I stiffened my arms and legs and braced them against the ceiling as if to sink into it and hide. But it didn't help.

The ghosts turned corporeal as soon as they neared me. They bit and tore at my flesh, their black eyes piercing to the back of my skull. Bloody fingertips wormed into my mouth and pried my jaw open, demanding entrance to all of them at once.

"Come in," I begged.

Their faces twisted together in a whorl of black smoke and filtered inside my mouth, ...