out the fetid taste of sleep.
A dim shape peered towards him from the mirror. He switched on the light and met it face to face. He was looking pale, his eyes half-sunk in shadow. They had a slightly mournful cast: it made his grin engaging, in a way that women liked. But when he was expressionless, like now, his stare was sombre.
The beard was five days old. His fingers reached above it, brushed the small scar on his cheek. A tiny nick of callused skin. He realized it was itching.
Still healing, after all these years.
Lyn had done that. He’d just turned five, but remembered every detail. At seven she’d been insufferable, a spoilt little brat: always bossing him around, as if two years made any difference. They’d been fighting in the playroom and she’d thrown a building block. The gashing pain had made him cry; the blood had made him bawl. But even through his tears, he’d seen her horrified white face, and known he was the winner after all.
He’d had to have a stitch, and been the centre of attention. Mum had fussed and held his hand, while Dad waited in the corridor with Lyn. She was going to get what for when they got home: that spiteful hope had kept his tears in check. But Dad had seemed to think that she’d already learned her lesson. And when Martin had emerged and seen her waiting – all big, scared eyes and tear-stained cheeks – he’d realized that he didn’t want to see her this upset. Her fear was there for him, he sensed, as much as for herself.
Naturally, they’d fought again – but never quite as fiercely. From that day on, it sometimes seemed, they’d started drawing closer.
Lyn.
He savoured her name in silence – then swallowed it. A lump in his throat, then a dull ache in his stomach. But there was no point wondering what Lyn was doing now. Tonight, of all nights, he could do without the niggling dilemma: whether to get in touch, or keep his distance.
He killed the light again. The dusk, already thicker, closed around him. He went back to the bedroom, and walked over to the window. His heart began to thud against his ribs.
The sky was pale and clear outside. There would be stars tonight.
2
The house was on the corner, just down from the junior school. The orange streetlight bathed its bricks, which made it seem less menacing – at first. But even from across the road, he could see where smoke had blackened it: freakish shadows underneath the lamp. The chipboard in the windows stood out clearly.
The Burnt House – that’s what everybody called it. The kids had told him so. On winter nights they hurried past it, straggling in groups. A ghost was boarded up inside, and that was gospel. A little boy’s ghost – burned black.
Martin looked both ways. Nothing was coming; but still he hesitated.
He’d been working as a cleaner when he picked the story up. Some of the kids had been talking in the corridor: clearly trying to dare – and scare – each other. Intrigued, he’d slowly mopped his way towards them, feeling his breathing tighten as the pieces made a whole.
‘Someone went in there, right? Went in there, and they found him, and he’d been trying to crawl under a door. Something in the room had scared him so much … he was trying to crawl under the door.’
He’d ventured to intrude, and they’d been happy to include him. ‘Do you believe in ghosts at all?’ a fair-haired boy had asked him.
‘Yes,’ he’d told them solemnly. ‘I do.’
Or something like them.
So they’d told him what they knew about the Burnt House. Different people had subtly different versions; there were elements of urban myth developing already. But he didn’t doubt the truth behind it all. The knowledge seemed to suck his stomach dry.
He’d wondered if the tale they told was giving them bad dreams. Perhaps, with some of them, it was – but they kept on coming back to it. Their growing minds could stretch to fit. But Martin had felt nauseous for hours.
The house looked unassuming in the daytime, despite the sooty marks around its windows. The sheets of board were blank and bland – screening off the gutted depths within. But the first time he’d walked past it, he had sensed the void inside. The place was light-proof: sealed against the day. Tonight, by sallow streetlight, it seemed so full of darkness it might burst.
The sound of footsteps reached him, coming up towards the corner from the south. The railway arch was back that way, an unlit lane beyond it. He turned his head uneasily – then breathed out as he recognized her shape.
She paused at the junction, spotted him, and crossed: relief had put a spring into her step. He didn’t blame her. The Burnt House was the last place you would want to get stood up.
‘Hello,’ said Martin drily.
Lucy smiled. ‘All ready, then?’ Now that they’d met up, she seemed quite perky.
‘Yeah,’ he said, encouraged. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He glanced towards the house again. ‘Romantic, isn’t it?’
Looking, she laughed softly. Eighteen now, with college in the autumn. She had a pleasant, snub-nosed face and short dark hair. Claire – who didn’t know – would be suspicious: naturally. But Lucy was a friend, and nothing less.
He’d met her at a vigil in a local, ‘haunted’ church: the sort of thing he would have jeered at once. Like many of the ghost-watchers, she had a sceptic’s mind: always on the lookout for an easy explanation. And yet she felt the mystery, like he did. She had a real scientist’s awe for that.
He felt he could see eye-to-eye with someone who’d enjoyed The Selfish Gene. He’d heard about the Burnt House and had called her. He didn’t want the group along, with all their paraphernalia. Their vigils were too organized. They made the dark too safe.
‘So what are you expecting?’ she had asked him.
‘To see if something’s in there. To get close.’
She’d hesitated. ‘We’ve nothing to record it with.’
‘Maybe not,’ he’d murmured. ‘But we’ll know.’
They went in round the back way, under cover of the over-grown garden. The back door had been forced before, presumably by squatters. It occurred to him to wonder just how long they’d stuck it out. A night, perhaps. Or maybe less than that.
The dark inside was choking – like a foretaste of extinction. He flicked his torch on quickly and played it around. The kitchen was bare, its walls begrimed, but the damage here was minimal. The seat of the fire, for once, had been elsewhere.
A foul smell still lingered in the air. The stench of stuff corrupted by the flames.
Grimacing, he looked up towards the ceiling. The plaster and paint had cracked like a drought-ravaged field. The light-fixing was gone, the flex protruding. It hung in the penumbra of the beam. He moved the light away, and glanced at Lucy.
‘Okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she murmured calmly.
He
