One night at the end of August, a couple weeks after I arrived in Harvest Cove, I got my chance to hit something real.
“Hey, kid! Get over here,” the voice of Sergeant Owens cut through the gym.
I looked up from my assault on the bag.
“Yeah, you, Blondie,” he said, waving me over to the boxing ring. “Move it!”
There were some girls sitting in folding chairs nearby, army brats and townies. They let local civilians come on the base without a hassle. No terrorist has ever heard of Borden. Not exactly a prime target.
The only thing the girls were working out was their mouths. Here to check out the guys, I guess.
My T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and I could feel a fat drop hanging on the end of my nose. My frayed shorts showed off my pale, skinny legs. Real sexy.
“That bag don’t hit back,” Owens told me. “Might as well be jerking off. Let’s get you in the ring and see what you’ve got.” The girls’ laughter made my face go red.
He’d shown me some basic moves in the beginners’ class. I’d done some soft sparring, but mostly shadowboxing and bag work.
“Put this on.” He handed me a face guard.
Basically a cushioned helmet, it left my face open from brow to chin but blocked any chance of serious damage.
“Remember what I showed you? Jabs, hooks and cuts. Focus on the jabs.”
Owens checked to see my gloves were laced up right, then held the ropes apart so I could slip into the ring. The mat was stained with sweat, brown sprays of old blood and other mysterious substances.
I was trying not to look at the girls, just kind of rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck to loosen up.
“Go easy on the cherry,” Sarge was telling my opponent, who was stepping into the ring. A cherry is a ring virgin, never had a fight. I winced a little at the name, hearing a spatter of giggles.
Shorter than me by a couple inches, slim but wiry, the other guy was no cherry. He stared at me with intense dark eyes, the left one ringed by an old bruise, yellow at the edges. A Band-Aid stretched over the bridge of his nose. Couldn’t see much of his face. Spiky black hair stuck up from the open patch at the top of his headgear. He was wearing a T-shirt with the emblem of the 441st Squadron—the head of a black fox grinning with hungry white teeth. Below was the squadron’s motto: Stalk and Kill.
Great, a hardcore brat.
“Protect yourself at all times,” Owens shouted. “Got it? Good. Touch gloves, and get it on.”
I can do this, I told myself. I’ve got a couple inches and maybe twenty pounds on him.
We touched gloves. I stepped back and we started to circle each other. Focus on the jab, Sarge had said. So I closed in, guarding my head with my left and striking out with my right.
My jab hit empty air, where the brat’s head had been a millisecond ago. And then—
Then I was staring at one of those mysterious stains on the mat. Up close, because my face was resting on the canvas. I didn’t remember anything in between. No impact, no falling. Didn’t even see the punch.
“On your feet, soldier.”
I heard the voice past the ringing in my ears. The brat stood over me. His eyes were black pits. Stalk and Kill.
My eyes rolled over to the girls, some wincing sympathetically, some shaking their heads. Get up, I thought. But I couldn’t tell which way up was—it was like the floor and ceiling had reversed themselves. I clung to the mat to keep from free-falling toward the glare of the lights on the ceiling.
Hardcore helped me up, heaving me vertical and leaning me on the ropes. I expected him to lay me out again with another shot. I tried to lift my gloves, but they hung like dead weights.
“You’re all right,” his voice echoed inside my shattered skull. “Just breathe. In. Out. In. Out.”
“You okay, Blondie?” Sarge called.
I tried nodding, but that sloshed my brains around too much. “Uh-huh.”
“Rest up a minute,” Sarge said. “Then hit the showers.”
“Uh-huh.”
I looked from him to Hardcore, who was yanking off his headgear. I blinked, my eyes going wide. He was a she.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” she asked, a thin smile stretching her lips.
I stared at the hand she stuck in front of my face. But she still had her gloves on. How many fingers? What?
“It’s a joke,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
She laughed at me a second, then took my arm.
“Come on, killer. Walk it off.”
So that’s how I met Ash. Concussion at first sight.
She’s toying with me even now, on our night run down the gravel road back to the lake. Ash lets me close the distance just enough to get my hopes up, then pulls away again.
The crescent moon is hiding behind the clouds. It’s not like in the city, where the sky never goes completely dark, just a deep gray. Here, I can barely see the road. Only the paleness of the snow keeps me from falling off the edge into the deeper shadows of the runoff ditches that border the road. Those ruts are filled with tangles of bushes and tumbleweeds of trash frozen in the muck.
All I can see of Ash up ahead is the white blur of her running shoes.
“Move it, Danny!” She’s not even winded. “Catch me, and maybe I’ll let you cop a feel.”
I let out a wheezy laugh. Reaching deep down, I gather up enough juice for one burst of speed and close in on those flying white sneakers. I stretch my arm out and just graze the back of her jacket with my fingertips.
Then my motor dies. I stagger to a stop.
Gasp. Wheeze. Gasp. Wheeze.
Her shoes keep going, eating up the road. I watch them grow smaller and smaller as I hunch over.
That girl’s got lungs. And legs. She can squat two hundred pounds, she keeps telling me. I guess that’s a lot. I can’t squat squat.
At least I’m not cold. I’m dying here, but not from frostbite.
Ash’s shoes shrink to white smudges, on the brink of vanishing in the black. Then they stop moving. As I suck in the frigid air, those smudges grow bigger. I hear the snow-dusted gravel crunching under them as she jogs back.
“Giving up?” She’s not even panting.
“I surrender. What are your terms?”
“It’s gotta be unconditional. Your butt is mine.”
“Be gentle,” I wheeze.
“Man, you are such a pussy. But I’ll let you live.”
We just walk the rest of the way.
As we get closer to the lake, more cottages start to appear down the roads that branch off. These back roads don’t have names, only numbers. We just passed Tenth Line. As we get nearer the water, the Lines tick down to First. The little houses we go by are flickers of light in the winter gloom. Like arctic fireflies. We lean into the wind, speeding the pace.
“Think there’s gonna be anything left of Fat Bill’s?” I ask.
“Nothing but dust. They’ll have to crack the ice on the creek just to get enough water to keep the fire from spreading.”
“Pike should be locked up.” I blow into my cupped hands. “It’s just a matter of time before he adds spree killer to his résumé.”
In the darkness I see her shrug. “Pike has to go around being Pike every second, every day. That’s punishment enough. Besides, you ever met his dad? He used to be a drill sergeant. We’re talking intense. If you had to grow up with that, your brains would be scrambled too.”
Through a break in the clouds I see a cluster of stars. Growing up in Toronto, I only ever saw the brightest dozen or so. Out here, the longer you look, the more you see.
We reach Fifth Line, where Ash turns off for her place.
In the moonlight I can just make out her face. Ash is half-Indian, half-Whitey. But it’s the Ojibwa that shows in her features—high cheekbones, strong nose and a wide mouth with a razor-thin scar on the lower lip, where it got split during one of her fights. When I’m trying to get to sleep lately, restles
s in the new bed, the new town, I’ve been thinking about that scar. Thinking about tracing it with my tongue.
“What are you staring at?” Ash asks. Her black eyes are even blacker in the dark.
“Do I still get to cop a feel?”
She snorts. “You never caught me.”
“I was close.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
She starts to turn away. But then she grabs me by the collar of my jacket and yanks me in close. Her lips collide with mine. They’re shockingly warm, a little chapped and totally amazing. I reach to put my arms around her, then feel her palms hitting my chest, knocking me back.
“Tell anybody,” she says, “and I’ll kill you.”
I stand stunned, trying to think of something smooth to say.
But then she’s gone, sprinting up Fifth Line and leaving me with a great big stupid smile on my face. She’s already invisible in the night.
“See you at school,” I say finally, to the empty air.
FOUR
I stumble on home in the dark, dizzy and delirious.
The wind whips up, cutting right through me. So I start to jog. Back at the house, Dad will have a fire going and the place will be nice and toasty.
He’s the caretaker at the Harvest Cove marina, for the off-season, while the owner winters down in Florida. Staying at the small marina house comes with the job. There’s a bait-and-rentals office on the ground floor, with the living space up top.
It’s a temp job. Everything’s temporary for us. In the spring we’ll be moving on to the next town, next life. I’m not going to think about it.
I think about Ash instead.
Back on the first day of school, I was slouching in my seat. Trying to lay low. New place. New faces. Same old same old. Then in walks the boxer-girl who knocked me out. I slouched some more, hoping she didn’t see me. I was staring at the floor when a pair of black army boots stopped beside me. I looked up into the dark eyes of my assassin.
“Hey, killer. Ready for a rematch?” She was grinning wide.
Then she grabbed the seat right in front of me, and I had to stare at the back of her neck the rest of the day. A very nice neck, I discovered. And a very nice rest of her too.
Now, licking my lips as I jog, I can taste her Mars bar. So what do I do when I see her at school tomorrow? She’s going to act like nothing happened. Guess I’ll play along with—
What the hell is that? Out of the corner of my eye, I catch something big moving in the ditch on the right side of the road. I only get a blurry glimpse before it dips out of sight. Something pale and quick. And big!
Slowing to a walk, I try to focus in the dim light from the crescent moon. Without moving too close to the ditch, I can only make out shades of gray—dark, darker and darkest.
Nothing’s dumb enough to be out on a night like this. Like my grandfather used to say—a night not fit for man or beast. Or me.
So I start jogging again. All the insanity that’s gone down tonight has got me wired and twitchy. That, and a case of hypothermia, must be toying with my brain.
Coming up to Fourth Line, I pick out the firefly lights of houses set back from the road. The wind brings the smell of burning wood from cottage fireplaces. The taste of smoke in the air teases me with a promise of warmth, making the cold seem even colder.
Passing the Line, I catch a flash of something pale in my peripheral vision, emerging from the right-side ditch to cross Fourth Line, then diving back into the deep shadows of the ditch on the other side.
That was something—definitely something!
I slow to a stop, listening hard. But there’s nothing past my own panting, and the hollow whisper of the wind.
Maybe it’s just a plastic bag. There’s tons of trash blowing around out here, with the local dump only a mile off. But even I know that’s weak. It would have to be one huge bag. And whatever it is, it’s going against the wind coming off the lake.
Might be one of Mangy Mason’s big Siberian huskies. He’s this ancient guy who lives in a rusting trailer on the lake shore and lets his dogs run wild. They’re harmless, right?
Should I take a peek?
There’s a shiver doing laps up and down my spine, from the cold, but also from that phantom itch you get when you feel someone staring at you. Someone, or something.
Take a peek? Hell no!
Just as I’m going to bolt, I hear it. A growl, so deep it shivers my eardrums. Like when you max out the bass on your speakers.
I’m paralyzed for a long moment. Then I force myself into a staggering jog, eyes locked on the far side of the road.
I stick to the left side. The edge next to me drops off into the deep dark.
Just as I hit Third, I see it.
And it’s no dog.
It’s big! And long. And fast. It isn’t much more than a blur as it flashes across Third Line and vanishes back in the ditch on the other side. It looks eight to ten feet long.
That can’t be right. There’s no way.
It’s running on all fours, I can tell that much. But running silent as it speeds through the debris in the ditch. Not a sound—no scratch of gravel, cracking twigs. Nothing.
My brain stalls on me.
Stunned, I slow down and try to remember what you do when confronted by a wild animal. Make some noise? Try to scare it off?
Then I hear that growl again, keeping pace with me in the dark. Shivering me bone-deep.
Just run!
At top speed, I can make it home in five minutes.
But that’s a long time on a dark road, too far from the nearest house for anyone to hear me scream.
Shut up and run!
I sprint against the wind, arms pumping. My sneakers chew up the gravel. I’m flying now. Raw fear makes me ignore the burning in my chest as I struggle for more oxygen.
Up ahead, I can just make out the light at the end of the road, marking the turnoff for the marina. First Line, finish line.
Crossing Second, I can’t help looking back. My vision is blurred with tears from the frigid wind.
Nothing. Nothing. Maybe it’s had its fun, and now—
No. Diving from ditch to ditch, it clears the Line without even setting foot on it this time. My eyes must be screwing with me. There’s no way anything can move like that. If it’s making any noise now, I can’t tell past my own gasping and my shoes pounding the snowy gravel.
Focus on the light! Eyes on the prize.
That beacon in the black grows slowly. So slowly. As I close in on it, a few more lights from the marina wink in and out through the trees.
I might just make it.
Then my foot hits a patch of ice. Staggering wildly, I fight to stay vertical. But I go down hard. Hands out, I barely avoid bouncing my head off the ground.
I crouch on my knees, dazed, sucking air into my starving lungs.
I’m dead!
That thing’s going to come leaping out of the ditch now that its prey is down.
The growl rises up from the shadows. Hungry.
Seconds tick away, marked by the ragged wheeze of my lungs and the low rumble in the dark.
Is it getting closer? I strain to see. Ten feet in any direction and the black is absolute. I can feel that ghost itch again, the sense of being watched. What’s it waiting for?
Wide-eyed, I search the gloom.
There! Its breath rises in wisps over the far edge of the road, like gray smoke. The growl rolls with the rhythm of those breaths.
I get back on my feet, stumble the first few steps and keep going. I fix my gaze on the light at the end.
The wind tries to blow me back, but I fumble on. So close now.
The light-post comes into view, and a glowing circle of snow at its base. Like a little island of safety, of sanity in this crazy night.
I grab the post, leaning against it to face the dark. Outside the edge of my little island, the world disappears.
The turnoff for the marina
is a stone’s throw away. Two lines of lights run along the twin piers that stretch out onto the frozen lake. I can pick out the yellow glow from the windows of the marina house.
A hundred yards away. A million miles away.
Behind this post, the two runoff ditches tunnel under First Line, merging into one big ditch that feeds into the lake. I shoot a glance over my shoulder. Did that thing get past me?
The night waits. I strain to hear, but there’s only the hollow rush of the wind.
I can’t just stay here, turning into a human Popsicle, pretending this pool of light is any protection.
Then I feel it, the vibration before the growl. I swing my head around.
I almost piss myself. The sound is all around, echoing inside my skull.
Screw this!
One last sprint to the house. My only shot. But is that thing still in the ditch? Or circling my little island, waiting to take me down?
The growl turns my legs to rubber.
Come on! You can do this. Ready? On three.
Three!
I push off and burst down First Line.
Just as I cross the border from the light into the black, a pale blur rushes at me in an avalanche of speed.
Then it hits! The impact knocks me off the road. As I tumble, the black ditch yawns wide to take me. I’m falling into nothing.
The ground hits me like a frozen hammer. My left shoulder slams against ice-hard muck, my head cracking with an explosion of red sparks behind my eyes.
I slide to the bottom of the ditch.
What? What? What?
Focus! Gotta focus.
But my brain’s whipping around in a blender. I try to slow that nauseous spinning.
It’s so dark. Like the whole world has been snuffed out. Like I’m blind.
I roll onto my back, and my shoulder screams in protest.
I catch some light leaking down from the post on the road above. The bulb is just visible over the rim of the ditch, like a moonrise.
I’m staring at that glow, the only thing keeping me from getting swallowed by the black, when a shadow moves across it.