1 Chapter 1

1

Introductions

* * *

On a scorching hot July afternoon, a lone snowflake fell from the summer sky.

It danced toward my car, landed on the windshield, and melted a second or two later, leaving a tiny stream of water to zigzag down the glass. I was looking right at it, but its strangeness didn't register until much later, after things went bad.

Yes, this is when it began, the bad things, but before I get into that, I think I should get the introductions out of the way. My name is Grady Hill, I'm almost thirty, and I live—well, lived—in Northeast Ohio. Once upon a time, I worked as a firefighter. I don't anymore. Yep, that's me.

If you don't know already, the world has ended, and it all started with that lone snowflake. Even if I had been paying attention when it fell, what would I have thought of it? I don't know; it's hard to say. Northeast Ohio is home to all sorts of odd weather. Besides, one snowflake? But I can tell you I wouldn't have believed my eyes, that I'd make all sorts of excuses about what it actually was. Maybe a drop of rain or a splash from a nearby car's windshield wiper fluid.

Still, I'm not sure because as it happened, my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking about the fire, the smoke, and the dead boy. How once the chaos settled, all that was left of him was a blackened husk that they pulled from the apartment building's smoldering remains. These thoughts weren't anything new around this time. They haunted me almost constantly. As I sat at the red light before the highway on-ramp, that first snowflake now long gone, I saw the flames and heard the boy's screams. I felt the smoke stinging my eyes, and strangling my throat.

"Get a move on, dumbass!" someone yelled from behind. That brought me back to the present.

I hung an apologetic hand out the window, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. Some heavyset fella in an American flag tank top, sitting on a Harley. Even though I hit the gas and flipped my turn signal on, I guess I wasn't moving fast enough because he zoomed right past me, shouting another loving expletive I didn't fully hear over the roar of his motorcycle. Anyway, I gave him the middle finger, but he was already tearing up the road. A wise person once said you can't win 'em all. That person was right, but still, that's a damn shame.

I eased on up the ramp and merged with the flow of weekend traffic. There was a good amount of it, too. The long July 4th weekend meant most people were off of work that Friday, and a lot of them were probably doing what I was doing, which was heading for greener pastures. I was going to Prism Lake, about three hours south of where I lived and worked. It was a yearly occasion for a couple of my buddies and me. We'd been going since we were kids. Stone's dad used to take us every summer, until the three of us discovered girls, that is. That'd be around our freshman year of high school. Age fourteen or fifteen. After that, we went only once or twice.

Then, before our senior year, Stone and his parents had been driving up to East Lansing one Christmas to visit some relatives, and a drunk driver swerved into their lane and hit them head-on. Stone's mom and dad both died, his dad instantly (and hopefully painlessly), and his mom in the hospital after a couple of days. Stone was in a week-long coma, though, so he didn't know it until he woke up. Besides his parents, Stone lost most of his ability to walk, too. Months and months of rehab got him up and moving, but he can't get anywhere without his sturdy set of crutches.

Before the end of the world, my only brush with death came when I was nine and my pet hamster passed on. Broke my heart into a million little pieces. My mom was gone, too, but she died when I was just a baby. The only way I got to know her was through the old pictures and notebooks my dad kept in a few boxes in our attic. They were filled with some really personal stuff, stuff I probably shouldn't have read at the impressionable age of nine—but then again, I had probably read a few Stephen King books by that time, too.

In my mom's notebooks, she'd written these great short stories in a beautiful, looping script. Stuff about a boy getting his first puppy and them growing up together until one day the dog wasn't able to stand on her own anymore and the boy—now a young man—had to put the poor thing down. He buried the dog, Cupcake was her name, and one day she came back, but not in a zombie-like Pet Sematary way.

She came back as a "benevolent spirit" (which was how my mom described it) and told him that it was all going to be okay, that life would go on and the boy would grow into a fine man; he'd find love and raise children and have a good job. Maybe he'd eventually get another puppy when the time was right; and some days, when he looked into the new dog's eyes, he would see a hint of Cupcake in them.

Man, I loved that story. I can recite it word-for-word, I read it so much. I also kept a photocopy folded up in my wallet, but my wallet's long gone now. I can't tell you where.

I digress.

I was talking about Stone. One of my two best friends. When he went through that tragedy, he was eighteen or so and didn't have to go off to some orphanage or stay with distant relatives. He got to choose where he wanted to go. My dad, bless his heart, let him stay with us the rest of our senior year and then a few more while we went to college, even though we really didn't have the room in our small house.

Dad cleared out a bunch of junk from the basement, and Stone stayed down there. He even built a ramp over the basement stairs so he could get up and down easier. But Stone barely left his new room in the beginning. That first year was particularly hard for him. School started. He didn't go, and fell way behind because of it. He quit eating, lost a bunch of weight. He was crazy about basketball—I mean, he could shoot and dribble like a pro. Ask him anything about the sport—its history, current pro standings, what Michael Jordan ate before Game Six of the '98 Finals—and he'd tell you. He'd tell you all while sinking a step-back three right in your face at the local YMCA. He was never wrong, either. I always said if there was an NBA themed Jeopardy, he had to get on there and win himself a few bucks. But the accident meant he couldn't play anymore, not like he used to, and his interest in basketball waned, too.

Despite all this, he graduated on time and got his diploma in front of a crowd of five hundred or so people. After that, he got his business degree from Kent State, and now worked for a big company in downtown Akron. Made good money. Once he got through the depression, he never acted like a guy with a disability, and I always respected the hell out of him for that.

My other best friend, the third member of the Three Musketeers, as we liked to call ourselves, was Jonas.

Jonas joined the Marines right out of high school and married his sweetheart a few weeks after he got stationed in Hawaii. Yes, you read that correctly. Of all places in the world, the lucky bastard went to Hawaii and worked on helicopters for five years. The government paid for pretty much everything, too, but he got out when his contract was up. His wife, Miranda, was pregnant with twins and he wanted them to grow up in Ohio, where he had grown up. He took a pretty good job at the Akron-Canton airport. The only downside to all of it was the fact that Jonas was mostly deaf in his left ear. Being around the loud engines so often had caught up to him. He wore a hearing aid, but not one of those clunky types you see seniors wearing. This hearing aid was sleek and barely visible.

Jonas's twins were born on the first day of spring four years ago. Stone and I were there pretty much the entire time Miranda was in labor, and when we were finally allowed back in their hospital room and Stone and me got to hold the newborn girls, I cried. I'll admit it. Daphne and Velma were their names (yes, like the characters from Scooby-Doo), and they quickly became family.

I've never married or had kids. It seemed like something I'd always get around to, but I know it'll never happen. Not with the way the world is now.

The storms and the darkness destroyed everything.

* * *

The last time I saw Jonas before we all met at Prism Lake was only about a month ago, a couple of weeks before I failed to save the boy from the burning apartment building. Stone, on the other hand, I hadn't seen him for nearly two months. Some best friend I am, huh? It wasn't like that, though. Out of those eight weeks, he was probably traveling for half of them, doing deals in Dallas and San Francisco, flying overseas to London and Japan, shaking hands and signing contracts.

After I saw the dead boy, I put up an impenetrable wall around my emotions. Sounds lame, and I didn't mean to do it, but that's what happened.

I was stuck in an endless loop. Work at the fire station, come home, watch television and not comprehend any of it, then sleep. I barely ate, but I did make the occasional trip to the grocery store. Mostly for beer and cheap vodka from the liquor aisle.

Later, the depression got worse, and I found that I couldn't work anymore. Seeing one of our trucks or some random building on fire just brought me back to that horrible moment, and I'd freeze, which is one thing you can't do on the job.

So I cashed in on paid vacation time and a bunch of sick days I had banked, and I slipped deeper into my role as a recluse.

Until the day of the first snowstorm.

It was Jonas's idea to go to the lake and rent out the cabin like the old days. I didn't think Stone would go for it—the place would probably bring up too many bittersweet memories—but he did.

I was reluctant, I'll admit, but Jonas convinced me. The Three Musketeers don't exist if there's only two, he had said. He was right.

I pulled off the highway and followed a winding road for another two miles. The woods thickened on both sides. Other than the occasional car or semi, I saw nearly no vehicles, which I found slightly unsettling. I didn't know it at the time, but lots of weird things would eventually happen. The deserted feeling that the empty road gave me wasn't one I was fond of. I remembered back when traffic was bumper-to-bumper; when, about half a mile from the turn-in, you slowed your car down to a crawl. Prism Lake was the spot when we were kids. It always seemed like there were a million people there. You pull in and you'd see these small boats hauling a wakeboarder or two, each wearing big puffy life jackets, the drivers with a beer in hand and sunglasses resting on the bridge of their nose; you'd see families clustered on the beach, their faces and shoulders covered in a thick layer of sun block; you'd see a hundred or so people playing volleyball or catch or whipping a Frisbee around; you'd hear dogs barking and kicking up sand as they sprinted toward their owners in the water; you'd take in the smell of the lake and the barbecues, and all the laughter and clashing music blasting from someone's portable stereo.

But when I pulled onto the gravel road so many years after my childhood, there was none of that. It was as empty as what it would become.

A graveyard.

* * *

"There he is!"

Stone leaned on the porch railing, his crutches resting behind him. He wore a vest with about a million pockets; it made me think of a fisherman. On his head sat a wide-brimmed bucket hat, adding to the image. No zinc oxide on his nose; most, I think if not all, black people didn't exactly cake on the SPF 30 come summertime. Or ever.

I waved and gave him a big smile. It was the first real smile to grace my face since the fire.

Yes, I was a master of fake smiles, but if my best friend couldn't get me grinning, I was a lost cause. Sometimes, though, the fake ones were necessary. That was what you had to do. If not, people would ask you why you were so glum, and then you'd have to lie or, God forbid, tell the truth. I just wasn't ready for that.

See, I never told anyone about the boy, about how much my failure fucked with my head. It was in the local paper, but the names of the firefighters weren't in any of the articles. I told Stone everything—I mean, everything—but not this. I thought talking about it would only make it worse.

Stone was no dummy. He would know as soon as I got out of the car and turned around that something was wrong.

He grabbed his crutches, put his forearms through the rings, and made his way down the porch ramp and onto the gravel drive. "Let me get your bags for you, Grady," Stone said.

"You sure?" I laughed. "I don't got much. I can handle it."

"Sure, and I'm sleeping with Beyoncé. I know you, dude. I know you gotta pack all your exfoliating scrubs, hair gels, and the baby wipes. Unloading'll take all day without some help. You're my pal, Grady, I don't mind."

I pulled my bag from the back seat. A single Adidas gym bag I'd had since the eleventh grade, all frayed and scuffed up. It was full of a few pairs of clothes—summer clothes, that is—and your basic toiletries. No exfoliating scrub or hair gel. I did have baby wipes, I'll admit. They're one of the most versatile things you can bring on a trip—or anywhere, for that matter.

"I like to look good. Shoot me," I said, but the truth was I looked like shit. No sleep, barely eating, never going outside…that'll eventually take its toll on a person.

I turned around. Stone was smiling wide, but once his eyes passed over my face, the smile faltered. With Stone there was no bullshit. It was obvious I was out of my mind, and even more obvious that Stone had noticed.

"What happened to you, Grady?" he asked. "You look like you haven't slept in a week. And you're all skinny now, man. You smoking meth or something?"

I hooked a finger on each corner of my mouth and stretched my lips. "Ahhhh," I said, "still got all my teeth, don't I?"

"A little grungy-looking, but yeah, guess you do," Stone agreed. I hit him in the shoulder with a weak punch. He faked like he was hurt. "Damn, dude, you're just gonna hit a cripple now? I always knew you were an asshole, Grady, but this…this is something else."

"Shove it," I said. "Jonesy here yet?"

"Nah. Not yet. You know how he is with the wife and kids. Has to say bye in each room of the house and kiss 'em all a hundred times before he'll leave. The soft bastard."

I chuckled.

We were heading up toward the cabin. It looked pretty much the same as I remembered it. The whole thing was made of dark wood, a total fire hazard, but it gave it a sort of retro vibe I've always loved. Past the porch stood a red door below a weathered green roof, and from the room on the right side, a stone chimney pointed toward the sky. Beyond the cabin, through a few trees, was a shimmering body of water completely out of place in Ohio.

Prism Lake.

A few feet past the cabin were the steps leading down to the beach. A rush of nostalgia-fueled excitement hit hard. My legs were itching to drop everything and break for the sand, strip down to my underwear, and jump in the water. Maybe the lake would purify me and free me from all the dark thoughts of the past.

I didn't do that, but I wish I did. Because, in the next couple of days, the entire lake would be one mammoth block of ice.

Tires crunched in the gravel behind us. Stone was talking about his latest trip overseas. Part business, mostly pleasure, he said. I tuned in and out until Jonas honked his horn and saved me from picturing the bugs Stone had eaten in China.

Jonas was all smiles as music thumped from his car's speakers and he pulled his two-door Nissan, a far cry from the usual minivan he buzzed Miranda and the twins around in, next to my beat-up Honda.

"About time!" Stone shouted. Jonas's reply was not one but two middle fingers high in the sky. I set my bag on one of the porch's rocking chairs, and we went back down the ramp.

"All this exercise is killing me," Stone joked. He was in better shape than all of us.

A round of bro hugs came next, followed by our secret handshake, which wasn't so much a secret as it was an old habit that had never died. We started this ritual after Stone saw some basketball players doing it during their pregame warm-ups. You slapped right and then left hands, and then, with your palms flat, you crossed both at your neck and made a slitting-your-throat motion. A little gruesome, yeah, but we've always thought it was cool.

"Where's the beer?" Jonas asked. "I'm parched." He swept a hand over his feathery brown hair. One thing he hated about being in the military was the buzz cuts. Soon as he got out, he let the 'do grow.

"A beer sounds good," I said.

The sky had since clouded over during the three hours it took me to drive down here, but the sun still burned through. I felt my recluse-pale skin toasting. That was okay; I was in need of some summer color. If you saw me then, you might've thought I rolled right off an autopsy table.

"They're in the fridge, dummy," Stone answered. "You think I'm gonna leave 'em out here in this heat?"

"Eat it," Jonas said, making his way to the lake house with his own gym bag thrown over his shoulder.

Jonas was a big dude, standing about six-four and weighing around two hundred and twenty pounds. He was all muscle, too. That wasn't surprising, considering how he had loved the gym and the gridiron from a young age. His uncle got him into football in the fourth grade, and he played in high school and could've gone on to play at some small college if he wanted to. Maybe professionally if the cards had all fallen the right way. By the time of our graduation, I think he was sick of it. Still, despite no longer having to drill or whatever it is they do in the Marines, Jonas got to the gym five days a week, at the crack of dawn before the twins woke up. But Stone could probably still take him. His joke was that he always had weapons…his crutches.

Me, I've never been much of a morning person. Before the shit hit the fan, I worked the night shift at the station. That kind of schedule is hard to shake.

"So," Stone said, "what do you wanna do tonight? Toss the pigskin? Rent a boat? Grill some burgers?"

"Shit," Jonas said, "how about all of the above?"

I looked at him, a ghost of a smile on my face, and nodded. "Hell yeah."

"Yeah, yeah," Stone said, "might be hard, considering the first item on our agenda is getting fucked up."

"You know us so well," Jonas said.

"Wish I didn't."

We all laughed. It was a good sound, which the summer breeze carried out toward the lake. For the first time in a long time, I felt better…normal because I was with my two best friends, far away from the now-empty lot on the corner of Swan Drive, where the boy died. Far away from the Harlington Cemetery, where he's now buried.

It's a shame those good feelings were already coming to an end.

* * *

Stone was right. What we all wanted to do was, as he so lovingly put it, "get fucked up" and unwind.

Once we got all settled in, we went to the beach. The stairs leading to the shore weren't exactly great for Stone's crutches (or safe, for that matter) so I helped Stone, steadying him as he went down slowly.

"You let go, Grady, and I swear to all things holy that I'll use a Sharpie to draw dicks all over your face tonight—you know, after you pass out from those wine coolers you made me bring," Stone said.

"I've actually been thinking about getting a tattoo," I replied. "Wouldn't hurt having a trial run."

"You ain't a tattoo guy," Jonas said from close behind us. One hand was looped through a couple of fold-out chairs, and the other dragged a cooler full of ice, beer, and a few bottles of whiskey. No wine coolers.

"You're right," I said.

"I know I am, I can just…tell." Jonas nodded to his left shoulder. He was wearing a striped tank top, so the tattoo there was visible. It depicted a serene scene of a beach, the tide crashing against rocks, birds in the sky, all in front of a gorgeous sunset. "Oahu" was written in cursive below it. This was just one of the many tattoos Jonas had. On his other shoulder was an outline of the great state of Ohio. The cursive word beneath it read "Home." Jonas liked the ink.

Getting a flu shot or my finger pricked at my doctor's office made me squeamish. Needles aren't exactly at the top of the list of things I love. So no tattoos for me, and both Stone and Jonesy knew this.

"Even if I didn't know how you cry whenever you get your blood drawn," Jonas continued, "I could still tell. It's in your eyes."

"All right, Jonas," Stone said. "Quit being weird."

Jonas shrugged. "It's true, like how you can tell the kind of person who's gonna complain to the waiter at an Applebee's or something."

"Like a sixth sense," I joked.

Jonas didn't exactly catch on to my ribbing because he was nodding and saying, "Yeah, exactly!"

"Man, you been drinking already?" Stone asked.

"No. I just have an open mind."

We both kind of rolled our eyes. To Stone and me, we filed psychics, telepaths, ghost hunters, and all that type of stuff into the same mental drawer we put Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

At least, we did at that point in our lives.

What happened only a few hours later, what we ended up seeing with our own eyes, changed that.

Our part of the beach was deserted, but looking down the shore, I caught glimpses of a couple of campfires and some people splashing in the water just a few houses down. There was a boat puttering around in the distance, too. No wakeboarder or water skier tagging along, though.

We set up around the bones of a fire pit, the same one we'd sat at more than a decade before. Jonas set the chairs up. Stone sat opposite of me, his back to the water.

"Man, this place is a little…" Jonas began.

"Dead?" Stone said.

"Yeah, and depressing," Jonas agreed.

"I don't know," I said. "I like it this way. It's a lot more calm."

Jonas snorted. "A vacation shouldn't be calm, man. It should be party central." He began mimicking the beat of a terrible dubstep song.

Stone plugged his ears and shouted, "We're not nineteen-year-olds on spring break!"

"Spoken like a guy who's got one foot in the grave," Jonas replied.

"Well, I can't walk too well, so I probably stepped in it by accident…" Stone said.

This got us laughing again. It may seem mean-spirited to an outsider, but it wasn't. Stone no longer took his disability too seriously. He told me once, that when he had enough time to grieve the loss of his parents and get his head clear, he was glad to be alive. I was glad, too. My life would've been a lot more dim without Stone around. Same went for Jonas. We were the Three Musketeers, after all.

I reached into the cooler and grabbed a few beers.

"Uh-uh," Jonas said, shaking his head. "Liquor before beer and you're in the clear, remember?"

So I switched the beers for the bottle of whiskey and some cold glasses. Poured us all about half a glass, much more than I probably should've, and passed them out.

"To the Three Musketeers!" Jonas said, raising his drink.

"To the Three Musketeers!" I echoed, then we were both looking at Stone.

"Seriously, you're gonna make me say it?" Stone said. He rolled his eyes so hard, I thought he might roll out of his chair.

"C'mon," Jones said, "don't be a prick."

"Fine. To the Three Musketeers!" Stone raised his glass, and we knocked them together over the pit and drank. The whiskey burned me something fierce, but it brought on a good buzz pretty quickly, and I was grateful for that.

"But seriously, guys," Stone said, grimacing after he'd swallowed his whiskey, "we really need to work on a new nickname."

"What's wrong with the Three Musketeers?" Jonas said. "That's an epic name!"

"It just makes me think of that one episode of Tom & Jerry, and I hate that show."

"You hate Tom & Jerry?" I asked. "What's wrong with you? Do you hate Scooby-Doo, too?"

Stone took another gulp. "No. I love Scooby, you know that. But that mouse was way more of a dick to the cat than necessary, and Tom was painted as the bad guy. So wrong."

I sat there and blinked dumbly at him.

"Go on…" Jonas said. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he stared at Stone intently.

Stone continued, "I mean, do I really have to? If you've seen any of those cartoons, you'd know Tom was a goddamn jack of all trades. Seriously. He could play all types of instruments, dress like a fashion model, and blow smoke rings that said 'Howdy' and shit. What the hell did Jerry do besides be a little dickhead? He stole food all the time, food that Tom's owner probably worked super hard for—and he'd always steal way more than he needed. I mean, he's a mouse. How much cheese does it take to fill his stomach? He sure ain't got a tiny refrigerator to store all he stole for later, so it's just gonna spoil. And Tom was just doing his job, you know, being a cat. His owner wanted the mouse gone, and he put his cat on the job. And if Tom failed, he'd be thrown out on the street. He didn't have a choice."

A film of sweat glistened on Stone's forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his arm. I noticed the sun was on its way down by this point and the temperature had dropped a considerable amount—more than normal on a summer's evening, even for Ohio—so the weather wasn't to blame. Stone just felt…strongly about the subject, I guess.

When he was done, he took a deep breath, exhaled, then downed the rest of his whiskey. With a shrug, he said, "There, that's all I got to say."

A moment of silence fell between the three of us. The happy voices of the other lake-goers drifted down the beach. The boat's motor droned on. One thing I didn't hear were the birds. Around there, with the woods and the lack of nearby traffic, I should've heard them, but when I think about it now, their silence was just another warning sign of what was to come.

Jonas laughed. "Holy shit, Stone, that was…that was—"

"Really weird," I finished for him. "But passionate, and I respect that…I think."

"Yeah," Jonas agreed. "Weird."

"I couldn't imagine getting you going about politics," I said.

Stone shook his head. "Fuck politics."

"I'll drink to that," Jonas said.

So we did.

* * *

Night fell, and we were still on the beach. The moon was a cold sliver of white high above us, its reflection shimmering on the swaying surface of Prism Lake. In the far distance, from neighboring towns, fireworks popped off in celebration of our country's two-hundred and twenty-fourth year of independence. The people down the shore were still out and about, though no one was getting any night swimming in. It was seventy degrees with a chill wind blowing. The three of us barely noticed, and I blame the alcohol for that. Whiskey has a way of keeping you warm.

By this time, I'd guess it was going on ten, the Three Musketeers had become the Three Drunk Musketeers, and I was thinking about the episode of Tom & Jerry Stone had mentioned where the two mice dressed up like characters from Alexander Dumas' famous novel. In the episode, one of them—I can't remember which—gets into a barrel of wine or some other type of alcoholic beverage and drinks more than his weight. For the rest of the show, the mouse stumbles around and hiccups constantly. I thought it was funny, but I wasn't smiling. It was hard to smile.

Jonas was stoking the flames of our fire, which had been burning low but giving off a comforting amount of heat. He looked my way, the embers reflecting orange in his right eye.

"Grady, man, I gotta ask…what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said without missing a beat.

"Bull. You've been staring at the fire like you want to kill it, or at the very least, whip out your micropenis and piss on it. What, did your boyfriend dump you or something?" Jonas offered me a cautious smile. His way of disguising the seriousness of the situation with our trademarked immature humor. We were pushing thirty, but we still acted like we were in high school ninety-five percent of the time.

"No," I said, "I'm still banging your mom—and my micropenis is good enough for her."

Stone threw his head back and laughed so hard, the beer bottle he was holding—mostly empty—tumbled from his grip and thumped in the sand. "Nice one!"

I stood up on drunk-rubbery legs and gave half a bow. Anything more than that and I would've gone tumbling like Stone's beer.

"Real funny," Jonas said. He ripped off a couple of fake laughs and raised his fist in front of his face. Then, with his other hand, he began turning the handle of an imaginary reel while his middle finger slowly unspooled.

I blew him a kiss and said, "Get your future daddy another beer, will ya?"

Smiling, Jonas said sure thing. He swiveled his body in the chair, bent over, and rummaged through the mostly melted ice in the cooler. Aside from glass craft beer bottles, Stone had also crammed in half a forty-eight pack of Coors—or as he liked to call them, "Silver Bullets," though I doubted hitting a werewolf with one of these would do much of anything besides piss it off.

Jonas held one of those Silver Bullets in his left hand now. Before I could move, he shook it up hard and popped the tab, spraying me with foamy beer. I swatted at it, my eyes squeezed shut, and lost my balance. Before I knew it, I was falling back in my chair and hitting the sand with a little more than a thump. The wind whooshed out of me, but I still had a big old grin on my face.

"Oh, shit," Jonas said. "Grady, you all right?"

Stone, of course, was laughing like a maniac and clapping his hands. This got me laughing, too. Couldn't help myself. The last domino to fall was Jonas. He ended up doubled over and clutching his stomach before he helped me onto my feet.

We were still laughing when a man's voice broke in and said, "Hey there, don't mean to intrude…"

I turned around. Standing in front of me was a fella of about fifty in a pair of cargo shorts, Jesus sandals, and a black Hard Rock Cafe Myrtle Beach shirt. Next to him was a boy of about sixteen or seventeen. Put a goatee on the kid and he'd be a spitting image of the man. The boy was smiling wide—I'm guessing at me all drenched in beer and covered in sand. The wetness only made the cool night air all the more noticeable. I suppressed a shiver, wanting only to get back into my chair and scoot a little closer to the fire.

"Sorry," Jonas said. "We being too loud? We'll turn it down a bit."

The man waved a hand and shook his head. He looked vaguely familiar, like maybe I used to see him here when Stone's dad brought us all those summers ago. "No, no, don't worry about that. Y'all are just having a good time." He looked out at the lake with nostalgia-filled eyes. "I ain't so old I don't remember what it was like being a young man, you know. Anyway, the reason I came up here was 'cause I was wondering if y'all wanted to join us for some s'mores. Besides the group a few houses down from my place, you're all that's celebrating the Fourth on this side of the lake, and they ain't nothing but high school and college kids. Too cool to be bothered and all that."

"Shit," Stone said in a not-so low whisper, "I could go for some s'mores right about now."

I flashed him a look that said Manners, dude! and Stone squinted, not catching my drift. So I gave a not-so-subtle nod toward the boy.

Stone understood then. "Sorry, I meant, 'Crap, I could go for some s'mores right about now.'"

The man laughed. "Relax, fella, ain't nothing Mikey hasn't heard a million times before. Ain't that right, Mikey?"

The boy nodded. "You bet your fuckin' A, Pop!"

This brought on a sharp glare and a frown from the man. "Now don't push it, Mikey. Your momma ever found out I let you talk like that, and she'd have me in the doghouse for a month."

The boy slapped his father on one shoulder. "Exactly, Pop. Exactly."

I stepped forward, realizing we hadn't properly introduced ourselves. First impressions are the most important, right? And my drunk ass falling out of my chair all covered in beer wasn't exactly going to win First Impression of the Year.

"I'm Grady, Grady Hill. The tall guy's Jonas, and that's Stone." I stuck out a hand, realized it was probably sticky with beer, gave it a swipe down my leg, and stuck it out again. The man shook it.

"Pleasure to meet you fellas. Name's Ed Hark, and this here's my son Mikey. We live just up yonder a few months out of the year." He was pointing over his shoulder at one of the lake houses, two down from the one we had rented. It put ours to shame. "Wife don't like the cold, so we spend the rest of the year down south in Alabama. Near Birmingham. That's where most of her family's from. Me, I'm an Ohioan, born and raised, so it hurts mighty bad to admit that, but you know what they say: happy wife, happy life."

"Amen, brother," Jonas said. He made the OK sign with his left hand. "To happy wives and pure-blood Ohioans!"

Ed nodded, his eyes gleaming. "So, what do ya say? Wanna soak up some of that booze with honey graham crackers, Hershey bars, and marshmallows? The first two ain't the best for ya, I'll be honest, but it says on the back of the marshmallow bag that they ain't got no calories. Evens out, if you ask me."

Feeling good and genuinely smiling, I said, "If you ask me, Ed, that sounds fantastic."

"Yeah, you're a saint," Stone added. "All I packed for food was some Funyuns."

"And dogs. Don't forget the dogs and burgs," Jonas said.

"Hey, don't even think about it, Jonesy," Stone said. "Those are for tomorrow."

I agreed. A July 4th without hot dogs and burgers isn't much of a July 4th at all.

"I like y'all already," Ed said.

"Likewise," Stone said. He nodded at Jonas. "Give the guy a beer."

Jonas fished out a Bullet and tossed it Ed's way. Ed caught it with an ease I hadn't expected. He looked longingly at the sweating can, again with nostalgia-filled eyes. "Damn, I ain't have one of these since college."

"Dad, you didn't go to college," Mikey said.

"No, son, I didn't. Not to any classes anyway, but I sure as hell found my way into a few frat parties down in Cincinnati. You know what we called it, don't ya? Cin-Cin City, baby!" He cracked the beer open and downed the can in three gulps. All of us, Mikey included, looked on in utter disbelief. Then Ed wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and belched loudly, and we got to laughing again.

Yeah, we laughed a lot in those hours leading up to the end.

* * *

Ed's lake house had a deck coming off the back of it, so long that it almost hung over the water. It wasn't exactly good for crutching, either, but that was okay. I just helped Stone back up the bank, which wasn't as steep as the one by our lake house. At the crest, Stone crutched his way to the few steps leading to the deck. He looked over his shoulder at me with a slight grimace on his face.

"All good?" I asked.

"I got it, I got it," Stone replied.

He walked over to the table in the middle of the deck, rubber stoppers trundling over the smooth wooden boards. It didn't look easy. Few seconds later, he sat next to an empty seat I'd eventually take and grabbed and popped open another beer.

I followed suit. I guess I was a thirsty man that night.

As I sipped on the beer, I saw that the party down the shore, the one with the young crowd, had mellowed. They were no longer playing music from wireless speakers or their iPhones or whatever, and the laughing slowed, though when they did laugh, we heard it loud and clear from Ed's deck.

I saw thin silhouettes huddled around a low burning campfire. Someone rang out all the wrong chords to a John Mayer song I could barely identify. One thing didn't change with the years, I guess. No matter the era, there was always that guy who took it upon himself to bless (or curse) his friends and acquaintances with an acoustic guitar, usually out of tune and played the wrong way. But hey, I guess that was part of being young.

Jonas plopped down across from me. The light carrying out from the inside of Ed's lake house caught his eyes. They were bloodshot and watery. He held a full beer in his hand, and I made a mental note to cut him off after that one.

I forgot, but only because things have a way of slipping from your mind when you're having a good time. Can't blame me for that. We were certainly having a good time, and I needed it more than ever at that moment. Suicide, though I can't say for sure I would've resorted to that, was a word constantly kicking around in my head. I don't know if there's an afterlife, or a Jesus or a God—I'd like to think there is—but logically, I can't bring myself to really believe that. Logically, I think there's nothing. I think our hearts stop beating and everything goes dark. And it was that concept of darkness, of nothingness, that spoke so strongly to me. I wouldn't have to worry about any bad thoughts. I wouldn't have to struggle to get out of bed every morning. I wouldn't have to worry about money or health or relationships. I wouldn't have to worry at all.

The sliding door to my left opened. A puff of air-conditioned air followed the four people that stepped onto the deck. I recognized two of them: Ed and his son, Mikey. The other two were strangers. Both women. One was closer to Ed's age, and even a tipsy-going-on-drunk me could figure she was his wife. She was tall and thin. Her hair was the thickest part about her, a dark brown as smooth as silk. The young woman behind her had the same type of hair, but it was auburn. Quite possibly the prettiest color I'd ever seen, attached to quite possibly the prettiest girl I'd ever seen.

Stone leaned over and whispered, "Might wanna close your mouth, brother, before a mosquito flies in there and lays eggs or something bad. Malaria ain't no joke."

His voice snapped me out of whatever spell I had fallen under. With a jolt, I clamped my jaw shut and smiled, hoping I didn't look too much like a serial killer, though it certainly probably seemed that way. She barely gave me a glance. That wasn't exactly something new, but I couldn't blame her. If I came out to a bunch of drunk strangers sitting on my back deck, smiling at me like I was a piece of meat, I'd avoid any and all eye contact, too.

Ed set a couple of boxes of Honey Maid graham crackers down. One of them wobbled and leaned against the umbrella pole sticking out of a hole in the middle of the table. "Get that fire going, son, will ya?"

"Yeah, Pop." Mikey grabbed a box of long matches and a few logs stacked in one corner of the deck. His face was beaming with anticipation. That look in the kid's eyes was the same one that started hundreds of fires throughout the year. This thought inevitably led to the apartment building boy, but for the first time in weeks, I pushed it away and focused on the moment.

Progress.

"Angie, these here are our current neighbors," Ed said, waving our way. I stood up and shook Angie's hand. Jonas and Stone did the same.

"It's so nice to meet y'all," Angie said in a slight southern accent that reminded me of the movie Gone With the Wind, a VHS tape my grandma and I watched so much when I was a boy that the film deteriorated. She passed a long time ago, but we spent a lot of time together. She told me a million stories about my mom and showed me a billion baby and grade-school era photos. But I digress again.

"And this here's my daughter," Ed said. "Eleanor."

Eleanor stepped forward and shook my hand, then did the same with the other Musketeers.

"She's in her last year of nursing school," Ed said. He put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. "Makin' her daddy so proud!"

"Dad, come on!"

"Aw, you ain't ever too old to give your pops a hug."

Eleanor kept quiet, but judging by the look on her face, she thought that ship had sailed a long time ago.

On the other end of the deck—like I said, it was a big one—was a circle of high-back chairs. In the middle of this circle was the fire pit. Mikey lit one of the stove matches and a spout of flames erupted from the pit, bathing us all in much-needed heat. With the new light, I saw how Eleanor was more beautiful than I'd first thought. It was hard not to stare at her.

She noticed, too, because she set her gaze on me. Normally, when the person you're staring at catches you staring at them, you're supposed to quickly look away or hold your wrist up and act like you're checking the time. Well, I wasn't wearing a watch, and I didn't look away. Our eyes met for half a heartbeat before she smiled and brushed a lock of hair behind one ear. I can't say it was love at first sight for her, but I'll be damned if it wasn't for me.

* * *

We gathered around a fire for the second time that night. We made s'mores. We laughed and we enjoyed ourselves. Once the Harks and us got comfortable and the conversation got rolling, I never once thought of the dead boy or how I had failed to save him. I didn't hear his screams, I didn't hear the crash of the ceiling falling all around us. I felt nothing.

I was just living in the moment.

Ed drank another beer with us, but this time he didn't crack it open and down it like a frat boy; he sipped like a gentleman. His wife and daughter opted for wine coolers, to which Stone so wittily said, "You got any more? Grady loves 'em."

I whispered, "You're lucky there's women and children present, Stone."

He winked.

Eleanor said, "There's nothing wrong with a guy liking wine coolers. When you don't care about what others think of you, when you're confident—well, that's attractive." She was looking at Stone as she said it, but her gaze wandered my way. I felt my cheeks burning, glad the fire painted all our faces a reddish-orange.

"No, there ain't nothin' wrong with that," Ed agreed, "but the fact of the matter is that fruity crap don't do much of anything for us." He was smiling. "Ain't that right, Grady?"

I nodded halfheartedly, mainly because I wasn't really paying attention. I was replaying that smile Eleanor flashed my way. I knew I could never get sick of that smile. I knew that if I had the worst day humanly possible, I could come home and see that smile and all would be right in the world again.

"Exactly," Ed said. He leaned forward. There was a smudge of chocolate in one corner of his mouth. "You look like a whiskey man to me, Grady. Yeah?"

"I do like my whiskey," I agreed.

"How 'bout we break out the good stuff?" He cast a hesitant eye to his wife. "I mean, in honor of the Fourth and all, I think we got to."

Angie shrugged. "I'm not the boss of you, Ed. You do what you want."

He put an arm around her and kissed one upturned cheek. Angie's smile was just as pretty as Eleanor's.

"She says that," Ed said, "but she knows she wears the pants in the family."

"I'd say," Mikey mumbled.

"There ya go, Mike." Ed pointed. "You understand that early on and any relationship you have'll be smooth sailing." He scooted his chair back and rose. "C'mon, Grady, I'll show you the good whiskey. Wash that taste of Wild Turkey outta your mouth."

As much as I wanted to stay by the fire—and its warmth—the temperature had dropped lower in just the half-hour or so we'd been sitting on the deck. But I knew my manners, so I got up.

"I'll come, too," Stone said. "I never pass up the chance for free booze."

Ed laughed. "I like you fellas." He nodded at Jonas. "How 'bout you, J? You want in on this? Can I mark ya down for a glass?"

Jonas shook his head and waved his arms. "Better not. I think I'm whiskey'd out for the night. Any more and I'll be spending the Fourth on the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet. Just can't knock them down like I used to."

"Aw, you sure?"

"Yep, thanks, though. Maybe next year."

"All right. More for us then, huh, boys?" Ed led the way into the lake house. The inside smelled of roses. It came from a bouquet on a kitchen counter. I was studying them as we walked past. "Yeah, got those for the ol' ball and chain. We just had our twenty-eighth anniversary a couple days ago! Whew, does time fly."

"Very sweet," Stone said. He was talking with a bit of a slur. I didn't know if more booze was in his, or even my, best interests—but hey, it was almost the Fourth of July. And though we didn't know it then, this was probably the last time we'd get to celebrate anything.

"Whoa," Stone said suddenly. I looked behind me, saw he wasn't there. He had wandered off to a different room. A den with a grand fireplace. The faint smell of smoke drifted out from inside. I guessed this was Ed's man cave. "What's this?" Stone asked. His head was craned up at something above the mantle.

Ed wasn't in the room; he was pouring a couple glasses of whiskey at a bar in the den. Good stuff, like he said. I could tell just from the decanter it was in. I swear it was made out of diamonds, it sparkled so bright. Now he came our way and handed the drink to me. I followed.

What Stone was looking at was a rifle. I don't know much about guns, but it seemed like the kind of rifle you wouldn't hunt deer with. More like elephants…or Godzilla.

Ed took a drink. There was a gleam of pride in his eyes. "That, my friend, is the gun my own pops gave me years ago. Bagged my first buck with it. It's now officially been retired to my personal hall of fame. Ain't it a beaut?"

"It is," Stone said. "You still hunt?"

"Oh yeah," Ed said, "whenever I get the chance. Been tryin' to get Mikey to come out with me, but"—he shook his head and took another drink—"this generation of kids have all gone soft. I hate to sound like an old geezer, but goddamn, what the hell's with all these veggie burgers and selfies? I ain't ever gonna understand it."

"Amen, brother," Stone said. "I like to think I'm somewhat hip, but when it comes to all the Snapchats and Tik Toks and Instagram stuff, I'm clueless. First of all, why the hell would someone care about what you're eating for dinner? And, unless you're a chef, why would you take a picture of it in the first place?"

"Yup. Food's meant to be eaten, last I checked," Ed said. "Cheers to that." He held up his glass. We toasted and drank. The whiskey went down smoothly, tasted good. Like money.

"Took me too long to master Facebook," Stone said. "Now I gotta learn all this other crap? No, thank you."

"Just the other day," I said, "I was at the grocery store and some teenagers ran into my cart. You know what one of them said to me?"

Stone shook his head. Ed waited.

"He said, 'Sorry, sir.' Sir. He called me sir. I couldn't believe my ears. Am I so old now that I'm a 'sir?'"

Ed laughed as he sat on the fireplace. "Wait till you get to be my age, then you'll get the more than occasional 'Watch out, Grandpa.'" He took another drink, gritted his teeth. "Those damn kids better stay off my lawn."

We all laughed.

Then, after we settled, Ed stood and brushed the barrel of the mounted rifle. "She was a good gun," he said, "but far from my best. I got a whole mess of 'em in a cabinet down in the basement. Used to lock it when the kids were just tykes, but never do now. You know why? 'Cause I'm hoping Mikey'll take it upon himself to pick one up and ask me to go huntin' with him. Sad, ain't it? Y'all wanna see?"

I was about to say yes when the glass door slid open and Angie's voice drifted in. "Eddy, can you grab me a jacket from upstairs? It's getting chilly out here."

"Sure thing, hon!" Ed arched an eyebrow. "Raincheck, fellas. Duty calls, you know how it is. I'll meet you out there."

So we went back outside. Eleanor caught my eye and said, "Showed you his guns, didn't he?"

I chuckled. "Almost."

"Count yourselves lucky," Angie added. "First it's the guns, then it's the trophies and ribbons from his competitions, and he's got enough to keep you busy for hours. Next thing you know, he's signed you up as his partner for a shooting tournament."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Stone said. "Never shot anything more than an air-soft rifle before, but I've always fancied myself a gunslinger."

"'Fancied' being the operative word here," Jonas added. He was playing cards with Mikey. War, a fitting game for a former soldier like himself.

"It doesn't sound so bad," Mikey added, "until he's making you get up at a quarter of five in the morning for practice."

"And when Ed sets his mind on something," Angie said, "he doesn't let up, God bless him."

"Okay, I guess it sounds a little bad," Stone agreed.

Ed came back out holding a couple of jackets. He gave one to Angie and the other to Eleanor. It was more than chilly out; it was downright cold. I wished I had a jacket myself. Even around the flames, my skin broke out in occasional goosebumps. I didn't check the temperature. No thermometers around, and my phone was back at our lake house. Service was spotty at best out here anyway, but I'd guess it was in the low sixties at the time and falling.

"Were y'all talkin 'bout me?" Ed said, looking at us with narrowed eyes.

"Yes, but only about how you're the greatest husband and father in the world," Angie said in her fakest sweet voice.

"Yeah, yeah, honey, flattery'll get you everywhere," Ed said. "Keep it up and you might get lucky tonight, doll."

"Blahhhhh," Eleanor said, covering her face and leaning away from the table.

"Yuck! Dad, c'mon, you're gonna make me barf!" Mikey added.

* * *

It was a bit after midnight when we headed back to our lake house. The wind wasn't quite howling at that point, but it was blowing hard.

"Nice people," Stone said.

"Very nice," I agreed.

Jonas, very toasted, said, "Hot daughter, too." Stone and I stopped halfway up the walk to the porch and gave him a sidelong look. "What?" he went on. "We were all thinking it."

"Yeah, but you're married," Stone said.

"Hey, I was just pointing out the obvious. I'm no cheater. Besides, even if I was, I'm pretty sure Grady's already got dibs on her."

"No, no—" I began.

"True," Stone said. "Don't even deny it, man. You were practically drooling."

"I was?"

If that was the case, then that was bad. I tried hiding my obvious attraction to Eleanor, but the booze must've once again gotten the best of me. Or maybe I'm just bad at that stuff.

"No, man, we're fucking with you," Jonas said. "But hey, I say go for it. Why not? You never know what could happen."

Jonas was right. You really never knew what could happen.

But what happened was far from anything any of us could fathom.

* * *

I went to my room and laid down, not even bothering to change out of my clothes. Exhaustion hit me pretty hard, but I resisted. Usually, when my head hit the pillow and the darkness took over the room, my mind wandered to the apartment building and the dead boy.

That night, it did not.

Instead, I was replaying all the good times we'd had already. It was going to be a great weekend.

Not long after, I fell asleep. There were no nightmares, no dreams at all that I can remember. I was grateful for that. Had Stone not woken me up a couple of hours later, it may have been the best sleep I'd gotten in a long while.

But as I was sleeping soundlessly, the wind howled and the first snowstorm began to fall.