Ghouls Night Out by Terri Garey Read Free Book Online

hard shove. Randy went down face-first, and Joe stood there alone, holding the knife.
    Randy curled into a ball, drawing his knees up tight. The next sound we heard was retching as he emptied his stomach in the dirt.
    I hoped he’d choke on his own vomit.
    Joe threw the knife into the bushes that ringed the parking lot and came over to gather me in his arms. “You okay? Did he hurt you?”
    Not taking my eyes from Randy, I held on to Joe for all I was worth. I was still clutching the empty whisky bottle, not ready to let it go yet. “I’m okay.” I was shaking like a leaf, dammit. “Where’d you come from? How’d you find me?” Not that it mattered—Joe was here, warm and solid, breathing hard but thankfully breathing.
    “Google Maps,” he muttered into my hair. “You told me the name of the bar, and I had a bad feeling.” He turned us a little so he could keep an eye on Randy, too. “Beer, rednecks, and my gorgeous, fiesty girlfriend; not a good mix.”
    I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You know me too well.”
    “Not nearly well enough,” Joe said softly, letting me bury my face against his neck. “But I’m working on it.”
    Randy moaned, drawing our attention. He dragged himself to his knees, then pushed himself to his feet,stifling another groan. Without another word, he staggered toward his pickup truck, bent over and holding his belly.
    Joe started after him, but I tightened my fingers in his shirt. “Let him go,” I said. “Let him crawl back into his hole.”
    “Nicki,” Joe clearly didn’t like that idea. “He pulled a knife on me; who knows what he would’ve done to you if I hadn’t shown up.”
    “Oh, I know what he would’ve done.” I couldn’t help the involuntary shudder that rippled through me, and remembered what my mom always called that particular feeling: s omebody just walked over my grave.
    “I’m calling the cops,” Joe said grimly.
    The truck’s engine roared to life.
    “Not yet.”
    Clearly frustrated, Joe looked from the truck to me. “Why not?”
    Another shadow moved in the parking lot, one I’d known had been there all along. Michelle stepped into the ring of light beneath the single lamppost, staring at me silently.
    “Because we have to follow him,” I said.

Chapter 5
    The One-Stop Body Shop was a dump, but it was a dump that sent a chill down my spine, and not just because of the name.
    It was a garage like many other garages, a run-down building with three big dented and rusty steel doors closed and padlocked against thieves, a small office with glass windows overlooking a dirt parking lot that held four cars and one pickup truck.
    Randy’s pickup truck.
    What sent a chill down my spine was the big retention pond in the field beside it, and the way the moonlight glistened on the slick, oily surface of the water. Once there’d been a chain-link fence surrounding the pond—now there were just a few sections left, sagging and covered with kudzu vines.
    It hadn’t been hard to follow Randy here. We’d had a guide, after all. Now that Michelle’s spirit knew and remembered what had happened to her, she had no trouble directing us down the main roads to the One-Stop.
    I was worried about her, though. Other than a few sparse words telling me when to turn and where, which I’d relay to Joe, she said nothing. Her eyes looked haunted, which was weird, considering she was the one doing the haunting.
    “This is it,” Michelle said, as we drove slowly past. “He has a room in the back.”
    I looked at Joe, nodding, and he pulled over to the side of the road beneath some trees a few hundred yards away.
    “This is a really bad idea, Nicki.” Joe put the car in park a little harder than he needed to. He glanced in the back seat, which to him must’ve appeared empty. “I mean, what are we gonna do, go in and make a citizen’s arrest or something? We have no proof this guy did anything except assault you in the parking lot; no proof he murdered