“But what you don’t know is that I unscrewed these shackles earlier.”
Lance jerked both hands up and listened to the mooring bolts sliding free of the chair. A surprised look flew across Anthony’s face as Lance’s hand closed on the handle of the closest knife in the belt and jerked it free. Lance swung the knife in a tight arc that his own eyes barely registered, and felt the blade bog down in the solidity of Anthony’s stomach.
He hadn’t known if it would work until that moment. The idea had formed after Anthony had grabbed hold of his arm in the room several nights before, leaving the bruised finger marks. Lance had reasoned that if the ghost had enough form to grasp a living person, then it, in turn, could be touched. The knives held a tangible fear and seemed only right for the weapon he could use, a talisman of sorts that could cut the flesh of the living and dead alike.
Lance pushed as hard as he could and felt the knife tear free. The ghost’s face hovered less than a foot from his own, and a surprised expression remained plastered there. Lance looked down and saw a long gash had opened just above Anthony’s navel area. He could see darkness between the parted white flesh, and for a moment it held like some sort of membrane.
Doubt flooded Lance’s mind. It hadn’t worked. The blade had passed harmlessly through this thing that had masqueraded as his father, and now, he would die and Mary would die just like John and Ellen had, along with his mother so many years ago. Then darkness rushed out of the wound in a gush of inky fluid that seemed to have both liquid and gas properties. It splashed to the floor, a darker ichor upon Ellen’s drying blood. The outer portions of the fluid hovered around the flow and crept outward, slower than its liquid counterpart.
“Ahhhhh,” Anthony began, his mouth hanging open like a broken casket, the smell of death leaking from within. The ghost’s hands reached to stanch the flow of the black tide that dropped between its fingers and continued to pour onto the floorboards.
Lance felt his own jaw clench and his fist tighten its grip on the knife. There was movement from Anthony’s other side as Erwin reached for his belt, but Lance was already swinging the knife again. He drove it backward in a stabbing motion, his thumb wrapped over the end of the grip. He watched as the point buried itself in the soft spot just behind Anthony’s temple. The blade barely slowed as it cut through whatever resided within the ghost’s skull and emerged from the other side. Lance gave the handle one last shove for good measure, and watched Anthony’s head rock toward his shoulder from the pressure. He released his grip on the knife, and the ghost’s body spasmed and the muscles beneath the clothing flexed. The same fluid ran out freely on the knife’s handle and tip protruding from the other side.