Or maybe not.
Like the first day of any new thing, it has been a long one, and he’s glad to see it end.
He looks at the three antique gun cabinets—a lustful, fleeting glance—and exits his office, heading down the hallway toward reception.
Belinda’s desk is covered in playing cards.
“I’m taking off,” Ethan says.
The white-haired woman lays down an ace of spades and looks up with a warm smile that does absolutely nothing to divulge a single telling aspect of who she really is. “How was your first day?”
“It was fine.”
“You have a good night, Sheriff. We’ll see you in the morning.”
* * *
It is a cool, clear evening.
Already the sun has slipped behind the mountain walls, and there is a crisp chill settling in that may herald the first frost of the season.
Ethan heads down the sidewalk of a quiet neighborhood.
An old man sitting in a rocking chair on a covered porch calls out, “Evening, Sheriff!”
Ethan tips his hat.
The man raises a steaming mug.
Raises it like a toast.
Somewhere in the near distance, a woman calls out, “Matthew! Time for dinner!”
“Come on, Mom! Just five more minutes!”
“No, right now!”
Their voices echo and fade across the valley.
On the next street down, he walks alongside an entire block devoted to a community garden, several dozen people hard at work, filling large baskets with fruit and vegetables.
The scent of overripe apples skirts along on the breeze.
Everywhere Ethan looks, lights are coming on inside houses, the air becoming fragrant with the smell of suppers cooking.
Through cracked windows, he hears clanging dishes, indistinct conversations, ovens opening, closing.
Everyone he passes smiles and says hello.
Like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.
* * *
He crosses Main and follows Sixth Street for several blocks until he arrives at the address Pilcher gave him.
It is a three-story Victorian, canary yellow with white trim, its most prominent feature a window shaped like a teardrop centered just below the pitch of the tin roof.
Through a large window on the first floor, he sees a woman standing at a kitchen sink, dumping a pot of boiling pasta into a colander, bellows of steam rising into her face.
As he watches her, he feels an anxious thumping in his chest.
It is his wife.
Up the stone path through the front yard, up three brick steps, and then he is standing on the porch.
He knocks on the screen door.
After a moment, the light winks on.
She opens the door crying and staring at him through the screen while footsteps clomp down a staircase.
Ethan’s son walks up behind her, puts his hands on his mother’s shoulders.
“Hi, Dad.”
Not the voice of a little boy.
“Jesus, you’re taller than your mother.”
There is still the screen between them and through the wire mesh, Theresa looks much the same, although her blonde hair is as long as she’s ever worn it.
“I heard they made you sheriff,” Ben says.
“That’s right.” A long, emotion-packed moment crawls by. “Theresa.”
She wipes her eyes with both hands.
“It smells wonderful,” Ethan says.
“I’m cooking spaghetti.”
“I love your spaghetti.”
“I know.” Her voice breaking.
“They told you I was coming?”
She nods. “You’re really here, Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“To stay this time?”
“I will never leave you again.”
“We’ve waited so long.” She has to keep wiping her face. “Ben, go stir the sauce, please.”
The boy hurries off to the kitchen.
“Would it be all right if I came inside?” Ethan asks.
“We lost you in Seattle. Then we lost you here. I can’t take it. He can’t take it.”
“Theresa, look at me.” She looks at him. “I will never leave you again.”
He worries she’s going to ask what happened. Why he isn’t dead. It’s a question he’s been dreading and preparing for all day.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, she pushes open the door.
He has feared seeing a hardness in her face, feared it more than anything, but under the glow of the porch light, there is no bitterness here. Some brokenness. The beginnings of wrinkles around her mouth that weren’t there before. Around those bright green eyes that slayed him all those years ago. A lot of tears. But also love.
Mainly love.
She pulls him across the threshold into their home.
The screen door slams shut.
Inside the house, a boy is crying.
A man failing to hold back tears of his own.
Three people entangled in a fierce embrace with no letting go in sight.
And outside, at the exact moment the streetlamps cut on, a noise begins somewhere in the hedges that grow along the porch, repeating at perfect intervals, as steady as a metronome.
It is the sound of a cricket chirping.
AFTERWORD
by Blake Crouch
On April 8, 1990, the pilot episode of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s iconic television series Twin Peaks aired on ABC, and for a moment, the mystery of Who Killed Laura Palmer? held America transfixed. I was twelve at the time, and I will never forget the feeling that took hold of me as I watched this quirky show about a creepy town with damn fine coffee and brilliant cherry pie, where nothing was as it seemed.
Twin Peaks was ultimately canceled, the brilliant director and actors went on to do other things, but the undeniable magic present in those early episodes still haunts me two decades later. Shows like Northern Exposure, Picket Fences, The X-Files, and Lost occasionally veered into that eerily beautiful creepiness that defined Twin Peaks, but for the most part, for this fan at least, nothing else has ever come close.
They say all art—whether books, music, or visual—is a reaction to other art, and I believe that to be true. As good as Twin Peaks was, the nature of the show, in particular how abruptly and prematurely it ended, left me massively unsatisfied. Shortly after the show was cancelled, I was so heartbroken I even tried to write its mythical third season, not for anyone but myself, just so I could continue the experience.
That effort failed, as did numerous other attempts as I matured, both as a person and a writer, to recapture the feeling my twelve-year-old self had experienced back in 1990.
Pines is the culmination of my efforts, now spanning twenty years, to create something that makes me feel the way Twin Peaks did. In no way am I suggesting that Pines is as good as Lynch’s masterpiece, or even something that is likely to take you back to the feeling of that series. The show was so utterly its own thing that any attempt to recreate its aura would be inherently doomed to fail. But I feel the need to express how much Pines is inspired by Lynch’s creation of a small town in the middle of nowhere—beautiful on the outside, but with a pitch-black underbelly.
Pines would never have come about, and I may never have become a writer, if my parents hadn’t let me stay up late on Thursday nights, that spring of 1990, to watch a show the likes of which we will never see again.
So thanks, Mom and Dad. Thanks, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Frost. And, of course, the inimitable Agent Dale Cooper.
Pines is not Twin Peaks, not by a long shot, but it wouldn’t be here without it.
I hope you enjoyed my show.
Blake Crouch
Durango, Colorado
August 2012
BLAKE CROUCH’S OTHER WORKS
Andrew Z. Thomas Series
Desert Places
Locked Doors
Break You
&n
bsp; Thicker Than Blood (The Complete Series)
Stirred with J. A. Konrath
Other Works
Eerie
Run
Draculas with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson
Famous
Abandon
Snowbound
Serial with Jack Kilborn
“Bad Girl” (short story)
Serial Uncut with J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn
Killers with Jack Kilborn
Birds of Prey with Jack Kilborn and J. A. Konrath
Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and J. A. Konrath
Serial Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and J. A. Konrath
“*69” (short story)
“Remaking” (short story)
“On the Good, Red Road” (short story)
“Shining Rock” (short story)
“The Meteorologist” (short story)
“Unconditional” (short story)
“Hunting Season” (short story with Selena Kitt)
Perfect Little Town (horror novella)
The Pain of Others (novella)
Four Live Rounds (collected stories)
Six in the Cylinder (collected stories)
Fully Loaded (complete collected stories)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My agent, David Hale Smith, and everyone at Thomas & Mercer has given 110 percent to help get this book off the ground. It is a privilege to know and work with such a tremendously talented group of people who are changing the way we read for the better.
A heartfelt thanks to Andy Bartlett, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Rory Connell, Vicky Griffith, Mia Lipman, Paul Diamond, Amy Bates, Jeff Belle, Daphne Durham, Jon Fine, Alex Carr, Philip Patrick, Alan Turkus, Sarah Gelman, Jodi Warshaw, and Leslie LaRue, and finally a shout-out to my KDPeeps—Brian Mitchell, Brian Carver, and Nader Kabbani.
I am incredibly fortunate to count as friends some fantastic writers and wildly astute readers. These folks gave amazing feedback on early drafts of Pines and made the book better in every conceivable way. So many thanks to my writing partner, Joe Konrath, Maria Konrath, my brother, Jordan Crouch, my terrific cover artist, Jeroen ten Berge, Ann Voss Peterson, Suzanne Tyrpak, Selena Kitt, and Marcus Sakey. A special thanks to Barry Eisler for a particularly adroit read.
Finally, hugs and kisses to my dear family—Rebecca, Aidan, and Annslee. Thanks for sharing me with this book I’ve been dying to write. I love you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Marc Wilkins, 2009
Blake Crouch was born in the North Carolina piedmont in 1978. He earned his undergraduate degrees in English and creative writing from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, publishing his first two novels within five years of graduation. Since then he has published eight additional novels as well as multiple novellas, short stories, and articles. His novels Fully Loaded, Run, and Stirred, which was cowritten with J. A. Konrath, have each earned spots in the top ten of the Kindle bestseller list. Three novels, one novella, and one short story have all been optioned for film. He lives today in Durango, Colorado.
Blake Crouch, Pines
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