Free Slow Dance in Purgatory by Amy Harmon

fallen.”
                  “Miss Margaret!  Miss Margaret!”  Gus’s shouts rang up out of the dumbwaiter shaft, and Maggie moved gingerly to the edge to peer down two stories to where the platform had crashed to the floor, spilling garbage out around it.  Gus’s grizzled grey head appeared below her, and he stared back up at her, shock and horror stamped on his familiar face.
                  “What happened?  Are you okay?  I heard a horrible crashing sound, and I came runnin,’” Gus called up to her.  “I couldn’t get here nearly fast enough, and then I couldn’t get the darn door open ‘cause the trash here was wedged up against it.”
                  “I’m okay, Gus.  Something snapped and everything went crashing down.  I almost fell but luckily someone was here to pull me up.”  Maggie turned back to get her rescuer’s name, but he wasn’t there. 
                  “We're coming up there, Miss Margaret!  Don’t you go nowhere,” Gus hollered below her, and Maggie stepped away from the death trap and went to find her savior.  He couldn’t have gone far.  She walked out of the alcove and looked up and down the hallway, puzzled and bewildered that he would simply leave.  She hadn’t thanked him.  Maggie stuck her head in the nearby classrooms, but there was no sign of him.  Had he broken into the school and been worried about getting in trouble?  Maybe he was the intruder from the other night. 
                  Maggie felt ice trickle down her spine and into her arms and legs.   There hadn’t been an intruder the other night.  There had been a troublesome ghost.
                  “Johnny?”  Maggie called out instinctively.  Silence met her query.  “Was it you, Johnny?  Are you the one who saved me?”  Again, silence.  Maggie waited several long breaths, feeling silly and wondering if the near death experience had addled her brain.
                  “Maggie?”  A soft voice spoke up behind her.
                  “Oh!”  Maggie jumped and spun, almost knocking poor Shad to the ground.  He had beat Gus up the stairs and was looking at her like she had lost her mind.  Gus rounded the corner then, breathing hard.
                  “Who were you talking to?”  Shad asked, looking over her shoulder into the empty classroom beyond.
                  Maggie didn’t respond but turned and looked up and down the long hallway once more. 
                  “You didn’t see anyone on your way up here, did you Gus?”  Maggie asked, leading Gus and Shad back into the alcove where the accident had occurred.
                  “No, Miss Margaret.  I didn’t see a soul.  Oh Lawdy!  You said somebody pulled you up out of there?”  Gus asked in amazement, looking over the ledge down at the smashed garbage bin.  Shad leaned over a little too far, and Gus grabbed at him, stepping back from the ledge, pulling Shad with him.
                  “Who was it, Mags?”  Shad seemed as confused as Maggie, and she shook her head, unwilling to give voice to her suspicions.
                  “I would have fallen.  I was literally hanging from the edge.  He...he pulled me up.”
                  “Who pulled you up, Miss Margaret?”
                  “I don’t know, Gus.  He was here a minute ago.”
                  Shad shuddered violently and hugged himself, hopping from one foot to the other.  "This freaky-assed school should be closed!!  It's scary as hell!"  Shad forgot to watch his language in his grandpa's presence and got a thwack to the back of the head as a result.
                  "Shadrach!"
                  Maggie was silent.  After a moment, the three of them filed wordlessly back down the stairs to the ground floor.  Gus said he would take