Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“What?”
She shined the light over the floor, and the teeth scattered across it.
“What the fuck?” The longer I stared at them, the hair on my arms lifted. I reminded myself that Mom had kept my baby teeth in a travel toothbrush case, but then Jeffrey Dahmer had kept brains in his fridge…
“See!” she whispered, her clammy grip on my arm tightening. “We’re robbing a dead serial killer. That’s got to be some eternal bad juju.”
“Probably his kids’” Although that was a lot of teeth…
“You said he didn’t have relatives.”
“The paper said no surviving relatives.”
“That’s like three kids’ teeth. What are the chances all of his kids died?”
We both stood in silence, our gazes fixed on those damn teeth.
“Okay, this is freaking me out.” She released my arm and headed to the door. “I’m waiting outside.”
The second it banged shut, unease crept through me. Having a gun pulled on me, I could handle. Paranormal shit put me on edge.
I took a quick look around again. Yep. She was right. An old man who collected teeth wasn’t going to have anything of value…that was why I headed to the door. Just before I reached for the knob, I stopped. A framed picture of Paul Bear Bryant—one of the most legendary Alabama football coaches to exist—hung over the light switch. My gaze dropped to a signature scrawled in the corner. And holy shit, could that be worth some major cash. “Bless your soul, you creepy fuck,” I said, taking it from the wall and leaving.
Night air and the chirp of crickets wrapped around me when I stepped outside. Jade waited a good ten feet away from the trailer, her arms wrapped around herself.
I waded through the knee-high grass and held up the picture. “Jackpot!”
“Great. Bring the haunted picture of some old guy. Wait.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is that him?”
“Are you serious?”
She shined the light on the picture, then shifted to the side. “His serial killer eyes are following me. It’s freaking me out.”
“This is Bear Bryant.”
Jade gave me a blank stare.
“The football coach.” Nothing. “Crimson Tide? Six national championships. Thirteen conference championships…” God, she was hopeless.
“Whatever. It’s still probably haunted.”
“Trust me, this is worth a ghost.”
“Can we leave now?” She started across the lot, and I followed her, ducking through the wire fence that led into the woods at the back of the trailer park.
We walked in silence for a while, me following a short distance behind Jade, until something in the trees rustled. Then I picked up my pace to catch up with her.
“You’re scared.” Not a question. A statement.
“Just a little on edge.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know, I bet those teeth would match some cold cases.”
“You want to go back there and collect them?”
She stopped at the fence line between the woods and the meadow. “No!”
“His secrets died with him, and that’s where they’ll stay,” I said, hopping the fence before grabbing her waist and helping her over. I had no business thinking about the way her tits pressed against me right then, but it was Jade. I’d have fucked her on the dead serial killer’s bed if she was into that shit.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll just try not to have nightmares.”
“You do that.” I took her hand and pulled her through the long grass, but she lingered behind. “What are you doing?”
She swept her flashlight over the long grass while taking slow steps. “Checking for snakes.”
“Would you come on? They don’t come out at night.”
“Snakes are most active at night!”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a pessimist?”
“I’m a realist. And a survivalist. No serial killers. No snakes.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you’d last more than five minutes in a zombie apocalypse.” Clutching the picture in one hand, I crouched in front of her. “Get on.”
“What?”
I motioned for my back. “Get on. No snake is getting you up here, and I don’t have all night to walk like we’re in a damn mine field.”
“Oh, really? You have somewhere more important to be than here with me?”
“Yeah, in my bed with you. Hurry up.”
That shut her up. On a huff, she hopped onto my back, wrapping her arms around my throat, her thighs around my waist.
I enjoyed the feel of her against me way too much. “Also, there’s no such thing as zombies. Yet.”
“But if there were…”
“You’d be one?”
“No.” She rested her chin on my shoulder. “Okay, you’re right, I’d be fucked. I’d just lie down and succumb to a life of eating people.”
I laughed. At least she was honest.
When we made it to the clearing by the pond I’d parked by, she asked if we could stay.
I turned my face toward hers still on my shoulder. “You want to stay by the serial killer’s snake-infested property?”
“It’s pretty. Kind of reminds me of the creek behind your trailer.”
Moonlight spilled over a lone pier jutting out into the middle of the water, surrounded by tall reeds. It was nothing like the ratty creek behind the trailer park I’d grown up in, but I could see what she meant. It was peaceful. Like the shit of town hadn’t managed to reach it yet. “Yeah, I guess it kind of does.”