter looked down. He didn’t have it in him to tell Darlene about the Restless One. Besides, she’d find out soon enough anyway. The chalet’s screen door swung open, breaking the silence, and Bud stormed out, his thick silver moustache twitchier than a squirrel’s tail.
“You’re real lucky Cooper takes after his ol’ man and takes an early morning piss in the lake,” he said, twanging his braces back over shoulder. “Or you’d both be dead.”
“And good morning to you too, Bud!” said Darlene.
Bud dismissed her comment away with the swipe of his hand and slowly made his way down the steps leading off the porch.
“The boy needs to get out there,” he said, whistling once for Dolly to follow. “Needs to kill some of the Dead stuff. Needs to see the desperados we’re dealing with too.”
Dolly huffed, wearily picked her face up off the floor and trundled after her master.
“I’m sorry,” Peter called.
“Sorry won’t stop you gettin’ killed.”
Darlene squeezed Peter’s arm and was about to say something else when his dad came out.
“Reckon I’ll leave you two boys to sort it,” she said, making her way inside. “Let me know if you need anything.”
His dad’s long johns were still completely sodden and dripping water all over the porch. He looked worryingly pale too. Peter picked the blanket up off the back of the rocking chair and draped it over his shoulders. His dad wiped more water from his stubble and leaned out over the railing. Peter tried to think of something to say other than sorry. But before he had a chance to come up with anything, his dad turned to him.
“Pete,” he said softly. “Why did you need that old man to compliment you? Why did you need him to say you were good with an axe?”
Peter watched Bud’s canoe set off across the lake and shrugged.
“Haven’t I told you that myself?”
“I guess.”
His dad slumped down into the rocking chair, rubbing his temple.
“Does your head hurt?” Peter asked.
“Just a little.”
Peter pushed away from the railing. Headaches always came before or after one of his dad’s fits, and he’d been through enough already this morning to trigger one.
“Did you fit this morning?”
“No, Pete, I’m fine.”
“And what about now?”
“Pete, I’m good. Stop fussing.”
Peter looked away. Dad didn’t like being reminded of the one thing that could mark him out as being weak to the others, especially when they were in company.
His dad yanked his right leg up across his knee and started to massage his toes back to life.
“Look,” he went on. “Haven’t I told you that some people are better at some things than others, but it takes all sorts to make up a world?”
“Yes,” said Peter.
“Well, I can’t sew my own socks.”
“I know.”
“I can’t do half the things you can.”
“But—”
“But what?”
“But you’re my dad. You’re supposed to say nice things.”
“What, so I’m humouring you now?”
Peter gazed out over the grey water.
“You don’t need anyone’s approval,” said his dad, blowing hot air on to his feet. “Believe me. If I had an idiot son, you’d know about it, OK?”
Peter still said nothing.
His dad looked up. “OK?”
“Yes, OK,” said Peter. “OK.”
“But I want you to be safe. I dunno, maybe keeping you on the lake has been the best way to manage that up until now, but you’re getting older and it’s not entirely up to me any more. You know the rules. If we can’t help keep everybody safe, we can’t be here.”
Peter nodded. “So what does that mean?”
“So the lake committee are gonna make a decision about you tonight at the watchtower during the First Fall festival.”
Peter turned away and watched Bud’s canoe disappear inside the snow. Over by the shore, something disturbed the pines. Snow tumbled from a bough and a pale hand withdrew round the back of a tree trunk. Peter opened his mouth to reassure his dad that he could take whatever the committee decided, but the words weren’t there any more than the feeling was. When he looked back across the water at the tree, a woman-shaped thing was standing there.
Long black hair flanked a hollow face, all grey like driftwood now the skin had been bleached of blood. The denim dress hanging from its frame was just as faded too. But it showed no signs of coming undone at the seams any more than the figure’s skin did. Neither had been spoiled by weather or time. This woman’s body was only newly restless. His dad didn’t even acknowledge the thing, their presence on the lake was so commonplace. He carried on rubbing life back into his toes, but Peter kept staring.
Her kind were the most unsettling of all – the ones that quietly appeared from nowhere. More like ghosts than monsters, they often found their way down to the lake and stood there, gazing out toward the islands’ tiny homes as if to recall memories of such things. Or worse, if their eyes fixed on you, memories of having been human once too.
The Restless One stared at Darlene’s chalet. Peter looked away. They had a habit of sticking around once they’d spotted you. He’d held eye contact with one of them once before while chopping wood at the foot of the island and when he came back outside the following morning, the darned thing was still standing there, waiting for him.
The screen door swung open. Darlene held up her arm in a motionless wave. “Hey, girl!”
“Don’t,” said Peter.
“What?”
“You know what.”
Darlene leaned over the railing and repeated the action.
“Wait for it,” she said. “Just you wait for it.”
The thing’s head turned to gaze in Darlene’s direction. Its dark eyes were lifeless but something inside it was able to process the new stimulus Darlene’s wave had provided. Peter stepped away from the railing and the thing waved back.
“Jesus,” said Peter’s dad, slumping back into the rocking chair. “No matter how many times I see…”
Peter looked away. “I hate it when they do that.”
“What?” said Darlene. “Look human?”
“Yeah.”
“I know,” she said, lowering her hand. “I’m sorry. That was in poor taste. I hate that more than anything too.”
She took the rifle she kept propped up against the chalet wall.
“Too bad,” she said, aiming the barrel at the Restless One’s head and pulling the trigger. “I coulda had me a nice new outfit for tonight. Oh well. Call me if any eligible men turn up, won’t you?”
The Restless One dropped face first into the water.
“But I’ve got you a nice man here,” said Peter.
“Keep lookin’, darlin’! Keep lookin’.” Darlene took the rabbit carcass from the railing and strung it from the porch ready for gutting.
“Dad,” said Peter after a little while.
“Yup.”
“Does the word snowflakemean anything to you at all?”
His dad stopped massaging the cold from his toes and looked up. “Huh?”
“The river trader hurt me because I wasn’t wearing the snowflake. What did he even mean by that?”
“You sure that’s what he said?”
Peter nodded. His dad leaned forward in the rocking chair, staring at his son’s bloody sweater with his brow all heavy like the wound was everything about this damned world he couldn’t put right. But after a while he just shook his head.
“I dunno, Pete. Crazy times, crazy people.”
“Except he knew what he was saying.”
“Then I don’t know. I’m sorry. Try and forget about it now, eh?”
“He wasn’t a bad man.”
His dad winced.
“But he wasn’t.”
His dad clenched his fists, locking eyes with Peter. But it was Darlene who spoke next.
“No such thing as good or bad people no more, darlin’,” she said. “Just people surviving the best they can.”
Peter didn’t know if he believed in that at all, but before he could say anything, Darlene changed the subject.
“Anyways, why don’t you go down and thank Cooper?”
Peter’s heart punched his chest. “What?”
Darlene nodded toward the far end of the porch, then disappeared back indoors. “He’s been waiting there in his canoe for you this whole time!”
Peter ducked back from the railing so he couldn’t be seen. “What does he want?”
“Probably just to see if you’re OK,” said his dad.
“He knows that already. By the end of tonight, everybody will know I’m only OK because of him.”
“I thought you’d want to see him.”
“No,” said Peter. “Why would you think that?”
His dad cleared his throat. “You only chop wood so early in the morning because you know his canoe passes by around that time.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. It was true though. He’d chopped enough wood to last them the next twenty winters. Not that it made much difference. Cooper didn’t even know he existed. Peter tugged the bottom of his sweater down to straighten it and made his way to the far end of the porch. He’d got to the top step when a canoe broke out over the water and Cooper set off back across the lake.
“See?” he said.
Peter leaned into one of the porch’s posts. He didn’t know what the lake committee would have in store for him tonight, but the day was getting on and they should get back to their tree house to freshen up. He started to make his way down the steps to the water’s edge.
“You coming, Dad?”
“Pete!”
“What?”
“I don’t want you to worry that you’ll never meet someone.”
“OK. Well, I don’t.”
“Oh.”
“Why, do you? Worry about me, I mean.”
His dad scratched his stubble and shrugged. “A little.”
“Why? Because there are more moose than men out here?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, don’t,” said Peter. “Besides, you’re not doing too well yourself.”
His dad glanced over at Darlene’s front door and smiled. But his smile faded from his face like sunlight behind a cloud. He turned toward the lake as people who were old enough to remember sometimes did, and looked to those places beyond its shores. Places in his head he’d never get to share with Peter.
