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I risked turning around and caught a glimpse of it as it climbed the walls and crawled on all fours towards me, its head twisting and turning. Pitch-black eyes were staring at me. Its jaws unhinged and it let out another scream as it launched itself off the ceiling and landed right in front of me.

“POOP!” I yelled and turned back around, forcing my legs to move as fast as they’d go.

The walls around me started oozing black. It bubbled from the floors, sticking to my feet and making my shoes feel like they weighed a tonne.

I powered through. I had to reach the stairs. That was the only thing that mattered.

“Stop!” I heard a voice and everything inside me came to a halt. I looked past the ghost, past the hallway I’d just run down and saw Ryan standing in the doorway. His weapons were blazing at his hips and the chains made so that the ghosts could use them on humans were nowhere in sight.

The ghost was looking at him now. Forgetting about me. Foaming at the mouth to get to him. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Ryan, get back inside,” I pleaded. “Please just don’t…”

“He’s not gonna listen to you,” Harri said, chains hanging off the hand that wasn’t tied to Larri.

“Of course I won’t fucking listen to you,” Ryan yelled, and the ghost snarled, crouching and getting ready to pounce.

I had seconds. If that.

“POPTY, NOW!” I screamed and a loud ping rang through the air before a thick line of black salt appeared between Ryan and the ghosts and me and the entity that had haunted the B&B since I bought it.

The ghost hissed and backed away, turning its attention back where I wanted it. To me.

It was angry now. Angrier than before. Cut off from a target it wanted, the rage felt like it would suffocate me before the ghost could even touch me.

“GO!” Bronwyn shouted, and I ran, reaching into my pockets as I went and pulling out two small burlap bags.

The stairs were right there. I could see them, I just had to get to them. I pushed as hard as I could. I felt claws dig into my ankle and I stumbled, catching myself on the railing before I fell.

“Owain, we can’t hold him anymore,” Larri yelled.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryan growled and I knew he was running out of patience and he’d be coming for me.

I pulled out my pocketknife and shook the ghost off of my ankle.

I pierced a hole in each bag and righted myself on the bottom stair.

The ghost’s head swivelled between me and Ryan cursing up a storm on the other end of the hallway. It was waiting for my ghosts to slip. Waiting for Ryan to step over the salt barrier so it could get him.

I knew he was getting closer because the manic energy coming off the ghost increased. It tensed and moved away from me.

The black goo thickened around my feet and the house started vibrating again, like the final attempt at breathing before it choked on the evil inside it.

“You can’t have him!” I said. The ghost turned to me. “I won’t let you have him.”

It snapped its teeth at me menacingly and growled. The head twisted around to watch for Ryan even as the body stayed turned towards me.

The claws scraped the wooden floors.

“You’ll have to go through me to get to him,” I said, climbing the first step.

The head joined the rest of the body, eyes dark and accepting. As if saying it was okay; getting rid of me wouldn’t be an issue.

Body twisted on the floor so it skittered on its hands and feet, it finally moved. Right at me.

I ran.

Up the stairs.