Across the way, a pillar of steam broke from the ground, launching gallons of vaulting water some twenty feet up into the air. But Peter’s eye was drawn further back across the boards by a light. It was no doubt the same one they’d followed earlier, mistaking it for the cabin. And now it was clear that it really had been moving. The dull glow glinted from inside the steam and continued to drift further out across the park. It was lamplight. But it wasn’t held out at arm’s length. It was higher than that. On a pole, perhaps. Or a horse. Peter remembered the black horse they’d seen from their vantage on the ridge. He looked back towards the cabin noticing now that there was no stable. The horse belonged to a visitor. Worse, an intruder. Peter’s hand reached for the holster, more out of instinct than decision, and a flush of surprise broke across his skin. Cooper had told him that survival instincts would work their way into his bones sooner or later, but he never thought it possible. He stepped out on to the bridge, following the light, but his attention was disturbed by a gurgle at his feet.

To the side of the bridge was a small pool. Earth around the rim had been so traumatized by acid in its bubbling waters that a copper scab had formed around the edge like blood drying across a wound. The hole was deep. It burrowed right down into the earth. It looked so abnormal, it wasn’t really like a hole at all, but a gaping mouth with fleshy walls disappearing down inside a gullet. Staring up from inside were two terrible screams.

The faces looking back at Peter probably would have stood at the cabin door to welcome him only an hour before. But what was left of their severed heads had mostly dissolved now. Grey skin flailed from the skulls like tattered curtains caught in the wind. The eye sockets where bubbles of boiling water broke were hollow and raw.

Panic burrowed under Peter’s skin. Then into the heart. Into the skull. Into the damned stupidity of separating himself from Cooper when they’d promised to stay close at all times. He couldn’t be sure the greying of the couple’s skin hadn’t just been caused by acid in the pools. But their home hadn’t been raided for goods or food. No. This family was dead simply because they were Returnees.

Peter staggered back, pulling the gun from its holster. He aimed it this way, then that. At the cabin. At the bridge. Back at the intruder out on the boards. He closed one eye over the barrel, ready to aim and fire. But there was no need.