Read Online Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set by Connie Flynn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Connie Flynn
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French and wasn't easy for
him to understand.
Finally, he handed back the journal, tossed his cigarette
overboard, then bent for the flask. The tour boat sped across the water as he
took another drink.
Zach sighed as he put the flask down. He was getting
downright schizoid around this woman. Sometimes he saw so much of Izzy in her.
At those times he was torn between intense hostility at the absence of the girl
he'd loved, and a craving to yank this replacement close and kiss her till she
begged for more. At this precise moment, he wasn't sure which he felt.
She looked soft and cuddly now, with her hair curling into
soft tendrils around her face and bare legs sticking out of those shapeless
shorts. Yet intense, too, in the passionate way she'd been as a girl. Alive and
eager for each experience. Feeling each one deeply. Looking almost as she had
the last time he'd seen her wear those denims.
Her parents had thrown another fais do-do shortly
before Liz disappeared. Only they hadn't been little kids anymore. As
teenagers, they'd thought they were so grown up and had two-stepped and waltzed
on the lawn with the adults, trying hard not to betray the heat they felt for
each other.
That was no longer all there was to the girl he'd loved.
That was only Izzy. A "what you see is what you get" girl, incapable
of hiding her thoughts and feelings. A girl who'd touched his heart so much
he'd once wanted to find her a golden orchid.
Liz Deveraux isn't Izzy. Liz Deveraux isn't Izzy. If he
repeated it enough times, he might get it through his thick skull.
Man seedling, come to me.
The words intruded into his thoughts and wiped out the
mantra he'd been repeating. He shivered, recalling the day he'd attempted to
find the fabled Quadray Island.
On a dare. After one of the guys on his eighth-grade
football team had said he was too chicken to go after the orchid that reputedly
grew there. They'd been scaring each other with stories: Half-Man, a creature
missing half its body who traveled by forming himself into a hoop; and the
ghost of Jean Laffite, which no one bought because good old Jean was reported
in every spooky nook and cranny of Louisiana.
But le fantome noir . Even the name made kids tremble.
A swirling mass of inky black, he was said to turn men's blood to ice, to suck
up young boys, only to spit them out like icicles.
Izzy had been listening to the stories, too. When the dare
came up, she looked at the other guys like they were fools and said, "Zach
can do it."
So Zach, barely thirteen, and wanting so badly to impress
her, had climbed into his pirogue one summer morning and headed out to fetch
the orchid. He'd paddled and poled through the swamp all day until, as he let
everyone think later, he'd actually found those mythic shores.
The sun was nearly down when he entered the bog near the
island's reputed location. Cut grass and lily pads choked the shallow water so
badly he couldn't row more than two or three feet that the vegetation wasn't
grabbing at his paddle or slicing his hands and arms. Mosquitoes swarmed,
biting him and raising welts that itched all the worse when he scratched them.
Nothing else moved out there—not an alligator or a nutria, not even a fish
surfacing for food. He hadn't seen a bird in over an hour.
But he was determined to get Izzy that orchid.
Then things got scary, real, real scary. The sky darkened,
but Zach saw no clouds in the sky. The falling sun looked like a pale fuzzy
moon behind the gloom. He stopped paddling, scanning the area for anything to
explain it.
Fires danced on the bogs, lifting and falling, falling and
lifting, or so it seemed. He knew they were just swamp gases, not spirits of
the dead as some believed, because he'd learned it in fourth grade. But he
could never remember will-o'-the-wisps glowing red like that.
He paddled on and on, dedicated to getting Izzy that orchid.
He couldn't stand to let her see the other boys laughing at him, humiliating
him, letting her know he
him to understand.
Finally, he handed back the journal, tossed his cigarette
overboard, then bent for the flask. The tour boat sped across the water as he
took another drink.
Zach sighed as he put the flask down. He was getting
downright schizoid around this woman. Sometimes he saw so much of Izzy in her.
At those times he was torn between intense hostility at the absence of the girl
he'd loved, and a craving to yank this replacement close and kiss her till she
begged for more. At this precise moment, he wasn't sure which he felt.
She looked soft and cuddly now, with her hair curling into
soft tendrils around her face and bare legs sticking out of those shapeless
shorts. Yet intense, too, in the passionate way she'd been as a girl. Alive and
eager for each experience. Feeling each one deeply. Looking almost as she had
the last time he'd seen her wear those denims.
Her parents had thrown another fais do-do shortly
before Liz disappeared. Only they hadn't been little kids anymore. As
teenagers, they'd thought they were so grown up and had two-stepped and waltzed
on the lawn with the adults, trying hard not to betray the heat they felt for
each other.
That was no longer all there was to the girl he'd loved.
That was only Izzy. A "what you see is what you get" girl, incapable
of hiding her thoughts and feelings. A girl who'd touched his heart so much
he'd once wanted to find her a golden orchid.
Liz Deveraux isn't Izzy. Liz Deveraux isn't Izzy. If he
repeated it enough times, he might get it through his thick skull.
Man seedling, come to me.
The words intruded into his thoughts and wiped out the
mantra he'd been repeating. He shivered, recalling the day he'd attempted to
find the fabled Quadray Island.
On a dare. After one of the guys on his eighth-grade
football team had said he was too chicken to go after the orchid that reputedly
grew there. They'd been scaring each other with stories: Half-Man, a creature
missing half its body who traveled by forming himself into a hoop; and the
ghost of Jean Laffite, which no one bought because good old Jean was reported
in every spooky nook and cranny of Louisiana.
But le fantome noir . Even the name made kids tremble.
A swirling mass of inky black, he was said to turn men's blood to ice, to suck
up young boys, only to spit them out like icicles.
Izzy had been listening to the stories, too. When the dare
came up, she looked at the other guys like they were fools and said, "Zach
can do it."
So Zach, barely thirteen, and wanting so badly to impress
her, had climbed into his pirogue one summer morning and headed out to fetch
the orchid. He'd paddled and poled through the swamp all day until, as he let
everyone think later, he'd actually found those mythic shores.
The sun was nearly down when he entered the bog near the
island's reputed location. Cut grass and lily pads choked the shallow water so
badly he couldn't row more than two or three feet that the vegetation wasn't
grabbing at his paddle or slicing his hands and arms. Mosquitoes swarmed,
biting him and raising welts that itched all the worse when he scratched them.
Nothing else moved out there—not an alligator or a nutria, not even a fish
surfacing for food. He hadn't seen a bird in over an hour.
But he was determined to get Izzy that orchid.
Then things got scary, real, real scary. The sky darkened,
but Zach saw no clouds in the sky. The falling sun looked like a pale fuzzy
moon behind the gloom. He stopped paddling, scanning the area for anything to
explain it.
Fires danced on the bogs, lifting and falling, falling and
lifting, or so it seemed. He knew they were just swamp gases, not spirits of
the dead as some believed, because he'd learned it in fourth grade. But he
could never remember will-o'-the-wisps glowing red like that.
He paddled on and on, dedicated to getting Izzy that orchid.
He couldn't stand to let her see the other boys laughing at him, humiliating
him, letting her know he
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