Title Page

Contents

1. Title Page
2. Dedication
3. Praise for Wranglestone
4. Epigraph
5. Map
6. Part I
7. Prologue
8. Chapter One
9. Chapter Two
10. Chapter Three
11. Chapter Four
12. Chapter Five
13. Chapter Six
14. Chapter Seven
15. Chapter Eight
16. Part II
17. Chapter Nine
18. Chapter Ten
19. Chapter Eleven
20. Chapter Twelve
21. Chapter Thirteen
22. Chapter Fourteen
23. Chapter Fifteen
24. Chapter Sixteen
25. Chapter Seventeen
26. Chapter Eighteen
27. Chapter Nineteen
28. Chapter Twenty
29. Chapter Twenty-One
30. Chapter Twenty-Two
31. Chapter Twenty-Three
32. Chapter Twenty-Four
33. Chapter Twenty-Five
34. Chapter Twenty-Six
35. Part III
36. Chapter Twenty-Seven
37. Chapter Twenty-Eight
38. Chapter Twenty-Nine
39. Chapter Thirty
40. Chapter Thirty-One
41. Five Years Later
42. Acknowledgements
43. About the Author
44. Copyright

Dedication

For Joseph.
My home.

And in loving memory of Claus.
(1976 - 2002)

Praise for Wranglestone

Winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Readers

Shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards

Shortlisted for the YA Book Prize

Longlisted for the Branford Boase Award

* * *

“Part zombie epic […] part gay love story […] a sophisticated new voice.”

The Times, Best Books of the Year

“Zombie thrills combine with an achingly tender gay love story”

Observer

“Sublime and affecting”

Starburst

“Fresh and compelling and totally immersive”

Sunday Irish Independent

“Thrilling zombie epic meets gorgeous gay love story. The world-building is deft, the writing poetic … this is very special!”

William Hussey, author of Hideous Beauty

“A bucolic, intimate twist on the zombie/post-apocalyptic story”

David Owen, author of Grief Angels

“Charlton’s fantastic debut […] is both a page-turning zombie thriller and a beautifully drawn gay love story”

iNews

“Wranglestone is terrifyingly good”

Attitude

“A complete treasure of a book – page-turning, stunning writing, an extraordinary setting and with a gorgeous love story at its heart”

Lisa Heathfield, author of I Am Not A Number

“Wranglestone by Darren Charlton holds an extra special place in my little gay heart”

George Lester, author of Boy Queen

Epigraph

‘The mountains are calling
and I must go.’

John Muir

Map

Part I

Prologue

Some communities had islands to protect them from the Dead. Others had vast glaciers and mountains. Over in Arizona, where long, black roads shimmered like liquorice sticks out across the desert, the National Park Escape Programme was without rival. Seen from space, Grand Canyon looked like the Earth had been torn wide at the skin. It was as violent a wound as a bloody gash to the bone. Only it was a river, not a blade, that had quietly cut a mile deep into the rock over millions of years, giving those survivors living in the valley below a maze of walls to hide in and a fall from the top that made bone dust of the Dead.

To the north, Yellowstone had none of those things to protect it. The land was flat and unguarded and would have been prone to ravage from its wandering herds if it weren’t for one thing. The earth held a secret.

While the air up there was so cold it glittered like finely ground diamonds, a little piece of hell bubbled away just below the surface. Acid in the ground turned trees into tinder. It burned the grass off the land, making the soil scab with wet copper pools like freshly scalped skulls. Only raised boardwalks kept Yellowstone’s inhabitants safe. They crisscrossed the park, stopping a sturdy boot from breaking through the Earth’s thin crust while a series of little wooden stepping stones and moveable walkways broke the path from one cabin to the next, keeping the Dead from every door.

Yellowstone had a volcano deep in its heart, and its broiling skin was the deadliest of all the park’s natural defences. And yet, when the great geysers burst, rousing plumes of hot water and chattering goshawks up into those roaming skies, this place was damned near perfect. Crying shame then, that this life beneath the doming blue was all but coming to an end.

Wyatt lifted the pan from the blue flame, swilling dregs of fizzing coffee round the rim, and watched the snow dance across the cabin window. He yawned. He scratched his butt. He considered taking a piss in the sink while Daisy was still asleep just so he didn’t have to use the outhouse. He thought again. He poured the pan, taking brief pleasure in the sting of heat curling up from the enamel cups and threw another log on the fire. It popped, or maybe one of the mud pools beneath the cabin did – who could be sure at this godforsaken hour? – and he stood up on tiptoe to peek above the snow shelving the sill.

Outside, steam chugging up from the geysers broke through cracks in the decking. It was so thick this morning, it smothered the air like September snow over summer dreams. There was no sight of the surrounding boardwalks and cabins. They may as well have been up in the clouds. Only the low winter sun was visible, glowing dully inside the mist like a moon. That and the little wooden bridge reaching out from the cabin to greet it.

Wyatt jolted forward, slopping coffee across the stove. Fewer things had greater rule over Yellowstone than winter, but making sure your bridge was winched back of a night time was sure as hell one of them. Whenever the Dead came, they appeared suddenly and without warning, standing scattered across the boards like ghosts travelling up from below. Not that they took much interest in him or Daisy no more. Hell, they’d become all but invisible to them since they’d got bit. But others might, and in more recent weeks, had. Once word got round about how their kind could stop the Dead from attacking, the Escape Programme was hurried to an end. Most people passing through on their way down from the refuge at Glacier National Park brought joy and news of electricity in some town that was already set to welcome everyone home from the parks. But others rode in on troubled saddles to recall any so-called Pale Wanderers left out here, with instruction for them to play their part leading the defence against the Dead. Now he and Daisy were the only ones who’d decided to stay back, it was all they could do to stop one of them rangers from making it right up to their front door.

Wyatt stared at the little wooden winch. “Daisy, darlin’,” he called back. “Did I take a leak and forget to bring the bridge back in last night or did you?”

Daisy didn’t answer. Wyatt downed his coffee and made his way through to the bedroom. The crumpled bedsheets were empty. Most likely, she’d taken a couple of eggs and a pan out to boil on one of the park’s bubbling pools. Not that it was her turn. Wyatt glanced at the figurine of the silver bronco on the windowsill and sighed. He’d won more calf-roping contests than any other cowboy this side of the Tetons back in the day. And Daisy would’ve been Rodeo Queen too, flying the flag for them both with a thousand rhinestones blazoned across her chest like a night full of stars, given half a chance. She had what it took. Folks who thought that all it required was a vacant smile and a blouse full of boobs were wrong. It took real grit. She’d taught herself how to ride in the western style too and besides, she was unusual in her class in that she was seventeen years old back then, unmarried and without child, and you needed all those things to qualify under pageant rules. But it wasn’t to be. The Dead saw to that. They saw to a lot of things.

Wyatt glanced at the old wooden fruit punnet he’d fashioned into a cot. It fidgeted. A little hand with fingers as plump as cocktail sausages poked up and Wyatt smiled. Mable was his world entire and he wanted only a world full of rushing rivers and meadow flowers for her to play in. Neither he nor Daisy would let a damn thing come along and change that, least of all a move to some town.

Something heavy landed with a thud out on the bridge. Wyatt set Daisy’s cup down on the dinner table and made his way outside, but it was only a piece of carrion dropped clean from the sky. The raven soon followed. It hopped along the decking, tucking its black velveteen wings behind its back like a man bowing just before the dance, and began to peck at its kill. It gagged, parting its beak to release one of its terrible calls. That damned purr. The devil’s purr. Wyatt swiped snow from the seat of the rocker and sat, pushing the chair forward with his toes to set it in motion, and watched the bird make light work of the mouse. The rodent was only small, barely enough flesh to fill a thimble, really. But it was enough to make him tremble. The raven’s black beak tore shreds of raw meat from the carcass and Wyatt put his foot down to stop the chair.

“Dang it,” he said. “Not now.”

He set his hand across his knee to steady it, observing the grey pallor of his skin against the stark white of his cotton long johns. He cussed himself for looking at the meat. He counted to ten and hoped the feeling would soon subside. But it made no difference. Saliva goosed the inside of his mouth. His stomach yawned wide, ready to devour the mouse and a thousand more little bodies just like it.

Wyatt bolted forward, lobbing the tin cup at the bird. The cup clipped its wings, clattering across the bridge inside the steam and the raven took off with its kill. Wyatt wiped drool from his bottom lip. His hand trembled. He cussed. Being made invisible to the Dead by their bite was the blessing. Sharing their hunger for flesh was the curse.

Beneath the decking, welts in the mud bubbled and burst beneath him. But after a moment or two, the earth settled and Wyatt’s hunger passed. He braced both hands on the arm rests ready to get up and fetch the cup, when he stopped.

The cup flew back. It broke clean out of the mist, somersaulting a couple of times, and smacked the cabin walls.

Wyatt smirked. “Daisy, your throw’s lousier than a drunk aimin’ for the piss pot.”

He held his hand over his eyes, shielding it from the burn of the pale sun and waited for Daisy to walk through with those eggs. She didn’t come. He called out. But nobody called back. It was only now that Wyatt noticed something strange. The sun was so much lower in the sky than it had been a moment ago. It was still early in the morning, but just as sure as he was sitting there, the sun began to set. Not slowly in real time, but fast, like a sunset dropping over a vast horizon in one of those old nature programmes. He took a step closer, aligning himself with the foot of the bridge, and the sun travelled forward. He blinked to shake off the morning grog, and the sun was closer still. Only it wasn’t the sun at all, but a lamp.

Wyatt staggered forward. “Who goes there?”

Steam twisting up through cracks in the boards passed across the lamplight, diffusing the glare. Whoever was holding it remained out of sight.

“Sweetheart, don’t be playin’ no games, you hear me? I ain’t in no mood.”

The mist was still too thick for him to see anyone, but it became clear that the lamp was hovering about twelve feet off the ground. And it swayed. It wasn’t being held by a hand. It dangled from a staff. Wyatt’s eyes darted to the bridge’s little wooden winch. He dashed forward, taking the handle in both hands, and tried to hoist it round. But it wouldn’t even manage one rotation. Wyatt let go, feeling the frosted wood burn through both palms and tried again. But it was no good. The weight of the stranger on the bridge was too great. Wyatt bent double, gasping for breath, when a dark mass broke free of the folding steam.

The silhouette of a lone rider bearing a crown of antlers hung inside the mist.

The stranger was as thin as a crack in the wall, with a black robe cinched tight at the waist. There was no face to speak of, only a deer’s skull for a mask. Without the skin and fur to soften it, the muzzle was nothing but ragged bone, as sharp and cruel as a beak, with empty eye sockets to watch from and two hollow nares on the ridge from which to breathe. Wyatt couldn’t make out the stranger’s eyes, but those blank sockets held his gaze, freezing him to the spot like an unbreakable curse.

Wyatt staggered back, reaching for the holster on his hip. He realized he’d left the gun indoors and cussed himself. But the only thing that mattered now was that the stranger thought him to be alone. He kept his eyes on the stranger so as not to alert him to the presence of another life out there in the park and willed Mable to keep quiet in her crib.

“Mornin’, friend,” Wyatt offered. “Now I already told you good people that I ain’t interested in followin’ you all into some town if that’s why you’re here. But there’s coffee on the stove and a seat by the fire if it’s a warming rest stop you came lookin’ for.”

The stranger showed no interest in Wyatt’s nervous invitation. He lowered the lamp, setting the staff inside a metal sheath just below the stirrups with one hand and placing the reins over the bucking rolls with the other. But he never looked down.

Gloved fingers, as long as winter shadows, slipped along the side of the saddle to a velveteen bag. They fingered the drawstring, reaching deep inside, then withdrew in liquid motion as if the object the stranger sought was always within his command. He held his arm out and the gloved hand unfurled like a black flower, revealing the contents of his palm. Inside it was a gift.

The slice of raw meat was as pink as clouds at dusk. And juicy. Wyatt’s heart bucked against his chest. It was so much fresher than the mouse, but he’d made a pact with Daisy not to give in to this urge. They both had. The hunger was the way of monsters and something Wyatt would have done everything in his powers to resist right now, had every pulse of his heart not strained so.

Wyatt took the piece of meat, nodding his thanks now that the two of them seemed to have come to an understanding, and the stranger’s hand withdrew. And as he brought the glistening flesh to his lips, he observed a pair of eyes beneath the skull’s empty sockets and the stranger leaned in.

A thin voice, as ragged as a blade of grass shredded in the wind, broke from behind the mask. It carried with it just a single word.

“Timberdark.”

Wyatt didn’t really catch what the stranger was saying. The promise of meat made the inside of his mouth tingle. Thrilled, he took a bite.

“Thank you, sir,” he said wiping drool on the back of his hand. “Thank you.”

But the stranger showed no interest in such niceties and merely repeated the word.

“Timberdark.”

Wyatt realized the stranger’s offering came at a price and looked up. “Is that some town you seek, my friend?”

The eyes behind the deer’s empty sockets blinked.

“Timberdark.”

“I know,” said Wyatt suddenly troubled that the word was not familiar to him. “I’m real sorry I can’t help you, but that’s not someplace I know of.”

The stranger held Wyatt’s gaze longer than was comfortable. And yet he seemed satisfied that his answer held true. The rider’s gloved hands slid like shadows across the reins to regain control of them and he eased back in the saddle ready to pull away. Wyatt offered a parting wave and turned to make his way back indoors. It was only then that he noticed blood as black as molasses dripping on to the bridge. The stranger lowered his hand to the side of the saddle, teasing strands of fine red hair through his spindle fingers. But the hair wasn’t being drawn up from inside some satchel, but a severed head.

Wyatt recognized the frozen features of that beautiful face hanging by its hair from the saddle, staring back at him. He recognized the woman’s freckles, dainty as the speckle of an egg across those porcelain cheeks. He recognized her lips. But it was no longer his Daisy. The eyes staring back at him now were as dead as a doll’s.

A terrible sound tore its way out of Wyatt. A wail. A cry. One that should never come out of a man. But he didn’t have time to give in to it. He dropped the meat. He turned. He ran back across the bridge, carried on by the scream for his daughter, and straight into the cabin. But he never made it to her.

The stranger’s boots struck the timber boards. Wyatt heard the steady stride across the bridge towards him. His eyes scanned the cabin. Furiously. There was a knife beside the sink. A poker by the fire. There came a gurgle from the bedroom and Wyatt froze. But it was too late. The front door creaked open behind him, then shut, bringing with it only silence and resolution. There was snow at the window. There was heat from the fire. Then there was nothing.

1

Peter kicked the cabin door down. Well, he didn’t exactly kick it down, more made it click open with his boot. But this was certainly more dramatic than if he’d done it by hand and some of the wood around the frame exploded into splinters, which was way more than he’d thought himself capable of managing only a short while ago. But then, so much had changed this past month. And now here he was with a pistol pointed at his face and two angry eyes staring from behind, all in the name of a daring rescue mission.

The girl they’d barged in on swivelled the cylinder to lock in a bullet and shrugged the pigtail from her shoulder. “Take another step and it’ll be your last.”

“I won’t,” said Peter raising both hands. “I promise. But we’re not here to hurt you.”

Cooper backed in through the door, navigating the step up into the cabin without once taking his eyes off the surrounding woods, and stood guard. And it crossed Peter’s mind now, as it often did during inappropriate moments just like this, that this boy, with those ropes of golden hair matted to his face beneath a Stetson the inside of which never saw the light of day, was his, and how much this girl, if only she wasn’t fearing for her life quite so much, would surely love to hear all about that.

Cooper doffed his Stetson. “S’OK, miss.”

“Nothin’s OK,” said the girl.

“We mean you no harm. But you got company in them woods, so if you’re gonna trust us, you better make it quick.”

Peter glanced back. “Coop.”

“Well, she’s bein’ too slow. Make her listen.”

Peter shook his head to indicate his apologies for Cooper’s tone. “I’m sorry I broke your door down but—”

The girl raised an eyebrow. “It’s hardly down.”

“Oh.”

“It’s ajar at best.”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s still on its hinges.”

“Yes. All right, then, but still.”

“If you boys lay one finger on me …”

“That’s not the reason we’re here.”

“That’s always the reason.”

“No,” said Peter. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Oh, I know you won’t. Just look at you.”

Peter went to defend his door-breaking abilities once more, but the girl’s disdain for his heroics had already turned towards his wolfskin.

“I thought it looked menacing,” said Peter.

The girl narrowed her eyes. “Looks like a onesie.”

Cooper glanced back. “Quit jabberin’. They’ll be here soon.”

“You don’t know shit,” said the girl.

“Well, I know there’s two of ’em comin’ up through the woods right now.”

“Then you’d better leave.”

Peter inched a little closer. “Please—”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“There’s a place for you nobody else knows about. A place nobody can hurt you.”

“I said leave.”

“But we’re here to rescue you.”

The girl cocked her head to one side and stared at Peter’s mouth like she was waiting for a punchline. But she must’ve realized the joke wasn’t coming because her eyes lit up with an amusement that didn’t seem entirely appropriate to the situation. She placed her hand on her hip.

“Oh, honey, no.”

“I’m serious,” said Peter.

She angled the nose of her pistol up and down Peter’s body. “You’re like, what, ten?”

Peter clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“No, wait a minute. Twelve.”

“There’s movement out in the woods,” said Cooper calling back. “We don’t got much time.”

The girl clubbed the pistol into her fist. “OK, thirteen!”

“Sixteen,” said Peter. “I’m sixteen.”

“Woah. You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“Then I need a minute to process that.”

“I was a very light baby.”

“Baby?”

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