Walking with Ghosts

his body writhed, his head twisting up and back.
    Maybe he lost consciousness for a moment, he couldn’t remember, but the next thing he knew was the black-cloaked figure had the rope around his neck, and was dragging him over the cobbled yard. Geordie’s lungs were roaring, his eyes popping. He reached up to the rope with his good hand, but could get no purchase on it as it was already biting into the flesh of his neck. The man in the cloak was not large, but he had tremendous strength, and he was twisting the rope and cutting off Geordie’s life with surprising speed and agility.
    Geordie could see the slumped figure of Marie on the far side of the yard. As he watched he saw her move, then his vision began slipping away. What had been the figure of Marie turned into a swirling mist. The sounds made by the wind merged with the rasping sounds coming from his own lungs. There was a continuous wailing now, and Geordie unaccountably thought of storm damage, of insurance claims. Briefly he wondered where Sam was, and what the baby would be called when it was born. He thought his injured arm should hurt more than it did, was glad he’d seen Barney and the duck against the harvest moon, and way off in the distance he heard a wild cat growl.
     
    Marie picked herself up. She hadn’t realized the man in the cloak was there until he’d grabbed her by the arm and spun her into the cobbled yard. He’d been muttering something, a kind of rhythmical chanting, Che, che, che, che, on and on like rolling stock. He never varied the volume, his voice harsh, and as he closed in on her his chanting increased in pace, like a death train. The sound was designed to remove all compassion from the man, as if he was consciously squeezing the humanity from himself, and leaving behind a function, an operation, a machine.
    He pushed her back against the wall, and it was then that she looked up and saw his face. He was hooded, but within the folds of the hood was the face of a ghoul, red skin, puckered as if burnt, black eyes against a white leprous background. It was a face both savage and dangerous, the face of a serpent about to strike. Marie screamed, then she felt her legs give way, and her skirt rode up her back as she crumpled to the ground.
    It wasn’t clear what happened next. She heard Geordie’s voice, though could not make out what he was shouting. Then Geordie was flying over the thing in the cloak. He landed on top of Marie and she heard bones break, quickly, like twigs. The cloaked figure had a rope around Geordie’s neck, and for a moment Geordie appealed to her with his eyes.
    Marie got to her feet and rushed across the yard at Geordie and the man or beast who was choking the life out of him. She’d had karate lessons, and was experienced in self-defence, but she forgot everything she’d ever been taught. Instead she turned herself into a wailing banshee. In place of the stiff fingers or the fist, she attacked the cloaked figure with fingernails, claws. She scratched at his face and pulled at his hair. When he put up a hand to defend himself she grabbed it and sank her teeth into it, feeling the flesh crumble and tear, and tasting the fresh salty blood as it ran into her mouth and down her chin. She kicked out at him with both feet, feeling the connection of his shins with the toe of her boot.
    She never doubted for a moment that she would vanquish this monster, and in a remarkably short period of time, she realized he had let go of Geordie and was running for the entrance to the yard. She followed for a few metres, determined to stop him, but then realized that Geordie needed her help.
    She unwound the twisted rope from his neck. His face was blue, and his head and limbs were limp. Marie said his name, felt for the carotid pulse on his neck. He was breathing and his heart was working, but he was unconscious.
    She placed him in the recovery position and ran to the entrance to Stonegate. ‘I need a doctor,’ she yelled. ‘A doctor and an ambulance. And bloody quick!’
     
    She got neither. What she got was four big lads from the Punch Bowl, all smelling of beer, and a Suzuki jeep. The biggest of the lads drove the jeep along Stonegate, and unloaded a plank of wood. Then all four of them loaded Geordie on to the plank, made him comfortable in the back of the jeep, and drove him and Marie to the emergency ward of the district hospital.
    When they arrived there he still hadn’t regained consciousness, was looking