veil vs lemur

All I had to do was make one shot with Sir Stuart’s pistol. No problem. If I missed, I probably wouldn’t survive the experience, sure, but other than that it should be a piece of cake.
I gritted my teeth and began to move slowly toward the Grey Ghost. I didn’t know how close I could get before my half-assed veil became useless, but I had to do everything I could to maximize the chances of a hit. I wasn’t a marksman, and the pistols of the eighteenth century weren’t exactly precision instruments, but I couldn’t afford to miss. Of course, if the Grey Ghost sensed me coming, she would have time to run, to dodge, or to pull some sort of defense together.
I had to kill her before she knew she was under attack. There was some irony there, considering the way I’d died.
The Grey Ghost finished her count, and the Big Hoods hauled a sobbing Morty out of the pit again. He hung there, twitching, suffering, making involuntary sounds as he gasped for breath. The Grey Ghost stood in front of him, motionless and, I felt certain, gloating.
Ten feet. I knew my veil was shoddy and my aim only middling, but if I could close to ten feet, I figured I had a fairly good chance of hitting the target. That would put me on the near edge of the wraith pit, shooting across it to hit the Grey Ghost. Of course, if I missed, the Grey Ghost wouldn’t need to kill me. All she’d have to do was freaking trip me. The wraiths, once they sensed my presence, would be all over me.
Then I’d get what Morty was getting. Except that as a ghost myself, they’d be tearing me into tiny, ectoplasm-soaked shreds. And eating them.
What fun, I thought.
I tried to move steadily, to keep myself calm. I didn’t have any adrenaline anymore to make my hands shake, but they shook anyway. Dammit. I guess even a ghost is still, on some level, fundamentally human. Nothing for it but to keep moving.
Thirty feet.
I passed within a few yards of a lemur who was apparently staring into nothingness—though his eyes were lined up directly with me. Perhaps he was lost in a ghostly memory. He never blinked as I went by.
Twenty-five.
The wraiths wheezed out their starving, strangled howls in the pit a few feet ahead of me.
Twenty.
Why do I keep winding up in these situations? Even after I’m dead?
For the fun, I thought to myself. For the fun, fun, fun-fun, fun.


Ghost Story Chapter 28, Page 311-312