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

by Stephen Graham Jones

Scuffling out here across its wind-scoured surface, the safety cones all scattered, there were ice skate carvings back and forth like giant spiders dance there at night,

In hindsight, it was a stupid decision, but being smart’s not as easy as everybody makes it out to be.

“What bullshit is this?” Jennifer says. About the elk, sure, but, more, about the guy speared over its face.

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.

And, she is grateful. She wants for nothing. She has a beautiful family. If she ever complains, she knows, then… then that can all be taken away, can’t it? Because of a moment of weakness on her part?

Scavengers can’t be choosers.

Evil isn’t armor, after all.

Letha wants to smile with her heart, because she can’t with her face.

It was hard enough passing the three tests it took to come on the force.

Fifty thousand ancestors, going back and back, each of them a final girl.

It’s about two girls making it across the ice together.

It’s about putting the children and the old people in the middle and then making a circle around them, pointing out with every spear and shaking your head no, saying not this day.

Another dead young woman, all her promise leaking into the snow, all her plans pooling in the skin of her back.

In slashers, you die because you don’t know stuff. Therefore, the more knowledge you can collect and piece together, the better your survival rate.