‘I only just wanted to be your friend,’ she said, her voice going higher.
‘You can be our friend,’ I said.
‘Sure,’ Jim said.
‘Honest?’
‘Yeah, honest,’ I told her. ‘This was an initiation. I was just lying about all that stuff I told you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘From now on,’ Jim said, ‘we’ll never ditch you again.’
‘You guys sure had me going. I was starting to figure you hated me.’
‘Naw.We were just kidding.’
Her bloody face smiled. She sat up.
‘You’d better not move,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to get you an ambulance or something.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘You can’t be okay,’ Jim said. ‘All that blood.’
‘Oh, I was a virgin. But not anymore.’ She looked at each of us. ‘You guys wanta bang me? You can if you want, now we’re pals.’
I went kind of speechless.
‘Not tonight,’ Jim said. ‘Thanks anyway.’
I nodded.
‘You sure? I’m kinda sore, but if you want…’
‘Some other time,’ Jim told her.
‘Well, okay.’ She sighed as if she were a little disappointed, then got to her feet. She shook her foot clear of the tangled boxers and Bermuda shorts. ‘Wanta see something cool?’ she asked.
‘We oughta just get out of here,’ I said.
‘You guys gotta see this.’ She stepped over to her lantern, bent over as if she didn’t mind us looking at her butt, picked up the lantern and turned it on. ‘Come on,’ she said.
We followed her across the tracks.
Joined her on the other side of the nearest concrete support.
Where she shined her light on a bum.
He was slumped against the support, shirt open, pants down around his ankles. His head was down. Cradled in his arms was a pile of loose guts.
George grinned at us. ‘Knew he didn’t get far.’
‘Holy shit,’ Jim muttered.
Crouching, George plunged her hands into the guts. They squirmed around like a bunch of wet snakes. Pretty soon, she came out with her knife. ‘Didn’t wanta lose this,’ she said. She stood up and cleaned the knife on the front of her shirt. ‘Betcha didn’t figure he’d get into my initiation, did you?’
We shook our heads.
We walked back to the other side of the tracks. There, George stepped into her boxers and Bermudas. As she pulled them up, she said, ‘So, what’re we gonna do tomorrow?’