The forest starts about fifty feet from the rear of the buildings. That gap has been left not so much for yard space, I suspect, as security, making it tough for large animals to wander up unseen.
We cut through those “backyards” from the station to the north edge of town. From what I saw in the air, houses near the core are tightly packed; the configuration loosens at the edges. All the boundary houses are identical—one-and-a-half-story buildings with steeply pitched roofs. A rear deck and upper-level balcony add extra living space to homes that would have less than a thousand square feet inside.
Dalton walks onto one rear deck and opens the door. We go in and it reminds me of a cottage. A nice cottage, that is, with polished wood floors and tongue-and-groove walls.
The back door opens into the kitchen. He points out the amenities. No electricity—generators and solar power are only for food service buildings. They can’t afford the fuel to give everyone a generator, and covering the town with solar paneled roofs would turn it into a big, shining beacon for planes passing overhead.
As for water, an indoor tank is filled weekly from one of the two nearby springs. The tank is elevated, allowing pressure, and there’s a hand pump if needed. The stove takes wood. There’s an icebox, which contains actual ice, harvested in winter and stored for warmer weather. The icebox itself is under the floor, to keep it low and cool.
Dalton walks into the living room. I follow. There are two chairs and a sofa. All are rustic but sturdy, with wooden frames and thick cushions.
I look around. “I’m staying here?”
His gaze moves to my bag, which someone has left across the room. That answers my question, saving him from speaking.
I gingerly lower myself onto the sofa. It’s big and soft and wonderfully comfortable.
“There’s a fireplace,” I say, and I can’t fight a small smile. I’ve never had a fireplace. My parents turned ours into a significantly safer media cabinet.
“Two fireplaces and a woodstove,” Dalton says. “You’ll need to learn how to chop wood.”
“Okay.”
He looks at me as if I’m being sarcastic. When he sees that I’m not, he nods. The front door opens, and he starts for the hall.
“Casey?” Diana calls.
I smile and rise from the sofa. “In here.”
She barrels past Dalton and throws herself at me in a hug. “Finally! I kept asking when you’d come in, and no one would give me a proper time, and then all of a sudden, I hear that you got in this morning.”
“She was busy,” Dalton says.
“I asked to be notified—”
“And I vetoed that. She’s here to work. I had work for her.”
He’s already heading for the kitchen. Leaving out the back, I presume.
“Ignore him,” I murmur. “How’s everything going?”
She grins then, a huge blazing grin, the sort I haven’t seen since the day Graham asked her to marry him.
“It is amazing,” she says. She runs her hand through her hair, droplets of water flying. “I just got back from a quick dip. It’s freezing, but it feels so good.”
“There’s a pool?”
She laughs. “The pond. There’s a lake, too, but you need an escort to go there.”
“Um, you do know there’s no filtration system in a pond, right? Or a lake?”
Her grin widens. “Yes, we went swimming in a dirty pond.”
“We?”
From the way her face glows, I know the other half of that “we” isn’t a woman. I try not to stare at her. I probably do. Thrown into a new situation, Diana usually just lies low and observes, like a rabbit in its hole. I was certain she’d be hiding in her lodgings, waiting for me to come and take her around. Obviously not, and I’m thrilled to see it.
“So are you boarding here?” she asks.
“I guess so.”
“Hopefully it won’t be for long. I had to board the first night because my place wasn’t ready. I have an apartment now. If you’d like, you can bunk with me until they find you a permanent place.”
“I’m sure this will be fine. But thanks.”
We walk into the kitchen and find Dalton poking through boxes on the table.
“There’s dinner in there,” he says, pointing at one. “Enough for your friend if she stays. Basic supplies in the rest.”
“When do I get to meet my landlord?”
He frowns at me.
“The people I’m boarding with.”
“There’s no one else, Detective. This is your place.”
Diana blinks. “This is Casey’s house? But … I get … I have an apartment. It’s less than half the size of this, with no yard and—”
“Essential services. If you provide one, you get better lodgings than those who don’t.”
“How’s that fair?”
He turns those steel-gray eyes on her. “Casey will be working her ass off, twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, to keep this town safe. You work five hours a day sewing patches on jeans and new buttons on shirts. You want better? Work harder or train for a new position. That’s fair.” He heads for the door, calling back, “Eight A.M., Butler. Be ready.”
* * *
Diana joins me for dinner but has to leave at nine.
“I have a date,” she says, that glow returning.
I smile as we settle onto the sofa. “With your swimming partner?”
“Nope, someone else.”
Her grin turns wicked, like she’s sixteen and announcing that she kissed two different boys in the same weekend.
When I don’t react, she jostles me. “Haven’t you always said I need to date more? You should be happy for me.”
“I am happy,” I say. “This is my happy face, remember?”
She laughs. “Okay, okay. I’ll admit, the male-to-female ratio in this town helps my popularity, but it’s more than that, Case. It’s the whole…” She waves her hands. “Atmosphere. It’s like band camp. Which you never went to, and it’s not like you needed that anyway. You never have a problem meeting guys. So I’ve been taking advantage of the opportunities before you arrive and they all forget my name.”
“That’s not—”
“When we walk into a bar, guys only glance my way if you shoot them down.”
I protest. This topic of conversation comes up far too regularly for my taste. I’m no femme fatale, and Diana is no wallflower. I joke that she’s welcome to all the guys in town and then say, “Work will keep me plenty busy. And I’m … not exactly looking.” I absently finger the martini glass necklace.
“How’s Kurt?”
“Doing okay.”
“Good.” A moment of awkward silence. Then, “Speaking of guys, how about that deputy, huh? He’s just your type. Brawny. Gorgeous. Not likely to win a Mensa membership anytime soon.”
“Hey,” I say, with genuine annoyance.
“Oh, I’m sure Will is bright enough. Just not on your level. No one’s on your level.”
I try to keep my voice even. “Plenty of people are above my level.”
“I’m not.”
Goddamn it, Di. Five minutes ago you were glowing with confidence. And now this shit?
She makes a face. “Sorry. I’m a little scattered. It’s great here, but … after Graham … I guess I’m a little on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“It won’t.” I’ll make sure of it.
She twists her rings. “Maybe I should cancel my date. I agreed yesterday, when I didn’t know you were getting in today.”
“We have another hour. Then you’re walking out that door and going on your date.”
She struggles for a smile. “Is that an order?”
“It is.”
* * *
After Diana leaves, I clear my head by exploring my house. The upstairs is a loft bedroom, with a balcony overlooking the forest. Standing on it, I wonder where I can get a chair so I can sit out here with my morning coffee and watch the sunrise. When I realize it might not be that easy to procure a chair up here, there’s a split second of near panic. And I have to laugh, because I have never bought a piece of furniture in my life. Nor have I ever had the urge to sit out and watch the sunrise. My new balcony doesn’t even face east.
But I have a house. And it’s kind of awesome.
Without a book to read, I’m in bed by ten. But once I’m there, all I can think about is those files Dalton gave me. I also realize how quiet it is. My back window is cracked open, and I hear nothing. For a city girl, that’s unnerving. When I strain, I do pick up sounds: a distant laugh, the crackle of undergrowth, the hoot of an owl. But there’s no steady roar of street traffic or even the hum of a ventilation system. When I hear a howl, I practically fall out of bed.
There aren’t any dogs in Rockton. No pets allowed. And I know what a coyote sounds like; this isn’t it. That can mean only one thing: I’m hearing wolves.
I push open the balcony doors and step out to listen. The sound is distant, meaning there’s no danger that a pack of wild canines will charge from the forest. It’s not that kind of sound anyway. Not a warning cry, but a beautiful and haunting song. I go back inside to grab my blanket, and I lower myself to the balcony floor, my back against the wall as I stare into the forest and listen to the wolves.
There’s more out there than wolves. More than bears and wild cats. That’s what I read in those files. What is beyond the town borders and how it got there.
Rockton was founded in the fifties by Americans escaping political persecution during the McCarthy years. Some had returned to the US when they felt it was safe. Others remained and opened Rockton to people seeking refuge for other reasons. When the town struggled in the late sixties, a few wealthy former residents took over managing it and organized regular supply drops. That’s when the town began evolving from a commune of lost souls into a police state secretly sheltering hardened criminals.
Some residents became dissatisfied with the changes, wanting a more natural and communal lifestyle. They left Rockton in small groups and “went native,” as the saying goes, giving up even the primitive comforts of the town to live off the land. Rockton calls these people—and their descendants—settlers.
But there are others out there, too. Those who aren’t just living like a modern-day Grizzly Adams. Those who lost something when they left Rockton—lost their humanity and ultimately reverted to something animalistic. The hostiles.
That’s why residents can’t wander around in the forest without armed escorts. Sure, wolves and bears are a concern, but the bigger threat is the people who live in the forest. Step on their territory, and they’ll treat you like a trespassing predator and kill you on sight.
Like the wolves, though, the hostiles aren’t exactly on our doorstep. They’re a bigger danger to the settlers, because both live deep within this seemingly endless forest, while the average Rockton citizen doesn’t go more than a half mile in, and only on escorted trips during daylight hours. The deaths occur mostly with hunting parties and the deep-woods patrols that keep an eye out for hunters, loggers, and other potential intruders.
As for cannibalism, like Dalton suggested, the evidence is far from conclusive. It’s just a matter-of-fact possibility. In his notes, I saw the man who’d talked about the medical implications of ground squirrel hibernation. It was like reading an article in a sociology journal, the language precise, the vocabulary wide, the text thoughtful and analytical at the same time. He doesn’t think there are mad savages in the woods intent on devouring the flesh of their enemies. Rather, if there is cannibalism, it will be a matter of survival, the need for food during harsh times.
It’s not winter now, though, meaning there was no such reason for butchering Powys. Either we were seeing signs of a more ritualistic cannibalism or Powys had been deliberately cut up as a message—a warning from those in the forest.
Like Dalton, I’m a realist. I’m not shocked by accounts of man-eating bears and tigers. If you’re on their turf, you’re a threat and potentially dinner. Fair enough. As for humans doing the same, obviously I’d like to think we’re above that, but if we’ve lost what it means to be human, would we not see people as these animals do?
What does bother me, thinking of those hostiles, is an anxiety I can’t quite nail down, so I sit on my balcony, with the wolves howling and the breeze bringing tendrils of fireplace smoke, and when I close my eyes to drink it all in, that’s the last thing I remember thinking. That I like it here. In spite of everything, I like it.