Read Online Ghost Walk by Cassandra Gannon - Free Book Online Page A

the
flickering images had kept him sane.  “And I also saw plenty of lights when I
died.  ...But, only because the mob that killed me carried torches.  Otherwise
things stayed dim and quiet that night.”
    And
had remained that way ever since.
    If
there was a Heaven, Jamie clearly hadn’t been invited to the party.  No angelic
guides setting him on his new path.  No glowing beams drawing him upward. 
Nothing but Jamie, all alone in an endless pit of time.  He’d been a selfish,
irresponsible bastard in life, so, for several decades, he’d been sure that he
was in purgatory.  That this was all a test or a penance.  As the years passed,
he began to see that it was so much more horrible than that, though.  He wasn’t
being punished.
    He’d
simply been forgotten.
    Jamie
was forsaken in a misty realm between one plane of existence and the next.  No
one could see him or feel him or hear him.  He didn’t exist.
    …Except
he did .
    He
was there , goddamn it.  Trapped and invisible, but there .  No
matter how loud he yelled or how hard he tried, he couldn’t get anyone to
notice that he still part of this world.  The solitude had been never ending. 
Suffocating.  A thousand times worse than dying.  He’d given up hope of ever
escaping his endless loop of days.
    But
now he had Grace.  God had finally remembered Jamie Riordan and sent him someone
who could listen .  Sure, she lacked spirit and seemed irrational as
hell, but that was a small matter considering she was also his savior.
    Grace’s
dark brows tugged together.  “It must’ve been terrible for you.  Dying, I
mean.”
    “Nah,
t’was over in a flash.  One minute, I was hanging by my neck and wishing I
could breathe.  The next, I was standing outside of my own body.  I never felt
a thing.”
    That
was a lie.  Ghosts didn’t sleep, but sometimes Jamie still dreamed of murderous
faces and twisting flames.  In life, Jamie drank a bit, and stole a bit, and
tupped more than a few willing women, but he’d never been a truly bad
sort.  At least he didn’t think so, no matter what his father had claimed.  Not
even spending his childhood under that asshole’s thumb had prepared him to
witness the mindless savagery of Harrisonburg’s lynch mob, though.  The hatred
and evil and fear.  Even in death, he couldn’t escape the nightmarish memories
of his death.
    Grace
stared at him, as if she understood the shadows passing over his face.  As if
she’d seen the darkness, too.
    Jamie
cleared his throat and glanced away from her.  It was a crying shame that he
couldn’t have some of that merlot.  …Even if it was a shockingly inferior
vintage.  “The hardest part of being a ghost is not being able to touch
anything.”  He said abruptly.  “You’re powerless to change or interact with a
single bloody thing around you.”
    “Well,
you’re sitting on that sofa.”
    Jamie
looked down at the floral cushion.  It appeared to be one of the few items in
her home that hadn’t been rescued from a dumpster or purchased at a yard sale. 
The woman was clearly on a mission to save everyone else’s broken-down, forgotten,
and/or homely castoffs.
    The
soft, flowery upholstery suited her, though.  Grace Rivera struck him as a very
feminine creature.  The kind of lady who would’ve never consorted with Jamie,
back when he was alive.  In his day, she would’ve carried a dainty lace
parasol, and poured tea for well-bred gentlemen callers and worn cream-colored
pearls.
    …And
crossed the street to avoid pirates.
    In
this age, she was stuck in a cramped apartment with no one to challenge that
wanker Robert for treating her badly.  Sometimes he wondered how people like Grace
endured the modern world.  The meek were undefended here.  Left to flounder
alone, as others sped past at impossible speeds.  The strong and selfish
survived, while weak-spirted girls collected chipped pottery and remained nearly
as forsaken as Jamie.
    “I’m
not