“And I know his constant pointing and naming things ain’t gonna be to everybody’s taste when I’m sure most folks don’t need toilet-roll holders spelled out to them, but he’s got a heart of gold and he sure could do with a friend in this town.”

Peter offered a smile. He just wasn’t sure how much more of Teddy he could take. The sheriff shuffled round in his seat and sat there looking hopeful and after a while, there seemed to be no way out of it.

“Maybe he could show me the sights of Mainstreet?” Peter offered.

The sheriff beamed. “Crackin’. That’s his favourite.”

“Great.”

“Followed by dinner at our place?”

“Err—”

Peter left a beat, a pause big enough for the sheriff to clock his reticence and realize the decent thing would be to spare him any further impositions. But the sheriff didn’t take the hint and a moment later the pause became so big that Peter’s reluctance to accept the invitation just seemed plain rude.

“Sure. I’d love to.”

The sheriff winked. “Dandy. Well, that’s all settled, then.”

The sheriff wound the window down, shaking dregs of coffee from the cup. Snow fell so thickly over the parking lot that most of the dead birds had already been rounded off into rows of little white graves. The sheriff leaned into the door and for a moment Peter thought he was watching the lot transform into a graveyard, too. But his gaze had settled on the supermarket window and Peter felt the mood in the Jeep shift somehow.

“But what if, Peter?” said the sheriff darkly.

“But what if what?”

“What if the trance is only the beginning?”

Peter looked off into the hills, to those places beneath the pines where the boughs grew dark, and for the first time wondered what else Rider would’ve done that night if the lake hadn’t acted against him. Would he simply have regained control of himself to push that plate of meat aside, or would something else have taken over those dark and boundless eyes and transformed his friend into a monster?

Animal. Beast. Fiend. Monster. Peter turned the words over in his head, finding a nauseous thrill in exploring them. Another word presented itself. A word no one ever used. Not even a word, just a single letter, the one banished to the very back of the alphabet and for good reason. Peter dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand, feeling shame to have made the same connections that Darlene and Henry had once made. He didn’t want that thought. He didn’t want that word anywhere near Cooper. But nobody else had put it there.

15