“What is all this about the dead coming back to life again and… having to be killed a second time? I mean, what the hell’s going on here?”

87. Dead Water – C.A. Fletcher

This is kind of a wet zombie folk tale with some Viking bits. If you recall the part of Fulci’s Zombie where the zombie fights the shark (and how could you not…) it’s not like that. It has a little dose of the Stephen King ensemble and it’s on an island with its own traditions and everyone knows everyone and it’s very rainy so sometimes the ferry doesn’t come. It turns out everyone who was on the last ferry was very lucky and totally got out of the whole drowned-curse phenomenon and also missed the internet and phones being exploded “on accident” by Jamie, a very bad telecommunications worker. Very bad driver, as well.

Sig, the “living her life around grief” over her husband character, but who is also very resourceful and has a great dog, is one of the main perspectives. She has an interesting back story of being from a Christian Scientist Swedish family who let her sister die because of the whole “no doctors” ridiculousness, but she blames herself for that and an accident that killed her husband, who was from the island and who she had moved to the island to be with. She’s got the lead and a leg injury that hurts all the time.

The second lead is Matt, who is mostly deaf, and signing to him came in at a crucial moment for him to understand there was a curse situation happening. Matt and Sig get along because Matt was best friends with her husband, they also do not get along because of this. Matt is from the island as well, so he knows things are weirder than normal there and also knows that Sig’s going to have to get over her whole constantly rational bit to make it through this crisis even if she has a Land Rover Defender and the great dog.

Speaking of dogs, it is a tourist’s “interaction” with a Cocker Spaniel that sets things in motion and animal perspectives were occasionally represented here, which reminds me of the groundhog from Stephen King’s Under the Dome. Dead Water has about half the pages and fewer direct murders from what I recall of Under the Dome. It was an enjoyable read and really started to move along in the last 250 pages.

If Thorfy’s not going to rescue Snuffy from the pumpkin monster, she’ll find a way herself. Getting off a pumpkin island plagued by a harvest beast pumpkin monster is a job for rational ladypigs.