Walking With Ghosts (A short story) (4 page)

They cut diagonally across her, bearing her no heed, but for the courtesy of not acknowledging her. Josie steeled herself, ready to tackle this new landscape of ghosts, for in her heart, in her very being, she believed it might help Kayleigh Bryant.

The legion trudged past her in silence, and Josie followed. Around the corner they plodded and onto Monkgate, heading for the old Monkgate Bar, the gates of the castle. Josie held her breath as a young couple crab-walked around the corner, locked in each other’s arms, mouths and tongues squashed together and hands wandering the uncovered curves of each other’s bodies, and
passed right through
the lead soldier.

The boy pulled away, gasping.
“What the h-“

The girl concentrated on righting her skirt and blouse. “Man! Did you feel that?”

“Yeah. Felt like I’d been dipped in ice.”

“My legs are friggin’
freezing!”

Josie watched as the girl tried to cover her legs with the ridiculously short skirt. She would have laughed out loud if the whole situation hadn’t been so utterly bizarre. What the two lovebirds couldn’t see was that there was an entire Roman legion stomping the cobbles of an old Roman road literally
in front of their noses.

Then the two saw Josie and froze. A look of horror crossed their faces as they saw the WPC. They turned and ran as if pursued by ghosts.

Josie shook her head and continued her own ghost walk, following in wraithlike footsteps. The legion swayed from side-to-side as it walked, tunics hanging loose, helmets and plumes shabby.

Josie couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe, as the legion crossed the wide road, Lord Mayor’s Walk, with traffic coursing slowly and sparsely along it. Cars broke down, just drifting to a stop, their owners left blinking and bemused behind the wheel. But there was no damage other than a couple of minor collisions.

The legion marched on, threading a route through the neighbourhood where Josie had last seen the child abductor crawling through earlier that day. The further she went from the city, the dirtier the streets and windows became. A lone, straggling soldier had begun to keep pace with her, maybe by chance, maybe for morale support. He never looked her way, but his every archaic step matched hers.

Occasionally they interacted with pedestrians, with the same result as she had seen before. People scared and backing away, storing their experiences for tomorrow when no-one would believe them and they most likely wouldn’t even believe themselves.

At last the legion ground to a halt. Josie stood expectantly. In front, the carthorse and its rider were prancing before a row of houses that looked like they had been turned into individual bedsits, either for student accommodation or for local workers.

Josie moved up through the column, feeling no fear, and came to a stop in an empty street before a row of dingy, two-storey flats. The lone solder had kept pace with her and now began to diminish, like a flickering candle burning down its wick and sputtering into oblivion. When she turned around the entire legion had vanished, leaving her stunned, and afraid and very much alone.

Josie glanced up at the endless rows of windows. Some were still lit, most were dark and covered. She felt besieged with an overwhelming guilt, beset with the need to make a judgement.

She was here for a reason. Her heart pounded and her palms were slick with sweat. After a moment, a flicker of common sense returned and she took a few steps back until she was able to see every window at once. Deep down, her desperate urge to help, and in particular her close-to-home need to help Kayleigh Bryant, tore at her heart like a vampire would bite and tear at a helpless slayer.

The windows gave nothing back. They were the eyes to two dozen vacant souls.

There were no gargoyles perched on this building. The flickering mist rose around her knees, sometimes so dense she could practically tear it apart. Music drifted through a nearby pane of glass, shouting through another. Now that her eyes had become more accustomed to the darker area she made out various cracks in many curtains.

What was she supposed to do? Peer through every nook and cranny?

If I have to-

And her heart began to hammer so fast it almost came bouncing through her chest, for there, right
there,
in a second-floor window was a bunched-up tangle of material.

A blanket. A
red
blanket.

Yes, it could be anyone’s red blanket, but Josie just
knew
that six-year-old Kayleigh Bryant had shown amazing strength and intelligence by separating herself from her precious comforter and stuffing it where someone might notice. The Legionnaires proved it further.

Kayleigh Bryant was in this flat.

Josie marked the location and ran. She ran as if pursued by the Devil himself. She ran for the life of a six-year-old girl and for the lives of her parents. She ran for love of her own daughter, Emily.

She ran.

The radio crackled and she breathed out her location, entered the building and raced for the steps. Two at a time. Quick double-back at the top. Pinpoint the door. Slow down outside and take a deep breath.

She knew she couldn’t wait for back-up. Couldn’t afford to. Her Taser readied, Josie knocked on the door and put her ear to the lock.

Heard a shuffle from inside. Maybe the bastard had ordered Pizza. In any case footsteps came towards the door, making Josie back off a little.

“Who is it?” A surprised voice. Damn.

Which way to go? British Gas? Landlord? Free stuff? The thoughts ricocheted around her brain in a split second. Only one way to go.

“We’ve just opened a new take-away on Penley’s Grove Street, Sir. We’re giving away free pizza for tonight only.”

One second later the door opened. Josie got a quick look at him, glimpsed the shovel chin and kicked hard at the door. She fell inside, banging her knees, but the guy continued to back away even inside his own apartment. Typical behaviour for demons that preyed on children. As he shuffled and shambled away a cloud of orange dust again rose from his filthy trainers and jeans.

Josie held her Taser out like a gun. Close now, outside, was the sound of many sirens. They had the bastard. She cast a glance around the flat.

Single room. Couch bed in one corner, makeshift kitchen in another. Television and xbox. A horrifically suggestive set of used shovels set under the window.

Used.

There was no sign of Kayleigh Bryant.

Footsteps pounded the boards outside and soon uniformed cops were piling into the room. They each took a look, dozens of fresh sets of eyes, and then the bosses started to arrive. Paul Kett, with his stoic face, walked into the room.

He saw the eyes of his colleagues. He saw Josie’s deathly white face. His gaze fell on the used shovels.

“
She’s not here?”
His voice cracked as he spoke, and Josie was forced to turn away as her eyes began to sting.

PART 5

The silence in the room was like nothing Josie had ever felt. It hung heavy, like an accusation of murder or a bell that chimed out every man’s doom. Unspent tears shone from each face. The more vocal were screaming threats into the killers face, but this wasn’t
24,
and none of them were Jack Bauer.

The fact a child had died hadn’t even begun to sink in yet.

Josie stared at the shovels. Three of them, all encrusted with hard residue. The floor around their blades was clean. Maybe he’d cleaned them off already.

One of the uniforms said: “Where the hell would you bury anyone between York centre and
here?
”

Josie stared. The shovel’s were dry, pitted with old dirt. The man’s clothes were coated in orange dust and cement. She walked over to the shovels, crouched down and peered closely.

There was something else, a small blade hiding behind them. She looked around, caught Kett’s eye. “Look at this.”

He crouched down beside her. “What’s that? A. . .a trowel?”

“A builder’s trowel,” Josie said. “For a grave-digger?” Something deep was starting to speak to her, and not the spirits this time. It was intuition, belief, faith.

“The answer to his question,” she nodded at the cop who had wondered about any kind of burial site. “Is simple.
You can’t.”

“It’s a
brick
trowel. And the orange reside is brick dust. This bastard’s escalated from graves to something closer to home.
He’s bricked her up in the fuckin’ walls. . .Sir.
”

Kett’s face was horrified. He stared around with a stupid look on his face. “But there aren’t any walls, Leigh. These are internal partitions, block and plasterboard.”

“I’m sure about this.” Josie said carefully. “He’d need time. And he’d need to be alone.” By now there were more than a dozen cops taking interest.

One of them said: “Basement.”

****

And down they went, angels dressed in combat gear and stab vests and heavy shoes. Twenty men and one woman, with their hopes and their perceptions of life hanging on a single chance. They attacked the walls with fingers and feet until their nails and knuckles were bleeding and scraped raw.

And when the cry went up that one of them had found fresh mortar they all dug it out. Blood coated the brick. There was no time to fetch tools. No time to lose. In a few minutes they had dislodged a brick. The big cops got their hands in there and pulled hard. More bricks tumbled on to the floor.

Josie was listening for any sound. Anything at all. When more bricks rained down she glimpsed feet.

“She’s there!”

The feet moved. The rest of the wall came shattering down. The cops paused for one heartfelt moment of sheer joy, a moment so great few of them would ever experience its wonder in their lives again.

It was the moment little Kayleigh Bryant opened her exhausted eyes, and said:
“Hi.”

THE END

Other books by this author:

The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)

The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)

The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)

The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)

Chosen
(The Chosen Few Trilogy 1)

Connect with David on Twitter - @dleadbeater2011

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www.davidleadbeaternovels.com

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http://davidleadbeaternovels.blogspot.co.uk/

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Table of Contents

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

MORE BOOKS BY DAVID LEADBEATER