Read Online Occultation by Laird Barron - Free Book Online

voice. Her cigarette was out and the darkness gathered around them, oily and deep. Faint illumination came through the blinds like light bleeding toward the bottom of a well, a dungeon.
    — You turn it on, he said. —You’re right there.
    —I can’t move.
    —What the hell are you talking about?
    —Please. I’m too scared to move, all right?  She was whining, borderline hysterical. She enjoyed being frightened, savored the visceral thrill of modulated terror, thus Something Scary, and thus the What If Game (What if a carload of rednecks started following us on a lonely road? What if somebody was sneaking around the house at night? What if I got pregnant?), and thus her compulsion to build the shadow, the discolored blotch of wallpaper, into something sinister. As was often the case with her, a mule’s dose of alcohol combined with sleep deprivation rapidly contributed to the situation getting out of hand.
    —Fine. He flopped across her lap and found the lamp chain with his fingertips and yanked. The chain clicked and nothing happened. He tried several times and finally gave up in disgust. Meanwhile, her left hand dug into his shoulder. Her skin was icy.
     —Owww, he said, pushing toward his side, happy to get away. 
    —I knew it. She turned her head so her mouth was closer to his ear and she could kind of whisper.  —I knew the light was going to crap out on us. We’re alone in here.
    —Well, I hope so. I wouldn’t like to think some big hairy ax murderer was hiding under the bed.
    —I already checked. She chuckled weakly and her icy talon found his bicep now, though somewhat less violently. She was almost calm again. —I looked for Anthony Perkins hiding in the bathroom, too.
    —Good! Did you scout around for a peephole? The night clerk could be in the next room winding up his camera. Next thing you know, we’re internet porn stars.
    —That’d suck. She’d begun to slur.  —Man, I hate the desert. 
    —You also hated Costa Rica, if I recall. Who hates Costa Rica?
    —Tarantulas. Centipedes. I hate creepy crawlies.
    —Who doesn’t?
    —Exactly! Thank you! There’s a species of centipede, Venezuela, somewhere in South America, anyway; it’s as long as your forearm. Eats bats. Knocks them outta the air with its venom-dripping mandibles, and bang! Bat Surprise for dinner.
    —You’re super drunk. I thought I had most of the tequila.
    —Yep, I’m off my ass. Some cowboy bought me like eight shooters while you were in the bathroom. You were in there forever.
    —Come again? he said, scandalized.
    —Down, boy. He didn’t grope me. He just plied me with booze on the off chance I’d let him grope me later. No biggie.
    —No biggie? No biggie? Was it that stupid-looking sonofabitch in the Stetson? The guy who couldn’t stop ogling your tits?
    —You’re describing half the bar. Who cares? I gave baby Travolta the slip and ran off with you!
    —Awesome. 
    They lay there for a time, she playing with her lighter, grinding short, weak sparks from the wheel; he listening for the coyote chorus and keeping one eye on the weird blotch of shadow on the wall. Both of them were thinking about the story he’d half told earlier about his uncle Mo who’d done a stint with the Marines and had a weird experience during shore leave in the Philippines; the Something Scary tale that had been so sublimely interrupted.
    She said, —Maybe I’m a little intimidated about the Filipino strippers. I can’t pick up a pop bottle with my pussy. Or shoot ping pong balls outta there, either. 
    —Those girls come highly recommended, he said. —Years of specialized training.
    —Sounds like your uncle sure knew his way around Filipino whorehouses.
    —Wasn’t just the whorehouses. Those old boys went crazy on shore leave ’cause that far-out shit was front and center in just about every bar in town. They were dumbass kids—pretty fortunate nobody got his throat slit. According to Mo, a bunch of the taxi drivers