Read The Edge Of The Cemetery for Free Online

want an update on my condition and our evening. My current state would cause Justine a great deal of stress, and I wanted to avoid that in the hopes that I would be in better shape later in the morning. Billy nodded her head and walked the twenty feet to her front door.
    I needed painkillers and sleep, and a healthy shot of whiskey would provide the former and help along the latter. I hobbled into the kitchen, put a few ice-cubes into a tumbler, and hobbled back out to the living room bar cabinet to pour myself a good amount of Bushmills. Then I sat on the couch and sipped slowly, all the while thinking about just how lucky I was to be alive.
    I'd fallen asleep on the couch sitting up, whiskey glass still in hand and precariously close to spilling it's watered down remnants into my lap. Although it was now approaching 8 a.m., the drapes were closed and the room was shadowed and mostly dark, but I still felt a presence. I wasn't alone. Standing in the furthest corner was GG, my mother's childhood ghost friend. She'd been instrumental in our fight with Vokkel and his demons, but I hadn't seen her since and thought maybe she'd been vanquished in the melee. I smiled at her, ignoring the pain it brought to my mouth.
    “I thought we killed you…,” I said groggily. GG smiled and shook her head. “Where have you been?” I asked, knowing she couldn't answer with words. She looked around the room. In the past, GG attempted to communicate by finding items and making me guess what the meaning was. This time she moved to the clock that sat on my mantel.
    “A clock?” She shook her head and moved her ghostly finger around the dial. “Time?” I asked. She nodded and pointed to her temple and twirled her finger around, then waved her hand absently. I thought for a moment. “Do you mean you have no concept of time?” She nodded vigorously. “Well, you seemed to know when I needed you last time,” I said in sleepy confusion. She smiled again and pointed at me, then pointed to herself. “I need you now?” She nodded again, and disappeared. I sighed, pulled myself up, and went to my bed.
    When I woke up several hours later, it was to the muffled sound of my cell phone ringing. It took me a minute to realize it was still in my front jeans pocket, which I hadn't bothered to remove when I'd stumbled into bed. Grimacing at the pain that seemed to have worsened since I hit the mattress, I dug my phone out and answered it, not bothering to see who it was—I knew it had to be Billy, Aris, or my good friend, Phil James.
    It was Phil. When I answered, he said, “Hey man, you're alive!” I groaned in acknowledgment. “Heard you had a little Revolutionary War reenactment last night.” Phil chuckled at his joke, but I couldn't laugh back…it would've hurt entirely too much.
    “Yeah—tough night. What's up?” I asked. I could hear the roughness in my voice. Lack of sleep and coughing up salt water hadn't done my usually pleasant baritone any favors.
    “Dude, you sound horrible.” Phil sounded concerned, so I put him at ease as best I could.
    “I'm all right, Phil. But you woke me up. I'm just a little groggy.”
    “Okay. Well, we might have a lead on the kid and Aris wants to meet, but it sounds like you need a little more sleep. Why don't you text me in a few hours and we can assemble at the old haunt later today.” The
old haunt
was really called Seymour's, a Victorian themed bar where I'd first gotten to know Phil. From that point on, it had become our local watering hole and informal debriefing station. Phil referred to it as the “old haunt”, pun intended, because of what we usually discussed there…ghosts and hauntings. It was also the first place I'd laid eyes on GG.
    “Yeah, sure, I can do that. I'll let Billy know and we'll see you later on, okay?” We hung up and I rolled over and groaned some more.
    When the ghosts first appeared to me, I had needed to find out what was happening and why. My research led me to a