Free Walking With Ghosts (A short story) by David Leadbeater Page B

this. The girl only screams once, and only when something terrible is about to happen.”
    “And the other two times were. . . ?”
    “Man fell through the floor of his flat into a take-away’s kitchen, been dead for days. And three people were killed in a bar fight down Micklegate.”
    “Coincidence.”
    Joe fixed her with an unreadable gaze. “We’ll see.”
    “It’s a square with a shop in the middle,” Josie mustered her courage, wondering if this were Joe’s way of a test. “You go left, I’ll go right. We meet at the top.”
    Joe nodded and walked off immediately. Josie was left with a thundering heart and two fists clenched so tightly her finger joints hurt. She made to move forward but fear made her freeze. For one moment there was an urge to flee, a bright red-hot sting of self-preservation, but then she remembered just why the Hell she was here. In this job. On this night.
    She had seen more selfless love since the birth of her daughter than she ever thought possible. Emily was born premature and admitted to the wonderful care of SCBU, the Special Care Baby Unit of York District Hospital. Her husband had then left her citing that he needed time to concentrate on his career. Since then people had been helping her. The incredible, selfless nurses of SCBU. Her family. Even his family. Neighbours. Now Simon.
    And then Emily herself. She found out quickly what only a true parent can ever know- that a child can turn sadness into joy with but a single chuckle.
    And when Emily started school, Josie found herself with a little more time, a new partner, and the chance to pay it forward and pay it back. So she enrolled with the police force.
    And that’s why she stood here, now, in this fog-bound alley with the stark moon above and the harsh, slippery cobbles below. She could hear Joe stamping along to her left as if trying to warn something to take cover.
    Her feet carried her safely forward. That was the first shock. The second was that nothing jumped out at her. The shop windows reflected blackness as deep as the darkness in Charon’s soul. Something glimmered in the shop, and when she cupped her hands to peer inside she thought she saw something move. A slither of silver.
    But it was only a water fountain, left running by the careless staff.
    Further round now, about half way, and the darkness swallowed her whole. She could no longer hear Joe’s dependable step, not any living noise at all. She might as well have been in Freddie’s dreamless nightmare-land, awaiting the click clack of those terrible finger-blades.
    Christ, Josie, stop that!
    She tapped her telescopic baton for reassurance and adjusted her stab vest. She thought she heard Joe talking to someone, just a sibilant whisper but definitely his tones, and strained her ears to listen.
    And it was right then that something shot out of the darkness. It could have been a cat. It could have been an owl slipping by on whispery wings. But when Josie turned her heart already knew what she was about to face.
    The apparition loomed out of the black towards her, a tattered grey face with a mouth stuck open in a wide, silent scream. Empty eye-sockets that led to a lonely death, as unspeakable as anyone could imagine. Wild, ragged hair that hung in shreds at the front and exploded messily around the skull.
    Josie staggered backwards, all thoughts of Emily or Joe forgotten. Her mouth opened in its own scream and her legs gave way like frail twigs under the weight of falling blocks. She fell onto her rear, scrabbling her fingers around the slimy cobbles for purchase, but the spectre didn’t come any closer.
    Josie saw the wraithlike face begin to crease. The mouth worked without sound.
    Oh, my God, Josie thought. It’s trying to say something!
    There came a moment, suspended in time, where Josie felt she might go insane, where a mountain of murk and shadow rose behind her eyes and threatened to fill her brain and leave her a frenzied, gibbering wreck. The