Read Online Ghost Shadows by Thomas M. Malafarina - Free Book Online

he could smell the deep earthen odor from the undead child's former shallow forest grave.  
    The hideous creature again looked up at William and with a gap-toothed grin and said, “Twick oa tweet.” The incredible shock of this hideous ghost from his past was too much for William to bear, as he collapsed to the floor in a heap, his heart stopping instantly dead in his chest from the inconceivable horror of the blasphemous specter before him.
    Later , after the ambulance had removed William's still cooling body and the police were asking their questions, the young boy, named Sammy Wilkins, still dressed in his amazingly realistic zombie cowboy costume cried openly, cradled in his father’s arms. The boy was confused, not knowing what had happened to the strange man in the house who had come to the door , and feeling like he might have done something to cause it to happen. His father assured him it was not his fault and that the man was probably sick.  
    Both Sammy and his father knew his Halloween costume was scary. After all, they had both worked very hard for several weeks to make it so. Sammy’s father was a big Halloween enthusiast and amateur make-up artist, who enjoyed making costumes as terrifying and realistic as possible.  However, he never thought that one of his costumes could have been realistic enough to have the potential to cause someone to die from fright. But apparently, he had been tragically wrong.  

 
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    The Path
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    No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
    â€” Buddha  
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    The hot, stagnant space was almost black as Winston slowly regained consciousness. The only available light came from a single candle burning at the far end of the blackened cave. He instantly knew by the stinking hot and humid feel and the vile, recognizable odor that he was in a cave. Then again, each time Winston was forced to endure what he knew was coming it was always in one cave or another. A familiar sulfurous, noxious stench permeated the air, along with the coppery scent he recognized all too well as the reek of coagulating blood.
    As he gradually awoke each of his nerve endings began sending rapid-fire messages to his sensory receptors and he started to feel the pain grow from an unpleasant discomfort to overwhelming agony. When he finally regained awareness Winston screamed with a painful howl as the tendrils of fiery hell shot up and down his body like a relentless storm of white-hot electric anguish. It was always this way, again and again, time after time, seemingly without end. He had no idea for how long or how many times he had been forced to endure similar suffering; he had lost count a long, long time ago.
    Winston couldn’t understand the physics of how he was made to feel the horrible effects of the relentless torment; yet the pain was nevertheless always present and very real. He was aware that he was dead and had been for what seemed to him like an eternity. He understood he was now nothing more than a spirit, a tortured soul. He was no longer corporal and as such—had no flesh, no bones, no   no brain, no physical apparatuses whatsoever—yet he was somehow forced to constantly endure the sensation of pain which felt as agonizingly real to him as if he were still a living, breathing, physical human being. Winston comprehended that for some unexplainable reason he had been plunged into his own personal version of Hell, which apparently was to be his fate for time without end. He couldn’t imagine what he had ever done in his life to deserve such constant torment, but it must have been more severe than he realized. Why else would he have been forced to tolerate an existence of such never ending suffering?  
    Tears flowed freely down his haggard face and when he tried to move he realized that, as was typical, he had been tightly secured and was incapable of any motion. Near the back of the