Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #2)

by Stephen Graham Jones

What Tab told him after his big wreck senior year was that Indians never really die. That you can tell that by how he was still there, when that Grand Prix should have killed his ass.

Rexall’s proof of this was that Tab had never floated back up to the surface.

Jennifer retrieves her mostly empty coffee from the top of the water fountain, fake drinks it to mosey across the lobby, then sets it onto the front desk’s high counter, having to really jostle it to get any of it to slosh up and out. “Oops.” She reaches over the counter for a napkin but isn’t as tall as the reception kid, so, thinking only of cleaning up this accidental mess, she steps behind the counter, uses a tissue to dab up the coffee. After which she’s politely looking for the trash—she doesn’t know this place, this is all so new. It’s all about frame of mind.

Monsters happen, Mr. Armitage. I don’t need to tell you of all people this.

It should have been dead long ago, she knows, but souls are like livers: they regenerate and regenerate, until you’ve finally poisoned them enough that the only thing they can do is kill you, take you down with them.