Walking with Ghosts

the knob slowly and eased back on the door, but it didn’t give. ‘I’ll take the window out,’ he said. And he turned his back to the window and hit one of the small panes sharply with his elbow. There was a loud crack as the glass shattered, and a marmalade cat which had been sitting on the garden wall watching the break-in did an open screak followed by a sudden scattering run.
    Sam slowly withdrew his arm and brushed shards of glass from his sleeve. They reflected the moon as they fell to the ground. He put his hand through the jagged opening and turned the key in the lock. When he next turned the knob on the door and pulled gently, there was a creaking sound as the dry hinges allowed it to swing outwards.
    Sam looked at Marie, and together they gazed into the impenetrable darkness within the house. Stale cooking smells were evident. Burnt fat, toast, and something rancid, fetid. ‘What’s that?’ Sam asked, sniffing gently, unwilling to let whatever it was into his head.
    ‘Smells like rotten meat,’ Marie said.
    ‘Yeah.’
    He moved into the kitchen, Marie following close behind. He flicked the torch on and off to get his bearings, noticed a grimy kettle to his right, sitting on a two-ring gas stove. He reached out and touched it, wondering how long it had been since Billy had been down here. The kettle was cold.
    On a table were two bottles, each with stumps of candle stuck in their necks.
    Underfoot had changed to sticky and damp. What had once been a carpet was now like a thick dough, partly cooked, a breeding ground for sucking insects, worms, maggots and disease-producing microbes. Billy was keen on the launderette, but as far as housework went he was still in nursery class.
    Sam flicked the torch on again, noticed there was a step up from the kitchen to the next room. He reached behind him and found Marie’s hand. ‘Stay close,’ he whispered. ‘And as quiet as you can.’ He felt her grip his hand tightly, and they edged forward over the floor like a single being. The room was almost empty. There was a large cast-iron frying pan on the floor, the butt of a candle standing in it; and there was a carpet runner which looked like it might once have been a stair carpet. In the glance he had of it in the flick of his torch Sam couldn’t tell if it was patterned or plain, and he suspected that the answer to* that one, even in daylight, would require the aid of a forensic scientist.
    From that room the next door led to a short corridor. To the left was a staircase with cupboards underneath it, and to the right was the front room of the house. The front room was also unfurnished, though it had curtains, seemingly stuck to the windows by cobwebs. There were mice droppings on the floor, and several of the floorboards had been taken up and removed, leaving dangerous, jagged holes, and a means of access for vermin.
    ‘Are you sure anyone lives here?’ Marie whispered. And while her words were still hanging there in the dank space of the room there was a single thud from the ceiling above their heads. A footfall? Something being dropped? It wasn’t clear. But someone was up there. Someone or something who might or might not know that Sam and Marie were in the house. Marie let her breath go slowly, and Sam felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck.
    He reached for Marie and pulled her head around so his lips were close to her ear. ‘We’re going up,’ he said.
    She didn’t reply, but Sam felt a tremor travel the length of her body. He gripped her hand and made for the stairs. As they reached the first step a large longtail leapt through the wall of the balustrade and brushed Marie’s legs as it scurried into the front room. Marie let go with a shrill and unrestrained scream. The stillness of the house was shattered and every brick, every mite of dust in the whole edifice echoed her cry. She smothered it immediately, dammed it up inside herself, and everything fell quiet again apart from the sound of Marie trembling, her teeth chattering, her lungs sucking in oxygen to augment the flow of adrenalin.
    Sam hugged her to his chest. Her whole body was fluttering with panic. It was as though the effort of will to suppress the scream had transformed the sound into an inner force that was rocking her bodily systems to their foundations. Sam held on to her for several minutes, until the terror began to subside. At the same time he listened for other sounds in the house. But heard