The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women Part 3

Nicholas heard the housekeeper falter, perhaps afraid of the name. But then she must have ushered in their visitor because the front door closed and heavy footsteps sounded across the hallway.

A man like Ailen Savage didn't wait to be shown the way. He materialized in the doorway of the sitting room, blocking out what lay beyond.

"Canon Nicholas."

"Mr Savage. Come in, do. Sit by the fire. Mrs Rook says the weather is unseasonably bitter."

"I won't stay long." The man approached the hearth nonetheless and stood before it, arms crossed, his face looking more weathered in its light. "I didn't call earlier as I was helping Naw get back on his feet. I see that you too have been nursed back to health," he said after a few moments.

"Dean Richards has gone to the seaside to continue his recovery. Very kindly, he installed me in the house under the care of Mrs Rook until his return."

Ailen's lips curved. "Seems you and the Dean had use for those herbs I gave you after all."

Nicholas shifted in his seat. "If you are asking if my mind has been opened up to the existence of the supernatural, and to magick worked outside the power of prayer, then the answer is yes, Mr Savage. And, yes, the spirits have left their mark on me." He touched a finger to the fresh scar in one eyebrow, trying to control the tremors in his hand. When the man opposite him nodded gravely, Nicholas knew he understood that the true scar lay inside.

Keen to change the emphasis of their conversation, he asked, "How did you dispose of the remains of the spirits?" Nicholas's mind had buckled in the aftershock of events. Glimpses of them came to him occasionally the cathedral's fixtures sparkling with salt as if in a new Ice Age . . . Naw collapsed at his feet . . . the air laced with the stench of burning.

Mr Savage kept up his unwavering stare. "We washed the sigils away with holy water. Helps to have an ex-man of the cloth in the form of Popule. He blessed a good few buckets' worth and we baptised G.o.d's house anew."

"Oh. Oh, I see." Nicholas liked the sound of the cathedral being newly sanctified, even if at the hands of one of the mummers' troupe. He retrieved the package tucked in beside him for safekeeping.

"The second half of your fee, Mr Savage. And thank you."

Washed clean of rags and soot, the chief mummer looked even more intimidating. His large hand took the package and pocketed it.

"You aren't wearing your costume. Has the mumming season ended?" asked the canon, unsure how to close the conversation.

The man dipped his great head. When he glanced up, tears glistened in his eyes.

"Anniversary of my son's death. I like to clean myself up once a year, to pay my respects at his grave."

"I am sincerely sorry to hear of his pa.s.sing. May the Lord keep him." Nicholas felt a twist of sorrow in his gut for this strange giant of a man.

"He ain't ready for the Lord yet," said Mr Savage. He shook back his shoulders, shrugging off the mantle of mourning.

Nicholas peered quizzically at his guest. But the mummer seemed all talked out. He walked away and filled the doorway once more.

"Goodbye, Canon Nicholas."

"Goodbye, Mr Savage."

Heavy footsteps crossed the hall. The canon heard the front door open and felt a blast of cold air across his exposed skin. Seconds later, the door slammed to.

Outside the evening air was sharp and pure. The cathedral loomed before the Spirit Catcher like a rock of ages. Sculptures burgeoned. Stained gla.s.s burned like jewels, lit by internal light. Lichfield slumbered all around.

"Come now, Thom. Let's go and meet the others," said Ailen to the ghost boy at his side.

"Yes, Mr Savage," Thom replied.

Together, father and son stepped out into the night.

Collect Call.

Sarah Pinborough.

In the end, there was only one person Lee could call. It was, after all, the only number he knew by heart.

He gave it to the operator and waited for the connection to be made. The line crackled. He tapped his fingers on the worn surface of the phone booth wall and breathed into the handset as the line rang. It pealed out to the point where Lee was beginning to think it would just be his luck that today of all days there was no one home, when finally someone picked up.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, sir, we have a Lee Moseby on the line. Will you accept the charges?"

A pause.

"Yes."

"Go ahead, sir."

The line cleared as the operator clicked off, taking the unpleasantly sharp crackling sounds with her.

"Dad?"

"Lee?"

Another pause. This time caused by his own awkwardness. It had been a long time.

"Look, this sounds stupid, but I'm at this phone box in the middle of-" he looked out at the hick town that crept into life on the other side of the dusty road "-nowhere, and I well I couldn't think of who else to call."

"Do you need me to come and pick you up?"

"Yes," Lee said, surprised to find how relieved he felt. "Yes, please."

"Stay by the phone, son," his dad said, as if Lee were a teenager again. "I'll be there before it gets dark."

"Thanks. Look, I know-" A crackling dead tone that made his ears buzz cut him off suddenly, and he hung up. His dad clearly had at the other end.

It was a hot day and the booth was like a sauna. He pushed the door open, the squeal of its hinges loud in the quiet afternoon, and stood by the roadside. He guessed he'd been lucky the phone had worked at all. Despite the heat and the still air, he wasn't thirsty. He should have been it felt like he'd been walking all day but his mouth was moist. He wondered about the time and glanced down at his wrist, but his ever-dependable Timex wasn't there, just the tan line, built up nicely on the golf course, outlining its ghost.

No watch, no phone, and no wallet. Thank G.o.d for Dad. Thank G.o.d for the days of actually remembering numbers instead of storing them into BlackBerrys or iPhones or whatever the next big thing was. He looked back at that empty s.p.a.ce on his wrist. He never took his watch off.

A short burst of wind gusted from across the street and he looked up. Although the sun was still relatively high in the desert sky, dark shadows were stretching out lazily between the tired, abandoned buildings whose gla.s.s eyes glinted at him. He hadn't seen a town sign on his walk in, and he wondered if maybe it had been blown away in a sand storm. A lot of the road had been hidden by dust blasted across it and there had been no tyre tracks at all that he could recall.

The dead buildings were still in relatively good condition. Had this place been a salt mining outpost? It might not be the largest of towns but even from where he was, on the other side of the wide road, he could make out streets that went quite far back, and he was sure that one of those signs read "Diner", although his eyesight wasn't what it used to be. It was a garish shopfront, at any rate, with what looked like a Betty Boop-style cartoon woman running down one side. Even under the thick layer of filth her red dress was visible.

His eyes ran over the outlines of each store and house. There was a lot of dirt. The sidewalks were lost. Most of the buildings were a uniform brown as if they really had grown out of the desert earth rather than been built, in different-coloured wooden facades, by the hand of man. The winds must blow strong through here to get that much grime embedded. Either that or the town had been empty for so long that the sand had simply claimed it, inch by inch.

The sun beat on the back of his neck as he squinted. He'd burn if he wasn't careful. He was probably burned already. Some of those shadows across the way were really quite dark. It might be cooler over there, he decided. He'd still be able to see the road and he wouldn't burn. He glanced up. The sun had moved another few inches across its playground of the sky. How long had he been looking at the ghost town? No more than ten minutes, surely? He glanced down at the s.p.a.ce on his wrist with mild irritation. He never took his watch off. It bothered him that he wasn't wearing it.

A breeze gusted sand across his shoes and he took the first step on to the road. Something scurried in the shadows on the other side. He paused, suddenly tense. What had that been? A piece of garbage, perhaps? Probably a rodent of some kind. He looked again at the buildings that stared back at him from within their strange shadows. Out here, so far from any big city, who knew what the town was now home to? Rats and probably worse. He didn't know much about the desert. What lived out here anyway?

He took a step backwards and was sure he heard the wind moan in disappointment as it slashed its way through the streets opposite. At least he hoped it was the wind. He almost laughed. He wasn't a child to be scared by dark shadows and the things that might live in them, but for a moment it had seemed as if those dark patches had stretched out suddenly towards him, as if they could grab him back. It was ridiculous, he chided himself. Simply a trick of the eyes.

Still, he thought, looking up at the windows, he was plenty glad he wasn't a boy any more. There was definitely something creepy about this place. Something flashed within the small frame of a window on the darker side of the road. He frowned and his mouth dropped open slightly. Whatever had been there was now gone, but he was sure he'd seen someone in one of the upstairs rooms of the closest building. Just for the briefest moment. Had that been sunlight reflecting or had something really been clawing at the windows? A figure? Trying to get out? Was someone really in there?

"Hey."

The voice startled him and he whirled round, going over on his ankle as he did so. Pain flared up his leg. The figure in the window was forgotten. He hobbled back to the sidewalk.

"Hey," he said. "You made me jump. I didn't think there was anyone out here." He smiled and held out his hand. "Lee Moseby."

The woman stared back at him for a moment, her brow furrowed. She was sweating under her pancake foundation and it didn't make for a good look on a woman her age.

"It's hot," she said. She didn't smile, and nor did she shake Lee's hand. That made him feel less sorry for his unkind thought. Her clothes were dusty, just as his were, but her blouse and skirt looked more uncomfortable than his chinos and golf shirt, and her high heels must have been a b.i.t.c.h to walk in if she'd come to town the same way he had. Weird how he hadn't seen her behind him. Just how long had he been here?

"Do you have the time?" he asked.

She shook her head and then they both looked up at the sky. The sun had moved further round and Lee realized they were now in the haze of the late-afternoon.

"I wondered if you had a quarter," she asked, and then nodded at the booth. "For the phone. I need to call someone." She chewed her lip and the warm red lipstick stuck to her teeth. "Aren't you hot?" she asked. "Why ain't you sweating?"

"Just must have got used to it," Lee said. "I've been here a while."

"A quarter?" she asked again.

"Sorry." Lee shrugged and pulled his pockets out. "I don't even have a dime." He wondered why he'd made the ridiculous gesture. Never once in all his years had he actually turned the pockets of his pants out. But then, he realized, as he looked down at the fabric, it was rare that his pockets weren't full. Change, keys, receipts, all the usual bric-a-brac of life. "But the phone works," he said. "Call collect. That's what I did."

"You got someone coming to get you?" Her heavy face lit up slightly, and she pushed a wayward curl away from her face. She had that kind of over-styled and sprayed hair that was common amongst the older southern belles.

"Yeah," he said. "My dad." He thought he should feel embarra.s.sed about that, but somehow he didn't. "I knew his number," he added.

"Uh-uh," she said. She wasn't ready to smile at him yet, but the frown had at least abated slightly. She looked past him at the town. "I guess I'll try that. I know my folks' number too. And my sister's." She turned and wiggled on her dusty heels to the phone box. "And Adele's, but I can't see that b.i.t.c.h getting off her fat a.s.s and coming all the way out here to get me."

She disappeared inside and Lee decided she was talking as much to herself as to him. He rubbed the back of his neck and found it was cool, not burned at all. Despite the way the nameless woman was sweating, he hadn't found the heat overbearing during the course of the day and he still wasn't thirsty.

With his back to the phone booth, he walked to the crossroads and peered down the road. It was empty. Surely his dad would be here soon. In the distant shimmer he couldn't see any more walkers headed this way. Probably a good thing, he decided. He wouldn't want to be waiting out here for a ride when it had gotten dark.

He found a boulder and squatted down on it. His knees rose up almost to his chin, so he spread his legs a little wider and rested his arms on them. He felt like a cowboy. His boots, dusty and scuffed, looked like cowboy's boots. He smiled again, momentarily happy. His irritation at the lack of a watch disappeared. His dad would get here eventually, he was reliable like that, and sitting in the sunshine wasn't such a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon. He stared at the ground between his feet for so long he could almost make out each grain of sand that made up the earth. Some were dull and others shone like diamonds. He picked up a handful and let it run between his fingers. It felt good.

Eventually, she came out of the booth. He'd been so lost in his study of everything and nothing that he'd almost forgotten she was there. When he got to his feet, his legs were stiff. The air had cooled slightly. The woman, however, was still sweating.

"No one was home," she said. "Can you believe that? Not even Adele, and she's always at home watching TV."

"Did you dial the right numbers?" Lee asked. He wasn't sure what else to say. She was frowning again, sharp lines running across her forehead and forcing her eyes to narrow.

"Sure I did. Who forgets their family's number?" she snapped. "They're not in, though." Her voice softened, and she turned to look over at the town. "Weird. My mom's always in. Disabled. Doesn't get out much apart from to drive to the store."

The light was fading into gloom, and Lee followed her nervous gaze over to the ghost town. "Do you check in on her often?" The shadows were getting darker, and this time he was sure he could see flashes of eyes as small creatures scurried here and there just out of sight.

"Nah," she said. "Carrie, my sister, she does all that." Like him, her eyes were fixed on the suddenly sharp angles of the abandoned buildings and streets opposite. "I was never good with old people."

"Try again later," he said.

"Sure," she nodded. "Sure."

Half an hour later, and the sun was merely a line of fire against the horizon. Evening was falling and the wind was picking up. They stood in silence for most of the time, Lee looking out into the road and the woman staring at the town. He didn't want to look in that direction. He'd glanced round maybe ten minutes earlier and this time he was sure definitely sure that there had been figures clawing at the windows. Momentary and gone in a breath, but he'd seen them. There had also been things scuttling in the streets. The sounds of claws on tarmac carried over to them on the wind. Other sounds too. Wet. Unpleasant. Lee wouldn't look that way again, not if he could help it.

"I don't want to be here when it gets dark," the woman said. It was the first time either of them had spoken for a while.

Lee said nothing. Over the wind and its unpleasantness, he could hear another sound, coming from the road. A familiar rattling noise that he hadn't heard in such a long time. Years. How many? Forty?

"I don't like the look of this place," she continued. "I think it gets cold at night."

Even as a silhouette against the raging death of the sun, Lee recognized the old pick-up truck. His dad's car. The one they rode to town in when his mom didn't come with them. The one she laughingly called "the boys' toy".

"Did ya hear me? I don't like this place. Not at all. d.a.m.n stupid phone."

Lee smiled, ignoring the woman, lost in the lift of his own heart as the truck pulled alongside him.

"You best get in, son." His dad smiled from behind the wheel. "It's nearly dark."

Lee did as he was told. He sucked in the forgotten and yet familiar smell of the worn leather and old cheroot smoke.

"Thanks for coming to get me, Dad." he said.

His dad's crinkled face smiled back. "No problem, son. It's been a long time."

Lee could feel his grin almost cracking his face. His dad was wearing the old dungarees he used to wear when messing around with cars out in the barn when Lee had been maybe fifteen or sixteen. They'd built Lee's first car together with his dad wearing those old dungarees. His dad looked the same as he had then too, no more than fifty. Healthy and happy.

Lee looked down at his wrist and the empty s.p.a.ce there. His heart ached again.

"Where's my watch, Dad?" he asked, softly. "I always wear my watch." He felt fifteen again, maybe even younger. He felt of an age when your father had all the answers.

"Hey!" The woman slammed into the pa.s.senger side door, her sausage fingers with their painted tips hooked over the half-open window. Lee jumped. Her eyes glinted like the windows of the dead town.

"Hey," she said again, looking past Lee to his old man. "Can I get a ride with you? I need to get out of here. Night's coming." She smiled, revealing the patches of lipstick that clung grimly to her teeth, and Lee wondered if it was an attempt at flirtation. If it was then she needed to practise. She was panting slightly and her stale breath was bad; as if something was rotting in her mouth.

Lee's father nodded over at the phone booth, the light in it flickering on as the darkness began to take hold. "Make a call."

"I tried that," she hissed. "No one was home. Gimme a ride! You got the room. I'll go in the back."

Lee watched his father's face. His brown eyes were unreadable but his expression had softened into something that was almost pity. Almost, but not quite.