Dark Waters

The figure was gone.

Coco shivered. She opened her mouth to say something else. But before she could, the car was grumbling up the mountain once more and they had left the gully behind them.

A minute later, two yellow lights shone through the trees. Maybe it was just because Coco was shaken up, but she thought that the lights looked sinister. Like eyes peeping. Waiting for them. She wanted to tell Mr. Adler to turn the car around.

Don’t be silly, she told herself.

“Look!” said Brian, pointing. “What’s that?”

“Must be the lodge,” said Mr. Adler. He sounded relieved. “We’re almost there.”

They drove under a new, hand-carved sign lit by two old-fashioned gas lamps.

Eyes? Right, Coco thought. Just lamps.

mount hemlock resort, said the sign. a mountain of awesome where winter never ends.

“That’s some weird grammar,” commented Ollie.

No one said anything else. The resort drive was the narrowest road they’d driven on, and the most thickly piled with snow. The Subaru’s motor whined horribly as Ollie’s dad pushed down the accelerator. The driveway turned, and the car skidded slowly sideways, almost going into a spin. The wheels couldn’t bite.

“Dad—” Ollie began.

“Not now!” snapped her father in a tone Coco had never heard from Mr. Adler. He changed gears, managed to keep the car from skidding, and then they burst out from the driveway into a snow-covered parking lot. Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief.

After the long, cold drive, the sight of Hemlock Lodge was like Christmas morning. Warm golden light blazed out of the windows. Well, some of the windows.

“We made it,” said Brian happily.

They could barely see the building in the snowy darkness, but Coco thought it was big. It had a—presence. It loomed over them.

“Shouldn’t there be more lights?” asked Ollie.

“Power must be out,” said Coco’s mom. She tugged the end of her blond braid, considering. “They’re running on generators. Can’t light everything.”

“I can hear the generators,” said Brian.

Mr. Adler drove across the parking lot and parked under an awning. Coco could hear the generators too: a slow, roaring noise, like the building was breathing.

“Well,” said Mr. Adler, “parking lot’s empty. Looks like we were the only ones to make the drive.”

“There might be others stuck on the road somewhere,” said Coco’s mom. “Hopefully they get to shelter. Another hour, and we’d have gotten stuck ourselves. Next time let’s listen to what the radio has to say about snowstorms, hm?”

“Deal,” said Ollie’s dad, and he sounded like he really meant it. “Come on!” he added to all of them. “We made it, all present and accounted for. Grab a bag. The sooner we get out, the sooner we get to bed.”

Ollie and Brian fumbled for the door handles and stumbled into the freezing night. All of them padded sleepily into Hemlock Lodge.

Coco stopped dead right in the entrance, staring. Ollie plowed into Coco and had to catch her so they both didn’t fall. “Coco, what—” she began, and then she saw what Coco had. “No way.”

“Holy cow,” muttered Brian. “Where are we?”

The only light in the lobby was from a big, roaring fire. Shadows leaped and swung across the walls; you couldn’t even see the ceiling. But the walls were completely covered with heads. Dead animal heads. Coco spotted a moose head with Christmas lights wound through its antlers. A deer head—a lot of deer heads—hung in a cluster. There was a trio of raccoons in a small canoe with paddles. A stuffed fawn in a glass box. Four coyotes looked like they were howling at a fake moon. A black bear stood on its hind legs, its paw upraised.

In the flickering firelight, they seemed to move; their glass eyes shone like they were alive. The bear had sharp white teeth.

“Nice decorations,” said Brian uneasily. “Great spot your dad found.” There was a giant bearskin rug on the floor. Its claws were shiny in the firelight.

Ollie stepped around Coco and marched into the lobby. “It’s great,” she said pointedly. Ollie always defended her dad. Coco would have too, if she’d had a dad as cool as Ollie’s. Coco had never met her dad. He’d left before Coco was born.