Mr. Splitfoot Read Online Free PDF Page A

creep would do, hard to say because, you know, it could have been a bad situation.
    “The rain picked up, lashing the windshield, and he had to concentrate again just to keep the car on the road. It’s dark out that way. Finally the girl stops him. ‘Here it is. Just there.’ And you’re like, phew. The little girl made it home safely. A small white cape. Very tidy. You know it? I’ve looked for it, but I’m not totally sure which one it is. You know it?”
    “No.”
    I watch the fire for a bit, saying nothing. I rub my thighs, pushing them open just the slightest bit to remind Lord what’s between them. I look off again into the dark woods beyond our fire. I know Lord’s horny because he’s always horny, old guy, young girl. But I can’t tell if he’s scared. I want him to be scared. I watch the woods. I let the story percolate.
    “So. The guy pulls over, and the little girl dashes out of the car, darting across the road into the darkness and rain. He can’t see where she went or if she made it safely inside because of the rain. For a minute he thinks, ‘Forget it. I did my job.’ Turns out the guy’s not a creep, turns out he’s OK. He had parents who loved him. But he’s
so
OK that he can’t help it. He’s worried about the girl. Plus, she has his coat, so he gets out. It’s late but the lights are on downstairs in the little house. He rings the bell, and almost immediately an older woman answers the door like she’d been waiting for him. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she tells him, which seems pretty weird. ‘Come in.’ Still he tries, ‘Ma’am,’ he says. ‘Ma’am, did a young—’ She doesn’t let him finish. ‘My daughter. Yes. Thank you. Please.’ She hurries him in. ‘Follow me.’ The guy is starting to freak out. Everyone’s acting weird and all that rain. Still, he follows her. The old woman leads the man upstairs and into a bedroom, a girl’s bedroom. He stumbles in and there’s a photo of his hitchhiker there on the bureau. ‘My daughter,’ the old woman says again, but it’s impossible that such an old woman could be the mother to such a young girl. He starts to question, ‘But—’ Again she interrupts. ‘Twenty years ago, on a night like this one,’ she says, and the hairs on his neck rise. The storm blows. He doesn’t want her to go on. Fear’s making, you know, static in his head. ‘My daughter was killed,’ she says. ‘Struck down by a car as she walked home. The driver never even stopped to see if she was all right. Now, when it rains, she returns. She comes back, finding a ride with some kind driver. She’s home,’ the woman said. ‘She’s home. She’s come back again.’
    “‘No,’ he says. ‘No. No!’ The guy, he runs down the stairs, out the back door. The rain’s blinding him and he’s lost his bearings. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ the guy keeps telling himself—just like you—clenching his fists. He’s terrified, stumbling, trying not to see that right there in front of him, what he thought was a garden is a small graveyard, and in the graveyard is a tombstone and a low rusted wrought-iron fence. ‘No. No.’ He shakes his head, crazy because there, on top of the grave, is a tan windbreaker, his tan windbreaker, half buried in the muddy churned-up dirt.”
    Then I get real quiet, watching the fire, nodding my head. Finally, I add the clincher. “Ghosts don’t care if we believe in them or—”
    “Cora.”
    “Yeah?” I smile. I scared Lord.
    “That’s the oldest story in the world.”
    “What?”
    “It’s been told a million times. We used to tell it when we were kids. Different location and all, different item of clothing hanging out of the grave, but same story. It’s not real.”
    I straighten my spine. Fucking jerk. “Doesn’t mean it’s not scary.”
    “Yup.” Lord gives me a wink. “Pretty scary. Pretty, scar—BOO!” He pounces on me and bites into my cheek. Lord smells like boiled pasta. He digs his face