Excerpt from Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"A mother can't be concerned?" she said.

I knew something was irking her—she never gave a shit what Dad did.

"Why are you annoyed? I said.

She coughed and cleared her throat. "Your sister," she said. She lit a butted cigarette and the car swerved. I gripped the seat.

"What'd she do now?" I asked.

"You'll see."

"What do you mean, 'you'll see'?"

"There's something wrong with her."

"There's always something wrong with Paige."

"No, I'm serious," Mom said. "She's gone wacko." The car hit a pothole as we drove onto the bridge to the Island. "She believes in zombies, David."

I wasn't sure why, but I defended Paige: "Don't you believe in stone people?"

"Those are different," she said.

She wasn't wrong: they were different. But I asked anyway. "How so?"

"Stone people have hearts of ice, and they were chased off for trying to destroy the earth. Zombies don't run off too easily, do they? They come for you all slow like." She flicked her cigarette.

"Well," I said, "they sound different, but have you ever seen a zombie's heart? For all we know it could be made of ice."

She laughed smoke. "You're a little shit."

I stared out the car window. Weeds and cattails tangled in the pond. Dead sticks and large debris, blown from a storm, crawled out of the water, reaching at us as we puttered by and up the steep hill and past the few abandoned houses on the rez. At the top of the hill, Mom took the long way home. We drove on Wabanaki Lane toward the busy section of the rez: the small health clinic, the community building with its yellow-stained walls from cigarette smoke, the tribal offices tucked behind thick pine trees, the tan-brick school, and the football field, where red tents covered part of the green grass and the sacred fire burned in the corner. People tended the sacred fire, and a film crew stood next to its blue van, camera rolling, even though almost half of the tribe had voted not to let them make a documentary about our Community Days.

The road was blocked off and Mom slowed the car.

"For real?" she said. "All this for a stinking movie?"

She turned the car around, and I asked if Paige was home, yet she must not have heard me right because she started talking about Frick.

"I don't know where he is," she said. "He's been weird for weeks now. Last Friday—in the middle of the night—I found him shivering in the kitchen with a tablecloth over his shoulder. He was sleepwalking, and he kept saying the Jesuits were coming."

"He's always been weird," I said, and I laughed. Mom didn't.

"David," she said, "I'm not in the mood."

"I'm just saying," I said. "So if Frick's shivering in the kitchen, then where's Paige?"

Mom smiled a little. "She's home. Was on the couch watching those stupid apocalypse shows when I left to get you."

We rolled past the stop sign and turned onto our dead-end road, heading up to our little yellow house. Mom pulled into the driveway, and people walking out back of the house in the woods caught my eye—JP and Tyson.

"Did you see that?" Mom said, and I told her who it was.

"Of course," she said. She put the car in park and unbuckled her seat belt. "I'm glad you're home, gwusis." She reached over and hugged me, and kissed the top of my head. "Now," she said, "stop coming home with your hair short. It's bad medicine." Dad never liked my hair long.

I grabbed my duffel bag and went up the crooked steps to the house. I was excited to see my sister. The TV in the living room was on. The end credits to a movie were playing with slow, low piano notes, drawing out something suspenseful.

"Paige?" I checked the living room. The imprint of a body indented the empty couch. I turned off the TV.

Mom came in the front door. "Get your shoes off."

Excerpted from Night of the Living Rez by Stephan Talty. Copyright © 2022 by Stephan Talty. Excerpted by permission of Tin House Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.