The Dead Girls Club - Damien Angelica Walters Page 0,23

buried the woman and filled the hole back in, but that night, the man who found the woman heard the voice, too. He went to look and bam, gone. They found the hole open and him in it the next day. No matter how many times they filled the hole, it kept happening. And even though people knew they shouldn’t follow the voice, knew it was a trick, they couldn’t help it. It was like they had to go, and when they did they ended up dead. They tried tying each other up at night, but it didn’t help. They’d find piles of rope where people should be. They tried putting cotton in their ears, but it didn’t work either because they were hearing the voice only with their minds.

“One man packed up his family and left. For two days, nobody heard the voice, but the morning after that, they found the man’s wife in the hole, cold and dead. The next night, his son, and the night after, the man.”

“She wouldn’t let them leave,” I said.

“Right. Every morning someone else turned up dead until everyone was gone.”

I clapped. I shouldn’t have been happy, but they shouldn’t have buried her alive. And Becca was right about the women who were supposed to be the Red Lady’s friends. It didn’t matter if they were scared; you always helped your friends.

“So that’s it? Everyone died?” Gia said. “Then what? Did the witch go away?”

“I didn’t say it was the end of the story,” Becca said. “It’s the end of this part.”

“Wait,” Rachel said. “If the witch didn’t have hands, how could she have put the dirt in their mouths? She wasn’t even alive anymore, was she?”

Gia grunted and clutched her belly. At my frown, she said, “I have cramps.”

“Ugh, I have my period, too,” I said.

“Me three,” Becca said.

We all looked at Rachel.

“I don’t have mine,” she said. “But I can tell it’ll be any day.”

“That’s so weird, right?” Gia said. “That we all get it the same time?”

“Nah, my mom and I get it close, too,” I said. “She said it happens when girls are around each other a lot.”

“I hate it,” Gia said.

She’d had it the longest, since she was eleven. I’d had it for six months, Becca a little longer, and Rachel only two months ago. Afterward, her mom wanted to have the talk with her. Talk about embarrassing. We already knew about sex. My parents had told me when I was nine because I’d heard a kid at school talking about a vagina kiss, so I’d asked what it was. All our parents would’ve had heart attacks if they’d known we’d found a magazine in the field last year and knew a lot more than anyone had told us.

“I want to use tampons,” Gia said. “But my mom said no.”

“My mom said the same thing,” I said. “She said I was too small inside.”

“I used one of my mom’s once,” Becca said. “And you can’t be too small, because babies come out and—”

“You did?” I said. “You never told me.”

“I didn’t have any pads left. What was I supposed to use?”

“What did it feel like?” Gia asked.

“Kinda weird at first, but it was gross when I took it out. It smelled like raw hamburger.”

“That’s what pads smell like anyway,” I said.

“Yeah, but it was different,” Becca said.

“Hey, I think it stopped raining,” Rachel said. “Want to walk around?”

“Not if it’s muddy out, no,” I said.

“Want to watch a movie?” Gia said. “We rented Dick Tracy from Blockbuster.”

“Please be kind,” I said.

“And rewind!” Becca finished.

“I’m serious,” Gia said. “And maybe you can tell more of the story after?”

“Maybe,” Becca said.

But when the movie credits rolled, she said she had to go home, so I went with her because it was close to dinnertime. Halfway to my house, it started showering again and she grabbed my wrist.

“It’s only rain,” she said as I tried to pull away.

“I don’t want to get wet.”

“We’re already wet!” She jumped in a puddle on the sidewalk, the way we did when we were little, splashing water everywhere.

“I’m getting soaked,” I said, peeling my shirt away from my body. As soon as I let go, it stuck to my skin again, a soggy lasagna noodle at the bottom of a pot.

“So go home then,” she said.

“You won’t be mad?”

“Uh-uh.” I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not, but my hair was plastered to my back and my socks were a sopping mess. When I