Free Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls by Victoria Laurie Page A

sweatshirt, Gil! It’ll protect both you and Heath! But you’ve got to make it to him, and you’re the only one who can sprint to him in time!”
    Desperately I looked back over my shoulder, and gasped when I saw that Heath was now just a few yards from the edge of the cliff. Grabbing Gilley again by the hand, I hauled him forward and shouted, “Heath! Stop! We’re coming!”
    Gilley ran with me without fighting. I poured on the speed and Gilley matched me with every step, courage coming to him with every new stride. “Go, Gilley! Get to Heath!” I yelled as he began passing me.
    I saw the firm set to Gilley’s jaw as he moved on by, his feet moving faster and faster and his arms pumping for all he was worth. Heath continued to stumble and hold his head, and now I could hear his agonized voice. “Make it stop!”
    “Heath!” I shouted again, desperate to get his attention before he moved too close to the cliff.
    Gilley charged right for Heath, who was now only feet from the cliff’s edge. The phantom stopped then and it had the appearance of turning to face me. There was no substance really to its form, just a giant black shadow watching Gilley running straight for Heath.
    I hoped that Gilley’s sweatshirt was enough to make it back off, and my heart pounded in my chest as much with exertion as with anxiety. “Go, Gilley!” I shouted again.
    Gilley’s stride came quicker still and he dug in with everything he was worth. I could hear him groan as he stretched those final yards, whizzing right past the phantom, who whirled away from him and darted to the side.
    Heath meanwhile teetered on the very edge of the cliff, and I could tell that Gil would not make it in time, no matter how fast he was running. “Please!” I cried, and honestly, to this day I don’t know whom I was calling out to, but at that moment a white light appeared between Heath and the edge of the cliff, causing him to twirl and fall back away from the edge, right onto his rear. The light appeared only for an instant, but the image of Samuel Whitefeather—Heath’s grandfather—flashed through my mind.
    Two more strides and Gilley launched himself, landing right on top of Heath and hugging him fiercely as he pulled our friend away from the deadly drop.
    I was a good two dozen yards back and I came to a stop, winded and emotionally exhausted. I bent double and sucked in air until a cold chill prickled my spine. I stood up tall again and eyed the phantom, now planted firmly between me and the boys. “Oh, shit!” I said, realizing the demon was now thinking of me as the target. Whirling around and running back the way I’d come, I bolted away as fast as I could. By now my legs felt like rubber and I began to trip and stumble. I was also trying to get the two spikes I still had in the belt I wore around my waist, but my mind was quickly filling with awful images. I tried to focus on the ground ahead of me, but my vision became compromised as the pictures in my mind turned uglier and more intense.
    My heart was racing with panic and fear and I couldn’t seem to suck in enough oxygen. My hands were also shaking so hard that I had to abandon the effort to get the grenades loose. A terrible terror was welling up inside of me and I couldn’t seem to get away. Somewhere, in the very back of my mind, I knew that I wasn’t far from the front door to the castle, and the safety of John and the spikes, but I didn’t think I’d make it in time. What was more, I felt something cold and cruel creeping up along my left side. I darted right out of instinct, but it kept coming.
    A rational thought seeped through a crevice in the wall of terror filling my mind. It said that moving right would take me away from the center of the rock and move me out to the edge. Warning bells rang, but I felt helpless to stop the panicked dash away from that cold horror still creeping along my left.
    I started to cry and shake, blinded by the nightmare images flashing