Walking With Ghosts

PART 4

The light began to fade, the western skies quickly becoming a patchwork curtain of purple and orange and gold. The tone inside the makeshift HQ had grown decidedly more sombre these last few hours. Josie’s sighting and chase had given the whole team a morale boost, but any further sightings had dampened their spirits like a downpour snuffs out a burning candle.

Josie’s ankle had been strapped. Now she could move, with difficulty, but she could walk, and that’s all she needed. Her shift had technically ended hours ago, but there was no way she was going home. No way anyone was going home.

This thing would end on their shift, no matter when that ending would be.

She hobbled out and into the darkening day. On instinct she glanced up at the nearby roofs, wondering.

The gargoyles gazed back impassively at her, their stony faces full of hate and accusation.

But she’d tried, dammit. She felt her own need to give something back weighing like a dead man’s noose around her shoulders. Luck and happenstance had bested her, not lack of will or desire or a poor effort.

She felt the night enshroud her. Darkness weaved its spell and began to alter the perceptions in her brain. Instead of thinking like a cop, like an investigator, she studied the places where shadow met shadow, letting her vision pour into the inky blackness.

Were the omnipresent ghosts chattering at her now, leading her on?

With nothing left to lose Josie walked wilfully into their embrace. Her gaze strayed upwards again, but if there was a darkness above the gargoyles’ heads tonight it was lost in shadow.

But there was no mistaking the red glints in their eyes.

Again, they led her on. Along Low Petergate. Each step made the dread churn in her stomach. Each step invited the blackness to her even more until she felt as if light had never existed in this world. There was a feeling in the air, a foreboding, that something unspeakable was happening tonight, and Josie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising again.

At Goodramgate she was guided to her left, past the old White Swan pub. Noise and merriment drifted from the open doors and windows, but failed to penetrate Josie’s ethereal cocoon. Goodramgate opened out at the end into a normally busy intersection. But tonight, perhaps it was just because it was Sunday, or maybe because everyone had heard the horrific news about Kayleigh Bryant, the streets were deserted. Even the nearby Italian and Indian restaurants were subdued and sparsely populated.

Josie looked ahead and felt a prickle of fear as a thin, ethereal mist began to drift across the floor. The back of the Minster was to her left, College Street ahead. Her eyes were drawn to the one place they shied away from, the one place she instinctively knew she was being manoeuvred towards.

The Treasurer’s House.

The site of York’s biggest and scariest ghost story. This was where the Legionnaires walked.

Josie stopped and took a breath. She rubbed her nose and face as if trying to make sure she was still real. And then she heard a horn, desolate in the distance, like the last, dying horn sounded on the last blood-soaked battlefield.

A pale light glimmered across the buildings ahead. The fog drifted across it in patchwork glimmers of white and grey. Somewhere an old gate groaned as it swung back and forth on rusted hinges. Josie stared, her whole body clenched in shock as the entire wall in front of her started to flicker and fade away. What appeared was a huge carthorse, ridden by a tired-looking Roman soldier. The horse pounded the ground with great hooves, but silence overwhelmed everything, as if the night had been robbed of its voice.

Josie’s legs buckled so that she fell to her knees. She noted that when the horses’ hooves hit the ground they disappeared into it, as if treading an old, long-buried road.

Behind them came more soldiers, all on foot, walking as if on their knees. Each one appeared untidy and dejected. Josie remembered that this entire legion was rumoured to be lost, destined to walk unknown paths for eternity.

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.