by M. K. Krys
PENGUIN WORKSHOP
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
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Text copyright © 2020 by M. K. Krys. Cover illustration copyright © 2020 by Shane Rebenschied. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019057445
Ebook ISBN 9780593097168
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For Ben and Sophie—to the moon
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
About the Author
1
It had been ten minutes since they’d passed the “Driftwood Harbor, Population 203” sign, and ten minutes since anyone had said a word.
Out one window, the Atlantic Ocean stretched out like a big gray void as far as the eye could see. Out the other, a fog so thick, you could choke on it hung over a dense forest of scrabbly pine trees. A few miles back they’d passed a tumbledown house with an old truck in the driveway, but they hadn’t spotted any actual life since they left the interstate more than an hour ago. (Unless you counted the seagulls that circled overhead, and even they looked like the type that would purposely poop on your head.)
It was desolate and depressing, and Beacon could tell from the way his twin sister, Everleigh, glared out the window that she was regretting not flinging herself out of the car when she’d had the chance.
“I hear they have fantastic lobster,” the twins’ dad said.
The tires’ whirring underneath the Ford Taurus came into focus. A breeze whistled through a cracked-open window, ruffling the fine brown hairs clinging to the top of their dad’s head and sending his tie over his shoulder.
“I love lobster,” Beacon said, just to break the tense silence.
From the front seat, Everleigh snorted.
She was part of the reason they were moving from Los Angeles all the way to the tiny fishing village of Driftwood Harbor on the Eastern Seaboard. Their dad was hoping that the fresh air and change of scenery would help her. Nothing else had.
That’s why Beacon tried to be optimistic about the move, even if he wasn’t actually happy about it. He’d had friends in LA. He had the skate park downtown, where he practiced his jumps until it got dark. He had his bedroom full of Tony Hawk posters and a spot under the floorboards where he hid private stuff from his nosy twin sister. But he just wanted his family to go back to normal. Or as close to normal as they would ever get, now. After. If this place helped, then none of that other stuff mattered.
“Where is the actual town?” Everleigh grumbled. “If there even is one.”
“Should be coming up to it soon,” Beacon said brightly. “Right, Dad?”
He’d been doing that lately. Saying everything as if it had an exclamation point at the end, as if his enthusiasm might be contagious. So far, it only seemed to make Everleigh more annoyed.
Beacon looked out the window at the forest blurring past. Suddenly a flash of movement caught his eye. A figure darted out of the trees. It was white and hunched, with a pair of huge round eyes.
And it was looking right at him.
Beacon gasped.
“What?” Everleigh said.
He was about to explain, but his words were cut short by a loud clunk from under the car’s floor. Before he knew it, the car was fishtailing wildly across the road. The kids screamed as their dad fought to get control, the forest and road spinning around them in a streak of gray and green. The car careened toward a thick pine. Closer, closer, closer—they were going to hit it!
At the last moment, their dad braked hard. The car jerked to an abrupt stop. Beacon’s head slammed against the window. Stars exploded across his eyes.
And then everything was still. The engine knocked over the ringing in Beacon’s ears. Beacon blinked away the spots in his vision, searching through the cloud of dust outside the window for the creature in the woods. But if it was there, he couldn’t see it.
“What. Was. That,” Everleigh finally said.
“I don’t know.” Their dad gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers. “I was driving along normally and then all of a sudden something just gave and I lost control.”
Beacon blew out a relieved breath.
“You okay, Beaks?” their dad asked, twisting around to check him over for injury. “Is everyone okay?”
Once he confirmed that no one was missing an arm or needed CPR, he climbed out of the car, briskly wiping the wrinkles out of his suit. The twins weren’t far behind. Smoke billowed from underneath the hood of the car like a huffing dragon. Their dad coughed and blew away the fumes as he tried unsuccessfully to open the hood. Everleigh released an annoyed sigh and nudged him aside with her hip, then she unlatched the hood with a practiced flick of her wrist and peered underneath at the tangle of metal and wires.
“What is it?” their dad asked eagerly.
“Radiator’s blown,” Everleigh said, hands balled on her hips.
Everleigh was practically a pro mechanic. She’d been fixing cars with their older brother, Jasper, ever since she was in diapers.
Now she fixed them alone.
“Can you fix it?” their dad asked.
“Not without some leak sealant, and we don’t have any on hand. If we were back at home . . . ,” she said meaningfully, “now that would be a different story.”
Their dad ignored the barb.
“We’ll need to call a tow truck, then.” He ducked away to the driver’s seat, and Beacon got out his cell phone. He tapped the screen, but the browser wouldn’t load.
“The Internet isn’t working,” Beacon said.
Everleigh snatched the phone from his hand.
“Hey, give that back!” Beacon said, but his sister twisted out of his reach to type.
Even though they were twins, Everleigh had at least two inches on her brother, a fact she used to her advantage at every opportunity.
“No reception,” Everleigh said. “That’s just great.” She shoved the phone back at Beacon’s chest.
Beacon grumbled and stowed the cell in his pocket. Then the twins looked down either side of the isolated road. That’s when Beacon realized just how late it was. It hadn’t exactly been bright and sunny before, but now the trees looked black against the bruised-fruit sky. It was so quiet, he could actually hear insects chirpin
g and trilling in the long grass on the side of the road, instead of just cars and people like back in LA.
A fine mist sprayed off the ocean, and the air bit through Beacon’s thin sweatshirt with razor-sharp teeth. Everleigh rubbed warmth back into her arms, which were prickled with goose bumps. Their dad had warned them that it would be chilly by the water, but it seemed to be getting cooler with every passing second.
Beacon thought of the movement he’d seen in the woods before the car broke down, and a shiver scuttled down his spine. Those eyes had been huge. He didn’t even want to think about what kind of animal they belonged to.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to walk,” their dad said, jolting Beacon from his thoughts.
“I am not walking.” His dad and sister stared at him, and Beacon crossed his arms stiffly. “I saw something in the woods before the car broke down.”
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about aliens,” Everleigh said.
“Don’t be stupid,” Beacon retorted.
They’d googled Driftwood Harbor before the move. The only things they could find about the place were some old newspaper articles about a large object that had crashed in the water back in 1960-something-or-other. Of course, a bunch of weirdos on the Internet had insisted it was a UFO.
“It was probably just a deer,” their dad said.
“Or a bear,” Everleigh said casually. “I hear they have tons of them around here. Huge ones, too, with paws the size of dinner plates and claws like Wolverine.”
Beacon’s eyes widened.
“Leave your brother alone,” their dad said.
Just then, a white light beamed across the road. Beacon shielded his eyes as a pair of headlights rumbled toward them, the vehicle kicking up dust.
“Someone’s coming!” Beacon said.
“Boy, nothing gets past you,” Everleigh replied dryly.
Beacon didn’t even care about coming up with a good comeback—he was just happy help was on the way.
As the vehicle got closer, a crane and rigging equipment took shape in the moonlight. A tow truck. What were the odds of that?
The truck pulled to a stop next to their car. There were at least two inches of dust and grease on the windows, and the wheel wells were so rusted, it looked as if the car was disintegrating. Murray’s Auto Body was written on the side of the sun-faded, burnt-orange body. The driver leaned across the empty seats to look through the window. His cheeks were ruddy and deeply wrinkled, and a cigarette dangled from his lips, sending smoke curling into the air.
“Need a hitch?” he asked. Or at least that’s what Beacon thought he’d said. His accent reminded him of some of the Irish action movies his uncle Stanley liked to watch, where Beacon could only make out about one of every dozen words, and it was usually a cuss.
“Wow, perfect timing!” their dad said. He tripped over himself to thank the man, and ten minutes later, they were all crammed into the box of the tow truck as they rumbled toward the town—term used loosely. Beacon was grateful when they finally saw some signs of civilization. They rolled slowly past a harbor. The weathered pier didn’t look trustworthy enough to hold the weight of a toddler, let alone the dozens of boats anchored to it. If you could even call them boats. He saw tattered sails and broken masts and barnacles clinging to thick rope nets. Fishermen in chest waders and rubber boots stood in waist-deep, murky water, yelling at one another around a partially submerged tugboat with a big hole in its side.
A short while later, the tow truck lurched to a stop in front of a service shop. The domed, corrugated roof was sloping in the center and looked as if a strong breeze might knock it down.
They climbed out of the truck and followed the adults inside through the metal delivery bay doors. A van hovered on a platform in the middle of the room, and there was a giant puddle of oil underneath it. There were tools and gas cans and tins of nails everywhere. The smell of gasoline hung in the air.
Their dad and the mechanic fell into a discussion about the radiator, and the twins began wandering through the shop. Beacon was looking at some old pictures tacked to a corkboard when he heard Everleigh gasp. She had her hands cupped around her face and was peering out of a dirty window at the back of the shop. Beacon joined her and saw dozens and dozens of cars stretched out across a dusty lot, the metal shining dully under the orange light of a single lamppost. Before he could say anything, she was tumbling through the back door. He followed her out into the junkyard.
“I don’t think we should be out here,” Beacon said.
“Then go back,” Everleigh said.
She weaved through the makeshift aisles, peering into the cars with a grin tugging at her lips. She looked like she was in heaven. Beacon was pretty sure it was the first time he’d seen his sister smile since . . . he couldn’t even remember.
Maybe that’s why he couldn’t quite convince himself to tell her not to climb into the cars like she owned the place, as she was doing right now.
Beacon followed his sister’s path through the junkyard. Before he realized it, they were near the back of the lot, where the light of the lamppost struggled to reach. The aisles melted into darkness. The bodies of the cars were swallowed by jagged shadows. The light flickered, and Beacon once again thought of that movement in the woods. A crawly feeling roiled inside his gut.
“We should go back,” he said.
“Quit being such a wimp,” Everleigh said.
“I am not a wimp,” Beacon said defensively.
Everleigh gasped, and Beacon yelped.
“What, what is it?” he asked, whipping around.
“A 1968 Mercury Cougar,” Everleigh said, pointing at an old car. Beacon’s face melted into a scowl, and Everleigh laughed riotously, clutching her stomach. “Oh my God, you should have seen your face!”
“You’re a real jer . . .” Beacon’s words trailed off, his eyes widening at something behind his sister. Three sets of gleaming eyes stared out of the darkness.
2
“Nice try,” Everleigh said. She turned around on a laugh, but her face froze as a body materialized from the darkness. She screamed, scrabbling back into Beacon.
Three kids stepped out of the shadows, wearing matching puffy gold-and-blue varsity jackets and strangely blank expressions.
“Sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you,” the girl said. Her hair was the kind of bright blond that almost looked white; the glossy curls bounced around her shoulders as she moved. “I’m Jane Middleton. And this is Perry Thompson and Nixon Sims.” She nodded at the two boys standing on either side of her. One was short with shoulders so wide Beacon couldn’t be sure he wasn’t wearing football pads under his jacket; his light hair stuck up in spikes all over his head. The other was tall and thin, with tight, wiry black curls that matched his dark skin.
“I’m Beacon McCullough,” Beacon said, then nudged his sister when she didn’t offer her name. “And this is my rude sister, Everleigh.”
Everleigh narrowed her eyes at the kids. “What were you doing out here in the dark?”
Before they could answer, the twins’ dad ran out into the yard. The mechanic stumbled behind him.
“What’s going on out here?” their dad asked breathlessly. “Is everyone okay? I heard a scream.”
Jane stepped forward stiffly, her hands clasped in front of her like a mannequin.
“I’m afraid we scared them. We cut through the junkyard to get to the church on the hill, where we hold our meetings.” She pointed up at a big stone church that loomed ominously out of the fog on a hilltop overlooking the ocean. “We don’t usually come across anyone.”
“Hey there, Jane. Nice to see ya. Nixon, Perry.” The mechanic nodded at the kids.
“Hi, Mr. Murray,” they all responded together.
“Meetings?” the twins’ dad asked.
“We volunteer for the Gold Stars,” Jane e
xplained. “We’re a youth group that aims to promote social responsibility in kids.”
“Isn’t that something!” their dad said.
“We’re always looking for new members.” Jane looked at the twins. “If you two want to join, we’d be happy to take you to a meeting.”
Everleigh snorted, and their dad cut her a look that could slice through a ten-ton truck.
“That’s a very nice offer,” their dad said, a warning note in his voice. “I’m sure they’d love that.”
Jane smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “We should get going so we’re not late to our meeting.”
“Oh, by all means!” He stepped aside to let them pass. “It was great to meet you.”
“You too,” Jane said.
The Gold Stars gave them another one of their blank-stared smiles before they disappeared through a hole in the fence.
“They seemed nice,” their dad said.
“They seemed weird,” Everleigh replied. “I’ve seen livelier personalities on some two-by-fours.”
“Everleigh!” Their dad darted an embarrassed look at the mechanic.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Mr. Murray said, waving away his concern. “Probably just tired from the long drive. Why don’t we go inside and square up for that sealant? I bet you kids want to get out of here.”
“That’s an understatement,” Everleigh muttered.
The mechanic charitably pretended not to hear her.
* * *
...............................
Soon, they arrived at their home for the foreseeable future. The A-frame was set on a rocky jut of land overlooking the ocean. Thick vines climbed the yellow-stained siding like they were trying to swallow the house, and black shutters on the windows snapped open and closed in the wind. The roof was completely lost to the fog. A sign out front said “Welcome to Blackwater Lookout Bed-and-Breakfast!” in looping cursive script.
Beacon’s lips twitched from the effort to keep the smile pasted on his face.
“This looks great and everything,” he said, “but do you think there’s someplace a little more . . . modern we can stay?”