Page 25 of No Bones About It

We both go still, trying to process what we just heard. BJ starts to stand, but I can’t let him investigate and risk him being seen.

I whisper shout, “No, you have to stay here!”

He puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head at me, pointing to himself and then the tent wall, then me and the ground.

I understand that he wants me to wait here while he goes to check things out, but I can’t let him. Instead of wasting time arguing, I just take off, unzipping the flap and running around the side. As I round the corner, I take off in a sprint when I see the gate slam closed.

“No, no, no,” I chant under my breath, each syllable pounding out through my feet into the ground and ricocheting back into my bones.

Raw panic consumes me as I worry someone saw something that will get BJ taken from me. I can’t imagine what would happen if news of a sentient skeleton broke.

Would the police come? Oh, what if the government came and took him? Would it be like every alien movie ever made?

My heart stutters with each fresh fear washing over me in waves. How could I have been so stupid? I should have taken him away from all of this as soon as I knew he was sentient. I never should have risked his safety for these stupid pictures and the viral support. None of this matters compared to him.

Clenching the flapping ends of my torn shirt around me, I chase the peeping Tom around the corner of the fence to find it’s not a peeping Tom at all.

It’s a peeping Lois. Because of fucking course it’s Lois.

She is two steps away from jumping into Pam’s car when I call, “Lois, wait!”

She spins and fixes me with an evil glare, scarier than any horror movie I’ve ever seen. “How are you going to explain your way out of this, huh? He’s now some porno movie prop? You disgust me. Having sex with a plastic skeleton. You’re—” She pauses, grasping about for the worst insult she can hurl at me. “—unnatural.”

I stand there, trying to catch my breath between the accusations she’s hurling at me.

She takes a menacing step towards me, finger jabbing at my heaving chest. “You’re lewd. Vulgar. All your Happy Halloween horseshit is nothing more than a farce for your twisted perversions!”

“What? No. It’s nothing like that,” I gasp, hands fisted as I try to keep my torn shirt around me like a shield.

Her face freezes, and the color drains from her face as her eyes go wide.

“Now, see Lois? You’re so upset you gave yourself a heart attack,” I hiss.

But she doesn’t move. Lois just stands there—frozen.

Realization dawns as I feel the looming presence behind me. I don’t need to turn around to know just who is standing behind me.

“Wow, these animatronics have really come a long way,” I rush out. “I, um, am just going to go unplug him now.”

I spin and point furiously to the backyard, but BJ doesn’t move. Fire snaps in his LED eyes, and I’m torn between smiling at him coming to my rescue, a twelve-foot tall white knight in bony armor, and an intense fear that this is the end of him. Of us.

“Please, BJ. I cannot lose you. I just can’t,” I plead.

His eyes snap down to me, and the fire is replaced with sad eyes. A large skeletal hand stretches out and takes mine.

I toss a look over my shoulder to see Lois gasping like a fish. At least Pam has the sense to stay in the car. She calls, “Lois! Lois, get in!”

I don’t wait to see what happens when they take off. I just lead BJ back to the tent.

“Thanks, big guy. Let’s finish this movie,” I say with false brightness.

He cocks his head at me, as if he knows that I’m not okay. That this isn’t okay and maybe nothing will ever be okay again.

“We’ll figure something out,” I say and paste a smile on my face. But the realization that the moment I’ve been avoiding has come.

My Halloween honeymoon is over, and reality is already trying to claw its way back into my life like a B-movie graveyard zombie reaching up for my ankles.

BJ keeps looking around but I focus on radiating calm. In actuality, I’m keeping one ear out for sirens while the rest of me is soaking up every single moment with him, knowing this night could very well be our last.