Bonechiller

Bonechiller is a fantasy-horror novel for young adults by Canadian author Graham McNamee. It is set in the fictional Canadian town of Harvest Cove, deep within the remote northern region known as the Big Empty. The sleepy and ominous town has been home for centuries to an evil creature called the Windigo, which has terrorized residents and claimed the lives of unsuspecting teenagers. The novel’s protagonist, Danny Quinn, moves with his father to Harvest Cove after the unfortunate death of his mother, in an effort to escape their melancholy. Threatened by the Windigo, he bands together with his new friends to understand and defeat it. Like many horror plots, the novel uses the existential threat posed by its antagonist as an allegory for its protagonist’s repressed grief and the disruption of his childhood. Quinn’s effort to kill the creature comes to symbolize overcoming the difficult experiences he and his father have tried to repress.

Bonechiller begins shortly after Quinn and his father settle in Harvest Cove. Though it has been some time since the death of their family’s beloved mother and wife, they find each day almost unbearable. Quinn’s dad gets a job taking care of a local marina, which is hardly ever visited. In his first days in Harvest Cove, Quinn makes four friends, Pike, Howie, Ash, and Mason. All five of them have had nomadic childhoods and feel dislocated in the eerily quiet town. One day, the friends decide to go for a drive after a snowstorm. Pike suggests that they set fire to the home of a registered child sex offender. Quinn leaves early, and while walking home, is attacked by a huge creature, yeti-like and supernaturally cold, that blends in with the snow. Though he escapes, the beast stings him, leaving a mysterious blue scar.



Doubting his own memory of the bizarre and terrifying experience, Quinn rationalizes it as a hallucination. Still, his scar and the huge tracks left by the beast worry him, as well as the disappearance of the local bully, Ray. Howie assures him that he must have been seeing things, but he is attacked by the same creature shortly after. Howie begins to research the apparition and learns of a mythical demon which North America’s indigenous Cree people called the Oskankaskatin, or “bone-chiller.” They give the beast their own name, “Windigo.” In the coming days, Quinn and Howie get an infection from the Windigo’s bite. The infection causes them to hear voices and form compelling suicidal ideations. Having learned that Ray suffered a similar infection before running away from a hospital on a death wish, they set out with the rest of their friends to kill the Windigo and hopefully, to stop their symptoms’ progression.

Quinn and Howie begin to have synchronized nightmares in which the beast is beckoning to them. They become afraid of the light, and in a particularly bad spell, Quinn nearly runs after the Windigo’s voice. When Howie begins to submit to the voices as well, Mason helps pull them back to consciousness. Quinn, Howie, Ash, Pike, and Mason set up a trap for the Windigo, using the infected friends as bait. They place a cache of bombs at the site and psychically call it towards them. When it approaches, Quinn activates the detonator, destroying the Windigo.

At the end of the novel, the centuries-long terror of the Oskankaskatin ends. Quinn and Howie’s scars remain, becoming mementos of their struggle. Pike tattoos infinity signs over the scars, representing their boundless resilience and the strong bonds of their friendship. Quinn finally feels at home in Harvest Cove, but realizes that is because he actively worked to make life better for himself. Bonechiller represents the adolescent search for meaning and identity as one grapples with the demons of loss.