Abandoned: A Ghost Story

By Carol McMahon

Lisa has nowhere to go.

She’s been kicked out of her apartment in Queens by her alcoholic boyfriend and has no other friends in the city. A co-worker tells her about a house on Staten Island where she can live in rent-free, but Lisa comes to realize the price that comes with living in an abandoned house.

Abandoned: A Ghost Story is a novelette of 14,500 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol McMahon
• Release date: Nov 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370455157

Carol McMahon

Carol McMahon has always been a bit of a scaredy cat. She’s spent her days trying to find the things that would scare her most, then her nights lying in bed in the dark being terrified. Now she writes about the things that have always scared her so she can share them with everyone. Let her know if her stories scare you too, by emailing her or leaving a review, so she doesn’t feel like such a weenie.

Book preview

Abandoned

Abandoned

A Ghost Story

Carol McMahon

Contents

About Abandoned: A Ghost Story

Copyright

Abandoned: A Ghost Story

About the Author

About Abandoned: A Ghost Story

Lisa has nowhere to go.

She’s been kicked out of her apartment in Queens by her alcoholic boyfriend and has no other friends in the city. A co-worker tells her about a house on Staten Island where she can live in rent-free, but Lisa comes to realize the price that comes with living in an abandoned house.

Abandoned: A Ghost Story is a novelette of 14,500 words.

Copyright

© 2017 Carol McMahon

Edited by Picky Cat

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All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

Abandoned: A Ghost Story

I’m running. My legs pump up and down, pushing me up one stair at a time, and with each step, I can feel the burn in my thighs increase. They’re old, worn stairs, and I can smell a mixture of must and sweat in the stale air that surrounds me. The people around me, they’re all running too, some taking two stairs at a time. I can’t separate out the sound my feet make each time they hit the ground because there are so many people surrounding me. At least twenty; maybe more. I can feel the determination as we all run up the stairs in unison .

The ice-cold air hits my face as I emerge aboveground; it shocks my lungs when I gasp for breath. The group around me runs together. We know exactly where we’re going and turn a sharp corner as one. We’ve all been down this path many times. I can feel the elation course through me as I catch air in between each footfall. It’s almost as if we’re flying.

The man stands up ahead. He’s waiting for us. He knows how important this is. He waits until every last one of us, even the stragglers, pass his post, then he lowers the gate and the engines rev.

Holy shit, one man says as he bends forward and holds his stomach. I didn’t think we were gonna make it. He can’t move. He’s standing at the back of the boat, along with me and the twenty or so other people in the group. We’re all in various stages of recovery from our unplanned sprint.

Train was off schedule tonight, the attendant says. Three minutes behind.

A woman is attempting to recover from the most exercise she’s had in months. She wipes the sweat off her face and arches her back with the inhalation of air. The next ferry isn’t for another hour. I sure as hell ain’t waiting in that shithole terminal for an hour.

Yeah, thanks for waiting, a man near me says to the ground in between gasps for breath.

Don’t thank me, the attendant says. The conductor radioed the captain. That’s why he held us back. The attendant turns and busies himself with moving a metal chain that secures the gate, then disappears below deck.

I take a few steps backward, then turn and push through a door with a square window in the center. I make my way up a busy staircase, then emerge onto the upper deck. The night is cold and the sky is filled with stars; about as filled as it ever gets in the sky above Manhattan, anyway.

I’m in a daze. I’ve had a few drinks, but that’s not it exactly. I can’t get over that feeling I had while running up the subway stairs. I’d had it before, that exact feeling, in a dream. Was it last night? My nights are blending together these days, especially since I’ve had long, disturbing dreams every night for the last week. My days are all blending together too. I seem to be in a constant fog.

Only in my dream, the one that feels like it’s creeping up the back of my neck right now, I wasn’t running for the Staten Island ferry, and I wasn’t with a group of people. I don’t remember much at all, but I know I was alone. And