Finally! A new chapter. Sorry for the delay, folks, but life keeps interfering with my writing

Sharla sat at the edge of the porch’s rocking chair and watched Kenny walk around the man-made pond, head down, hands in his pockets. Too much weighed on his shoulders for such a young man. It bothered her because she wasn’t at all sure he’d be okay after everything was said and done.

 

What doesn’t kill you makes you as tough as outhouse flies.

 

Sure thing Grandma.

 

Greg touched her sleeve, and she turned to him. “He’ll be fine.”

 

Sharla glanced at Kenny. “Maybe.”

 

A sudden wind blasted through the yard, kicking up dust and overturning the aluminum garbage can she’d bought last week at Wal-Mart. The teen cashier had leaned over and whispered for her to get out of town while she could. It wasn’t enough that ghosts were telling her to leave, but now the living were doing the same thing.

 

Greg glanced toward the sky. “Storm coming in.”

 

“So—Elizabeth is your friend’s sister?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What do you think happened to her?”

 

“Hard to say, but I don’t think the men took her.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because, they would have killed her and left her body in the church.”

 

“You don’t know that. Maybe they wanted her baby for some whacked out reason.”

 

“This isn’t a horror movie, Sharla. Things like that don’t happen in the real world.”

 

“Are you kidding me? The world can be a lot scarier than any old book or movie.”

 

Greg shifted, rubbed the short bristles on his head and blew out a mouthful of air. “You’re right. But something just doesn’t fit.”

 

Across the pond, Kenny knelt and pulled weeds from around a picnic table, and then hopped up on it and sat starring into nothing, hands clasped together.

 

A shape moved in the trees behind Kenny and Sharla stood, eased to the end of the porch, avoiding big moves incase it scared off the presence in the shadows. She stared until her sight went blurry, blinked, and scanned the trees again.

 

Where did it go?

 

Greg rose and stood behind her, his breath sending erotic chills across the bare skin of her neck. “What is it?”

 

“I thought I saw something out there. Must have been tree limbs waving in the wind.”

 

“No,” Greg whispered. “Someone’s watching Kenny.” Greg stepped closer, putting a hand on her hip. “Look to the left, about ten feet back into the forest. See the dark-haired woman?” He pointed in the general direction.

 

“Yeah,” Sharla said on a breathless exhale.

 

“Who is she?” Greg asked.

 

“I think she’s the ghost who keeps telling me to leave.”

 

“Why is she watching Kenny?”

 

Kenny glanced behind him, lingered, and then hopped off the table, and headed their way.

 

The spirit in the trees turned and glided away, fading from sight before she vanished into the forest.

 

“Yo. What’s up with you two?” Kenny asked and glanced over his shoulder again. “See something?”

 

“Not sure,” Sharla said and moved away from the heat of Greg’s body.

 

“I’m going home.”

 

“Is that wise with your father and all?” Greg asked.

 

“My father won’t hurt me—at least not yet.” Kenny straddled his bike and shoved off.

 

 

* * *

Later that evening, just as the light had begun to fade from the sky, and thunder grumbled in the distance, Kenny decided to head out and look for Tommy and Johnny. Maybe they could catch the nine o’clock movie and get their minds off the weirdness around them.

 

He pulled a clean shirt over his head and left the house as quietly as possible. He’d rather stick his dick in a light socket than wake his dad, especially when he’d drank a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes he wished his dad would never wake up, but then shame and guilt would immediately follow such a thought. How could he wish for anyone’s death, let alone his father’s?

 

Leaving his bike at home this time, he walked down the street toward Tommy’s. A sudden chill slid down his back, and the hairs prickled at the base of his neck. He whipped around, certain something or someone followed him. The temperature around him grew colder by the second. The wind brought whispers on the air, but he couldn’t make out the words.

 

When he turned around to resume his journey, he came face to face with Mary Beth Blakely. “Holy mother of Moses,” he yelped and stumbled back a step.

 

When he could find his voice again, he said, “Aren’t you supposed to be haunting Tommy?”

 

Mary Beth swayed toward him, her hair a tangled mess, her lip split and trailing a line of blood from the corner of her mouth down her chin and along her neck. She looked as if she’d been struggling in the leaves beneath someone much stronger than her.

 

Eyes, as dead as those in a body on an embalming table, looked into his. She opened her mouth and a breath of misty air escaped between her lips and floated toward him. Ice cold air—air from a ghost’s lungs.

 

Kenny backed up another step.

 

“Kenny.” The word sounded as if it came from a great distance—from a grave maybe? Where the hell is her grave?

 

“Mary Beth, what happened to you?”

 

She let out an evil giggle and circled him. “Your father.” Breath rattled from her chest—impossible since she was dead, but happening all the same.

 

A cold sweat coated his body. He should have guessed his father would have had something to do with her disappearance. Maybe she had tried to leave town. “Look, you want revenge, go after my father and leave me the hell alone.” He turned in a circle with her, not wanting her at his back. “And stay away from Tommy.”

 

“Tommy.” She smiled and something other than death flickered in her eyes. “Tommy,” she repeated.

 

Jesus! What did she want with Tommy?

 

Mary Beth clutched his arm, her fingers blue and bloated with decay, sending a freezing numbness straight to his bones. She caught his gaze again, her eyes glistening, mesmerizing him, and flickering to life. That scared him more than her frozen, dead hand on his skin.

 

Kenny waited. For what, he didn’t know.

 

“Kill them all.” She stretched the word all until it seemed to echo off the houses surrounding them.

 

A crack of thunder split the night.

 

Kenny jerked away from her.

 

She glanced around in that slow, disjointed way ghosts seemed to move. “Kill them all.”

 

“I’m not killing anyone.” Unless I have no other choice. But he’d damn sure kill for Lizzie.

 

The ghost zoomed out, and then in until she stood a hair’s width from him. “Take your friends and leave this place. Leave before we kill them all.”

Three boys stared at Greg, mouths open in shocked surprise. Ragged and gangly, the teens also looked terrified out of their minds.

 

The one, with red hair, shivering in the corner, resembled an anemic vampire ready to bolt at the first sign of blood. Greg made a mental note to have a talk with this young man about Mary Beth Blakely.

 

“How did you find us?” the dark-haired one asked, stepping in front of his two friends in a protective stance, his chin pointed upward with authority he probably didn’t feel.

 

Sharla entered through the church door. “We’re looking for you, Kenny.” She took the shotgun from Greg, with a reprimanding glance, and leaned it against the wall.

 

“All three of you ducked through the trees as if the town psycho was crawling up your asses. You might want to be careful, because if we saw you, anyone else can, too.”

 

“So?” Kenny crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Greg with a defiance he’d never been brave enough to show at that age, especially to grown-ups. But something else lay under that defiance. Fear.

 

“It’s obvious you don’t want anyone to know about this church, which makes me wonder just what you’ve been hiding out here.”  Greg glared right back, not willing to trust just anyone yet, even if they were just kids.

 

Kenny glanced at Sharla and lost some of his bluster, but he still hesitated to say anything at all.

 

“It’s okay, Kenny. You’re among friends here. And we can maybe help each other, and hopefully put to rest the nightmare this town has become.” Sharla moved down the aisle and gave him a one-armed hug. “By the way, I don’t know if I ever thanked you for your help the other night.”

 

Kenny shrugged. “It was nothing.”

 

Johnny cleared his throat, and then cleared it again, only louder this time. When Kenny still didn’t get the hint, Johnny stepped on his foot, eliciting a yelp of pain and sharp jab to his ribs from a bony elbow.

 

Kenny gestured toward his two friends. “Sharla this is Tommy and Johnny. Guys, this is Sharla.” He pointed at Greg. “I don’t know who that dude is.”

Sharla laughed. “It’s Greg. Nice to meet you boys. Actually, it’s nice to just meet someone sane in this town.”

 

Greg inclined his head their way. “Boys.” He’d let Sharla put the young men at ease while he tried to appear less menacing. He strode toward the pulpit and ran a finger along the dust-covered Bible, leaving a trail down the middle of the title between the Y and B. Old and cracked from age, it lay on top of a rotten surface. Strange no one removed the book when the church died.

 

He headed for the rear entrance, twisted the knob on the door, and pushed against it with his shoulder until it popped loose from the swollen frame.

 

Tall grass and massive blackberry vines covered the backyard, swaying in a slow breeze. Forced to stay on the rapidly disintegrating porch, unless he wanted to tangle with a copperhead or rattlesnake in that mess, Greg stared across the wide open space. He tried to imagine church dinners spread out on picnic tables back in a time when this town was probably worth living in, and Sunday afternoon get-togethers meant something.

 

A ragged trail parted the brambles as if someone had walked from around the left side of the building, or was dragged, through them and disappeared in the forest beyond the church. Whoever it was, he hoped they made it to the other side without a nasty bite from an even nastier snake.

 

Perhaps they hadn’t gone willingly. A chilling thought to have on a church’s back stoop.

 

“Greg,” Sharla called from the doorway.

 

“Yeah?” he said without turning, mesmerized by what he imagined Sleeping Beauty’s backyard must have looked like in the land of Fairy Tales.

 

“I think you’d better come and hear Kenny’s story.”

 

Inside, Greg leaned against the pulpit and waited for the nervous teen to stop fidgeting and tell him what the hell was going on here.

 

“A few months ago, Johnny and I were out riding our bikes just after dusk when a woman stumbled out into the road in front of us. She’d been badly beaten and could barely stand up, let alone walk.” Kenny shoved his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “We knew what had happened to her. That didn’t surprise us. We just couldn’t believe she had survived it.”

 

“Who did that to her?” Greg asked, keeping his voice soft, hiding the rage simmering below the surface. God he hated men who beat women.

 

“Some men from town—and—and my dad.” Kenny stared at the floor, took a shuddering breath and continued. “When fresh meat, that’s what they call outside women, show up in this town, the men go berserk and attack her, beating and raping her repeatedly until she’s dead.”

 

“Like a fucked-up black widow,” Johnny said.

 

Tommy whacked him on the back of the head, and they silently punched and slapped at each other until Kenny jumped between them with a warning glower.

 

“Jesus.” Sharla turned a concerned glance Greg’s way. “How can they get away with it?”

 

“The sheriff’s in on it too, and if someone comes around asking questions, he tells them the woman stayed a day or two, and then left town and he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since.”

 

Greg shifted and asked, “Where is she now?”

 

“We brought her here, and that’s where she was until about two days ago, and then she just up and vanished.” Pain flickered in his eyes as if he blamed himself for her disappearance, which he probably did.

 

“Like a ghost,” Tommy whispered.

 

“Why did you keep her here for so long?” Greg asked.

 

“We were trying to figure out a way to smuggle her out of town.” Kenny took a seat, slumping in exhaustion. “She’s pregnant, too.” The boy pulled his hands out of his pockets and curled them into fists. “We thought she’d be safe on sacred ground,” he finished in a whisper.

 

“What’s her name?”

 

“Lizzie—Elizabeth Howard.”

 

Greg’s heart dropped like a stone into his stomach. His best friend’s sister had been within his grasp two days ago, and now God only knew where she might be today.

This chapter has a bit of swearing in it, so I hope it doesn't bother anyone. It's not meant to be disrespectful, just realistic

Enjoy!

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

Kenny raced along the back trail leading to the broken-down church, sneakers pounding the ground in beat with his worried heart. As rivers of sweat ran down his face, he cursed the infernal heat. Why does it have to be so damned hot all the time? If someone told him they lived over the hottest part of Hell, he sure as heck wouldn’t doubt them.

 

Johnny barreled through a stand of small saplings ahead of Kenny, and he threw up his arms to protect his face. Johnny had always been the fastest, and he might have a crack at the Olympics if this place didn’t chew him up first. Teenagers talked about leaving their small towns—most of the time it didn’t happen—but if you didn’t leave this one, you might just die before your nineteenth birthday.

 

Tommy huffed behind him, breath forced from his lungs sounding like a dragon with a sore throat. “Ouch, dang it, watch the limbs,” he gasped out as one smacked him in the face.

 

Kenny didn’t have time to worry about tree branches or who they smacked. What had happened to Lizzie? If they’ve hurt her, I’ll tear this town apart with my bare hands.

 

Johnny stopped and bent over with his hands on his knees. “Dude, stop.” He sucked in a lungful of scorched air. “We’re not going to do Elizabeth any good if we have a heatstroke in this sauna they call the south.” He rose and took another huge lungful of oxygen. “Besides she’s not there. We checked yesterday. Remember?”

 

“I’m fine,” Kenny yelled over his shoulder as he breezed past without slowing down. He crashed into the clearing before the church and stopped, staring at the ominous house of God. He shouldn’t have let his two friends convince him to leave here last night. Lizzie might have returned.

 

Taking the steps two at a time, he reached the door and cursed at the broken lock. How the hell did they find her? Had he truly expected things to be different in the morning light? Expected the lock to be in one piece?

 

Then a chilling thought occurred to him. How did they get past the church? It’s sacred ground.

 

Shit.

 

If the townsmen could get in here, all the angels in Heaven wouldn’t be able to stop them elsewhere.

 

He wrenched the door open and ran down the aisle. “Elizabeth,” he yelled. He slung her bed covers back as if he thought he might find her hiding beneath them.

 

“Lizzie, where are you?” He turned in a circle, glancing in every corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of her—hoping his desperate prayers from last night had been answered.

 

Those damn sons-of-bitches took her. He ran an angry hand through his hair, yanking his fingers through the tangles. You don’t know that. She could have walked out on her own. She was getting restless.

 

The lock was broken from the outside, you idiot. “They took her,” he yelled at the faded cross behind the pulpit. “And you allowed it.” He glowered at the figure on the crucifix, anger bursting from a well-spring deep inside his heart. He kicked an empty Styrofoam food carton, and then stomped on it, squashing it flat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Damn it. Shit.

 

Tears burned his eyes, and he let out another streak of curses. It was the only way to keep from crying. A sob lodged in his throat, and he choked it back down.

 

With a furious, unintelligible shout, he flung himself into the front pew and held his head between his hands, gritting his teeth and trying not to foul the church with any more of his language. Cursing at God and blaming Him certainly wasn’t going to help the situation.

 

Tommy and Johnny trudged inside and flopped down beside him.

 

“See, I told you she wouldn’t be here this morning anymore than she was last night,” Tommy said, shivering in the cool of the building.

 

How the hell could he stand to be cold all of the time? Couldn’t the doctors fix his temperature? Kenny glared at him. “Well, I just happen to have this little thing called hope. It’s useful. You might want to try it sometime.” His mouth twisted into a sarcastic grin with no humor in it.

 

“Come on, Kenny, this isn’t Tommy’s fault. Maybe she got away.” Johnny rose and started folding the sheets. “How’s that for hope?”

 

“You and I both know that’s not possible.” Kenny yanked a pillow out of Johnny’s hands. “Don’t touch her stuff. She’s coming back.”

 

Tommy stood and moved around the church picking up trash and shoving it into a garbage bag. “Maybe we need help. This whole thing is too big for us. We’re just kids.” He tied a knot in the bag and tossed it into a corner.

 

Johnny flopped down on the bed and stretched out placing his hands behind his head “I wonder if any other teens have tried to stop what’s happening here.”

 

Kenny kicked his Nikes. “Git off her bed, you moron, you’re soiling the covers.” When he still didn’t move, he reared back and kicked him in the thigh. “Now! Damn it!”

 

Johnny yelped and rolled onto the floor, rubbing his leg. “Shit, man, you need anger management classes or something.” He glared at Kenny. “Kick me like that again, and I’ll break your fucking nose.”

 

“Guys. Language. We’re in a church.” Tommy glanced around as if scared God might rush out of a corner and whack them in the head with a big stick for being bad, and he’d get a whacking because he was with them—guilt by association.

 

“Okay. Okay.” Kenny paced back and forth. “We need to find Lizzie.” Just calm down and think with a level head. They might not hurt her. They may only want the baby she’s carrying. Oh, shit.

 

“Guys, we gotta find her.” Kenny turned, fighting tears again. If he weren’t so danged tired, maybe he wouldn’t feel so hopeless. Suck it up and act like a fucking man.

 

“I think those men messed her mind up big time, so even if she managed to escape, she’s not going to be an easy find.” Johnny scratched his head, and then studied his fingernails.

 

Kenny stopped. “That might be good. Maybe they won’t be able to find her either—assuming she even got away.” She’s pregnant, for God’s sake. Would the men hurt a woman carrying a child? You know the answer to that, bucko.

 

Oh, God, what if they cut the baby out of her while she’s still alive. A chill scuttled across his skin as if his core temperature had sank to Tommy’s normal temp of 93 degrees. Stop it with the damned morbid thoughts, would you?

 

“I still think we should see if that guy and sexy babe will help us.” Tommy grinned, staring off into space, with a goofy grin, as if he lived on a fantasy island where he could have anything he wanted, including the sexy babe. “They’re not from around here.”

 

Kenny cast him an irritated glance. “Her name’s Sharla, and she’s waaaaay too old for you.”

 

Tommy scowled. “Yeah, well, same to you there, too, Romeo.”

 

Johnny smacked them both on the back. “If you two sissies don’t stop bitching at each other, I’m going to toss you both outside and kick your asses.”

 

“Johnny you say one more cuss word in this church, and I’m going to flatten your lip.” Tommy held his fists up and danced around like a boxer.

 

Johnny laughed. “Oooh, I’m scared Mr. Lustful Thoughts. It’s fatten, you idiot. Not flatten.”

 

“Either way, it’s going to be mush.”

 

“Both of you cool it. This is not helping find Lizzie.”

 

Tommy dropped his fists. “Do you suppose the ghosts might know where she is?”

 

A stunned silence filled the church.

 

“What ghosts?” Johnny asked.

 

Tommy shrugged. “One’s been following me around a lot lately.” He hesitated and then said, “I think I know who she is.”

 

“Who?” Kenny leaned forward intent on his answer.

 

“Mary Beth Blakely.”

 

“The freshman who disappeared from the high school parking lot last year?” Stunned Kenny resumed pacing, fiddling with his lip.

 

“I guess we can rule out her running away like they suspected.” Johnny slumped onto a church bench. “But why is she wandering around, following you everywhere Tommy?”

 

Tommy turned beet red. “We used to play doctor when we were five years old.”

 

Johnny burst out laughing. “But still that wouldn’t be a strong enough reason for her to attach herself to you.”

 

“How do you know?” Tommy clenched his fists in anger. He was hiding something, Kenny would bet on it.

 

“He’s right. It wouldn’t be,” a stranger’s voice said.

 

All heads whipped toward the entrance where a man stood with a shotgun dangling from his fingers.

Those of you who are getting this notice via email will be the only ones who will be able to read my novel in its entirety as I write it. Aren't you special  I'll be deleting the previous week's chapter every time I post a new one.

Thank you so much for keeping me motivated! I haven't written this much in four years!

 

A Gulf War soldier stood at the end of Sharla Mickler’s bed, staring at her in quiet desperation, before fading into the darkness around him.

 

Sharla lay still, her heart whacking against the walls of her chest loud enough to cause an echo in the mostly empty bedroom.

 

“Holy cow. I did it.”

 

Now what?

 

He hadn’t stayed long enough to communicate, but maybe that would change in time. She hoped so, because this whole ridiculous scheme might be her last chance for happiness. Finding happily-ever-after with a ghost would probably startle her grandmother into sitting up in her grave and whacking her noggin on her casket lid.

 

Sharla shoved the handmade, wedding ring quilt aside and sat up. The room had returned to its normal early August temperature, which meant hotter than hell in Brisban, North Carolina. A white body-hugging, baby doll T-shirt and baby blue, boy shorts was about all she could stand to sleep in, and if she hadn’t been expecting a ghostly visitor, she wouldn’t have been wearing even that.

 

With a yawn she stood and moved to the window. Staring out at the quarter-moon night, she debated whether to go back to bed or drag out the Ouija board and try communicating with the soldier.

 

Grandma Ida Wilson had always cautioned her about playing with the Ouija. Unpleasant things tended to enter where they had no business being—among the living.

 

But soldier boy certainly hadn’t looked unpleasant. In fact, he was as good-looking as all get out. A man in camouflage never failed to make her heart scamper deliriously through Carolina blue skies. Not literally, of course, but if you were romantically inclined, you’d get the point.

 

Sharla pulled the curtain aside and glanced at the house next door to hers. A movement in the shadows caught her attention. Apparently, her very-much-alive good-looking neighbor, whom she had yet to meet, couldn’t sleep either. She had been awakened by a ghost. What was his excuse?

 

The soldier appeared next to her, startling a squeak from her throat. He opened his mouth and roared long and loud, screaming into her face, pulling the muscles of his neck and jaws into tight cords. White light exploded around him, momentarily blinding her.

 

Sharla dropped the curtain, backed up against the wall, and stared at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. Okay, maybe he’s not so friendly. Maybe he’s a rogue soldier who hates the military and everything it stands for. I know I’d be ticked off if I got blown up by a roadside bomb.

 

Just my god-awful luck if that’s the case. Sharla scooted along the wall, hoping to beat a hasty retreat across her bed.

 

Her bedroom door flew open and her dark-haired neighbor raised a sawed-off shotgun and blasted the ghost into a million particles. He pulled the trigger again, and the ghost vanished in a dusty vapor, dragging his roar with him into whatever realm ghosts existed.

 

Silence descended, except for the sound of their labored breathing.

 

Sharla stirred and pushed away from the wall. “That was my ghost.”

 

“Your ghost?”

 

“Yes. At least until you shot him. Now he may never come back. What were you thinking? You can’t kill something already dead, anyway.”

 

“I was thinking of your safety.” He lowered the gun. “I wasn’t trying to kill it. The gun’s loaded with rock salt.”

 

“My safety?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why?”

 

He frowned. “Because, some ghosts are dangerous.”

 

“How many times have you heard of a ghost killing anyone?”

 

“They don’t need to kill you to be dangerous.”

 

“I’m going downstairs for some tea. Would you like to join me?” Sharla brushed by him and rushed down the steps, avoiding the groaning one that always gave her the creeps. It sounded like an evil ninety-year-old woman, who dwelled under the stairs, moaning just for the hell of it.

 

As she pulled the pitcher of sweet tea out of the refrigerator, her knight in misguided armor stepped on the groaning stair and a few seconds later arrived at the kitchen entrance.

 

“What’s your name?” she asked.

 

“Greg Chadwick.”

 

“Sharla Mickler.” She poured two small glasses full—no sense in being up and down the rest of the night having to go pee—and handed one to her new friend.

 

 “Do you live next door?”

 

Greg drained the glass and handed it back to her. “For now.”

 

“What is it that you do, Greg?” She sipped at her tea, leaning against the sink. “Besides shoot helpless ghosts with rock salt in the middle of the night?”

 

“I hunt evil spirits and put them out of our misery.”

 

“Ah, a Dean and Sam Winchester wannabe, but soldier boy wasn’t evil.”

 

“How do you know?” he asked, growing more irritated at her by the minute. She could tell by the way his forehead sprouted wrinkles every time she questioned him about something.

 

Sharla shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

 

“Look, it’s late. Do you think you can sleep here all by yourself?”

 

Sharla laughed. “I’m not scared of ghosts, especially one I conjured up.” She rinsed the glasses and set them in the drainer.

 

“Conjured?”

 

“Yes, with that.” She gestured toward the Ouija board.

 

Greg closed his eyes and shook his head, and then reached in his back pocket for his wallet. He extracted a card and handed it to her. “If anything happens that you can’t handle, call and wake me.”

 

Wake him? Who’s he kidding? The man never sleeps. “I think I can handle one ghost.”

 

“Sharla, this house has a bad reputation. Most of the stories are just urban legends, but a young woman did disappear from here about six months ago. I dug up the newspaper article. Be careful.” His gaze wandered over her scantily clad body. “I’d wear more clothes, if I were you. Not all danger is of the spirit variety.”

 

“I don’t dress like this outside my home. And you’re the only male blatant enough to kick down my door and rush to my rescue, even though I didn’t need rescuing. It certainly didn’t leave me enough time to get dressed for company.” Sharla pointed to her busted front door. “By the way, you’re gonna fix that, right?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll do it sometime tomorrow. Can you lock yourself in your bedroom?”

 

“If not, I’ll put a chair under the doorknob.” She smiled and toyed with one of the glasses on the drain board. “It should at least keep out living males with impure thoughts on their minds.”

 

His eyes grew smoky, but he decided not to take the bait. “Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He lingered a moment longer, his gaze wandering over her body once again, before heading toward the front door.

 

As Greg exited the house, a curious feeling flooded her body. Suddenly she was feeling incredibly sexy.

 

Mind back on soldier boy, pronto, Sharla.

 

The soldier was of Native American decent and hadn’t seemed too friendly, but he’d appeared desperate and frustrated, rather than angry. But how could she really know? After all, she wasn’t exactly the smartest judge when it came to men’s characteristics.

 

On the point of chasing after Greg and begging him to sleep on her couch, she sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the Ouija board instead.

 

Could it truly be an instrument of the devil as her grandma had always claimed? Had she conjured up an angry spirit?