Death’s Excellent Vacation (Sookie Stackhouse #9.5)(62)
Author: Charlaine Harris

WE slid down behind a protective bunker of sea grass and sand. "I’ve never . . . " I mumbled as she unbuttoned my jeans. "Don’t worry. I have. " Her heavy br**sts swayed as her fingers worked over my zipper. "What about . . . ?" She put a finger to my lips. "Shhh. You’re just nervous. " I nodded. I was. "Here. " She dug into her beach bag. Found the crumpled Doral package. "Have another smoke. It’ll calm you down. " "I thought we were supposed to, you know, smoke afterward. " She lit two fresh Dorals. "We will, Dave. We will. " That’s when I saw it. Behind her. Just above her shoulder. She held out a cigarette. I didn’t take it.  "Dave?" I wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. How could I? How could anyone? Ten feet behind Brenda Narramore, lurching out of the shadows, was the demon of the dunes! An ancient, decrepit man–no, the gaunt walking skeleton of an old man, all jagged bone edges and drum-tight skin. He was hunched over in pain as if his spine were fused into a crooked hump. The thing was barefoot and cloaked in a shroud of white that only fluttered down to his knees, fully exposing the dried scabs and weeping blisters tattooing his shins. I shoved Brenda away. Roughly. The two cigarettes she’d been holding fell like fire-streaking comets to the sand. I fumbled with my zipper. "It’s . . . " She looked where I was staring, where I pointed. "What?" She saw nothing. If only I had been so lucky. A malevolent cloud moved away from the moon so it could illuminate the demon’s monstrously withered face. Under the folds of the hooded cloak, I saw sunken, hollow cheeks. A gaping hole for a mouth. No hair. Not even above his hollow eyes. No eyelashes, either. Just the puffed-open, bulging eyeballs of a startled embryo. I know I whimpered. "David?" My whimpering freaked Brenda out. I didn’t really care.  Panicked, I tried to scrabble backward, to scale the dune wall, to escape over the top of that horrible sand trap and run away from the demon only I could see. Then I heard the creature’s leathery lungs rasping for breath. Snoring backward, its chest expanded like a balloon–causing its shriveled face to be seized with unbearable pain. That’s when Brenda abandoned me. "You guys?" she screamed as she ran away, covering her br**sts as best she could. "You guys?" I wanted to run away, too, but my legs were paralyzed. The demon of the dunes staggered forward. It wheezed, and I was hit with the rank odor of death. It raised its right arm and pointed one gruesomely long, bony finger at me. "Who are you?" I stammered, even though I knew the answer: The demon was my drunken hallucination. My emaciated pink elephant. Apparently beer and wine weren’t always fine. Wine and beer could be something to fear. Especially if you polish off a whole six-pack and chase it with a half a bottle of strawberry-flavored rubbing alcohol. Especially after listening to ghost stories. This creature had to be a nightmarish manifestation of my latent Catholic guilt. An illusion. A hideous incarnation of my unbridled shame about what Brenda Narramore and I had almost done. This was the thing the nuns had warned us about. Mortal sin manifested in the guise of the Grim Reaper. I wasn’t married to Miss Narramore, but I had seen her naked br**sts. I had almost done more. I deserved to be tortured by the devils and demons of my own imagining.  As the beast lurched closer, I could smell the rancid-meat breath seeping out its mouth hole. "Stop! Now!" It croaked the words. "Stop! Now!"

I move uncomfortably in the bed. Try not to wake my wife. Why am I remembering Saturday, August sixteenth, 1975? Am I, for whatever reason, meant to finally unravel the mystery of the demon in the dunes? Honestly, it’s something I haven’t thought about in more than three decades. Long ago, I feared that my actions that hot summer night had riled up a slumbering spirit bent on punishing those who did not adhere to its stern moral code. I imagined the wizened old man under the wrinkled robe to be the ghost of one of Brenda Narramore’s distant relatives who, like the grandfather in Kevin’s tale, had come back from the dead to protect her chastity and, when he couldn’t persuade me to stop, turned his wrath on her! For a time, I was certain that the demon lurking in the dunes was Brenda Narramore’s guardian devil.

THE next morning, I remember, Kevin and I went out for breakfast at this deli where they made extremely greasy fried- egg and bacon with cheese sandwiches. Hangover food. "So, dude–you totally freaked that Brenda chick out last night. " "Yeah. " "What’d you do? Pull out your wanker?" I shook my head. "I saw . . . Something. " "What? Her humongous titties?" I looked up from my sandwich. "Hey, " Kevin said defensively, holding up his hands, "everybody saw her running up the beach, man. She let it all hang out. " I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell Kevin about the demon I thought I had seen in the dunes. We weren’t little kids anymore. We weren’t allowed to see prowling phantoms in the shadows or bogeymen hiding underneath our beds. "I guess I acted like a dork, " I finally said. "Don’t worry, bro. Plenty of fish on the beach. We’ll meet some fresh chicks. Probably today. " He held out his Kent pack. Two bent cigarettes were all that were left inside the wrinkled pouch. "Smoke ’em if you got ’em. " "No, thanks. " "I thought you smoked now. " "I’m quitting. My lungs still hurt from last night. Feel like charcoal briquettes. " "You’ll get used to it, bro. You just cough up the phlegm and junk in the shower every morning. That clears ’em right out. " I waved him off. Kevin sighed. Put his Kents back in his pocket. "Bummer. " "Yeah. " ONE week later, however, Brenda Narramore forgave me. On the second Saturday of my family’s two-week vacation, she strolled boldly up the beach, wearing nothing but a bikini and big sunglasses, her hair as wild as a brown sea of coiled serpents. She headed straight for the rolled-out towels where Kevin, Jerry, and I had set up shop for the day. She had her beach bag slung over her shoulder and carried a portable radio like a lunch bucket, swinging it alongside her hip, letting it brush against the stretched fabric of her bikini bottom. I think "My Eyes Adored You" was droning out of the solid-state Sanyo’s tinny speaker. "I remember my first drunk, " she said softly as my eyes did as the song suggested. "What was it like?" I asked, my mouth drier than burnt toast. "I saw giant lizards. " She shot out her tongue. Flicked at imaginary flies. Rolled it back to moisten her lips. "Where are your two little buddies?" I gestured to the left, where Jerry and Kevin were flirting with two bubbly blondes on a nearby beach blanket. High school girls. They had decided to "aim a little lower" after six straight days of crashing and burning with college chicks. "You want to blow this pop stand?" Brenda asked. "Sure. " "You ever do the Haunted House on the Boardwalk?" "Once. When I was little. " "You ever do it with a girl?"  I could only shake my head. "It’s dark in there, David. Real dark. Nobody can see you doing whatever it is you want to do. "