Ghouls Night Out by Terri Garey Page B

nightmare, a horrible nightmare, until that day at the bridal shop.”
    Oh, how I hated being the one who’d woken Michelle from her nightmare. Sometimes the spirits I met knew full well they were dead, sometimes they didn’t; it was definitely easier if they knew, but either way, it was never any fun for me.
    But I had more bad news to deliver, and this time I didn’t mind it so much.
    “You’re the man of my dreams, Randy,” I lied, holding out my muddy arms. “Now we can be together forever.”
    A wet stain appeared on Randy’s jeans, just belowhis giant belt buckle. I’d never known how satisfying making someone pee his pants could be. I didn’t have much time to enjoy it, though, because Randy turned and ran for the parking lot.
    “Raannndddy,” I rasped loudly, taking a few steps in his direction. “Don’t leave me here, Randy!” I looked frantically at Joe, where he crouched behind the section of tumbledown fence. My vague plan had been to get Randy to confess his crime, but if he took off, this whole muddy episode would have been for nothing.
    Joe stood up, but it was too late—Randy’s pickup rumbled to life, and he tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, leaving nothing but a spray of dirt and a plume of reddish dust in his wake.
    “What do we do now?” I asked Joe plaintively.
    Joe shook his head, walking toward me along the wet, muddy bank of the pond. “I don’t think he’ll get very far on these dark back roads without headlights,” he said.
    And sure enough, there was a squeal of tires followed by a huge thud, then the tinkle of broken glass.
    “Holy shit,” I breathed. “I thought I played rough.”
    There was a hard light in Joe’s eyes—one I’d never seen before. “The bastard put his hands on you,” he said flatly. “And he murdered that poor girl. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
    “You may have done exactly that.” I was shocked; my gentle, playful lover had a dark side all his own.
    Joe shrugged, pulling out his cellphone. “He deserved it,” he said. “I hope he burns in hell.”
    Unfortunately, hell was going to have to wait. We could hear Randy’s shouts and groans long before we made it to the pickup, which hadn’t gone very far.
    Joe called an ambulance on his cellphone, telling the police dispatcher there’d been an accident in front of the One-Stop Body Shop, then very reluctantly stopped to get his emergency medical kit out of the trunk of his car.
    Then we went toward the truck, which, from all appearances, had kissed a tree pretty hard. Branches from the tree covered the crumpled hood and rested on the roof. The one front tire I could see looked pretty mangled—that truck wasn’t going anywhere unless it was on the flatbed of a wrecker.
    “Help!” Randy called, from inside the cab. His voice was weak, thready. “Somebody help me.”
    Joe took his time, putting his medical kit on the ground and opening it without saying a word. He pulled out a pair of surgical gloves and put them on, a sour expression on his face.
    I hung back a little, not wanting Randy to see me. I was still wet and mud-covered, though I’d slipped my half-boots back on when we’d reached Joe’s car.
    “Is somebody there?” Randy asked weakly. “Anybody out there?”
    I was tempted to stick my head in the broken window and give him another good scare, but I restrained myself. For the time being, I’d let Joe handle it.
    “This is Dr. Joe Bascombe from Columbia Hospital in Atlanta,” Joe said, in a clipped tone. “An ambulance is on the way.”
    “Oh, thank Gawd,” Randy moaned. “I think both my legs are broken.”
    “I sincerely hope so,” Joe murmured. Then he went to the driver’s side door and peered in the window, which was shattered. “Are you injured anywhere else?”
    “My chest hurts,” Randy moaned. “I think I hit it on the steering wheel.”
    Joe frowned. “Are you having any trouble breathing?”
    “No. But it hurts like a