Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy) Read Online Free

that thug Jack Dempsey the boys at Miskatonic all seemed to idolize. He was simply a brawler who’d begun his sporting career by picking fights in bars and walking away with the winnings of the bets made against him. Sure, he’d won a bunch of proper fights since then, but hadn’t he just lost his title in Philadelphia to an ex-Marine?
    There was a purity in running that couldn’t be found in any other sport, a battle with the self to find those last reserves to keep going when your body was telling you to stop. When it was so easy to give up, the challenge was to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep pushing on. And Rita never gave up. She’d been a fighter ever since she’d decided to get the hell out of New Orleans. She’d had to: after a group of Klansmen had bought her older brother out of jail only to force him into virtual slavery on their sugar plantations east of the city, she’d had no other choice.
    Rita’s daddy had gone out one night with a shotgun and Mama Josette, the mambo of Rampart Street, to get her brother back. Her father and brother had come back just after dawn, but would never speak of what had happened out on the plantation. Rita saw her daddy’s shotgun still had both shells in the barrel, but when she’d asked how they’d gotten the plantation owner to give her brother back, her momma had told her to hush up and never speak of it again. She never did find out how her brother had been freed, but a month later, she heard a number of plantations along the east bank of the Mississippi had burned down.
    No way she was going back to that life.
    With that thought, she picked up the pace, knowing she would need to dig deep to finish her run if she peaked too early.  
    West of Arkham, the trees crowded in on the pike, forming shadowed leafy archways and drooping bowers. The road was asphalt, and though there weren’t any sidewalks, the sides were still grassy, so Rita ran there. The forests grew thickly around Arkham, surrounding the town as though seeking to keep it away from prying eyes. She’d mentioned that impression to Amanda once, but her friend had looked at her strangely and muttered something about the witch-hunts of hundreds of years ago.
    Through gaps in the forest canopy, Rita saw the hills rising above the trees. Though they were many miles ahead, it seemed as though they too pressed in on the city, their rounded flanks and stone-capped summits bare of any vegetation whatsoever. Rita eased up, slowing to a more measured pace as she came up on the rutted turnoff to the athletics field. It was a mile and a half to the field. By the time she’d gone around the baseball diamond and the bleachers, it’d be time to head back to take a shower before heading to class.
    She took the turn and came in sight of the athletics grounds: a football field and a crumbling stand, which backed onto a baseball diamond and tiered wooden bleachers stacked high behind home plate. A few jocks were out hitting a ball around, mostly freshmen from Hell East, and Rita didn’t blame them for wanting to get out of that crummy dorm, with its busted heating, crappy plumbing, and lousy rooms. She headed past the thwack of ash on leather and made her way along the cinder track at the edge of the grounds.
    Running wasn’t as popular as baseball and football, and much of the track was overgrown with weeds. Rita was sweating freely now, her entire concentration fixed on continuing forward. She heard whooping yells and more cracks of bat on ball, but paid them no mind. She was in the runner’s “corridor” where all she could see was the ground immediately in front of her, the yard or so of track she would cross in the next second.
    Too late, Rita saw the bundle of clothes on the track and tried to avoid it. Her right foot came down on the bundle and she felt her ankle twist as she tried to extend her stride to avoid it. The world spun around her and she tumbled to the ground, grazing her knee and