Bonechiller

  “The picture is from a security camera,” Howie says. “There’s nothing new about what was wrong with him. They call it a viral infection, which covers everything from the flu, to AIDS, to the plague. He’s been missing three days. Not looking good.”

  You can’t make out Ray’s expression in the grainy freeze-frame. Was he delirious? Hallucinating? What drove him out into that icy night, dressed in next to nothing?

  It hits me that around the same time Ray was escaping, I was being chased down a dark road.

  The two of us lost in the night.

  But I made it home. Ray never did.

  TWELVE

  By the time Ash skids to a stop in a shower of sand, snow and rocks, I feel like I’ve gone a few rounds with the Reaper over at the Legion Hall. My butt is numb, and my testicles feel tenderized.

  I limp around trying to realign my spine.

  “Feeling good?” Ash smirks.

  “Oh yeah. I never wanted to have children anyway.”

  We’ve ended up on a secluded pebbly beach on the outer curve of Harvest Cove. From here you can look back on the marina, the broken-down ice factory and the docks of shoreline cottages. Nothing moves except the blowing snow on the frozen lake.

  Ash runs out on the ice now, sliding to a stop about twenty feet away. She waves me to follow. I slip-skate out to her.

  The ice is about eight inches thick this close to shore, twelve inches farther out. Thick enough to take your car out for a spin.

  “What the hell are we doing here?” Ash gazes across the frozen wastes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Harvest Cove. It’s like the end of the world. Nothing to do, and nowhere to do it.”

  I hunch my shoulders against the wind. “Tell me about it. Back in Toronto there’s always places to go, stuff to do.”

  “Is that where your mother is?”

  The question sucker punches me. Coming out of nowhere. I avoid her eyes, hoping it’ll just go away.

  “Hello?” Ash says. “I’m talking to you here. What’s the deal with your mother? Divorce or something? Your dad get custody?”

  “Uh, you know. She’s gone,” I mumble.

  “Where?”

  “You know.”

  Why does she have to press me? I slide a few steps away.

  “No. I don’t know. You’re not saying anything. She’s gone where? Disneyland?”

  “Gone, like in dead,” I snap. “Okay?”

  That shuts us both up. I can feel her looking at me, but I just stare off at the frosty emptiness.

  “Wow,” Ash finally says. “That’s … Damn, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  Most times, when somebody asks where’s my mother, I just say Toronto. I let them think divorce, separation or whatever. I don’t care. Technically, it’s true. She is in Toronto. Six feet under it.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No!”

  “Good,” she says, letting out a held breath. “I mean, I’m not great with people being emotional.”

  “Me neither.”

  There’s a long, tense silence. Then Ash coughs. “Race you out to the buoy?”

  The bright orange buoy frozen in the ice is the only thing breaking the white expanse. It marks where the shallows give way to deeper water a hundred yards from shore.

  “Same rules as last time?” she says. “You win, you get to cop a feel. What do you say? On three?”

  “I don’t know.” I scuff my shoes on the ice, faking her out. Then I shout: “Three!”

  And I take off, sprinting to a quick lead. The dusting of snow gives enough traction to keep me from falling on my face. I can hear her right behind me. It feels strange, running out onto this wide empty plain, with only the buoy showing a flash of color in the whiteness. Below the frozen surface, the bottom of the lake is dropping away with every step I take from shore. Five feet deep. Ten. Twenty.

  I’m still in the lead. But Ash is on my tail, near enough to reach out and tackle me if she wanted. I push ahead, on the brink of losing my footing with each slipping step. Leaning forward, I launch myself at the buoy in the final few feet. I hug the orange beacon to keep myself upright.

  Ash skates to a stop a few yards past me.

  “I win,” I pant before my feet slide out and I fall on my butt, still hugging the buoy.

  Ash comes sliding on her knees to bump up against me. I lie back, staring up at the gray cloud cover.

  Ash’s face blocks my view, grinning down at me. She straddles my midsection, sitting on my stomach.

  “Did you let me win?” I ask.

  “Thought you needed it.”

  “Do I still get the prize?”

  “What do you think?”

  She bends down and kisses me.

  God, she’s so warm. Always. Like her blood’s in a constant fever. I kiss back. Her nose is snug against mine.

  Ash pulls away. Her palms are flat on my shoulders, holding me down. No question who’s in charge.

  She must see something in my eyes that makes her ask: “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just … Sometimes, you gotta let me be the guy.”

  She laughs. “You think you’re up to it?”

  I try to shrug, but she’s still got a hold on my shoulders. “We’ll never know, unless you give me a try.”

  She holds her hands up now in pretend surrender.

  “Okay. You the man.”

  So I twist on my side, taking her with me as we switch positions. Leaning down, I tell her: “Close your eyes.”

  “Why? What are you trying to hide?”

  Everything.

  She squeezes her eyes shut and I kiss her, tracing the pale line of the scar on her lower lip, finding her tongue with mine.

  Scary how bad I need this. Need her. She lets me forget. Lets me be nowhere but here.

  Every day I’m faking it. Fooling everybody into thinking I’m not destroyed inside. It’s like I’m trying to glue a grenade back together after it’s gone off. There’s too many sharp and twisted little pieces. It’ll never be what it was.

  But when I’m with Ash, nothing can touch me.

  “Quit thinking so much,” she mumbles between kisses, reading my mind.

  Right. Less thinking. More licking.

  THIRTEEN

  The furnace went nuclear tonight. Dad’s down in the basement trying to prevent a total meltdown.

  A drop of sweat trickles down my temple. I swipe it away with the sleeve of my T-shirt. Sitting at the desk in my room, I’ve got the window wide open, inviting winter in to battle the heat.

  Since I gave up on reading Frankenstein, I’m trying to bend my brain around some poetry by a guy named Keats. I’ve got an essay due in three days, just before the Christmas break—Keats, life and poems of. But man, I need a translator.

  Take this line: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”

  Huh? You got something to say, just say it! Don’t give me riddles. Keats wrote that line for his own gravestone. They probably killed him because of it.

  My essay so far: Keats was … Just another thousand words to go.

  I hear knocking from downstairs. Dad’s been pounding the pipes so I ignore it.

  “Danny!” a voice calls. “Yo, Danny.”

  It’s coming from outside. I lean out my window, into the freezing night. In the shadows below I make out Pike.

  “Hey, quit playing with yourself long enough to answer the door.”

  “What do you want?”

  Pike holds up his thermos. “Running on empty. Need to reload. Got any coffee?”

  “This ain’t a Starbucks.”

  “Come on. We’re freezing our nuts off out there.”

  Pike gestures toward the hut on the lake, where him and Howie are night fishing.

  “Whatever.” I give in. “Door’s not locked. Come on up.”

  I meet him at the top of the stairs. “Where’s Howie?”

  “Watchi
ng the lines. He’s got the Leafs game on the radio, didn’t want to leave it. Didn’t want to leave his battery-powered seat warmer either.”

  Pike’s dressed in his usual army fatigues. His favorite color is camouflage.

  “Lose the boots,” I say. “You’re getting slush all over the place.”

  “What’s with the sauna in here?” Pike kicks his boots off on the mat by the stairs.

  “Furnace went psycho. My dad’s working on it.”

  As if on cue, Dad’s swearing rises up the back stairs, followed by hammering.

  The kitchen windows are all open to let out the heat.

  “Coffeemaker’s over there, coffee in the cupboard.”

  He sets his thermos on the table, then roots around in the fridge. “Howie needs some sugar. How old are these eclairs?” He pulls out a doughnut box.

  “So old I forgot we had them.”

  “Nothing’s growing on them. They’ll do.”

  “Anything biting out there?”

  “Caught a couple black crappies, and a good-sized walleye.” Pike fills the coffeepot with water. “The light from the lantern seems to draw the fish to the surface. Howie’s hoping to snag a catfish with this bait he made out of rotten meat. His own recipe.”

  He scoops coffee into the filter. “You watching the game?”

  “No. I’m stuck doing that English essay.”

  “I got Howie to do mine. Only I had to tell him to dumb it down. Nobody’s going to believe I know a word like symbolism.”

  He’s flicking on the coffeemaker when I hear what sounds like a scream.

  We both freeze.

  “You hear that?” I ask.

  “Yeah? Is the TV on?”

  I shake my head. Maybe Dad burned himself on the boiler. I start toward the stairs.

  “Where—” Pike says.

  Another scream stops him. My breath catches in my throat.

  It’s from outside.

  We rush to the window that looks out on the lake. A yellow glow from the open door of the fishing hut spills out onto the ice, revealing something moving in the shadows.

  A strangled shout reaches us.

  “Howie!” Pike yells.

  He bursts down the hall, yanks on his boots and crashes down the stairs. I’m right behind him, pulling on my sneakers.

  I pause. Should I get Dad? But for what? So I follow Pike out into the night. I’m racing across the snowy slope, halfway to the docks, when I realize I’m still in my T-shirt and boxers.

  But who cares? There’s nobody around.

  Ahead, Pike hits the main dock. It juts out onto the lake about fifty yards. From there, it’s another sixty or so to the huts.

  I slide down the slope and land on the wooden planks. The walkway light-posts shine on small patches of the dock, leaving the rest to the night.

  I speed by the boats. Their winter tarps flap and crackle in the wind.

  A scream rips through the dark. It cuts off suddenly, leaving dead silence. Even the wind goes still, holding its breath.

  Then the night cracks open with a roar of animal rage. The planks beneath my feet shiver under the impact.

  I put my hands over my ears, but the roar goes right through me.

  It’s here!

  I want to run. But I can’t move. Can’t breathe.

  The roar breaks off, and I sag to my knees. The echoes ricochet inside my skull.

  Pike gets up from the walkway. He must have fallen under the shockwave too. He staggers to the end of the dock.

  I want to yell to him Stop! Run! But I can only watch as he climbs down the metal ladder to the ice.

  The sweat on my back has turned into a glaze of ice.

  “Danny!” Pike yells, out of sight.

  I stand shaking, waiting for the scream when Pike sees what’s out here with us.

  “Danny! Get over here!”

  His voice is torn away by the wind. I glance back toward the house. The open door shows a warm glow. But there’s an ocean of darkness in between.

  The hairs on my bare legs stand straight out, not just from the cold. The air is electric.

  “Danny!” Pike calls.

  I break out of my paralysis and jog down the walkway, my gaze sweeping the shadows for any movement.

  At the end of the dock, I stop by the metal ladder hanging down to the frozen surface. I see Pike on his knees leaning over Howie, who’s laid out flat on the ice.

  “He won’t wake up!” he shouts. “He’s soaked. Freezing. Must have gone through the ice. Help me get him up there.”

  Pike drags Howie to the bottom of the ladder.

  “I’ll lift him, and you get him under the arms.”

  I squat, reaching down to get a good grip.

  “Got him?” Pike asks. “Okay. Here goes.”

  He heaves and I pull. Soaking wet and limp, Howie’s a dead weight. I grunt and fall back on my butt as I yank him onto the walkway on top of me.

  His face looks gray in the dim light. Is he even breathing?

  Pike pulls Howie off me.

  I’m getting to my feet when I hear the growl. Pike’s eyes meet mine. He’s thinking the same as me.

  We’re not alone out here.

  “What the hell’s that?” he asks.

  I can only shake my head, my voice gone. I swing around to the ladder, expecting to see something climbing up after us.

  The deep rumble floods the darkness. Surrounding us.

  Pike’s eyes are wide, but not with the panic that’s seizing me. He’s hyperalert, ready to fight.

  But he doesn’t know what he’s up against.

  “Let’s move!” He lifts Howie in his arms as he stands. “Just watch my back.”

  Right! But who’s going to watch mine?

  We run from the thunder of the growl. My focus twitches left and right. Shadows shift as the wind flaps the tarps on the boats.

  The night squeezes in on us. Any second, the beast will jump out of the blackness. Or reach up to grab my feet and pull me off the dock. Finish what it started the other night.

  I get that nightmare sensation—running and running but getting nowhere. The light from the house promises safety. But it seems to retreat as fast as we run, always out of reach.

  My foot catches a gap between planks. I fall hard, slide on the snow-slicked wood and scramble to keep from dropping off the edge to the ice below.

  Pike’s still going, widening the gap between us.

  The growling closes in. I whip my head around. Only the empty boardwalk and shrouded boats.

  I get up. Pike’s almost to the shore. As I’m about to take my first step, I freeze.

  About ten feet in front of me, rising up through the cracks between the planks, is a little cloud of mist. As it starts to fade, another puff rises. The growling rumbles with the rhythm of those breaths.

  It’s down there! Waiting!

  This is not real. Not happening.

  The growl blinds me to everything else. It owns me.

  I can’t outrun the beast. But it let me go before. It had me. I was dead. And it let me go.

  Images flash behind my eyes. That warped face. Those teeth.

  Stop it! I shout at myself.

  Make a run for it! Maybe I’ll reach the house. Maybe.

  That’s all I’ve got. I suck in a deep breath, then throw myself into an all-out sprint. I don’t look down, don’t think. I leap over the space where the breath mists up through the cracks.

  I’m so locked in on the light from the house I forget to breathe. I pick up speed, ears straining for any sound of pursuit. But the rumble rushes at me from all directions.

  I stagger up the snowy incline to the house, using my hands to keep from tumbling back down.

  I almost catch up to Pike as he steps through the doorway, slouching under Howie’s weight. Pike sets him down on the floor.

  I have to reach back out into the dark to grab the doorknob. For a second it feels like I’m sticking my arm into the mouth of tha
t beast. It’ll rip my arm clean off.

  Then my hand finds the knob and I slam the door. I lock it and stand there, clutching the knob.

  I’m stunned by the quiet. I stare at the door, panting. When I get enough breath, I yell.

  “Dad!”

  FOURTEEN

  In the morning, I catch a ride to the hospital on the back of Ash’s motorbike. The blowing snow and black ice on the highway to Barrie keep me wide-awake and holding on tight.

  Last night was endless. No chance for sleep. I’m still dazed and confused.

  After a drive with dead shock absorbers, I feel a little saddle sore as we walk through the parking lot of the Royal Victoria Hospital. I was passing through these same doors not ten hours ago, after Dad raced us up here. With Howie unconscious and half frozen, stripped of his wet clothes and mummified in blankets, we all crammed into the front of Dad’s pickup. The ambulance from Barrie would have taken forever. Howie was shivering like crazy the whole way, which Dad said was a good sign—his body was trying to warm itself. Stop shivering when you’re that cold and you’re dead.

  In the emergency room they wrapped him in heating pads and started him on warmed IV saline. Around here they see a lot of hypothermia, so they had him out of danger pretty quick. He woke up for a little bit, but he just stared through us, like we weren’t there.

  “It’s shock,” the doctor told us. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep him overnight. It’ll pass.”

  Dad’s back at the lake now, going over the scene around the ice hut with the cops, trying to figure out why the ice gave. Me and Pike never said anything about the growling and the roar. Neither of us actually saw anything. All anybody knows for sure is Howie went through the ice. They didn’t find anything else wrong with him besides hypothermia. No sign of any attack. So I kept my mouth shut, and Pike was busy dealing with his parents.

  Everybody’s just waiting for Howie to recover and tell us what happened on the lake. Everybody but me. I’ve got a pretty good idea.

  Me and Ash find Howie’s room and take a peek.

  The lights are off, but the glare from the snowy day comes through the window. Howie lies buried under a pile of blankets, his eyes shut.

  “Still sleeping,” Ash whispers.

  “Shhh,” a voice hushes us.