Free Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town by Scott Neumyer Page B

telling me ," I say and stop
petting Trex just long enough to grab David by the shoulders and
pull him in for a hug. The embrace nearly shocks the pants off my
friend and it's clear to me that he hasn't been hugged in a long time. That's ok -
neither have I.
    When David is done hugging me back he starts
to pull away and it's at that very moment that he jerks fast and
hard away from me, grabbing Trex's leash and pulling my buddy along
with him back into the corner of Room 7.
    "What's going on?" I ask and follow David
into the corner, turning back toward the door of the room. "What is
it?"
    "Th...Th...That!" David says and points
toward the door.
    Floating, directly in
front of the open red door to Room 7, is my new buddy Gasp.
He's obviously floating too. It's not like he's even trying to hide it, or
make himself appear more "normal" to ease David into this. He's
just floating there like it's an everyday thing that people should
automatically be accustomed to.
    "Oh," I say to David and move slowly toward
Gasp. "That."
    I pull up next to Gasp and put my arm around
him, though it's tough to say exactly where "around him" really is,
as my arm slides right in and through his see-through body at this
point.
    "This is Gasp. He's a ghost and he's nothing
to be afraid of."
    Gasp shakes his head in agreement with
everything I've said so far and tosses David a sheepish little wave
and smile. It's actually kind of charming the way he does it.
    "He's nothing to be afraid of?!"
    "Yeah," I tell David. "I
mean, I know why you are. I was at first too, but now it's cool.
He's a good guy. He's our guide ."
    "Our guide to what?" David
asks, skeptical as ever of this place he knows nothing about.
    "Ghost Town," I say. "We're in a place
called Ghost Town."
    "Ghost Town?"
    "Ghost Town," I tell him again and make my
way across the empty room toward David and Trex. I sit down on the
cold, concrete floor next to Trex and start to scratch behind his
ears. Trex loves this and his little hind legs start pumping a mile
a minute until you can actually hear his paws on the cement. Tick,
tick, tick, tick, tick tick.
    "Do you remember the tree we found, David?"
I look up toward him and motion with my eyes for him to think back
to the clearing in the woods. "The one with the GT carved into
it?"
    "Yeah..."
    "That's how we got here.
Don't ask me how we got here other than that. I have no idea. Apparently, Gasp
here has some real answers, but he's yet to clue me in on many of
them."
    "What's he waiting for?"
    "Good question," I say and we both slowly
turn our heads toward Gasp who is trying to disappear into the
walls of Room 7. "Maybe we should ask him."
    "Who?" asks Gasp, as if he doesn't already
know. "Me?"
    "Yeah," we both say loudly and
simultaneously. "You."
    "Right," says Gasp and floats toward us,
pulling up to a spot right in front of the three of us and settling
in for what we think will be some long explanation of why we're
here, what we're doing, and where we're going.
    I've been hoping, all
along, that Gasp is our Wizard behind the curtain - our man behind
the scenes that has all the answers. I'm still hoping for that.
    "Jimmy, here, is right.
You're in Ghost Town. My name is Gasp. And, you're meant to be here."
    "Meant to?" David asks
quickly. "What do you mean, meant
to ?"
    "I mean, David, that
you're here for a reason. You're here with a purpose. And you're
here because we want you here."
    "But why?" we both ask at
the very same time, our tones getting just slightly higher-pitched
the more anxious (and closer) we are to finding out just what the
hell is going on. "What reason could you possibly have for
wanting us here
in Ghost Town?"
    "Well," says Gasp as he looks down at the
floor. "It's like this, you see..."
    This is the first time
I've seen Gasp appear to be searching for something. Up until
this point he's had all the answers and seemed to know
everything before it happened. He even seemed to know everything I was thinking
before I even