Death Offerings by Alicia Dean

Author:Alicia Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2014-06-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Summer, 1983

Light from the bulb on the back porch seeped in around the edges of the tent flap. The spark of fireflies flickered on and off. We'd stood flashlights upright inside coffee cans to illuminate the inside of the tent. The glow shone on Josie and Katie's faces, lending an eerie cast to their features.

"Every Breath You Take" played on the boom box, and I leaned over to turn up the volume.

"Come on, Roe," Josie said. "You can't let go of the board. We all have to concentrate together."

"Take a chill pill," I said, scooting back to the Ouija board and once more placing my fingers on it.

"Okay. Here we go. Is everyone concentrating?" At mine and Katie's nods, Josie spoke, her voice hushed and solemn, "Is the legend about Jeremiah really true?"

I heard Katie catch her breath and knew she was scared. She hadn't wanted to mess with the Ouija board in the first place. We waited in silence, hands poised lightly on the planchette. A slight quiver started at the tips of my fingers. Or was that just my imagination?

A shiver skittered up my spine. I liked a good scare as well as anyone, but I didn't want to actually conjure evil spirits.

When the planchette began to move, I told myself Josie was making it. But I wasn't sure.

Gradually, the planchette made its way upward. It slowed, then stopped on 'yes.'

Katie jerked her hands away. "I don't want to play anymore."

"Quit being a big baby," Josie said, rolling her eyes. "It happened, like, fifty years ago."

"It was thirty," I said.

I knew the story well. It had taken place in 1953 behind the woods of my house, just beyond where my friends and I were now.

Jeremiah Bodecker had been ten years old when he was murdered. His mother had beaten him to death. Then, fearing her husband would come home from work and discover what she'd done, she took his body out to the woods and dumped him in the well.

When Jeremiah's father came home, she told him Jeremiah had run away. That night, unable to sleep, imagining she heard her son's voice in the house, the woman got out of bed and went into the woods to make sure the boy was still in the well. She never returned. A few days later, a hunter found her body. She lay in the bottom of the same well where she'd thrown her son. Her throat had been torn out. Also in the well was a pair of cowboy pajamas, just like the ones Jeremiah had worn. His body, however, was never found.

Some claimed that at the well, on a still night, the screams of a woman and the laughter of a little boy could be heard. I had been out there several times and never heard anything.

"Come on, Katie. Put your hands back on it," Josie begged. "We all have to do it for it to work."

"I don't want to."

"It's okay," I told her. "It's just a silly board.

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