Chapter 5 #2
He raises the cupcake to his mouth with grave ceremony. Tries to bite. Frosting smears over his jawbone, black crumbs lodging in his empty sockets. Half the cake collapses, tumbling straight through his ribcage and landing squarely on the ivy twining around his femur.
I wheeze with laughter, tears running down my face. “You—you look like a toddler at a birthday party!”
Marrow doesn’t even break character. He wipes his mouth with a bony thumb and intones, “Your gift nourishes my very soul.”
Skully throws himself onto the blanket, arms sprawled. “Your soul, mate? You just deep-throated a cupcake and lost the fight.”
“Romance,” Marrow insists.
“Romance my bony arse.” Skully kicks one skeletal foot at him, bones clacking.
Meanwhile, Bonehead is still holding a deviled egg like he thinks the second try will work out better. He shoves it into his mouth again. It hits the grass again. He stares at me, hollow sockets somehow full of despair. “Broken.”
I clutch his wrist, eyes wide, trying not to howl. “No, baby, not broken. You’re perfect.”
He perks up instantly, puffing his bony chest. “Perfect smash?”
“Perfect smash,” I assure him solemnly.
Skully rolls onto his side, finger bones drumming against the Ouija board like it’s a coffee table. “Alright then, sweetheart. You’ve got us here—messy dinner party, tragic table manners, three blokes who don’t know their arse from a femur. Question is: how’d you do it?”
I blink at him, frosting still smeared on my chin. “Do what?”
He gestures broadly at himself, then Bonehead, then Marrow still delicately cradling half a collapsed cupcake like it’s a dying bird. “This. Skeletons. Walking. Talking. Bitching about not having dicks. Bit hard to miss.”
“Oh.” I wave a hand, dismissive, like resurrecting the dead is the kind of thing people accidentally do all the time. “That was just—y’know. A vibe.”
“A vibe?” Skully snorts so hard crumbs of black frosting shoot out his nasal cavity. “Darlin’, I’ve seen bad Ouija boards and drunk goths in graveyards, but none of ‘em yanked me out of eternal rest with jazz hands and a goddamn snack tray.”
“I wasn’t trying,” I protest, indignant. “I was…festivating! A little dinner, a little ambiance, some quality alone time with my favorite corpses. It’s called self-care.”
Bonehead perks up like a Labrador. “Care! She care for us!” He thumps his chest so hard three ribs shift out of place with a squeak.
Marrow gently sets his mangled cupcake down, lowering his skull toward me with solemn reverence. “So our resurrection was not ritual, but longing. A call not from spell, but soul.”
I gape at him, heart tripping. “Exactly. Yes. Thank you. See, this one gets it.”
“Gets it?” Skully throws up his bony hands. “She just had a wank on our graves, and now we’re-” He pauses, gesturing helplessly at himself again. “-this.”
“It was mutual,” I snap, cheeks hot. “I gave you dinner! I gave you ambiance! I even gave you glitter!”
The Ouija board rattles under Skully’s elbow, planchette jerking hard enough to thwack him in the ribs. He glares down at it like it’s heckling him. “Oh, piss off.”
I sit up straighter, pointing at the board. “See? That’s proof. It’s, like, totally legit magic. You guys are welcome.”
“Welcome?” Skully croaks, sockets narrowing. “You kidnapped us from the afterlife!”
“I invited you to a party,” I correct primly, tugging my nightgown higher on my thighs. “Big difference.”
Bonehead slams both fists against the earth, gravel scattering. “Party! Smash party!”
“Oh my God.” Skully drags both bony hands down his face. “We’re fucked.”
Marrow tilts his skull toward me, voice dropping low, almost tender. “If it was longing that summoned us, then know this—I would stay. Always. Eternity pales beside your touch.”
My lips part, a shiver dancing down my spine. “Oh my God, you’re so hot.”
Skully points at him, screeching. “He’s bones! He’s reciting Shakespeare with frosting in his eye socket, and you’re dripping for him!”
I grin, teeth bared. “Don’t act like you don’t love it. You’d still let me sit on your lap.”
Skully freezes, sockets darting away. “No comment.”
The Ouija board jerks again, planchette dragging sharp across the letters. H-A-L-L.
I cackle, slapping the velvet. “See? Even the spirits are shipping us already. H. A. L. L. Obviously they’re writing out my last name.”
Marrow shifts, the last crumbs of cupcake sliding out from between his ribs like confetti at a funeral. His voice lowers, smooth as a cello in a coffin:
“It will not last forever.”
It will not last forever.
I blink at him, frosting-streaked, glitter sticking to my thighs. “Excuse me?”
He folds his long limbs with eerie grace, hands clasped behind his back as though he’s reciting to a ballroom instead of a drunk girl on a picnic blanket.
“The veil is thin tonight, yes. Your…fervor”—his sockets linger on my thighs for a beat too long—“tore it wider. But come All Hallows’ Eve, it will seal again.
We will be drawn back through, bone to dust, until the veil opens once more. ”
I gape. “Wait. You’re saying…” My voice cracks into a squeak. “…you’re seasonal boyfriends?”
“Seasonal?” Skully snorts, now lounging against his own gravestone like a bartender about to cut me off. “Like a fucking Pumpkin Spice Latte? Love me now, darlin’, I’m gone when Starbucks shuts the taps.”
“Seasonal boyfriends!” I clap my hands, delighted, then gasp like I’ve solved world hunger. “Limited edition! Like McRibs!”
“McRibs smash!” Bonehead bellows, tearing up another chunk of sod and brandishing it like a trophy.
Marrow ignores them both, solemn. “If you wish to keep us until Halloween…you would need to tether us. Bind blood to bone. Flesh to flesh.”
“Ohhh.” I flop dramatically onto my back, legs splayed on the velvet blanket. “Bone to blood, flesh to flesh—Marrow, honey, you cannot just say things like that and expect me to keep my panties on.”
“You’re not wearing any,” Skully mutters, sockets wagging flirtatiously.
“Details,” I chirp, wagging a glittery finger at him.
Bonehead, meanwhile, crouches low beside me, thumping his chest. “Bind me! Bind smash!”
Skully groans, dragging a hand down his skull like he wishes he had hair to pull. “Oh hell, I’m stuck in a Scooby-Doo porno.”
The Ouija board rattles violently, planchette dragging across the letters fast as a heartbeat. H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N.
I sit up, eyes going wide and doll-bright. “Halloween.” My giggle comes out cracked and feral. “So I’ve got, like, three weeks with my spooky boyband before you poof back into dust? Oh my God, it’s like a limited-series romance.”
Marrow inclines his skull, courtly. “Then let us make the most of borrowed time.”
Bonehead suddenly lurches to his feet first, clutching the headstone he ripped out like it’s his emotional support club. “Home?” He rumbles, tilting his skull toward me. “Where smash?”
I scramble upright, swaying on my heels. “Yes, home. My Haunted Barbie Dreamhouse. You’ll love it. Fog machine, neon signs, skeleton orgy on the lawn—very on brand for you guys.”
Skully throws his hands up, bones clattering. “Jesus wept, she’s serious. We’re really doing the walk of shame with the Addams Family Rejects?”
“Not a walk of shame,” I correct brightly, sweeping my arms out to corral them like drunk toddlers at Chuck E. Cheese. “A triumphant procession of death and desire. Now come on, before the neighbors wake up.”
Marrow straightens, dignified even with frosting sliding out of his ribcage. “If this…domicile of yours is to be our sanctuary, lead us, my lady. We shall endure the mortal plane for you.”
“Mortal plane?” Skully barks a laugh. “Mate, you’re about to trip over a pink lawn flamingo and call it a wyvern.”
The fog curls low around our ankles as I gather my supplies one-handed, shoving cupcakes and candles back into the cart with zero dignity.
My blanket trails behind me like a cape, still glitter-smeared and frosting-stained.
“Alright, boys. Single file! Don’t step on Tina the pumpkin grave marker, she’s sensitive. ”
Bonehead immediately stomps on Tina. Pumpkin guts squelch.
“Bonehead!” I shriek.
“Smash pumpkin?” he offers hopefully, holding out a dripping orange chunk like it’s a bouquet.
“Oh my God, you’re perfect,” I groan, snatching it and kissing the slimy mess before tossing it into the grass.
Skully cackles, shoulders rattling. “She’s gone full necrophile Barbie. God help us.”
Dragging them out of the cemetery is a nightmare.
Bonehead keeps wandering off to pick up heavy shit—fence posts, chunks of angel statues, one very confused raccoon—and bringing it back like a proud golden retriever.
Skully heckles the whole way, loudly narrating like he’s in a mockumentary: “Here we see the idiot skeleton, migrating from grave to couch, dragging property damage in his wake.”
And Marrow…
Marrow glides beside me, skeletal fingers brushing the back of my hand every few steps. His voice is velvet smoke in the fog: “Each moment borrowed. Each step a poem.”
“Stop being hot while I’m herding bone gremlins!” I sigh, nearly toppling as Bonehead tries to shove an entire stop sign into my cart.
By the time we hit the sidewalk of my block, I’m sweating vodka, glitter, and existential dread. My silk nightgown is riding so high it’s practically a belt, and behind me? Three full skeletons clattering like a haunted Home Depot aisle.
A porch light flicks on down the street. I freeze. “Shhh. Everyone, act natural.”
Bonehead freezes mid-step, headstone raised above his skull like he’s playing freeze tag.
Skully immediately drops to the ground and goes rigid. “Look, ma! I’m roadkill!”
Marrow simply bows at the porch, elegant as death at a ball.
I beam. “Perfect.”
The porch light clicks off. Crisis averted.
“Alright,” I whisper, dragging them forward again, my cart squealing like a banshee with every wobble. “Half a mile, boys. Just half a mile until we’re home.”