Book of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

notoriety may be a trifle embarrassing for you. That book I was telling you about, it’ll have a whole lot about today. Your final hours. Who was the last person to see you alive. And of course, it won’t neglect the fornication in the park. People read that, a lot of them are going to think you were asking for it. I suppose I’d have to agree with them. Didn’t you know any better?”
    She had known better. “What about the Reaper?” she’d asked when the movie let out and Paul suggested the park.
    “He’ll have to find his own gal.”
    “I mean it. I’m not sure it’s such a great idea. Why don’t we go to my place?”
    “Right. So your demented roommate can listen through the wall and make noises.”
    “I told her not to do that anymore.”
    “Come on, let’s go to the park. It’s a neat night. We can find a place by the stream.”
    “I don’t know.” She squeezed his hand. “I’d like to, Paul, but…”
    “Shit. Everybody’s got Reaperitis. For godsake, he’s in Portland .”
    “That’s only a half hour drive.”
    “Okay. Forget it. Shit.”
    They walked half a block, Paul silent and scowling, before Jean slipped a hand into the rear pocket of his pants and said, “Hey, pal, how’s about a stroll in the park?”
    “Didn’t you know any better?”
    His hand smacked her bare skin.
    “Yes!”
    “Don’t you ignore me. I ask you a question, you answer. Got it?”
    “Yes.”
    The car slowed. The Reaper’s left hand eased the steering wheel over and Jean felt the car slip sideways. It tipped upward a bit, pressing her cheek against his belt buckle.
    An off-ramp, she thought.
    The car stopped, then made a sharp turn.
    A cold tremor swept through Jean.
    We’re getting there, she thought. Wherever he’s taking me, we’re getting there. Oh, Jesus.
    “You thought it couldn’t happen to you,” he said. “Am I right?”
    “No.”
    “What, then? You were just too horny to care?”
    “Paul would’ve kept on pouting.” Her voice was high, shaky.
    “One of those. I hate those sniveling, whiny pouters. Take me, for instance—I never pout. That’s for the losers. I never lose, so I’ve got no reason to pout. I make other people lose.”
    He slowed the car, turned it again.
    “I hate pouters, too,” Jean said, trying to keep her voice steady. “They stink. They don’t deserve to live.”
    He looked down at her. His face was a vague blur. There were no more streetlights, Jean realized. Nothing but moonlight, now.
    “I bet you and I are a lot alike,” she said.
    “Think so, do you?”
    “I’ve never told anyone this before, but… I guess it’s safe to tell you. I killed a girl once.”
    “That so?”
    He doesn’t believe me!
    “Yeah. It was just two years ago. I was going with this guy, Jim Smith, and… I really loved him. We got engaged. And then all of a sudden he started going with this bitch, Mary Jones.”
    “Smith and Jones, huh?” He chuckled.
    “I can’t help it if they had stupid names,” she said, and wished she’d taken an extra second to think up names that sounded real , damn it. “Anyway, he spent less and less time with me, and I knew he was seeing Mary. So one night I snuck into her room in the sorority and smothered her with a pillow. Killed her. And I enjoyed it. I laughed when she died.”
    He patted Jean’s belly. “I guess we are two of a kind. Maybe you’d like to throw in with me. I can see some advantages to an arrangement like that. You could lure the pretty young things into my car, help me subdue them. What do you think?”
    She thought that she might start to cry. His offer was just what she had wanted to hear—and he knew it. He knew it, all right.
    But she went along, just in case. “I think I’d like that.”
    “That makes it an even fifty percent,” he said.
    The front of the car tipped upward. Again, Jean’s cheek pressed his belt buckle.
    “You’re the fourth to try that maneuver. Hey, forget about killing me, I’m just your