We sent the unfinished text message, scrabbled to our feet, and ran. At first, we tried using the long gravel road, but Mr. Shady had the advantage on the open ground. Our hands clutched each other, but the combined will of his minions easily surpassed our own. He gained ground on us, and a sickening chill wiggled inside me. I knew what we had to do, but it was going to hurt so damn bad.
With a grunt that sounded far fiercer than I felt, I yanked Shannon off the road and into the woods. Sticks stabbed into our feet and branches slashed at our ribs. Bushes lashed our thighs. We ran almost blindly, and our only compass was the dreadful cold nipping at our backs. Behind us, Mr. Shady’s slaves shrieked and moaned. I dared not look back.
The woods stretched on forever.
Near the top of a muddy slope, a stray branch skewered my face, jabbing right beneath my eye. I screamed and collapsed.
I’d never known exhaustion like this, not even after a half marathon. We were done for. Mr. Shady and his demented crew closed in. I was ready to give up, but then a loud horn blared nearby. By the trailing pitch, I could tell that the noise came from a speeding vehicle. A highway. So close.
Shannon smacked my face—the unskewered side. “We can do this, bitch. Come on.”
I stared into her eyes and nodded. We scrabbled back to our feet and pressed onward, though Mr. Shady was only a stone’s throw away. Atop the rise, white headlights and red taillights slashed through the night. I was pretty sure the divided highway was Interstate 70, which would take us right past the airport.
Renewed with hope, we sprinted down the hillside. Twigs and brush slashed through us, and we tumbled into a ditch as a bloody mess of torn flesh and cracked bones. Still clasping hands, we crawled onto the shoulder of the highway. Traffic hurled past, the wind from the semis knocking us over.
Behind us, something roared.
Mr. Shady and his minions barreled out of the woods. The conglomeration’s souls shrieked, begged, and cursed with tinny voices. Mr. Shady towered over us. Sour cold radiated from his slaves, numbing my back and freezing my phantom blood. Dark grey swarmed over my vision.
We scrabbled to our feet and into traffic. It was our only chance. We ran with the traffic, chancing looks backward to change lanes and avoid being run down by oncoming semis and vehicles. Mr. Shady soared over the interstate on the backs of his nasty crew. He closed the gap between us though our legs pumped at a blur.
Shannon kept looking back and changing lanes.
“Trust me,” she said.
Mr. Shady drew so close and the chill emitting from his followers grew so strong that I could barely feel sensation in my numb legs. I looked back. He loomed overhead. We cut into the right-hand lane. Mr. Shady followed, and a set of headlights tore through him. Shannon pulled me down just in time. A gigantic tanker truck smashed through the slave ship—an explosion of light and shadow that sent pieces of souls spraying through the air and over the road. The truck roared overhead. After it passed, Mr. Shady flailed through the air and tumbled over the blacktop—a long dark comet with a black blood-splattered tail.
For a moment, everything dead remained still. Bits of souls—once again glowing dimly—lay in pieces. Hands. Arms. Torsos. Heads. Then the screaming began—the horrid symphony of more than a hundred spirits suffering in stone cold agony.
Amidst the maimed souls around me, I realized the cold hard truth about being a ghost. Our astral forms seemingly had no quota for suffering. In physical bodies, we had the blessing of unconsciousness and shock. Our meat bags had the blessing of shutting down when we hit our threshold for violence. Not so with ghosts, apparently.
“Without bodies,” I told Shannon, “there are no limits to the pain we can experience.”
“Cheerful thought, Molly. Thanks for that.”
Across the way, Mr. Shady oozed to his feet.
That was all I needed to see.
I pulled Shannon to her feet and we staggered the opposite direction, now moving against traffic. My legs were stiff. My back throbbed. My golden aura looked cracked and mangled—as if scrubbed with a wire brush.
Traffic whizzed past us, rippling our souls. I chanced a look back. Mr. Shady trailed after us, collecting chunks of souls. Each piece that he touched soon went dark, and before long, he climbed atop a squirming mass bigger than a bull. We were screwed.
All the hurt throbbed inside me. My ghost muscles screamed. My bruises and lacerations wailed. Traffic barreled toward us. Mr. Shady’s mount galloped and lurched—closing the gap. A pickup whizzed past. I almost reached out to grab ahold, but I knew the impact would obliterate my hand.
That’s when I saw it.
A white Aztec zoomed toward us, its roof rack crowded with a Skybox and kayak in the middle with a bike on each side. I saw no other option. Grasping Shannon’s hand, I ran at the car head-on and leapt into its path. The Aztec collided with my soul—a bone-crunching impact that nearly knocked me senseless. The driver side bike impaled me. I clutched its handlebars and screamed. Beside me, Shannon shrieked. The passenger side bike had speared her through the chest.
“You fucker,” she said.
“Seemed like . . . a good idea . . . at the time.”
Ectoplasm rained out of our bodies, sprinkling through the air. Mr. Shady watched us zoom past, my ex-husband’s black head cocked at a jaunty angle. The wind pressed at my back, shoving me still further onto the bike. A tangle of innards fluttered behind me like the tail of some demonic kite.
“Did you see that?” Shannon yelled over the wind.
“What? My creeper ex-husband riding a bunch of demonic ghosts? Yeah. Kinda hard to miss.”
“No, idiot. That last sign.” Ectoplasm peppered her words. “We’re on I-70 West. Mile marker 34. Does that mean we’re close to the airport?”
I closed my eyes to focus on the numbers. Through my milky eyelids, I watched as the impaled Shannon struggled against the bike frame. The car’s velocity sent harsh winds knifing through me. From below, music drifted upward—just a hint of guitar and lyrics. Despite all these distractions, I managed to get my bearings.
“Shit,” I said.
“What?”
“We’ve already passed the airport. We’re going the wrong way.”