Bone Whispers by Tim Waggoner

Author:Tim Waggoner [Waggoner, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror short stories
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2020-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

Country Roads

Eric glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard, and saw it was 3:38 a.m. He’d been driving all over Cabell County for almost three hours now, and so far the most interesting thing he’d seen was a raccoon. The animal had sat frozen in a ditch, staring at Eric’s Altima as he drove by, eyes wide and shining bright as the light from the car’s headlights washed over it. That was all: no deer, no coyotes, no other vehicles out cruising the back roads… and certainly not what Eric was searching for.

He reached for the thermos sitting in the cup holder, picked it up, and raised it to his mouth. The coffee inside had long ago gone cold, but it was strong and bitter, and full of caffeine, which was all that mattered. Eric was down to the dregs now, only a few swallows left at most. That, more than the length of time he’d been driving, made him consider giving up for the night and heading home.

And that’s when he saw her.

She stood at the side of the road, draped in a sheer white outfit that might have been a dress, but might just as easily have been a nightgown. Her hair was long, black, and straight, and though it was windy tonight, both her gown and her hair remained still.

Eric eased his foot off the gas and slowly pressed down on the brake. In his rearview mirror, he saw the red glow of brake lights color the road behind his car, and he couldn’t help thinking how eerie the light looked, like his Altima was wounded and trailing blood.

The woman’s chalk-white complexion made her age difficult to determine—Eric guessed late twenties, early thirties, but she could’ve been anywhere from fifteen to forty-five. She stared straight ahead, expressionless and unblinking, like a life-sized porcelain doll. Just as he remembered her.

His heart pounded in his chest, and he felt a cold surge of fear at the base of his sternum. He clasped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles throbbed, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to lift his foot off the brake, tromp down on the gas, and get the hell out of there. But he’d been searching for this women for hours, and now that he’d found her, he wasn’t about to flee, no matter how much he wanted to.

The Altima slowed to a stop next to the woman, and Eric put the car in park. He put his finger on the control to lower the driver’s-side window, hesitated for a couple seconds, and then pressed it. The window receded into the door with an electronic hum.

The woman gave no sign that she was aware of him—she didn’t lower her gaze to look at him, didn’t move, didn’t even appear to be breathing. Cool spring air wafted in from outside, bearing with it the sounds of insects and nightbirds. The noises seemed out of place, far too normal given the circumstances. It

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