The Dead Girls Club - Damien Angelica Walters Page 0,22

car is in his midfifties. Short gray hair, slim build, navy-blue polo shirt. Narrow chin, deep brackets around his mouth, dark eyes. My instinct is to gun it, peel away from the curb fast, but I lower my window.

“You lost?” he says, without a trace of kindness. A smell of aftershave lotion, the kind with a ship on the bottle. My dad used it when I was little.

“No, but thank you for asking.”

“I saw you looking at the house.” He nods toward the FOR SALE sign. “And walking.”

Neither are questions. Did he see me on Gia’s porch?

“I’m in the market for a new house, closer to work,” I say. “This neighborhood is one I’ve been thinking of. I have friends who live here.”

He clears his throat, or maybe it’s a scoff of disbelief. “The realtor’s number is on the sign. If you want to see it, all you have to do is call.”

Whatever would I do without you, Captain Obvious?

My phone chimes again. “It was nice to meet you, but I need to take care of this.”

He taps the side of his fist on the car window’s ledge and steps away, leaving me barely enough room. My stomach is fluttery, my fingers trembling.

Fuck you.

Fuck.

CHAPTER FOUR

THEN

“What if you had to eat a bug? What would you eat?” Gia said.

We were in the house, sprawled on the basement floor, and it was almost as dark as the first time we’d sneaked in, on account of the rain. We’d been lucky and made it inside right before it got bad and had been smart enough to take off our shoes so we wouldn’t track in mud.

“That’s disgusting,” Rachel said.

“A ladybug,” Becca said. “They’d be crunchy.”

Gia and I cracked up, while Rachel made puking sounds.

I said, “An ant. A teeny, tiny, baby ant.”

“But if it’s so small, you might not be able to chew it,” Becca said. “It might crawl back up. Or come out of your nose!”

Rachel shook her head. “I’d never ever eat a bug, no matter what.”

“You have to pick,” Gia said.

“Fine,” Rachel said. “I’d pick a cricket.”

“They’re huge,” Gia said.

“Yeah, but some people eat them,” Rachel said.

Gia rubbed her chin as if she had a beard, and said, “I pick Heather to go next.”

I already knew what I was going to ask. “What if you had to move someplace else? Where would you go?”

“Alaska,” Rachel said. “To see penguins.”

“Penguins aren’t in Alaska, dummy,” Becca said. “They’re in Antarctica and you can’t live there. It’s all ice.”

“Oh,” Rachel said, and her face got all sad-hurt.

“I’d live someplace warm,” Becca said. “Like Florida.”

“But they have flying cockroaches,” I said.

“So?”

“What if they flew in your hair and got stuck?” I said.

“I don’t want to what if anymore,” Rachel said. “Becca, can you tell the rest of the story now?”

“Yes, tell the rest,” I said. I’d tried to get Becca to tell us—or at least me—more, but she wouldn’t.

“Please,” Gia said, her hands clasped together under her chin.

Becca leaned back on stick-straight arms.

“Come on, Bec,” I said.

“Yeah, come on,” Rachel said.

Becca grinned slow and wide, like a Cheshire cat. “O-kay. I can’t tell you the rest—I told you it was long—but I can tell you some more.”

She stared at the ceiling, her mouth working for what felt like forever before she said, “The people decided to dig the Red Lady out, but when they dug the hole, it was empty, remember?” She waited for us to say yes. “They left it like that and no one talked about her. Like nothing had happened. But they all had dreams, remember that, too?”

Again, she waited for us to respond.

“Good. So the dreams stopped, but everyone felt like they were being watched all the time, no matter where they went. Then they started hearing their name whispered. At first they thought it was a neighbor or something, but no one else was ever there. One night a woman woke up and thought it was her son, but he was asleep. The voice kept saying her name, so she followed it outside, thinking maybe someone was hurt. The next morning a neighbor found her in the hole, dead, mouth full of dirt.”

“Gah,” Rachel said, covering her mouth.

I tugged on my lower lip and ran my tongue across the back of my teeth. I wondered if the woman was dead first or if the dirt killed her.

“But the worst part?” Becca said.

“What?” Gia said.

“They found a long, smeary trail of blood on the ground leading to the hole. They