Ghost by Charmaine Ross

Author:Charmaine Ross [Ross, Charmaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

We slowed to a stop at a set of traffic lights. Lucy’s house in Doveton wasn’t the safest location at this time of night and neither was Dandenong along this stretch of a lonely freeway.

“Do you smell that?” I thought the motor had caught fire, but the stench grew stronger with each passing moment. But it wasn’t fuel. More like-decomposing flesh. Goosebumps rose on my skin.

Laura made a choking sound. “God, that’s revolting!”

“I smell it, too,” Elliot said.

If Elliot and I could smell it, it could only mean that there was something belonging to both worlds coming close. A howl spewed into the night. The fine hairs on my neck rose as I tried to see what made the sound. But there was nothing more than the lights of the road and secret shadows of the night.

“Whatever is out there is getting close. Tell Laura to drive away. Now!” There was an edge to Elliot’s voice that made my hands shake.

There was a blur in the shadows near the car, a deeper black that flickered. At first, it was an indistinguishable shape, then it morphed, extending as though it was reaching for us. The ends of the shadow thinned and protruded as though there were fingers, but they curved into hooks. No, not hooks. Claws. I’d seen this creature before. A shadow like this on the front of the bus that drove through the spirit boy. Back then I really hadn’t realized what I’d seen. Everything was a shock, but now watching this creature, I knew I’d seen pure terror.

“Do you see that?” My voice was shrill, alarm triggering my fear-meter. I was in a trance, caught between wanting to scream, run, and watching with horrified paralysis, as though the shadow had cast a spell over me and it was all I could do but sit and stare and await my destiny.

Legs separated from the shadow but there were no feet. They simply joined with surrounding shadow so that none really ended or began. A formless head morphed between the arms. A pair of hollow eyes blinked open, no more than the absence of shadow, but they bored into me as it glided towards us.

“Drive Laura!” I screamed.

“I...I can’t!” Laura's voice was hoarse, strained. “I can’t move!”

The stench was unbearable, so strong I tasted it. The acrid smell burnt the inside of my nostrils and my eyes. Blood pounded my hearing, surging through my system by powerful beats of my heart, but I couldn’t move a limb even though every sense screamed to run.

“Cassie. Get out of here!” I knew Elliot spoke, but I was locked inside my body, unable to respond. Another shadow crossed the road in front of us. No, not a shadow. A man, hunched against the cold, smoking a cigarette, unaware of the horror that held us captive in the car.

Terror had me in its grip and I couldn’t move a muscle. I tried to speak, to warn him to turn away, run for his life, but my throat closed over, heat billowed inside me, making my skin prickle with sweat.

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