GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 27_SURRENDER AS YOU ENTER

{The script above The Door of Nasah :

"Per me si va ne la città dolente,

'Through me you go to the grief-wracked city;

per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,

Through me you go to everlasting pain;

per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Through me you go and pass among lost souls.

Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create

Nothing till I was made was made,

se non etterne,
only eternal beings.

e io etterno duro.
And I endure eternally.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate."
Surrender as you enter, every hope you have.'}


{Ghost of Samuel Clemens here.

It is nearing the end.

Roland has been framed for the murder of the ghost of Ernest Hemingway. The ghost of Marlene Dietrich and I have been trying to keep him in one piece.

But that hasn't been easy when his strange Lakota blood gives birth to what he writes.

Samuel McCord, undead Texas Ranger and main character in his novels, has brought Roland to his supernatural jazz club, Meilori's to keep him safe.

But there is nowhere safe for Roland with the Shadowlanders out to tear the secret of how to kill ghosts from him.

Oh, how I wish I could go back through time. Back to when Roland still lived, still stood before the Door of Nasah --

Back to when the ghosts of Marlene Dietrich, Humphrey Bogart, and I stood with Roland and the all-too-living Toya, manager of Meilori's.

Back to when I could have stopped Roland from walking into Hell.

Let his words from his journal tell the rest ....}


The Door of Nasah. I could describe it to you. But why would I want to curse you to forever nightmare about it?

I pulled my bent notepad from my jeans pocket, and Toya sneered, "Writing your last will and testament, scribbler?"

I wrote : "Once through the Door of Nasah, Roland gained the strength, speed, and toughness of all he met."

I looked sadly at her. "Writing those for others I hope."

Marlene rushed up to me. "L-Liebling, do not do this because I hurt you."

I shook my head. "I'm doing this to see if I can't pry Sam out of the literal fire I put him in."

Her saber went to my throat. "Liebling, I will kill you if you make me. A fast death to save you from a slow, eternal one."

Mark Twain had crept up behind her and flung two strong arms around her, the saber dropping with a clang of metal to the mist-layered floor.

"Can't let you kill the boy, Valkyrie."

She struggled. But Mark was the older ghost, and he had chopped wood as a boy, still retaining the muscles from the doing of it. He looked urgently at me.

"Toya hates you, son. Don't listen to her. You didn't know you were writing a living McCord into Hell. You're not to blame."

Toya spit, "Of course, he's to blame! He's DreamSinger, who sings heartaches and deaths into being. He deserves to die. Not my Sam. N-Not my Sam."

She buried her face into her shaking hands and sobbed as if her chest couldn't hold all the grief inside it.

I bent down and picked up Marlene's saber. I couldn't look at Toya or into Marlene's hollow eyes. Instead I looked at Mark Twain.

"If you could board that burning steamboat with your brother, Henry, still alive and perhaps save him, what would you do, Mark?"

His eyes became haunted, bleak. "I'd go, Roland. Damn the odds against me, I'd go. Y-You go, son. Save McCord if you can."

"Nein!," screamed Marlene, struggling like a madwoman against Mark's arms. "Nein! Do not do this, Liebling. It is suicide. Suicide!"

Toya raised wet, hot eyes. "Burn, Roland. Burn!"

I forced my face to be a stone mask. "Been burned before."

As I walked towards the Door of Nasah, I neglected to add that since my house fire, I had a wild fear of ever being burned again.

A misty wave of dimensional change blurred through Meilori's as it sometimes did.

To my right was now a small round stage. Herb Albert stood on it, playing "De Guello," the "No Mercy" trumpet melody Santa Anna ordered at the Alamo. The slow, haunting music seemed to be singing my death song.

There was a blur of movement. Humphrey Bogart. He clipped Herb Albert on the chin, wresting the trumpet from the man.

"Save it for funerals, mister. The kid's coming back."

He looked grim-faced at me. "Hear me, kid? You're coming back. You're coming back! Don't make me a liar."

"Sounds like a plan, Bogey," I smiled weakly.

"No, Liebling. Noooo!," sobbed Marlene.

I couldn't look at her. Sucking in a breath, I opened the Door of Nasah and stepped through.

Searing flames swallowed me.
***