Read Online Goodlow's Ghosts by T.M. Wright - Free Book Online Page A

flabbergasted.
    The brunette, who was clutching her bad paperback book in her right hand and had her left arm around Guy Squires' waist, answered, "I do. Yes. Up there, on the top floor."
    The building they were looking at was a narrow, gray, late-Victorian town house which had—many years earlier, Guy Squires imagined—seen better days. It was sandwiched between two squat brown brick buildings. Both buildings bore NO TRESPASSING and FOR SALE signs.
    The brunette's building also bore a FOR SALE sign. The sign was yellowed from age and weathering and the real-estate broker's name was barely readable.
    Troy Street was short and narrow, and Guy Squires noticed that he and the brunette were the only people on it.
    "Well, let's go up," chirped the brunette, took her arm from around Guy Squires' waist, and grabbed hold of his land.
    Guy Squires resisted. He felt uneasy. The street and the building, the decay and the abandonment made him uneasy. And the brunette made him uneasy, too, though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps because she simply didn't look like she belonged here. She looked like she belonged on the upper west side.
    "I'm not sure about this," he said.
    The brunette laughed. It was an easy laugh, quick and believable, and Guy Squires smiled in response. "This is where I come when I want to be alone," the brunette told him. "I have a place on the upper west side, too, of course. But it's so stuffy there, wouldn't you agree?"
    Guy Squires nodded and began to speak, but the brunette went on, "I know this doesn't look like much. But at least there's no one around. We won't want for privacy." She gave him a coy look.
    Guy Squires nodded again, with enthusiasm, and said, "Yeah, privacy." He realized that he needed to use a bathroom.
    And they went, hand in hand, up the moldering steps of the Victorian town house, through the front doors, inside, and up three flights of lousy stairs to the third floor.
    The brunette pushed open a door marked 3c.
    Guy Squires said, as the door opened, "You don't lock it?"
    "I don't need to," the brunette cooed. "No one bothers me. No one's ever bothered me. They don't dare." She gave him another coy look. "Go on in. Please." And she held her arm out to indicate the apartment.
    Again, Guy Squires became uneasy. He could see only darkness inside the apartment. There weren't even any grayish lumps where chairs or couches would be. "It's too dark," he said.
    "Silly me," said the brunette, reached around him, and flicked on a light switch, bathing the apartment in bright light from an overhead fixture. "Is that better?" she said.
    But it wasn't.
    The apartment was bare. There were dust-covered floors and tall, grimy windows and hideous velvet wallpaper sporting plump, pink cherubs. But no furniture.
    Guy Squires asked, "You live here?" He noticed an odd smell from her. It was subtle and unmistakable—the tangy smell of the earth.
    "Not exactly," she answered. "Please. Go in. I'll read to you. I'd love to read to you. I've been reading for a very long time."
    He glanced at her. He thought that her looks had changed. Her dark eyes had lost some of their color. And her luxurious shoulder-length hair looked longer, wilder.
    "Go on in," she said once more, and she attempted another coy look. But it worked badly. The line of her mouth was too hard and thin, and her eyes were too narrow.
    Guy Squires said, "I'm afraid this was a mistake."
    "Mistake," echoed the brunette. "Mistake," she said again. "No mistake, Jack." And she put her hand in the small of his back and pushed him into the room.
    He stumbled, went face down on the bare floor, turned his head, looked openmouthed at her as she came in through the doorway.
    She was holding the bad paperback book in front of her as she glided toward him. Her hair had grown and was the length of her body; it caressed her—it was alive . And as she approached, as she held the bad paperback book in front of her like a weapon, she leaned over and he saw that her eyes