Before

Helena. Rebekah could see a hint of it in the distance now.

She pushed herself harder, running faster, the Loop empty ahead of her, like a road at the end of the world.

Keep going.

Thunder rumbled. She tried to count the gap between claps, tried to work out how far away the storm still was and how much time that gave her.

Keep going.

She kept repeating it to herself, dropping her head against the rain – but, as she did, she saw that, in the dark, she’d strayed off the road.

She stopped, exhausted: the road was about fifty feet from where she was, but even such a small deviation felt like a defeat.

She dragged herself back, keeping her focus on the yellow lines, but she’d lost her rhythm and was shivering uncontrollably. A minute later, lightning forked across the clouds above her – terrifying, beautiful.

That was when she spotted the bicycle.

It was leaning against an old shack. The back wheel – raised off the ground – turned every time the wind roused, each revolution bringing a muted squeal. Rebekah hurried to it, almost losing her footing in the water that was running out of the overflowing storm drains.

Yanking the bike away from the shack, she wheeled it back to the road. She could feel one of the tyres was soft, the movement of the bike slightly off, but she didn’t care, just started cycling.

Rain was coming at her horizontally and, as thunder exploded directly above her, she wobbled, almost losing control. But then, suddenly, the road started to drop away. It was subtle at first, then became steeper, and she could see the town clearly: grey roofs, the harbour.

Her adrenalin spiked.

I’m almost there, Johnny. I’m almost in Helena. I’m going to find someone here who knows the forest and I’m going to come back for you, I promise. Please don’t be dead, John, please don’t be dead, please don’t be d–

She hit the brakes.

The bike screeched. The sound was so loud she heard it over the snarl of the wind and the machine-gun crackle of the rain on the road.

There were no lights anywhere in Helena.

No cars, no vehicles.

Nothing at the harbour.

It had been ninety minutes, maybe more, since she’d got to the Loop, ninety minutes of being out in the rain, so she’d expected to miss the ferry back. It wasn’t a surprise to see no boat waiting for her. But where were the people who worked here? Why were there no cars in the parking lot?

Why was there no sign of life?

She hadn’t noticed it at a distance, in the darkness, but she did now: the buildings were already shuttered, wooden boards fixed at windows and doors.

It wasn’t protection against the storm.

It was protection against winter.

‘No, no, no,’ Rebekah muttered into the rain.

She swung her legs off the bike and let it roll away from her. It clattered to the ground. By then, she’d already broken into a run, sprinting down Main Street, the buildings on either side boarded, any sign of human life gone.

At the bottom, the gates to the harbour had been pulled all the way closed, chains binding them together.

On the other side, a padlock taunted her.

‘No!’ she screamed, her voice instantly lost in the rain. This must be a mistake. It must be a trick. It can’t be right. It can’t be. She yelled into the night, and as a vibration moved through her chest, a faint wail escaped from her throat, like the moan of an injured animal.

Everyone’s gone.

Everyone’s left already.

She looked back along Main Street.

Johnny had told her that tomorrow was the last day of the season. He’d talked about it on the ferry that morning. Even though it felt like centuries ago, she remembered exactly what he’d said: Halloween was the last day. But now she could see the truth: the island didn’t close tomorrow. It closed today.

Which meant Johnny had been mistaken.

Or something much worse had happened.

He’d lied.