Everyone had fled the building. The store was completely silent now. But inside that silence was a presence. Peter had felt it once before, that night Bud first took him out on to the mainland, when the deer fled the woods and all birdsong vanished from the boughs. The pines held their breath for the thing that was walking among them. Peter did the same now and quietly acknowledged the presence of death on the other side of the aisle from him. But he’d learned a lot since then, and more on the trail this last month with Cooper, and even though he knew the town borders were patrolled by Returnees, his fingers felt for the sheath he kept in his parka pocket and withdrew it. Reassured, he quietly turned into the aisle.

Cooper stood motionless in the middle of the aisle facing the shelves like a toy that had wound down mid-walk. His head was low on his shoulders so his blond hair spilled across his face. He’d been stacking shelves with the same tinned salmon as the one that’d rolled away. But his arms hung heavy at his sides and he made no effort to retrieve the lost can. He didn’t do anything at all. Cooper’s fingers twitched and Peter’s heart bucked against his chest. There were the same beautiful coarse hands that had held his. There was the same chest, defined beneath his white T-shirt, rising and falling. The same forearms with their fleecy blond hair. Peter had kissed and touched them all in turn to tell each and every part of Cooper that it was beautiful, the way he’d done for him. Only now they were attached to something he didn’t know.

Those two dark eyes peered out from behind the tendrils of hair. But just like back in the ravine, something was wrong with them. On a starry night out on the trail, Peter only had to gaze down at Cooper to see the night sky. Those two dreaming pools were fathomless mirrors, full of stars. Now they were as dead as fish eyes.

“Cooper,” Peter whispered. “Coop.”

Cooper’s fingertips twitched. But it wasn’t at hearing his own name being called. More like a dog dreaming. Peter inched forward. But something changed. Cooper’s jaw clenched and the skin shielding it moved in knotted rhythms following the grinding bone beneath. Peter attempted to whisper Cooper’s name again, but the word stayed inside his lips and all desire to reach out and touch him was replaced by an altogether different sensation. Fear. Peter glanced down, watching the white of his knuckles burn across the handle of the blade, and the blood came pumping to his temples.