Free Ghost College by Scott Nicholson, J.R. Rain Page B

case filled with announcements, bowling trophies, press clippings, and whatever else the university deemed important enough to encase behind glass. And when I glanced to my right, I saw a reflection of three of us running. Not two.
    Sigmund turned to me and opened his dagger-filled mouth. I yelped just as the glass burst out from within.
    My wife screamed. I did, too.
    We continued running as the glass cases burst behind us, step for step.
    We rounded another corner, and, to my great relief, I saw that familiar hallway.
    “Where are we going?” my wife asked, gasping.
    “ The music room,” I said, barely getting the words out.
    “ Why?” But then she nodded; she understood. “Oh.”
    As if our minds were working as one—and for all I knew, my wife was still in my mind—we hustled down the hall. I kept expecting to see one evil-looking bastard waiting for us, but, for now, Sigmund was gone.
    Maybe he knew where we were headed.
    Maybe he was waiting for us.
    We ran for the music room.
    And Sigmund’s piano.
    His anchor.
     
     
    Chapter Nineteen
     
     
    There’s an old saying about not bringing a knife to a gunfight. About then, I wish I had brought a bazooka. Michael, Gabriel, and a bunch of sword-bearing angels on winged horses wouldn’t have been bad, either.
    We burst into the tiny practice room. With all those sound-insulating panels on the walls, no one would even hear our screams as we were cut into a billion red ribbons.
    “How the hell do we get rid of this?” I asked my wife.
    “ Just like you play a song. One note at a time.”
    “ That’s not very helpful.”
    “ I’ve heard you play. Mating cats are more musical.”
    I locked the door behind us, not expecting it to do much good. “I’ve got music in my heart. We were too poor for lessons.”
    Ellen leaned over the keys, peering at the sheet music. “Look, the lyrics are in Latin.”
    I ran to her side, vaguely aware of the walls shimmering around us. “This isn’t the page that was here before.”
    “Because we’re in the past. Back when Sigmund was first communicating with the dark powers.”
    “ Powers? Like in, plural?”
    “ Evil is made, not born, Monty. You know that. It’s a team effort.”
    Yeah. I knew it but didn’t like admitting it. I glanced around. The walls were now of old chestnut paneling, complete with stains and wormholes, and the floor beneath us was scuffed oak. The fluorescent lights were gone, an orange glow seeping from a couple of oil lanterns.
    I flipped the sheet music back to the first page, and there was the title, written in fancy script: “ Non Omnis Moriar .”
    “ This is his song, all right,” I said.
    Sigmund was at the door, pounding on it, screaming something about his instrument. That word had a lot of connotations, and I had a fleeting vision of cramming his instrument up a dark, painful hole, but the longer we kept him out of the room, the more time we’d have to think of something.
    “Why doesn’t he just get all ghosty and slip through the wall?” I asked.
    “ We’re in the past and he’s solid. It’s all real now.”
    “ Aw, crap. You mean I’m going to die a century ago and I don’t even get eternal life on Facebook?”
    “ Nobody’s dying here except the people who are already dead,” Ellen said, running her fingers over the piano keys. She didn’t press them, more like fondling, as if searching for some crevice that would reveal a secret switch.
    “ Aren’t you going to play something?” I said, thinking a religious hymn might keep the bastard at bay, sort of like holy water tossed at a vampire.
    “ Music just makes him stronger.”
    The floor suddenly shook, hard enough to toss me against my wife, which I usually enjoyed a great deal but at the moment was a little awkward.
    “The earthquake!” I yelled, as the lanterns shook and blinked.
    The door splintered, and Sigmund gave a mighty blow and a bellow of rage. For a fop who spoke Latin, he could be a little pissy