Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories Read Online Free PDF

live in town,” Lenny said.
“My dad—”
    Ademia’s stern gaze caused him to close his
mouth with a clack of teeth striking together. He saw a flicker of
sadness cross her face before she turned and looked at Dave. “And
why do you mistake me for—” she leaned closer “—a gypsy … no … a
witch?”
    Dave stiffened and said, “I don’t.”
    “I suppose I do look like a gypsy. My mother
was Brazilian, my father Greek. But I’m neither gypsy nor witch,
although—”
    She paused and looked thoughtful. Then she
glanced in the direction of the burnt remains of the old mansion
and said rather sadly, “I must go now.”
    She stood as easily and gracefully as she had
sat.
    “Good night,” she said before turning and
heading toward the Myers property.
    The four watched her until the night made her
invisible. Then Amy said, “Did you guys notice that she had no
shoes on her feet?”
    “And on a cold night like tonight,” Vree
said. She shivered and tightened the blanket around her. “It feels
like it might snow.”
    Dave stood and said, “Lenny, throw some more
wood on the fire. I have to see a man about a horse.”
    “Cute,” Amy said. “Water some weeds for me
while you’re at it.”
    Lenny sighed that the woodpile was at the far
side of the barn and that he had to leave Vree’s side. Icy air
latched onto him and left him shivering when he stepped from
beneath the blanket and away from the fire.
    He had taken eight steps toward the barn when
Dave came quickly to him and pointed down at the Myers
property.
    “Look,” he said with a voice that was barely
audible. Then it rose as he said, “Don’t you see it? It’s Ben
Myers’s ghost!”
    Lenny turned in time to see the glowing
apparition of a man in a white shirt and dark pants walk through
the Myers house’s burnt remains. Then the ghostly image wavered and
disappeared.
    “Tell me you saw that,” Dave said.
    “Saw what?” Amy asked as she and Vree huddled
beneath the blanket and peered out at them.
    “Ben Myers’s ghost,” Dave said. “It was just
there. Just like the dogs I saw earlier.”
    As if cued by Dave’s words, Lenny heard dogs
bark from the ruined house. He said, “When Myers’s dogs died, their
spirits came back as hellhounds to guard the house from
trespassers.”
    “Another dumb tall tale,” Amy said to
Vree.
    “Dumb or not,” Lenny said, “I hear them
barking.”
    “I do, too,” Dave said.
    “You do?” It was Vree who spoke. She flung
away her end of the blanket, stood, and peered down the hillside.
“Where are they? I want to see.”
    A pack of nine dogs charged from the ruins
and lined at the bottom of the hill, all of them glowing an aura of
green light. Lenny went to Vree and stood at her side as the dogs
looked up at them, snarling and baring teeth.
    “I don’t see anything,” Vree said to
Lenny.
    “Because nothing’s there,” Amy said. She had
stood and now peered down the hill, too.
    But Lenny saw the dogs as clear as though
they stood beneath a noon sun. There were white hounds with black
and brown patches, some rough-coated terriers, and a brown
Rottweiler that stood in the middle and slobbered white foam from
its mouth.
    “I see them,” Dave said as he joined his
friends. “And they don’t look happy to see us.”
    The Rottweiler growled low and guttural. And
the red ember of fire in its eyes caused Dave to step backward.
    “Let’s go inside the house,” he said. Then he
said it again, louder, as the other dogs joined in. As the growls
rose in both pitch and volume, Lenny agreed with Dave’s suggestion.
He tugged at one of Vree’s arms and told her and Amy to follow Dave
who had turned and now hurried past the barn, toward the house.
    “But I don’t see or hear anything,” Vree
said.
    “Because there’s nothing’s down there.” Amy
wrapped her blanket around Vree’s shoulders and said to Lenny,
“We’re staying here and camping out tonight, even if it snows.”
    The growls