Beneath the Bones Read Free

outside. As the door swung shut, a piece of glass dislodged from the broken pane, tumbled to the ground, and shattered. The sound should’ve been nothing compared to Debbie’s shrill screams, but it seemed loud as a shotgun blast to Tyrone. The person who’d emerged from the café displayed no reaction: didn’t startle, didn’t so much as turn to look in the direction of the noise. A small thing, but it showed concentration, Tyrone thought. Or perhaps single-mindedness.
    Tyrone had spent the better part of his adult life watching from the darkness, and his night vision had grown quite sharp over the decades. He squinted now, trying to make out the features of the person who’d terrorized Debbie Coulter so thoroughly. Perhaps it was due to the parking lot’s poor illumination, or perhaps Tyrone’s old eyes weren’t as strong as they used to be, but he was unable to discern more than the most rudimentary details: medium height, medium build, hooded sweatshirt, pants, running shoes … But nothing of the face. It was as if there
was
no face, only a pool of darkness where a face should be.
    Before Tyrone could make out anything more, the shadowy figure sprinted off, running south on Wilkerson — opposite the direction Debbie had taken. The figure made no sound as it ran, no labored breathing, no shoes slapping on asphalt. It kept to the shadows, avoiding the blue-white glow of streetlights, and soon the apparition was gone, merged once more with the darkness that had birthed it.
    Interesting
, Tyrone thought.
    He continued to sit in Holloway’s doorway for the next thirty minutes, waiting for the sheriff to arrive. But after seeing no lights and hearing no sirens, he began to get bored. He stood up, stretched his stiff back, put his hands in the pockets of his treanchcoat to warm them against the autumn night’s chill, and started off down the sidewalk in search of something else to witness. He knew he’d find something soon.
    This
was
Cross County, after all.

CHAPTER TWO
    Ray killed the engine and turned off the lights. Grinning, he turned to face the girl sitting next to him, ready to use one of the smooth-ass lines he’d been practicing in his head all evening. Either,
There’s only one reason why anyone ever comes out to the old Deveraux Farm. You know it, I know it, so let’s get to it
, or,
You may be a Cross and I may be just a townie, but tonight let’s forget all that and just be a man and a woman
. But before he could speak, the girl sitting next to him said, “Let’s roll down the windows.”
    It wasn’t a request. Crosses never asked. They told.
    The girl began lowering the passenger side window, but Ray didn’t move. He didn’t give a damn who she was. He wasn’t about to take that attitude from any girl, no matter how sexy. The ‘78 Camaro was his pride and joy. Sure, it was old, needed a new paint job, and the engine knocked and rattled too much, but it was
his
. He was the captain of this ship, and he decided what to do and when to do it.
    He wasn’t going to, but then he felt a pressure inside his skull, like a headache was coming on. Without thinking, he reached out, took hold of the handle, and rolled his window down. Not because
she
wanted him to, but because it was a beautiful evening. Cool, crisp night air, crickets chirping softly, nightbirds singing in the trees …
    Yeah, right. You’re full of shit and you know it
.
    Maybe so, but at least his headache, or whatever it was, was gone now. Besides, she was hot as hell, and — though he hated himself for feeling this way — the fact she was a Cross made her even hotter. The Crosses were royalty here in the county that bore their name, and it was every man’s ambition to lay one of their women, to “get crossed,” as they called it. Ray was nineteen, and he attended trade school, learning to be a welder. There was nothing particularly special about him, and though he wanted to “get crossed” as much as any other horny-ass