Page 23 of Squad Ghouls

I could hear Harri and Larri still arguing down the hall as I approached the entrance to the third floor. The eerie groans were still going on, the menacing presence making a chill run down my spine.

I was going to work out what Owain was hiding even if it killed me…which it actually might.

Wait.

I paused on the bottom step.

This was fucking stupid.

Was I really going up there without anything to protect myself? But…when would I get the opportunity to break into the west wing again to see what I was dealing with?

Call me Beauty, I guess.

I took the stairs one by one, tasting something foul and rotten on the back of my tongue. I got the image of open graves in my mind and hesitated, my breath fogging in front of me.

The temperature had dropped significantly after just two steps.

The door rattled on its hinges—nothing overt, but its subtlety was almost more chilling. Like something was testing it, or knocking.

Let me in.

Or…more frighteningly, let me out.

“Ryan!”

I jumped five feet in the air and was lucky I didn’t tumble down the stairs.

Owain grabbed me by the back of my uniform and tugged me anyway. “What are you doing!?” he demanded. “You were supposed to stay in your room for the night.”

“Is that why you had people guarding me?”

He flushed a little guiltily but held his chin up. “It’s for health and safety.”

“I wonder what the inspectors would think about the thing trapped on the third floor. That doesn’t seem very ‘safe’ to me.”

“There’s nothing up there.”

“You’re cute when you lie.”

Owain scowled and shoved my phone into my chest. “You shouldn’t be poking your nose where it isn’t wanted and aggravating my friends. Bronwyn is throwing a fit.”

“I think that had less to do with me and more to do with the squatter in your hedges.”

“What squatter?”

“The adulterer husband. Yeah, he’s around.”

“I knew it!” Owain said, holding his finger up like a triumphant nerd with a confirmed scientific hypothesis.

“Why do you sound happy about that? What am I saying. Of course you’re happy there’s another ghost here.”

“Guest,” Owain corrected me, stepping behind me and beginning to push me away from the stairs toward my room. “And as a fellow guest, I’ll show you back to your room and away from restricted, staff-only areas.”

“There’s no sign up.”

In the next second a jaunty ping sounded before Popty began carving into the wood in very jagged childish handwriting, “STAFF ONLY. NO RYANS ALLOWED.”

“That’s oddly specific and kind of prejudiced against the Ryans of the world,” I drawled as Owain began marching me on, Popty tailing us in an ominous-shaped cloud. “As our spokesperson, I’d like to form a protest movement to combat your hate speech. We’re far too sexy to be so restricted.”