Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town by Scott Neumyer

thought it. But now, it really looked to me like Gasp
was struggling with whatever it was he trying to say.
    "We..."
    "You what ?"
    "We..."
    "Gasp!" I shouted, fed up
with all the beating around the bush and wondering and confusion
and just about everything else going on in Ghost Town right now.
"You told me that you're our guide. That means you're supposed
to guide us . Not the other way around. You're
supposed to tell us what to do!"
    I'm not sure where all this came from, but I
feel like I've got this whole new assertiveness ever since I
arrived in Ghost Town. It's like part of me was missing before we
got here and now I've got it all back. I can channel it and pull it
right out. It's great, actually.
    "We need your help," Gasp finally said.
"We've needed it for weeks now and when you finally came crashing
into my room through the portal you opened with that tree, it was
like all our prayers had been answered."
    Whoa , I thought. They needed MY help?
All this time I thought I was here by some weird coincidence and it
turns out Gasp and his people need ME?!
    "You," I said, "need me?"
    "That's right," said Gasp as he shook his
head and looked down at me, David, and Trex. "We need you."
    "And if we help you with whatever it is you
need our help with," I say as I continue to scratch Trex behind his
big floppy dog ears, "you'll show us how to get home?"
    "Of course," Gasp said. "That's been the
plan all along."
    "There's been a plan?" I asked, confused
again.
    "Jimmy," said Gasp as he
turned his back to us and floated back toward the door to Room 7.
He stopped in front of the door and waved his arm in front until it
slammed closed, the big red slab like a huge monolith in front of
us. "There's always been a plan."
    Gasp spun around and faced us again. He
started to materialize and become more solid right in front of our
eyes and, in a matter of seconds, he was standing in front of us
just as if he were another boy from school.
    David, Trex, and I all
looked at each other as if we'd just seen a ghost. A ghost that
turned into a human. And, surprisingly, that's exactly what we saw. Or at least
that's certainly what it looked like.
    "Now," he said glaring right across the room
at us and breaking just the slightest smile. "Do you want to know
why, exactly, we need your help?"
     

Chapter Twenty
     
     
    "Ghost Town," Gasp began, "used to be a
pretty quiet place. It was all ghosts milling around, minding their
own business, and never really bothering anyone. We all kept to
ourselves and did our own thing."
    "Sounds just like Bored sylvania," I say
and elbow David in the ribs to indicate that he's supposed
to get my joke
about our boring little town. He chuckles, but barely.
    "Nevermind," I say and shut up so Gasp can
continue on with his story. "Inside joke."
    "Well, Jimmy, as I was
saying. Ghost Town used to be a little happy-go-lucky place for
ghosts to wander around and live their after lives. And it really was, sir.
It was a great place to hang out for a while after you passed on
from your world."
    "That is," Gasp said, "until the last few
weeks."
    "What--"
    "I'll tell you, Jimmy, if you promise to
stop interrupting." Gasp winked at us and we made the motion of
zipping our lips, locking them up, and throwing away the key.
    "So, the past few weeks... Well, let me back
up for a moment."
    Gasp took a deep breath and seemed to gather
himself. It was almost as if he was pulling all the strings to the
story together inside of his head, like you might tighten a pair of
shoes when you pull hard on the laces.
    "Here in the center of Ghost Town, we have a
building that houses all the Matters of Ghost Town. The Consulate.
The Elders. The Government. Everything you might need to run a
successful town goes through this central building. I believe, in
your world, you might call it a Municipal Building. Here we just
call it Centralia."
    "So, in Centralia, there's
a central mailbox. All the mail that should go to the Town Elders goes
directly