Page 29 of The Accidental Ghost

Maybe it was time to make another mental list about the good things she could attribute to being a ghost? Just to keep the Rose Nylund in her alive…

Gloria was a good thing. The best thing in all of this.

If part of her job was to keep a deserving animal here, knowing they’d be safe and loved, she was all in, both feet.

Invisibility isn’t a bad way to spend your eternity. Think of all the things you can do and see, using your invisibility?—

A sudden noise—or maybe it was a snarl—from somewhere in the darkness, where she floated aimlessly like a helium balloon a child had lost at a party, had her forgetting all about making the rest of the list.

“Who’s there?” she whispered, fighting the tremor she heard in her question.

Then she asked herself, WWND?

What would Nina say about her cowardice, about the fear and whine she heard in her voice?

Get your shite together, Ralph. There are big scary monsters in this new world you’ve been dumped in. Figure it out and get a backbone, chickenshit.

That’s what she’d say.

Squaring her shoulders, Ralph repeated, “I asked, who’s there?”

There was a whoosh of air, as though someone had fired up a hot-air balloon and turned up the thermostat another fifty degrees. Sweat poured from her forehead, pooling between her breasts, making her want to stomp her feet and have an all-out tantrum like a toddler.

Instead, she picked behaving like an adult. “Who’s there?” she demanded. She paused to listen. When she heard nothing but the whoosh of air, Ralph became more insistent. “Speak up, you coward!” she said more sharply, surprising even herself.

Almost instantly, a hand snaked around her neck and began to squeeze, dragging her backward.

Panic seized her limbs, at first making her incapable of fighting back.

Then she gripped the wrists of the hands and dug her nails in, clawing at them to try to make them let go. ”Stop! Who are you? Where are you taking me?”

But whoever had her in their GI Joe kung-fu grip wasn’t listening. Instead, the grip tightened.

Ralph heard the grunt of her attacker’s struggle as she was torn from the very dark place and dragged to an even hotter place, where flames licked at the walls in orange and red.

Still, in the background, she heard the women and Shamus calling her.

Something inside her, something tired of being a pushover, tired of being an onlooker to her fate, dislodged, rose up, raged.

“I—said—let—me—go!” she screeched, twisting and turning in her attacker’s grip.

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid, stupid bitch! You couldn’t shut up that night, either! Why won’t you shut the fuck up?” he hissed in her ear, hauling her against him.

Her ears perked. That night?

“What does that mean? Who are you?” she yelled, grabbing at his forearms, only now noting she could actually grab on to him.

Was he a ghost? How could that be if she could touch him? If he could touch her? As she struggled to free herself, and he pulled her backward through the air as if she weighed nothing, the terror in her rose to an all-time high.

He tightened his grip around her neck, making it hard for her to breathe. “I said shut your fucking mouth!” His voice was rough and male and very angry.

Then Ralph remembered something she’d seen or read somewhere. If your attacker has a grip on you, go limp. Make it harder for him to hold you. Don’t allow your body to give him a springboard of tension to keep you incapacitated.

Give him spaghetti limbs.

Without even another breath, Ralph slumped back against the hard body of the man, letting her arms loosen and hang by her side.

That was enough to catch him off guard and make him holler in her ear, “What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bitch?”

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