Ghouls Just Want to Have Fun by Kathleen Bacus Read Free Book Online

under the car trying to get the driver's-side door open.
    I pulled a notepad out of my pocket and followed Shelby around to the back of the Holloway house. Brown leaves crackled underfoot as we made our way to the tiny cleared area surrounded by a circle of the thick hedges where Holloway ancestors no longer living were laid to rest. The cemetery, like the sprawling yard, was unkempt and untidy. Tall unpulled weeds framed both weathered and polished marble headstones like fragile, brittle sentries.
    I shivered and rubbed my arms. The only thing more depressing than a neglected cemetery is neglected pets and kids. Not necessarily in that order...
    I wondered if Shelby Lynne experienced the same level of uneasiness I did staring down at the lonely headstones. That question was answered seconds later when she pulled weeds away from the front of an ancient headstone and whistled.
    "Man, here's an oldie for you. Roswell Benjamin Holloway. Born 1797. Died 1853." She whistled again. "Oh my gawd! Here's Loralie's headstone! The Loralie Holloway! You know, the lady in white!"
    I felt some more of my spit dry up. "Is that right?" I managed.
    Shelby grabbed my hand and pulled me down beside the tiny flat stone that served as a grave marker.
    "Surely you remember the story of Loralie Holloway: the spinster who is rumored to have been rejected by her lover at the altar--after dear old dad, Roswell here, paid him off, that is--and lived out her years a lonely, bitter old woman wandering about the family estate in her faded wedding gown clutching a wilted bouquet of forget-me-nots and bloodred roses to her chest. The virgin specter that, to this day, still walks the grounds of her ancestral home humming the wedding march and pining for her long-lost love."
    "Oh. That lady in white," I said, a sudden shiver sending the willies down my body. I looked at the modest headstone. "Loralie Amelia Holloway," I read. "Born April first, 1827." I blinked and slowly got to my feet, feeling a bit unsteady. "We have the same birthday," I said, totally weirded out by the coincidence.
    "You were born on April Fools' Day, too?" Shelby brushed dirt from the lettering. "And look. She died on Halloween. Like, how freaky is that?"
    I continued to look at the writing on the stone for a second longer.
    "I think I've seen enough," I said, and made my way with long, hurried strides out of the shadows of the cemetery and into the light of the afternoon sun.
    "They say Loralie walks the night in search of a lover," Shelby said, catching up to me with little difficulty. "Some people swear they've heard a woman weeping in despair and loneliness, and the next day lonely little red rose petals are blowing about the yard."
    I shrugged. "We do grow roses here in Iowa," I pointed out.
    "Ah, but this was in the dead of winter," Shelby clarified. "Can you imagine how those red rose petals looked on fresh, unsoiled snow? Like blood droplets falling on a blank canvas."
    I stopped. "Do you have to be quite so graphic?"
    "Graphic? That's a good thing for a writer to be, right? It lends authenticity to one's story. A sense of realism. Of being in the moment."
    "Sure. Yeah. That sounds right," I said, hurrying to my car, pulling the door open and jumping in.
    "What's your rush?" Shelby asked, folding her legs and arms into the Plymouth.
    "I've got an appointment," I told her. "Family stuff."
    She slid her seat belt across her middle and fought with the fastener until she had it secured. "I guess I'd better get home and start my homework. So, what say you pick me up around six-thirty tomorrow and we come out and set up surveillance? There's a lane down the road a piece where we can stash the car, and we can come up on foot and watch the place from the grove of trees. That way we won't miss her arrival if she comes in early."
    "Six-thirty?" I was still in full pillow-drool mode at that hour of the morning. I looked over at Shelby. "Don't you have school?" I asked.
    "I'm a senior. My