Page 110 of Squad Ghouls

I heard the moment all its limbs started climbing and I spread my arms out. The bags in my hands started seeping black salt in two thick lines on either side of the staircase. For a split second I thought the ghost would stop before it got trapped inside the barrier, but the rage was stronger.

It rushed after me, stepping on the fourth step and then freezing when it realised what had happened.

I didn’t have to lure it in anymore. The only way it could go was up. After me. I let out the loudest battle cry I could manage and charged up the stairs, drawing the lines all the way up to an open door right across the staircase.

Now came the hard part.

I turned to see if the ghost was following me and found it snarling at the salt barrier, looking around, calculating.

The same dance every time we did this.

It threw itself against the barrier, trying to reach the wall so it could crawl sideways up to me, but the black salt held. Enough to stop it from touching the wall, anyway. Enough to stop it from going back.

Popty would have sealed the bottom stair by now. The ghost knew. It remembered.

And it knew who was to blame.

Me.

I watched as the crawl up the stairs started. It had nothing to lose now. It stalked. It prowled. Up up up.

Closer and closer.

And then between one blink and the next it flickered out and back into view directly in front of me. The snarl ruffled my hair. The black oozed from its skin and onto mine. Branding me. Caging me in.

This was it.

I held its black gaze. Unblinking. Letting it believe I was frozen with fear.

It reached a claw out and I leapt into action. I rushed inside the open room behind me, screaming my head off because I knew I had mere seconds to do what I needed to.

It charged after me, furious, wild.

I heard Ryan screaming from downstairs, getting closer.

The ghost’s attention slipped from me for a moment and I yelled louder, trying to get it to refocus.

“Come get me!” I taunted and it barrelled after me. I rushed to the right, pushing at the wallpapered wall until it creaked open.

A hidden door.

Leading right back out into the hallway.

I jumped out, over the salted threshold. The ghost followed with a scream, hitting the barrier and slashing at it with clawed hands.

I ran back to the main entrance and before the ghost could reach it, I used the last of the black salt in my bag to seal that exit too.

It noticed. It came and started tearing at the invisible wall between us, and I finally allowed myself to breathe.

A tear slid down my cheek.

Fear and sadness and that sinking feeling of being completely powerless washed over me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as it struggled to get free. “I swear I’m doing the best I can.”

The ghost unhinged its jaw and threw its head back, screaming so loud it made the walls shake. I was shaking too.

I heard footsteps behind me, enraged and urgent, and then arms locked around my waist. Ryan lifted me off the ground and moved me aside before turning to the ghost and aiming his weapon towards it.