Beneath the Bones Read Free Page B

wouldn’t have been able to see much of anything from here. Still, the girl stared wide-eyed through the windshield, as if the darkness was no impediment to her vision.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Guess because I’ve never been here before.” The words were casual, but her tone wasn’t. She sounded half-scared, half-thrilled.
    Excellent! This was the reason lovers came here, after all: to get all good and shivery, to flirt with death a little and then flip the grim reaper the bird by performing the ultimate life-affirming act. And Ray — considering that his penis was throbbing in his pants like a bomb on the verge of exploding — was more than ready to perform. Time to make his move.
    Like it was the most natural thing in the world, he reached over and put his arm around the girl’s shoulders. She stiffened at his touch, but quickly relaxed and scooted closer to him. She lay her head on his shoulder, and Ray, feeling like the biggest stud of all time for getting this far with a Cross girl, debated whether he should wait a few moments or make a grab for a tit now. He had just decided to go for the boob, when the girl said, “It’s so weird.”
    Ray, with more than a little disappointment, decided it would be best to keep his hand to himself for the time being. “What is?”
    “This place. It’s so peaceful. You’d never imagine in a million years that something so awful could happen here.”
    “Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t really think about it much. He’d grown up hearing stories about Carl the Cutter, and while he knew they’d really happened, they were no more real to him than urban legends like Bloody Mary or the madman with the hook hand. Just another spooky legend to talk about around a Harvest Festival campfire.
    The girl went on, her tone becoming increasingly dreamy as she spoke, almost as if she were becoming hypnotized by her own words. “He killed four people … that we know of. Kidnapped them, then killed them … way out here, where no one could hear their screams. They say when he was finished with his victims, he’d decorate them by carving a strange design on their bodies.” She paused, blinked a couple times, and when she turned to look at him, her voice had returned to normal. “Do you think that’s true, or just some bullshit somebody made up? About the designs, I mean.”
    Ray felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the night air, a chill that seemed to come from the inside rather than out. The chirping of the crickets took on a sinister edge, almost as if they were mocking him, and the rustle of the tall grass in the breeze sounded too much like someone moving out there in the darkness — someone trying hard not to make any noise. Ray took a quick glance around, but he didn’t see anyone … or any
thing
. Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t something out there, just that he couldn’t see it, whatever it might be.
    Stop it, you asshole!
Despite himself, Ray was starting to get majorly creeped out, but he was determined not to show it. He had the sense that the girl might be testing him, and he feared that if he displayed any signs of being a wuss, she wouldn’t give it up to him tonight — or ever, for that matter.
    So he responded as casually as he could. “My dad told me the same thing once, so it’s probably true. Either way, those folks are still just as dead, right?” He couldn’t believe he’d said that! That was some hardcore shit! She was bound to be impressed now.
    “Tough guy, huh?” She sounded amused, and Ray wasn’t sure how to take it. Maybe she was pleased, but maybe she was making fun of him, too. Maybe both. Women were complicated like that, and Cross women even more so.
    He decided to go with it. “That’s me. Tough as nails.” Telling himself that it was now or never, he reached out, cupped her right breast in his hand and squeezed.
    The girl yelped and practically leaped to the far side of the seat, as if her tit had been