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Cleveland Past and Present by Maurice Joblin

M >> Maurice Joblin >> Cleveland Past and Present



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CLEVELAND PAST AND PRESENT

Its Representative Men

Comprising Biographical Sketches of Pioneer Settlers and Prominent
Citizens

With a History of the City and Historical Sketches of Its Commerce,
Manufactures, Ship Building, Railroads, Telegraphy, Schools, Churches,
Etc., Profusely Illustrated with Photographic Views and Portraits

1869

Photographically Illustrated by E. Decker




Preface.



In many ways the story of the survey and first settlement of Cleveland has
been made familiar to the public. It has been told at pioneer gatherings,
reproduced in newspapers and periodicals, enlarged upon in directory
prefaces and condensed for works of topographical reference. Within a
short time Col. Charles Whittlesey has gathered up, collected, and
arranged the abundant materials for the Early History of Cleveland in a
handsome volume bearing that title.

But Col. Whittlesy's volume closes with the war of 1812, when Cleveland
was still a pioneer settlement with but a few families. The history of the
growth of that settlement to a village, its development into a commercial
port, and then into a large and flourishing city, with a busy population
of a hundred thousand persons, remained mostly unwritten, and no part of
it existing in permanent form. The whole period is covered by the active
lives of men yet with us who have grown up with the place, and with whose
history that of the city is inseparably connected. It occurred to the
projector of this work that a history of Cleveland could be written in the
individual histories of its representative men, that such a volume would
not only be a reliable account of the growth of the city in its general
features and in the development of its several branches of industry, but
would possess the additional advantage of the interest attaching to
personal narrative. This idea has been faithfully worked out in the
following pages, not without much labor and difficulty in the collection
and arrangement of the materials. Besides the personal narratives, an
introductory sketch to each of the departments of business into which the
biographical sketches are grouped gives a brief account of the rise and
present position of that particular industry; these, taken together,
forming a full and accurate business and professional history of the city.
An introductory sketch of the general history of Cleveland gives
completeness to the whole, whilst the numerous illustrations and portraits
add greatly to the interest and value of the work.

Numerous as are the sketches, it is not, of course, claimed that all are
represented in the volume who deserve a place in it. This would be
impossible in a work of ordinary dimensions, even were it convenient, or
even possible, to obtain the necessary materials. The aim has been to
sketch sufficient of the representative men in each leading business and
professional department to give a fair idea of the nature and extent of
that department. It is not a complete biographical dictionary of
Cleveland, but a volume of biographical selections, made, as the lawyers
say, "without prejudice."




History of Cleveland.



For the records of the first sixteen or seventeen years of the history of
Cleveland, what may be styled its pioneer history, the local historian
will hereafter be indebted to the work of Col. Whittlesey, where every
known and reliable fact connected with that period of Cleveland's history
is carefully preserved.

The city was originally comprised in lands purchased by the "Connecticut
Land Company," and formed a portion of what is termed the Western Reserve.
This company was organized in 1795, and in the month of May of the
following year, it commissioned General Moses Cleaveland to superintend
the survey of their lands, with a staff of forty-eight assistants. On the
22d of July, 1796, General Cleaveland, accompanied by Augustus Porter, the
principal of the surveying department, and several others, entered the
mouth of the Cuyahoga from the lake. Job P. Stiles and his wife are
supposed to have been with the party. General Cleaveland continued his
progress to Sandusky Bay, leaving enough men to put up a storehouse for
the supplies, and a cabin for the accommodation of the surveyors. These
were located a short distance south of St. Clair street, west of Union
lane, at a spring in the side-hill, in rear of Scott's warehouse. During
the season a cabin was put up for Stiles, on lot 53, east side of Bank
street, north of the Herald Building, where Morgan & Root's block now
stands. This was the first building for permanent settlement erected on
the site of the city, although huts for temporary occupancy had been
previously built in the neighborhood.

Upon the return of the party from Sandusky, Mr. Porter prepared the
outlines of the city. He says: "I surveyed a piece of land designed for a
town--its dimensions I do not recollect--probably equal to about a mile
square, bounding west on the river, and north on the lake. I made a plot
of this ground, and laid it off into streets and lots. Most or all the
streets I surveyed myself, when I left it in charge of Mr. Holley to
complete the survey of the lots."

The survey of the city was commenced on the 16th of September, and
completed about the 1st of October, 1796. Holley's notes state that on
Monday, October 17th, he "finished surveying in New Connecticut; weather
rainy," and on the following day he records: "We left Cuyahoga at 3
o'clock 17 minutes, for home. We left at Cuyahoga, Job Stiles and wife,
and Joseph Landon, with provisions for the Winter." Landon soon abandoned
the spot and his place was taken by Edward Paine, who had arrived from the
State of New York, for the purpose of trading with the Indians, and who
may be considered the first mercantile man who transacted business in
Cleveland. Thus, during the Winter of 1796-7, the population of the city
consisted of three inhabitants. During the Winter a child is reputed to
have been born in the cabin, which had only squaws for nurses.

Early in the Spring of 1797, James Kingsbury and family, from New England,
with Elijah Gunn, one of the surveying party, all of whom had continued
during the Winter at Conneaut, where they had endured incredible
hardships, removed to Cleveland. His first cabin was put up on the site of
the Case Block, east of the Public Square, but he subsequently removed to
a point east of the present city limits, somewhere on a line with Kinsman
Street. Here he remained until his death.

The next families who were attracted to this settlement were those of
Major Lorenzo Carter and Ezekiel Hawley, who came from Kirtland, Vermont,
the family of the Major being accompanied by Miss Cloe Inches. In the
Spring of the following year, (1798,) the former gentleman sowed two acres
of corn on the west side of Water street. He was also the first person who
erected a frame building in the city, which he completed in 1802; but an
unfortunate casualty proved fatal to the enterprise, for when he was about
to occupy the residence it was totally destroyed by fire. In 1803,
however, he erected another house on the site of the destroyed building,
but on this occasion he confined himself to hewn logs.

The fourth addition of the season was that of Nathan Chapman and his
family, who, like the patriarchs of yore, traveled with his herd, and
marched into the Forest City at the head of two yoke of oxen and four
milch cows, which were the first neat stock that fed from the rich
pasturage on the banks of the Cuyahoga.

In the Summer of 1797, the surveying party returned to the Western Reserve
and resumed their labors, with Cleveland as a head-quarters. It was a very
sickly season and three of the number died, one of whom was David
Eldridge, whose remains were interred in a piece of ground chosen as a
cemetery, at the corner of Prospect and Ontario streets. This funeral
occurred on the 3d of June, 1797, and is the first recorded in the city.
Recently, while making some improvements to the buildings now occupying
that location, some human bones were discovered.

Less than one month after the first funeral, occurred the first wedding.
On the 1st of July, 1797, the marriage was solemnized of William Clement,
of Erie, to Miss Cloe Inches, who had come to this city with the family of
Major Lorenzo Carter. The ceremony was performed by Mr. Seth Hart, who was
regarded by the surveying party as their chaplain.

In the beginning of the following year, (1798,) the population had
increased to fifteen. No other immigration is recorded until that of
Rodolphus Edwards and Nathaniel Doane and their families, in 1799, the
latter consisting of nine persons. They journeyed from Chatham,
Connecticut, and were occupied ninety-two days in their transit--a longer
period than is now allowed to accomplish a voyage to the East Indies.

In 1799, the Land Company caused a road to be surveyed and partially
worked, from Cleveland to the Pennsylvania line, about ten miles from the
lake, which was the first road opened through the Reserve. In the Spring
of that year Wheeler W. Williams, from Norwich, Connecticut, and Major
Wyatt, erected a grist mill at the falls at Newburgh, and in 1800 a saw
mill was also built by them; a substantial proof that sufficient corn and
wheat were grown and lumber required to warrant the speculation.

The desire of moral culture and education did not relax in this lonely
region, and in 1800, a township school was organized, and the children
were taught by Sarah Doane. The site of the school house was near
Kingsbury's, on the ridge road.

Cleveland received two additions in 1800, in the persons of David Clarke
and Amos Spafford, the former of whom erected a house on Water street. The
first sermon preached in Cleveland, was delivered in that year by the Rev.
Joseph Badger, an agent of the Connecticut Missionary Society.

The years of 1798, 1799 and 1800, were remarkable for the early
commencement of genial weather. Pinks were in bloom in February, and the
peach trees were also in full blossom in March.

In 1801, the first distillery was erected by David Bryant. The memorable
4th of July of the same year was celebrated by the first ball in
Cleveland. It took place at Major Carter's log house, on the slope from
Superior street to the harbor, and was attended by thirty of both sexes.

The first village school was held in Major Carter's house in 1802, and the
children were taught by Anna Spafford.

In 1803, Elisha Norton arrived in Cleveland with a stock of goods
principally adapted to the Indian trade, which he exhibited for sale in
Major Carter's house. The State of Ohio was this year admitted into the
Union, and the first election was held at James Kingsbury's.

The first Post Office was established here in 1804, when letters were
received and transmitted every seven days.

In 1805, the harbor was made a port of entry, and classed within the Erie
district. In the same year the territory on the west side of Cuyahoga was
ceded to the State by treaty. During the negotiations for that treaty, one
of the commissioners, Hon. Gideon Granger, distinguished for talents,
enterprise and forethought, uttered to his astonished associates this
bold, and what was then deemed, extraordinary prediction: "Within fifty
years an extensive city will occupy these grounds, and vessels will sail
directly from this port into the Atlantic Ocean." The prediction has been
fulfilled, though the latter portion of it required an extension of time,
of a year or two to make the fulfilment literal.

In 1806, Nathan Perry and family and Judge Walworth removed to Cleveland
the latter from Painesville. In the same year the first militia training
occurred. The place of rendezvous was Doane's corner, and the muster
amounted to about fifty men.

In 1809, the county of Cuyahoga was formed, Cleveland chosen as the county
seat, and Amos Spafford was elected representative. The same year Abraham
Hickox commenced business as a blacksmith, under the euphonious cognomen
of "Uncle Abram."

On the 5th of June, 1810, the first Court of Record was held in a frame
building erected by Elias and Harvey Murray, on the north side of Superior
Street, of which Judge Ruggles was President, assisted by three Associate
Judges. George Wallis and family arrived this year and opened a tavern.
Samuel and Matthew Williamson began business as tanners. Dr. David Long
commenced practice as a physician, and Alfred Kelley as the first attorney
in Cleveland. Elias and Harvey Murray opened a store this year in Union
lane, and may be termed the first general merchants.

In 1812, was the first trial for murder and the execution in Cleveland,
that of the Indian O'Mic, for the murder of two white trappers near
Sandusky City. In the same year the court house was built.

The first brick house erected in the city was that of J. E. and I. Kelley,
in Superior Street. It was built in 1814; but the bricks were very unlike
those of the present day, being more than twice their size. They were made
in Cleveland. This edifice was soon succeeded by another of the same
material, built by Alfred Kelley, in Water street.

In 1815, Cleveland was incorporated by the Legislature with a village
charter and Alfred Kelley was the first President.

In 1816, the first bank was established in the city, under the title
of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, of which Leonard Case took the
management. In that year the number of vessels enrolled as hailing
from the port of Cleveland, was but seven, and their aggregate
burthen 430 tons.

In 1817, the first church was organized, which was the Episcopal church of
Trinity; but it was not until 1828 that the edifice was erected on the
corner of St. Clair and Seneca streets.

On the 31st of July, 1818, the first newspaper was printed in this city,
"The Cleveland Gazette and Commercial Register." On the 1st of September in
the same year, the first steam vessel entered the harbor, the
"Walk-in-the-Water," commanded by Captain Fish, from Buffalo, putting in
on its way to Detroit. It was 300 tons burthen, had accommodations for one
hundred cabin and a greater number of steerage passengers, and was
propelled at eight or ten miles an hour. Its arrival and departure were
greeted with several rounds of artillery, and many persons accompanied her
to Detroit.

In 1819, Mr. Barber built a log hut on the west side of the harbor, and
may be considered the first permanent settler in Ohio City.

In 1830, was established a stage conveyance to Columbus, and in the autumn
a second proceeded to Norwalk. In 1821, these efforts were followed by
others, and two additional wagons were started, one for Pittsburgh and
another for Buffalo.

In 1825, an appropriation was made by Government for the improvement of
the harbor, being the first Government aid received for that purpose. The
water in the river was frequently so shallow that it was customary for
vessels to lie off in the lake and transfer passengers and freight by
boats. On the 4th of July in that year ground was broken at Licking Summit
for the Ohio canal, to connect the waters of Lake Erie at Cleveland with
those of the Ohio river at Portsmouth.

In 1827, Mr. Walworth, the harbor-master and Government agent, proceeded
to Washington, and after the most strenuous exertions, succeeded in
obtaining a further grant of $10,000 for the improvement of the harbor. In
the same year the Ohio canal was opened to Akron, and the first
importation of coal to Cleveland made.

In 1828, a new court-house was erected on the Public Square.

The light-house, on the bluff at the end of Water street, was built
in 1830, the lantern being one hundred and thirty-five feet above
water level.

In 1832, the Ohio canal was finished and communication between the lake
and the Ohio river opened. In the same year a new jail was built on
Champlain street.

In 1834, some of the streets were graded, and the village assumed such
importance that application for a city charter began to be talked of.

The population of the city had grown in 1835 to 5,080, having more than
doubled in two years. There was at this time an immense rush of people to
the West. Steamers ran from Buffalo to Detroit crowded with passengers at
a fare of eight dollars, the number on board what would now be called
small boats, sometimes reaching from five hundred to six hundred persons.
The line hired steamers and fined them a hundred dollars if the round trip
was not made in eight days. The slower boats, not being able to make that
time with any certainty, frequently stopped at Cleveland, discharged their
passengers, and put back to Buffalo. It sometimes chanced that the shore
accommodations were insufficient for the great crowd of emigrants stopping
over at this port, and the steamers were hired to lie off the port all
night, that the passengers might have sleeping accommodations. In that
year fire destroyed a large part of the business portion of Cleveland. At
the same period James S. Clark built, at his own expense, the old Columbus
street bridge, connecting Cleveland with Brooklyn township, and donated it
to the city. Two years later this bridge was the occasion and scene of the
famous "battle of the bridge," to be noticed in its proper place.

In 1836, Cleveland was granted a charter as a city. Greatly to the
mortification of many of the citizens, the people across the river had
received their charter for the organization of Ohio City before that for
the city of Cleveland came to hand, and Ohio City, therefore, took
precedence on point of age. This tended to embitter the jealous rivalry
between the two cities, and it was only after long years that this feeling
between the dwellers on the two sides of the river died out.

The settlement on the west side of the river had been made originally by
Josiah Barber and Richard Lord. Soon after Alonzo Carter purchased on
that side of the river and kept tavern in the "Red House," opposite
Superior street. In 1831, the Buffalo Company purchased the Carter farm
which covered the low land towards the mouth of the river, and the
overlooking bluffs. They covered the low ground with warehouses, and the
bluffs with stores and residences. Hotels were erected and preparations
made for the building up of a city that should far eclipse the older
settlement on the east side of the river. The company excavated a short
ship canal from the Cuyahoga to the old river bed, at the east end, and
the waters being high, a steamboat passed into the lake, through a
natural channel at the west end.

When it was proposed to get a city charter for Cleveland, negotiations
were entered into between the leading men on both sides of the river with
the purpose of either consolidating the two villages into one city, or at
least acting in harmony. The parties could agree neither on terms of
consolidation nor on boundaries. The negotiations were broken off, and
each side started its deputation to Columbus to procure a city charter,
with the result we have already noticed.

Ohio City was ambitions to have a harbor of its own, entirely independent
of Cleveland and to the advantages of which that city could lay no claim.
The old river bed was to be deepened and the channel to the lake at the
west end re-opened. As a preliminary to this ignoring of the Cleveland
harbor entrance of the Cuyahoga, a canal was cut through the marsh, from
opposite the entrance to the Ohio canal to the old river bed, which was
thus to be made the terminus of the Ohio canal.

In 1837, city rivalry ran so high that it resulted in the "battle of the
bridge." Both sides claimed jurisdiction over the Columbus street bridge
built by Mr. Clark and donated for public use. Armed men turned out on
either side to take possession of the disputed structure. A field piece
was posted on the low ground on the Cleveland side, to rake the bridge.
Guns, pistols, crowbars, clubs and stones were freely used on both sides.
Men were wounded of both parties, three of them seriously. The draw was
cut away, the middle pier and the western abutment partially blown down,
and the field piece spiked by the west siders. But the sheriff and the
city marshal of Cleveland appeared on the scene, gained possession of the
dilapidated bridge, which had been given to the city of Cleveland, and
lodged some of the rioters in thee county jail. This removed the bridge
question from the camp and battle-field to the more peaceful locality of
the courts.

In 1840, the population had increased to 6071, so that, notwithstanding
that the city had been suffering from depression, there was an influx of a
thousand persons in the last five years.

In 1841, the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal was completed, Connecting the
Ohio Canal at Akron with the Ohio river at Beaver, Pennsylvania, and thus
forming a water communication with Pittsburgh.

The United States Marine Hospital, pleasantly situated on the banks of the
lake, was commenced in 1844 and not completed until 1852. It is surrounded
by eight acres of ground, and is designed to accommodate one hundred and
forty patients.

In 1845, the city voted to loan its credit for $200,000 towards the
construction of a railroad from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati, and
subsequently the credit of the city was pledged for the loan of $100,000
towards the completion of the Cleveland and Erie or Lake Shore line.

In 1851, the 23d of February, the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati
Railroad was opened for travel; and on the same day forty miles of the
Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad was likewise completed. These
circumstances produced great rejoicings, for during the period of their
construction the city had been almost daily adding to the number of its
inhabitants, so that it had nearly doubled in the last six years, its
population being now 21,140, and in the following year (1852) it added
eighty-seven persons per week to its numbers, being then 25,670.

In 1858, the new court house was built and the old court house on the
Public Square was taken down.

We have thus glanced at a few of the leading incidents in the history of
the city. A more full and exact account will be found in the historical
sketches prefacing each department in the body of the work, and still
further details will be found in the biographical sketches. There only
remains to be added here a few data in regard to the population,
government, and officials of the city.

The population of Cleveland commenced in 1796, with four persons. Next
year the number increased to fifteen, but in 1800, had fallen back to
seven. The subsequent figures are: 1810, 57; 1820, about 150; 1825, about
500; 1830, United States census, 1,075; 1832, about 1,500; 1833, about
1,900; 1834, city census, 6,071, or with Ohio City, 7,648; 1845, 9,573, or
with Ohio City, 12,035; 1846, Cleveland 10,135; 1850, United States
census, 17,034, or with Ohio City, 20,984; 1851, city census, 21,140;
1852, 25,670; 1860, United States census for combined city, 43,838; 1866,
67,500; 1869, not less than 100,000.

The village of Cleveland was incorporated in 1814, and the first president
of the village, elected in 1815, was Alfred Kelley. Twelve votes were cast
at the election. In the following year he resigned his position, and his
father, Daniel Kelley, was elected by the same number of votes, retaining
his position until 1820, when Horace Perry was made president. In the
following year he was succeeded by Reuben Wood. From the year 1821 to
1825, Leonard Case was regularly elected president of the corporation, but
neglecting to qualify in the latter year, the recorder, E. Waterman,
became president, ex-officio. Here the records are defective until the
year 1828, when it appears Mr. Waterman received the double office of
president and recorder. On account of ill-health he resigned, and on the
30th of May the trustees appointed Oirson Cathan as president. At the
annual election in June, 1829, Dr. David Long was elected president, and
during his presidency a fire-engine was purchased. Forty-eight votes were
cast at this election. For the years 1830 and 1831, Richard Hilliard was
president, and for the following year John W. Allen was chosen, and
retained the position until 1835, one hundred and six votes being cast at
the last named election.

The mayors of Ohio City, up to the time of the consolidation, were as
follows; 1836, Josiah Barber; 1837, Francis A. Burrows; 1838-9, Norman C.
Baldwin; 1840-41, Needham M. Standart; 1842, Francis A. Burrows; 1843,
Richard Lord; 1844-5-6, D. H. Lamb; 1847, David Griffith; 1848, John
Beverlin; 1849, Thomas Burnham; 1850-51-52, Benjamin Sheldon; 1853, Wm.
B. Castle.

The first mayor of the city of Cleveland was John W. Willey, who held the
office for two terms, namely, for the years 1836 and 1837, the term under
the old constitution being but for one year. In 1858, the term was
extended to two years, Abner C. Brownell being re-elected for the first
two-year term. Under that mayoralty the consolidation of the two cities
was effected, and the next mayor, according to the understanding, was
taken from the late municipality of Ohio City, William B. Castle being
elected for the term of 1855-6.

Call off the hounds: the Not the Booker prize vote stands

From Jim Thompson to Daphne du Maurier, the author and comedian singles out stories that live up to their genre and genuinely do give readers sleepless nights

As well as making becoming a household name for his work as a writer and actor in comedy shows such as The Fast Show, Charlie Higson has had a parallel and these days just as stellar career as a writer. After winning acclaim for early, blackly comic crime novels including his debut King of the Ants (1992) and Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen (1996), he moved on to writing for children in 2005 with the Young Bond series. These books have now sold more than 1m copies in the UK alone, and have been translated into 24 different languages.

The Enemy, published last year, marked a new departure for Higson into horror writing for teenagers, with a tale of teenagers defending themselves against a zombified adult world. The first in a series, it was this week shortlisted for the Booktrust teenage prize, with volume two, The Dead, due out next week.

Buy The Dead by Charlie Higson at the Guardian bookshop

"What constitutes a horror book? A black and red cover? A primary objective to scare the shit out of the reader? A plug from Stephen King on the back? Most of the books on my list would probably be categorised in other genres first, but then – is Alien a sci-fi film or a horror film, or both? Is Wuthering Heights a ghost story? Is Jane Eyre the mother of all psycho-in-the-attic stories? And Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca is in many ways a haunted house story. I might well have put it in here if I'd ever actually read it.

"You can have a lot of fun mixing genres up. Personally I'm not the world's biggest fan of pure horror novels – ghosts and demons and man-eating slugs leave me slightly unmoved. With no belief in the supernatural, supernatural stories usually have little effect on me. Of the big horror names only Stephen King, with his concentration on character, really works for me. I've enjoyed other horror writers but wouldn't put them in any top 10 lists. HP Lovecraft, for instance, is fun but his books aren't exactly scary. I'm not going to lose any sleep over the possibility of Cthulhu and the ancient gods crossing over into our domain.

"And there are other glaring omissions from my list. Why no Dracula or Frankenstein or Edgar Allan Poe I hear you cry. It's sacrilege to leave them out of a horror list, I know. But Poe only really wrote a couple of scary horror stories (The Tell Tale Heart is brilliant) and I find Dracula and Frankenstein rather heavy going and 19th century. Of course they're where it all began as far as the undead are concerned and must be read, I'm just not sure that they still have the power to frighten us. And, let's face it, that's what a horror book should do.

"I've always been interested in the mechanics of frightening people. I like the idea of disturbing my readers, giving them sleepless nights and stamping images in their imaginations that will stay there for a very long time. That way they will always remember your book, and after all, us novelists are like Dracula, all we want is immortality. The first two of my adult novels (King Of The Ants and Happy Now) could easily be categorised as horror books and my new series for younger readers, The Enemy, is most definitely horror as it concerns kids vs adult zombies, but it is also an action adventure series, which seems to be my default mode. I'm always open to suggestions, though, so if anyone wants to champion some pure horror books that I absolutely must read, then fire away. I'm all severed ears."

1. The Watcher by Charles Maclean (out of print but Amazon and Abebooks have copies)

An extraordinary book, unlike anything else I've ever read, which had a big effect on me when I first read it. The narrator, Martin Gregory, starts out by telling us that he was perfectly normal and happy and that there was no reason for the terrible thing he has done … The sense of impending horror is enormous, and the book, like the narrator, soon spirals into madness. We have to try and work out what is really going on as we see everything through Gregory's distorted perspective. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that everyone around him is in very great danger.

2. The Shining by Stephen King

You can't have a horror list without having Stephen King in there somewhere. It's the law. But the thing is, when he was at his peak his books were brilliant (he hasn't quite been able to sustain it – you can't help but start repeating yourself if you write as many books as he has). Engrossing, tragic and, yes, frightening, which you can't always say about horror books. He's a great writer and for me the greatest horror writer. If you've only seen the film of The Shining then read the book – it's better (first half of the film amazing, second a bit silly).

3. The Drive-In by Joe R Lansdale

The Drive In, by Texan titan Joe R Lansdale is a great, knowingly trashy nod to the 50s and 60s craze for teen drive-in schlock sci-fi/horror flicks. A bunch of kids at an all-night horror showing at their local drive-in get mysteriously trapped there by some malign force and begin to behave like ants under a glass. Surviving on junk food and fizzy drinks they go crazy and set up a savage and weird alterative society full of great characters like the Popcorn King. Book Two spins off into yet wilder shores.

4. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

A hugely influential horror book, written in 1957. The last human survivor in a Californian suburb ventures forth every day with a supply of stakes to try and wipe out the vampires that have taken over. Matheson was great at mixing horror and science fiction, and rooting the fantastical in everyday reality. This book is a brilliant study in loneliness and obsession, and when the story twists towards the end Matheson very cleverly makes us question all that has gone before.

5. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

There has been a lot of fuss recently about the film of this book. But the book – which is every bit as extreme and upsetting as the film – has been around since as long ago as 1952. Amazing how you can get away with so much more in books without people really noticing. "Oh, it's a book, it must be good for you." Well, this book is certainly not good for you. I remember reading it and thinking – should I be reading this, should anyone read this? It is a horrific trip inside the mind of a cold-blooded psychopathic sadist, who is nevertheless good company and at times unnervingly funny. Not in a flip, post-Tarantino way; this is very disturbing and upsetting stuff. There is never any question as to where Thompson stands – the narrator is a monster. We watch his destructive relations unfold and discover the reasons for his condition from the reading equivalent of "behind the sofa". Unlike a lot of modern writers who go into this area in a sort of gleefully voyeuristic adolescent way that is entirely fake (stand up Brett Easton Ellis). Jim Thompson lived the life. He understood these people and fought many demons of his own. He is my favourite author by a long chalk, and this is an extraordinary book, but it's also certainly one of the most extreme (and extremely upsetting) things I've ever read.

6. Pan Books Of Horror

If any horror collections can be described as seminal it is these. When I was a teenager they were everywhere. Passed around from hand to hand, they had a forbidden, naughty allure, like video nasties. With their classy but trashy covers the stories they contained were gory, nasty, sometimes sexy, often badly written, sometimes brilliant. The collections were a mix of old classics and more modern material, increasingly the latter as the supply of classics ran dry. You'd find Stephen King alongside Algernon Blackwood and some blood-soaked fillers from writers you'd never heard of before and never hear would again. A superfan is currently working with Pan to get the series relaunched, starting with a facsimile reprint of volume one later in the year. Look out for it. And check out his website.

7. Uncle Montague's Tales Of Terror by Chris Priestley

This one's for the kids. Written in an accessible, cod Victorian style it has a neat framing device. Edgar goes to stay with his uncle in the woods who proceeds to tell him a series of terrifying stories – all the while hinting at some dark secrets of his own. Rest assured, the stories, which all feature a child in some way, are genuinely scary and unsettling and really do get under your skin. They certainly frightened my 10-year-old when I read them to him.

8. The Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris

Is this crime or horror? It certainly has a classic horror set up – basically it's Beauty And The Beast. A naïve and innocent, yet ultimately resilient, young girl enters the monster's lair and he falls in love with her. Then together they sort put each other's problems. The secondary villain – Buffalo Bill - is certainly a monster from a horror story, making clothes out if his victims' skin and keeping his latest victim in a pit. The film played like a horror film, and Anthony Hopkins certainly seemed to think he was in one. The book, as usual, is even better than the film. It's weird and engrossing and seductive and scary with some nice gothic touches. A great, great read.

9. Ghost stories by MR James

Apologies to Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe, but of the old classics I've gone for James. And not really for the original stories but just so I can bang on about Jonathan Miller's extraordinary BBC film of "Whistle And I'll Come To You". MR James was the king of the unsettling ghost story where not very much happens and it's all about atmosphere and dread. Miller's film still has the power to be very, very disturbing. Give yourself a treat and buy it. There are other James BBC adaptations you should look out for as well (A Warning to the Curious is another favourite), they used to show them at Christmas in the good old days, and all still work.

10. Don't Look Now/The Birds by Daphne du Maurier

All right, I'll admit it, I'm cheating a bit here. I don't think these 2 stories actually appear together in a Du Maurier collection except on audiobook. And like MR James, my interest in du Maurier is primarily in the films made of her stories (nearly all of her output was filmed – she was the Stephen King of her day). I couldn't leave her out because to have come up with the story for not one but two all-time classic horror films is a feat to be applauded. And as Don't Look Now is my favourite horror film I had to get a mention of it in here somewhere. The original stories are still good reads and its fascinating to see how two great directors teased complete films out of them.

Extract: The Whales by Evie Wyld

"I am an enemy of Waterstone's being destroyed. I am not in any way an enemy of Waterstone's being properly led by people who know what they're doing"

Tim Waterstone is explaining to me why he has a problem with the word entrepreneur, a distaste that I've seen ascribed to him on several occasions but find difficult to understand. How else might you describe a man who conjured, out of a redundancy package of a few thousand pounds, a retail operation that changed the face of British bookselling, and with it the nation's high streets? A man who went on to sell the company to the firm that had made him redundant, and then bought it back; and who, after apparently parting ways with his bookshops for good, made four separate attempts to gain control of them once again? This strikes me as almost a dictionary definition of an entrepreneur. So what's the beef?

His quibble, it turns out, has its basis in good manners. "I can't bear the self-congratulatory thing of applying it to oneself, really," he says: softly spoken and courteous, he appears, in tone and bearing, far more like a gentleman publisher than a cut-throat boardroom monster. Indeed, our semantic discussion has been prompted by his description of the bankers whom he met during a deal he was working on a few years ago and who make up a major strand in his new novel, In for a Penny, In for a Pound, an everyday tale of high finance, newspaper dynasties and the world of books. They were, he says, "so awful" that he started jotting down their conversations during meetings, and soon began to form an idea for a fictional parody of them. He was particularly struck by what seemed to him "like this endless drive towards the accumulation of personal wealth", a motivation at odds, he is at pains to point out, with his own impulses.

"You know, as an entrepreneur, and I hate calling myself an entrepreneur" – here our digression begins – "you don't do it for the money at all, really you don't; you're doing it because you get caught up in an idea and you want that idea to work." The ultimate achievement, according to Waterstone, is to see your vision realised, often against the odds: almost all entrepreneurs, he thinks, are fighting against received wisdom.

He was certainly bucking the trend when he started Waterstone's in 1982; he describes a grim landscape, in which the demise of the book was regularly predicted and which presented book-lovers with a choice between WH Smith, the smaller Blackwells and an array of independents, "some of whom were good, some of whom were terrible; one can romanticise the independents". By far the biggest market share lay with Smiths, the company that Waterstone had spent the previous eight years working for; when he first left university, he had gone to India to work in his father's tea business ("I was 22 going on 18, I was incredibly immature"), before "thoroughly enjoying" a long stint as a marketing man for Allied Breweries. Then, having married young and with a growing family to support, he joined Smiths, who were offering to triple his salary. It was a time he now says he loathed: "I don't want to spend my time knocking Smiths, but in those days family preference ran through, and it was a sort of caricature of corporate life, and I realised I can't stand corporate life, I really can't stand it. The fault was mine . . . I don't like other people's opinions much, I like having my own things, and then they fired me which was a huge relief, and I knew I wanted to start Waterstone's."

His first inspiration was the kind of bookselling he had witnessed in New York, exemplified by the "really terrific" Doubleday stores that stayed open until 11 o'clock at night and dispatched books around the city on delivery bicycles. By contrast, Putney-resident Waterstone had to trudge to the Smiths on his local high street or trek into central London to Hatchards, which, he says, "closed at 12 o'clock on Saturdays; Dillons didn't seem to open at all". And yet he was convinced that there was a market: he knew that all he wanted to do was read, and felt sure that there must be a couple of million like-minded souls in the country. "I was filled with this thought: why couldn't the best of the independents, Hatchards or whoever, be done nationally? Why can't they be like New York stores, better than New York stores, why can't they stay open late at night, why can't they have people working there who really love and know books? And why can't the stock be fabulous?"

So, with his £6,000 redundancy package and additional venture capital, Waterstone advertised in the London Evening Standard for staff – "salary moderate" – and opened up his first store in London's Old Brompton Road. And he was right, there was an appetite for books: soon, branches of Waterstone's, with their sleek black bookshelves, knowledgeable booksellers and unashamedly upmarket range of books, were opening everywhere, aided by their creator's "gift of the gab" with the money men, not to mention the occasional celebrity customer. Waterstone recalls Laurence Olivier visiting his Kensington High Street branch: "He said, are you looking for money? I said yes, so he put in 20,000 quid or something."

Waterstone's arrived at just the right time. It was, he reminds me, a rich time for literary fiction, with writers such as Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, John Banville and Martin Amis rising to prominence; Waterstone capitalised on the excitement surrounding this explosion of new writing by making sure that his shops were a natural place for launch parties and readings. "We were," he says, "plainly unfussed about being as culturally aware as we wanted to be." They also made it their business to maximise exposure for writers they believed in, in one instance creating the chain's "Book of the Month" when Waterstone and others in the company fell in love with Nicholas Mosley's Hopeful Monsters in 1990. And there was confidence in the publishing industry, which meant that enough of the big players – Waterstone cites Peter Mayer as an example, then head of the all-powerful Penguin – were prepared to support the enterprise with favourable credit and discount terms. All of which added up, after a while and despite "some fantastically dangerous moments", to a profitable business. "But," maintains Waterstone now, "the real thrill was winning, it wasn't the money; we did make money and it's very nice to have done so, but the real thrill was the dream."

But even the best dreams must come to an end. Waterstone's had expanded rapidly ("We got so arrogant"), often going against the advice of local demographics and sticking to their policy of having an unprecedentedly wide stock offering. It all took a lot of capital and, in 1993, having already sold a share of the business to them, Waterstone sold out to WH Smith for £47m. It can be no coincidence that, in the following years, he wrote three novels – Lilley and Chase, An Imperfect Marriage and A Passage of Lives. Clearly, however, writing books was no simple replacement for selling them, because in 1998 Waterstone joined forces with HMV to buy back the chain for £300m, in the process creating the HMV Media Group, of which he became chairman. Three years later, he was on his way again, and set out to embark on one of the publishing world's most intriguing soap operas – his attempts to buy out HMV altogether. Why?

"I became increasingly frustrated – frankly pissed off – with the way it was being run. I was chairman of HMV and was watching my own baby being absolutely murdered. And it was so stupid because the book market was just growing and growing, and people coming in from Tesco or Asda or Boots seemed to think their job was to get Waterstone's away from books, and move it towards multimedia or something. It was very hard for the people who worked in the stores, who I'd known for years – great, terrific people, wonderful people."

You realise, chatting to Waterstone, that at least part of his success lies in his genial manner: good situations become superlative – "great, terrific, wonderful", while the challenging moments are "tricky". The exception comes when he touches on his declining relationship with HMV: during the period when he tried to buy back the company – especially his fourth, final and "very serious" attempt in 2006, which took place at around the same time as HMV's purchase of the Ottakars chain – he describes himself as "apoplectic" at how the chain was being managed. But when that deal collapsed, with both sides proclaiming themselves hamstrung by the other's impossible demands, he knew it was time to call it quits.

The twists and turns of the battle between Waterstone and Waterstone's must surely, though, have come in handy when he was writing In for a Penny, In for a Pound, the first draft of which ran to an eye-watering 240,000 words. It doesn't shy away from bloodlust in the boardroom – the in-fighting in a family-run newspaper business is cynically manipulated by a private bank hell-bent on extracting maximum commission. In a subsidiary story, a thoroughly decent chap struggles to keep his small publishing firm afloat; the two worlds collide when agony aunt Anna Lavey, the company's star author and a columnist for one of the Macaulay newspapers, finds herself at the centre of a tabloid scandal. Elsewhere, there are high-flying barristers sleeping with senior leftwing politicians, Australian media tycoons running amok and ardent fans who metamorphose into havoc-wreaking stalkers. In short, with its fast-paced plot and to-the-point dialogue (sample: "You're a shit, Nicky. A total shit"), it is designed to grab the attention quickly.

I say to Waterstone "When I first picked it up . . . " and he completes my sentence with the question "you thought it was Jeffrey Archer?" I did, a little: it is bright red, with black-and-gold lettering, and its title is not a million miles away from that of Archer's debut novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. Rather than being published by one of the vast commercial houses, Waterstone's novel was picked up by the independent publisher Atlantic, perhaps best known for its Man Booker victory with Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. It was Atlantic's chief executive and chairman, Toby Mundy, who spotted the book's potential for Corvus, the Atlantic list that publishes crime and thrillers. Waterstone was attracted by Mundy's enthusiasm, though he confesses when he first saw the cover "I nearly passed out. I decorously tried to keep enthusiasm on my face. But I've rather come round to it now."

Mundy was no doubt aware that media and publishing industry observers would lock on to the book's roman à clef aspect: the Barclay brothers, Rupert Murdoch and Anna Raeburn have all been mentioned thus far. All that Waterstone will say is that Anna Lavey is most certainly not based on the late Beryl Bainbridge. But there was a detail that really bothered me. Surely, I ask, when he sends Anna to a bookshop event and has 500 eager readers queue up to meet her, isn't this stretching credulity a little far? After all, if that were most writers' and publishers' experience, they'd be riding around in golden sedan chairs. But he assures me that, no, when Dirk Bogarde signed books in his Kensington store, they sold more than 1,000 copies. If this is a little Pollyannaish – a global film star is not, of course, literary novelist X or poet Y – it is rather charmingly so.

In the latest throw of the dice, Waterstone has found himself largely reconciled with the chain he gave his name to. He is far too polite to inject a hint of "I told you so" into his conversation, saying only how delighted he is that some of Waterstone's most senior staff ring him up these days to talk over the whys and wherefores of the book trade. And, following the departure of managing director Gerry Johnson in January after a poor Christmas, it does seem that the chain is attempting to return to its roots, restoring buying power to staff in individual shops, lessening its reliance on aggressive marketing campaigns and emphasising its focus on quality. So, is the hatchet well and truly buried? "I am an enemy of Waterstone's being destroyed," he says. "I am not in any way an enemy of Waterstone's being properly led by people who know what they're doing." And will he ever try to buy it again? He says not, but stops short of ruling it out entirely with the words: "I'm certainly not going aggressively at them again, under any circumstances."

But even if the chain of shops can realign itself with its core market, it will still have to face the challenges of what Waterstone might call a "tricky" business environment: most obviously, the past few years have seen exceptionally stiff competition from both non-traditional retailers such as supermarkets, with their limited range but rock-bottom prices, and from online bookshops such as Amazon, which in a sense played Waterstone at his own game by having a stock offering of undreamt-of depth. And now there is the ebook – Waterstone has played about on an ereader, he says, but can't see it dominating leisure-time reading.

Perhaps most importantly for the man whose childhood experience of reading was to go into the independent bookshop in Crowborough in East Sussex – his family was not bookish and there wasn't "a bean" to spend on books – and sit on the floor, day after day, poring over their titles, does he still think that people want to buy books? This, it turns out, is not a tricky question to answer at all. "I just couldn't be more optimistic about it."

Waterstone will celebrate the publication of his novel with a party at one of the branch's shops, along with what he calls "the Waterstone diaspora", including former staff, many of whom have gone on to open their own shops or work in publishing. This, presumably, would have been unthinkable a few years ago, and must feel a bit odd. "It's quite strange to be connected to Waterstone's in that way," he concedes, "but they are being so generous over this." And then he will return to his other activities – looking after the youngest two of his eight children, serving as chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University, dodging invitations to sit on other companies' boards – and pondering his next novel. In the unlikely event that he hits a patch of writer's block, he can look for advice to his wife, TV producer Rosie Alison, whose first novel The Very Thought of You was shortlisted for this year's Orange prize. "I'm rather cross with Rosie, stealing my thunder," he jokes. But I'm not sure Waterstone really does cross – I suspect he goes straight from affable to apoplectic, and that, it seems clear, is reserved for rather exceptional circumstances.

Booker prize sees Peter Carey and Emma Donoghue head shortlist

Evie Wyld, whose debut novel After the Fire, a Still Small Voice won the 2009 John Llewellyn Rhys prize, has written a short story, The Whales, exclusively for Booktrust, where she is currently writer-in-residence. Here we join Jimmy, Elaine, Terry and Yvonne, deep in the bush after five days of walking. The conclusion will appear on the Booktrust website tomorrow

There are four of them footslogging single file along the trail. They sweat and wave their sticks at the flies, spitting the salt off their lips and feeling the rub of their backpacks, hot on their shoulders. A storm bird knows about them from miles off and lets out a wop-wop-wop, getting higher and louder as it goes. Jimmy watches Elaine look up at the gum-treed sky. He follows her gaze. No, he thinks. The bird is wrong; overhead is blue without a wash of cloud.

The crack of dry bark, the whistle of whip birds and sometimes a thundering in the undergrowth – a wombat, a pademelon – it all makes Jimmy feel younger. He can feel the muscles in his thighs working, can feel them thank him for not being stood at the assembly line six hours a day.

Five days of walking and now they are deep in the bush. In another day, they'll turn east, head for the sea, where if they make good time, they'll see the humpbacks heading south towards the Antarctic, their new calves in tow. There'll be a party that night, between the four of them. Terry the young bow-legged one from further down the line with a touch of the idiot about him, Yvonne his frizz-plaited, heavy cousin who runs accounts and her friend Elaine who is nothing to do with the factory and who returns his glances, smiling. Not a bad lot really, especially the girls.

Three days down the coast and they'll arrive home about ready for that soft bed and the meal without char-grit from the campfire, or the dog food pong of tinned meat. It's been good so far. He thinks of what was waiting for him if he hadn't gone bush this week – all those monkey-wrenches wanting to be set. It's been time to move on for a while, he sees that now. Only he'll wait and see what comes of Elaine and the damp hair that ringlets at the back of her neck.

Later in the day he spots a bower bird's chapel. Even this far in, the bird has found a blue toothbrush and bits of turquoise plastic to frame its humpy. He takes a photo, so that the side of Elaine's brown leg slides up the view finder.

'They only collect blue stuff', he says, mainly to Elaine. He feels the roots of his fingers strain as he reigns himself in, his stiff hands reminding him not to overdo it. Steady on.

Chances are, Elaine already knows more than him about bower birds – she told him she's walked the bush for six years, since she left varsity, this last two with Yvonne for company and he only knows from camping out when money gets bad. But he wants to show something to her. Elaine squats next to him and traces an arc with one finger in the dirt, looking at the toothbrush. She is smiling with her eyebrows pulled in.

'It's to impress the female – then she'll come down and he'll do a sexy dance.' As he explains, he wiggles his tail a little in a sexy dance and Elaine smiles wider.

Terry who has been leaning over them to get a look, gyrates around his walking stick. What his mating dance lacks in accuracy it makes up for in energy and the other three look on in silence while he makes the noise of a boombox with his lips pressed together. Jimmy's fingers stretch out towards the ground in embarrassment as he keeps his bad eye – the eye that he thinks of as his secret eye – on Elaine.

'You're a disgustin' specimen, Terry', says the stone-buttocked Yvonne. Terry quickens his hips and points, wiggling himself towards her.

Yvonne stands stiff and still like a wary buffalo. 'Never been the brightest crayon in the box', she says and they all push past him, smiles held down. Jimmy looks back to see him finish in a bunny squat and a flick of his head.

'Yeah!' says Terry loudly, arms raised and both thumbs up to the tops of the trees like they are his audience.

'Yeah' and he finds a cigarette in his back pocket, lights it and considers its glowing end before following on.

There'd been a night of heavy breathing when Elaine and Jimmy faced each other in their swags. They hadn't touched but they'd looked hard in the dark, seeing the glints of each other's tongues, teeth and eyes. There is a luxury in not touching, Jimmy thinks, in not just going with your gut; they don't have all the time in the world but they have this time, which won't end for another few days.

He looks forward to it, imagines the beach in an old film kind of a way. The last night when they will open the wine they've lugged all this way – they'll cool the bottles in a rock pool for a couple of hours, while they see what the beach has for them. He's a beach person at heart, it's where his childhood is at and he can't wait to show off about it. Terry's brought along his spearfishing gear and says he reckons on a good spot up at the point. Jimmy imagines striding into camp, a jewfish slung over one shoulder, a clutch of softly ticking crays hung from their whiskers in his other fist. When the moon's up and the salty wine is drunk, their fingers warm and sticky with sand and cray brains, he'll rub his foot over hers. He'll put his wrists either side of her jaw, so as not to touch her with his prawny fingers and he'll plant a long warm kiss on her mouth, one that shows them both that this is the start of things. He could think about staying on at the factory, him who hasn't stayed in one spot for more than six months at a time since he was 16. Or else, Elaine could come with him, go feral together up the coast. He gets the feeling there's not much holding her to the city anymore. He looks down at himself and he speaks softly to his hands You're orright you bung-eyed bastard. You're an okay sort after all.

Elaine breaks off from the group to take a pee in the scrub. She squats behind a paperbark and laughs. She's been hip deep in croc water, has woken up feeling a huntsman, as big as both of her hands put together, tangling with her feet in her swag. But the idea that the group might hear the sound of her pissing makes it so that she can't go. Eventually, she manages and makes a wet stain on the gum leaves. She pulls her shorts back up and a twig cracks not far up ahead. Shadows rise and fall as something heavy moves away. She catches up with the others at a jog.

Jimmy, that trunk of a man with his duff eye and his bear hands and her pal Yvonne are arguing about a fish. The argument is snapper versus flathead, but in what capacity Elaine is not sure. Terry is unusually quiet for a conversation involving food and he walks a little way from Jimmy and Yvonne.

'Stone lighter?' he asks quietly.

'It was a pee', she says, but her face flushes anyway.

'Right', says Terry and he smiles a weird smile. Elaine accidentally catches his eye.

By five o'clock they reach a small billabong. They strip down to their underwear and jump in like kids, laughing, drowning each other with splashing. Terry tries to duck the girls under, Jimmy dives for yabbies and opens his eyes in the bourbon-coloured water. The white legs of the other three bicycle in the open water. When he comes up for air, he can see that Yvonne is pleased with her breasts and bobs them gently up and down making small waves to the bank.

Jimmy looks a long time at Elaine and she looks back. There is a water level smile between them. He is aware of the ripples that come from his heartbeat and he sees how Elaine's canines creep over her bottom lip. Her hair is dark now, but in the light you can see into it. Where the sun hasn't caught her, her skin is like the damp underside of a leaf.

Elaine thinks she's some wonderful creature. The water holds her in on all sides, she feels good in her skin. The billabong is black from the tea trees that line the bank and when she flicks her legs to the surface she's a pale fish. She pauses before she puts her head under – a brief worry about spluttering and snotting in front of Jimmy, but then she thinks of the beach and the sea to come and she duck dives.

The dark water lifts her hair up and spreads it out, it pushes around her cheeks and taps on her eyelids as she reaches out for the leafy mud of the billabong floor, but even though she goes deep, her hands touch nothing. She kicks up for air and sends a flume of mist from her mouth. She smiles widely at Jimmy who floats on his back like an otter, hands clasped over his chest, dreaming of something.

Frogs and magpies are loud and someone finds a leech and then another and another and there's shrill laughing.

Terry shouts, 'It's eatin' the fuckin' kidneys out of me!' then, 'You girls want me to check under your bras?'

Even though everyone has had a leech before and every person has treated that leech with salt or the tip of a cigarette, quietly, without fear, they all pretend this is the first time they've been bitten and they wallow in the hysteria, enjoying it like gobble-mouthed kids.

Out of the water, damp shirts wrapped around them like towels, Jimmy burns a fat one off Elaine's shoulder. She looks at him sideways and curls a bit of paper bark around her finger.

'Ta', she says, as Jimmy passes her the cigarette which they share puffs from. He looks at her with his good eye. It creases in the corner.

The four of them set up camp a little way from the water hole, away from the leeches. Terry makes a small tepee out of kindling and rings stones around it to stop the fire spreading. Once it's lit they hang over a billy and drink tea while they watch the bats turning circles in the creeping darkness. Yvonne stirs up a thick damper and they bake it in a pan over the fire, to be eaten with a warmed tin of bean stew and rice pudding for afters. The birds are mostly quiet and the cicadas and frogs rev themselves up, as everyone slaps on Rid against the mosquitoes.

'Reckon we'll beat those whales, the way we're moving', Terry says cleaning his bowl with a licked finger.

'Fuckin' A.' Yvonne brings out a flask of bourbon to swill down the pudding with. She takes a long unflinching pull of it before passing it round and beginning a murder story.

'There's this girl went missing not far from Tully – all the kids hitchhike out there…' The dark gets deeper and everyone settles in, enjoying the creep of it. Elaine thinks that there's nothing you can't fix by putting your cheek to the land and feeling it settle. She studies the landscape of Jimmy's face. He is unashamedly enthralled by Yvonne's story. His funny eye looks directly at Elaine but doesn't see her. The lines on his forehead have dirt ground in. He's older than Elaine and she wonders what it is he's been doing all the time he's been alive.

In the silence, after Yvonne's concluding remark 'They only ever found her thumb', Terry farts, a loud one and everyone groans.

'Well, that's put that to bed', he says and they all unroll their swags around the fire and climb in for the night. Jimmy feels the hot weight of Elaine's foot on his and his fingers twitch on their own. Elaine sees Terry's wet eyes, tangerine from the fire and spreads her toes out. She stays awake for as long as possible, making up script after script of how it will go with Jimmy once they reach the sea. She replays the swim at waterhole until she's unsure if she's made parts of it up. She finally falls asleep with her heartbeat high in her chest.

Jimmy wakes long before dawn with a pressure like a stone on his bladder. He swears quietly and rolls out of his swag to ease the ache against a tree. In the undergrowth to his right, something scrabbles. He catches a strong scent and sees a wet snout or eye in the dark. A rumble in the brush and it's gone. Probably a pig or a dingo, but he's glad to get back to the group, where the coals in the fire are still orange. He checks each sleeper. Terry is spread at a diagonal, mouth open, not snoring but making noise. Yvonne sleeps on her front clutching the loose material of her swag, not letting it get away. Elaine is on her side and a brown arm has slithered free. Her hair makes a perfect ring around her ear. As he watches she produces a little noise, a tiny pop from her lips as they're opened with breath. Sleep speaking, thinks Jimmy as he burrows back into his swag, careful not to jog her feet with his, but careful also that they are touching.

The morning is hot and blue from the outset. After tea and a tidy up, they set off, aiming to reach the sea before sunset. Jimmy looks forward to a swim in the bubbling salt, a proper clean down with no bloodsuckers. Terry starts to talk about food almost immediately,

'Lamb chops.' He says confidently to Yvonne. 'That's gotta be the best type of food; lamb chops with the whole grill piece; onions, mushrooms, boiled spuds – no tomatoes though, I'm so over tomatoes.' Yvonne rolls her eyes at him.

'Couldn't give a rat's ring, Terry,' but she hands him a date and a piece of chocolate. Elaine enjoys her feeling of emptiness. Her spit tastes of eucalyptus, she feels new, like the air and blood in her has been filtered out and changed for something better.

After midday, there's a yell from Terry up ahead.

'Get a look at this!' The other three catch up to find him crouching in a small clearing surrounded by stay-a-while and they peer over his shoulder. There's a dead butcher bird on the ground and following the line of Terry's finger into one of the thorny bushes, they see its larder. A small mouse impaled through the neck, stiff and dry, missing parts of its hind quarters, a large Christmas beetle, upside down with the thorn square through the middle and last, still twitching, its legs up and angry, barely impaled through its leaking abdomen, a mouse spider.

'Christssake' whispers Jimmy stepping back.

'How the poor bastard got it up here, I can't figure,' Terry says, pushing the bird with his foot to reveal the green ants starting on its wing. The mouse spider's fangs, black and thick and shiny are up and ready to strike. It waves its legs in the air. Terry picks up a twig to poke it with, but Yvonne knocks it out of his hand.

'Don't be a bum, Terry. I'm not carrying yer fat dead lump out of here if you get bitten. You can count on that.' Jimmy takes a photograph, in which Terry insists on including his own hand, so as get the scale of the thing.

They start to walk on, but Elaine stays behind a beat or two looking at the spider; its fangs reaching for her, legs pointing.

'The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' Yvonne shrieks in a chicken voice as thunder mumbles in the distance. Elaine looks again at the sky, but it's still clear. The thunder is a long way off, but you can smell it in the air, which is heavy and hot. The tips of the trees sway in the sky, but there's no breeze down on the bush floor.

A goanna clings to a Moreton Bay fig above them but nobody sees it.

Jimmy touches the side of Elaine's hand with his little finger and as he does, the leaves to the side of her snaffle and a striped snake comes streaking out of the ground, hitting her on the boot. She barks loudly and kicks trying to get her foot away. The snake's fangs are deeply embedded in the leather of her boot and she shakes her leg hard while around her the others dip and weave and try to help and point their sticks. Jimmy thinks he has control of the situation when he holds Elaine's arm and beats at the snake with his walking stick, accidentally cracking her on the shin. The snake is dislodged, but instead of bolting back into the undergrowth, it turns again and bites Elaine, once, twice, three times and a fourth; calf, back of the knee, thigh, deeply, deeply again on her inner thigh. It's snap-quick and Jimmy doesn't have time to understand and still has Elaine by the arm so she doesn't get away. Finally, Terry gets it – a blow to the eye – and it's stunned. He stomps on the head, but it still twitches, so he beats it with his stick, smashing, till it changes colour, loses its stripes. It is still, but the bush crackles and carries on.

Elaine is tight-lipped and white. Yvonne cries softly into her cupped hands, the small beeps of a bird. Terry shoes leaves over the corpse of the snake and Jimmy still holds Elaine's arm, his grip hard from not knowing what to do, from doing the wrong thing. There is blood, Elaine thinks how it looks like she's got her period and then thinks she'd love a piece of liquorice from her backpack. She starts to turn around, to take her pack off, but her legs have lost their hardness and she is sliding back into Jimmy who is stiff and still.

'Jesus H Christ,' whispers Terry. He looks at the snake and away, prodding it rhythmically with his stick. 'Jimmy,' he says. 'Jesus, Jimmy.'

'S'just a nip,' says Elaine.

As she slides to the ground with the help of Jimmy who has become flesh again, Elaine thinks about the liquorice and then about how it was a tiger. A big dose of tiger and she's starting to feel it now, it feels like it bit her in the artery of her groin. The big one. The one where all the blood lives.

Yvonne straightens herself. She helps Elaine's pack off her back and slides it behind her back to prop her up. She pulls out her poncho and arranges it over Elaine's wounded leg, to keep it out of sight and then snaps the men into action.

'Hot water - get a fire on. Get the first aid.' She looks at the two men who are twisting their fingers. 'C'mon s'only a fuckin' snake bite, let's get it sorted and get on with it.' She's right and Jimmy says so. He says, 'Only a snake bite.' Smiling at Elaine, but what they all think, Jimmy, Terry, Yvonne and Elaine is but it's tiger. And we are deep in. Deep.

• To read the conclusion of the story, visit the Booktrust website from Tuesday 7 September.

• Evie Wyld works in the independent Review Bookshop in Peckham. She is taking part in a live-streamed book club Q&A from the shop at 7.30pm on Thursday 9 September. To find out how to submit questions for the event, visit the Booktrust website