The Stuffing of Nightmares (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 7) by Nic Saint Read Free Book Online

picnic,” Rick commented. He’d approached the pony and was studying him more closely. “Hey, you’ve got a hole in your head,” he said, pointing to a bald spot on Tony’s head.
    The pony’s eyes rolled up to see the alleged hole. Then he got the bright idea to look at his stuffed self and found the hole. He started violently. “You’re right. There is a hole in my head. But that means—”
    “It means you were put down,” said Alice, once more striking the insensitive note.
    Tony looked dismayed. “Oh, man. Put down? But why? Why would Ines do that to me? I was her favorite pony! Been with her for years!”
    “You were probably sick,” Rick pointed out.
    “Yeah, you were probably in so much pain Ines wanted to end your suffering,” Fee suggested.
    “Or maybe she simply got tired of you,” Alice said.
    “Alice!” Fee hissed.
    Tony frowned, or at least Alice thought he did. It was hard to be sure with all his fur. “I don’t remember being sick,” he said. “And I sure as heck don’t remember being shot.”
    “Yeah, it’s a big mystery,” said Alice.
    The pony stared at them for a moment; then he bared his teeth in a smile. “You know what I’ll do? I’ll just go home. And ask Ines what happened.”
    Alice and Fee shared a look of concern. “You can’t go home, Tony,” Rick said. “You’re dead now, you see. You don’t have a home to go to anymore.”
    The pony whinnied. “What do you mean I can’t go home?”
    Rick sighed. “Tony, you’re dead.”
    “Dead? That’s a good one. You almost fooled me, funny guy. If I’m dead, why am I talking to you guys? Huh? Can you tell me that?”
    “Like I said, you’re a ghost now, Tony. You’re dead, and you’re a ghost.”
    “What?! But ghosts don’t even exist!”
    Alice, tiring of the circular nature of this conversation, abruptly held out her arm, and stuck a hand right through the pony’s skull, demonstrating once and for all that he was a ghost now, and not a live pony. And as her fingers came out the other end of his head, and she wriggled them, Tony stared cross-eyed at her Hello Kitty wristwatch, and said, “Golly me. I am a ghost.”
    At which point he promptly fainted and dropped to the hallway floor.

Chapter 12
    R eece awoke with a start and jerked up. He regretted this instantly, as his blood pressure dropped precipitously, and he felt dizzy. And then there was that startlingly pungent odor that assaulted his nostrils. He coughed and retched. Some horrible taste in his mouth as well. Then it hit him. He’d been shot! He quickly checked his abdomen for signs of the bullet wound, but only found a faint bruise. No hole in his perfectly sculpted six-pack, and no blood soaking his shirt. Startled, he searched around for a clue to what had happened to him. He was in a small prison cell, with a stone floor, stone walls and a small barred window high up where he couldn’t reach it. It looked like an old cellar, a couple of carton boxes full of old newspapers and bottles in a corner. A wooden door that had seen better days was meant to keep him in. He gingerly rose to his feet, and walked up to the door, then rattled it.
    Locked, of course. He put his shoulder against it and gave it a shove.
    Nope. Didn’t budge.
    Someone had knocked him out and locked him up. But who? And why?
    All he could remember was the knock-out blonde on the beach. The one who’d done an Ursula Andress on him, emerging from the surf as if she was in some James Bond movie. Only this woman hadn’t been carrying a knife but a gun and had shot him. He distinctly remembered that. He realized she must have used a tranquilizer dart. But how had they managed to haul him back here to this cave? She couldn’t have done it by herself. He was a good six feet tall and weighed in at two hundred pounds of pure hard muscle.
    He hollered, “Hey! Let me out of here!”
    No response, of course.
    He sank back onto the cot. So he’d been kidnapped. He should have seen it