Excerpt: The Specter's Secret

As I slammed the doors shut behind me, I grabbed the nearest thing I could find and shoved it through the handles to hold it shut. That ended up being a wrought iron fireplace poker. It wouldn’t hold for long, especially when the force of my pursuer slammed against it. The doors strained inward, and a long-fingered gray hand reached through the slender gap between them. The yellowed claws grasped empty space as a howl of frustration rent the air. I turned away, ignoring it to find an escape route. I had no way of knowing whether this was a dead end. If so, I only had a few moments before the ghoul would break down the door and then it would all be over. Even now, the heavy wood groaned under the weight of the creature as it hurled itself against the door.