Read Online Over Your Dead Body by Dan Wells - Free Book Online

here with us.”
    “Did you … talk to them?”
    “It’s not like that,” said Marci, “it’s more of a … I don’t know. I think I was aware of everything Nobody did in my body because it was my body, and I was still in there, but now I’m not … I’m not me, I guess. I’m my memories. Maybe I’m actually Brooke and I only think I’m Marci, but I remember everything—things Brooke never knew, things nobody ever knew—and I feel like me. The body’s weird, I’ll grant you—I was never this thin—but I really feel like me . My personality, my habits, my … self. I guess I just contradicted myself, like, five times in one breath, but … does that make sense?”
    “No,” I said quickly, then shook my head and sighed. “But none of this does, and it hasn’t for years.”
    “We’re hunting demons, right?” said Marci.
    “We were,” I said, “but that’s because Brooke wanted to. If you’re you now—”
    “Come on,” said Marci, “remember who you’re talking to. The cop’s daughter and the mortician’s son, together again.” She raised her eyebrows with a mischievous smile, then shrugged. “This isn’t really how I imagined our TV series would go, though.”
    “Nothing’s gone the way we wanted,” I said.
    Boy Dog wandered toward us, back from exploring the smells of the area, and I gestured toward him. “By the way, this is Boy Dog. Boy Dog, Marci.”
    “His name is Boy Dog?”
    “I didn’t name him,” I said.
    “Obviously you would have gone with Harvey.”
    “Obviously.” She knew me better than I remembered.
    She crouched down and Boy Dog padded toward her and licked her hands and face. “Good boy,” she said, scratching his ears. “Good Boy Dog. This is…” Her voice trailed off, and she put her hand on the asphalt.
    And held it there, seconds ticking by into minutes, closing her eyes and simply … being.
    “The road’s warm,” she said at last. “Just a little, but you can feel it. Asphalt traps the heat from the sun. And the breeze is cool, and it smells like … cows.” She laughed, her eyes still closed. “Chlorophyll. I can smell cut grass and motor oil and lilacs. I haven’t smelled a lilac in … how long has it been?”
    “Two years,” I whispered.
    “Two years.” She stood up slowly, opening her eyes to stare up at the sky. Boy Dog flopped to his belly, resting on her toes protectively. “Two years. The twins’ll be six.”
    “You can’t go back.”
    Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I know.” She stared at the sky for a moment longer, then looked at me and wiped her eyes. “Anyway. We’re standing in the middle of the road in the middle of the night, with backpacks that I assume hold all our worldly possessions. Safe to assume we just got here?”
    I nodded. “We hitchhiked.”
    “So now what?”
    I stared at her helplessly. “I can’t do this.”
    “Can’t do what?”
    “You know what,” I said. “You…” I sighed, feeling like every word was a struggle. “I couldn’t let Brooke get taken over by a demon, and now…”
    “I’m not a demon.”
    You’re the only person I ever loved , I thought, but I couldn’t say it. I’d only ever said it to her corpse. “You’re one of the most important people in my life,” I said at last. “I want her to be herself, but I want you more than anything, and that’s … this is too much.”
    “I won’t be here forever,” said Marci.
    “You think that makes this better?”
    “We can’t just stand here in the street all night,” said Marci. “I’m guessing we don’t have a place to stay, so do we just … find one? Look for a motel, start knocking on doors—”
    “We can’t afford a motel,” I said quickly. “We stayed in one two nights ago.” One hundred and four dollars and eighty-six cents. The money we’d spent that night could have fed us for a week. I bit my lip, pained by the thought of Marci sleeping in the dirt, and tried to talk myself into