Read Online Bones & All by Camille Deangelis - Free Book Online Page B

opened my mouth, but no sound came out. How could I scream, when it was all so familiar to me?
    If he knew I was there he gave no sign of it, nor did he seem the slightest bit agitated. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he wasn’t sorry. He chomped and chewed and swallowed calmly, methodically even. Is that what I look like when I do it? Do I make those horrible noises?
    When he was done with her belly he reached back and grabbed her long purple fingers, and the crunching started. He inched down the sofa, still sitting on his heels, as he munched on her legs. I wanted to look away, but I never did.
    When he was finished he rocked back on his heels and let out a belch that would have registered on the Richter scale. “Pardon me,” he muttered as he drew a grubby yellow handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his mouth. “You got nothin’ to worry about,” he said as he stuffed the kerchief back in his pocket. “I never eat ’em live.” At no point had he turned to look at me. Somehow he just knew I was there.
    He reached around him, gathering the scraps of her clothing and stuffing them into one of the bags we’d brought the groceries home in. Her brown leather shoes stood neatly where her feet had been, awaiting their next outing like it would ever happen. The man glanced at me, then reached over and slid them behind the floral dust-flap.
    When I finally spoke my voice sounded like I’d borrowed it. “I thought I was the only one.”
    He shrugged. “Everybody does.” He pulled something out of the crumpled afghan on the sofa and jingled it in his hand. It was a tangle of Mrs. Harmon’s jewelry, the rings that had been on her fingers and the locket of cream and pink enamel around her neck. Cupping the jewelry in a dirty hand, he got up to the sound of creaking bones and settled himself in the armchair beside the sofa. He made as if to dip his hand into his shirt pocket, then decided against it.
    â€œHere,” he said. The stranger leaned forward, and I held out my hand to accept the little pile of jewelry. Then he drew a tarnished silver flask out of his shirt pocket and tipped it. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he gulped. Washing her down . I’d only known Mrs. Harmon for an hour, but in that moment I missed her like I’d known her all my life.
    I went to the mantelpiece and untangled the rings from the chain, laying the jewelry out piece by piece in front of the old pictures Mrs. Harmon had remembered her husband by. A dashing Douglas Harmon in soft focus regarded me with a benevolence I didn’t deserve.
    â€œListen here. High time we introduced ourselves. Name’s Sullivan.” The man got to his feet and held out his hand. His eyes were pale blue under his shaggy gray eyebrows. “Sully, for short.”
    Before I had a chance to refuse him he glanced down at his fingers—stained red, especially around the cuticles—and thought better of offering his hand. He went into the kitchen and ran his hands under the faucet, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Well? Don’t you got a name, girl?”
    I’d never met anyone who talked like him before. He must have been from somewhere south, someplace rural, like West Virginia. “Maren,” I said.
    â€œNice name. Never heard it before,” Sullivan said as he dried his hands on Mrs. Harmon’s dish towel. His fingers still weren’t what I would have called clean. For all I knew, though, whiskey might have been way more effective than Listerine.
    â€œHow did you know?” I asked.
    He lifted a hoary eyebrow. “You mean how did I know about you?” I nodded, and Sully paused, as if he were deciding how to answer. “I just know,” he said.
    â€œYou saw me … this morning, on the bus … and you knew? Just like that?”
    â€œI knew it was you,” he said.
    â€œYou said, ‘Everybody