Page 52 of How (Not) to Conjure a Boyfriend
“Fuck you,” I blare and let out a few of the giggles I’d held on to.
“Testy.” Zachary grins.
Kaitlynn’s eyes jump between us. “Flir—”
“It’s a cool story!” I shift to my right and about knock her off the log we’re sharing. Okay, I kneed her, but she deserved it, and it wasn’t too obvious. She’ll be okay, because I didn’t tell her what happened, nothing, and I’m about ninety-nine percent sure she didn’t see us in the house. She was outside. Right? Then again it is Kaity. She could have been spying through the window or happened to be at the door when we kissed. Oh shit. No. Just sidestep it. She said she called because she was getting bored. “Really. Like really cool.”
“Oh…” Zachary doesn’t seem convinced. “Okay. Tell me about this ‘demon’ dog then.”
The tension in my shoulders lightens, and I allow myself to lean back so I’m not hovering over the fire, and give Kaity a little room.
“You know where Valle Crucis is, right?” I ask first. It’s a crucial part of the story, both in name and location.
“I’ve an idea. Up above Boone, right?” he asks.
“Depends on how you’re looking at the map,” Kaitlynn says.
“What?” I side-eye her. How you look at the map?
“Yeah, you know.” She shrugs. “Depends on what direction you hold it.”
I shake my head and try to forget what she just said before returning my attention to Zach, who seems enormously amused.
“If you hold the mapright,” I stress, glancing at Kaitlynn again for a second, “yeah, sort of, at least. Anyway, it’s up there. There’s this old white church up there too. Think it’s St. John’s something. It’s an old church with a cemetery next to it.”
“Like most,” Kaitlynn mutters.
I grunt but otherwise act like she didn’t just make a sarcastic comment.
“So according to legend, in like the 1700s, no, wait… No. In the 1800s, a bunch of people kept going missing and some of the townspeople found literal dismembered body parts in the woods.” I’m assuming he can stomach this. Probably should have asked first, now that I’m thinking about it, but he’ll be okay. “Guess wh—”
“Dismembered?” Zachary interrupts, and swallows. “You mean like severed arms and legs and shit?”
“Yeah, probably some heads and hands too.” I shrug and grin.
“And maybe some dicks,” Kaitlynn pooches her lips and fake whispers.
I cough, trying not to let her embarrass me. I know that’s what she’s after. “Yeah, that too probably.”
“Definitely dicks.” Zachary nods and laughs. “Lots of dicks.”
“Okay, back to the story.” I pull them back in. Dicks are great and all, but that’s not the story. “So yeah, they started finding stuff like that—”
“Dicks,” Kaitlynn shouts, but I keep going.
“—and figured… Oh wait! Did I say they found the body partsbehindthe church?”
“Nope,” Zachary says matter-of-factly and smacks his lips. “Damn.”
“Yeah. Well, so they all thought it was, like, some wild animal. You know, how else are people getting ripped to shreds and left in the woods? But they didn’t know what animal or why it was near the church. Eventually someone claimed they’d seen a massive black, smoldering red-eyed dog. It was taller than any normal man. Horrifying and vicious. But it never went past the bridge.”
“Wait, it’s a demon dog, but it couldn’t get past a bridge?” Zach shifts and one of his cheeks draws up toward his ear.
“Yeah,” I say like it makes perfect sense and start back. “It—”
“Why?” Zachary isn’t done yet.
“If you’ll let me finish, I’m going to tell you—it’s sort of a big part of the story,” I tell him.
