Kris awoke with the nervous sense of someone standing over him. Unable to fathom the deep gloom, he listened intently for some breath, some telltale sound, but heard nothing - not even a mouse or the small noises of an old building settling. Scarcely breathing, he fumbled for the candle stub near his head and slipped the lighter from his pocket. Bringing the two together, he illuminated the scene.
The flashing flame of the lighter struck once, then twice, before catching the wick, leaving an incandescent ghost on the iris. But as that ghostly image faded and his eyes adjusted, a second, real ghost became apparent.
Squatting some two feet away was the hazy form of a boy, perhaps twelve years old and dressed like an extra from Oliver Twist. The mist that defined him had a slight greenish tinge to it and was faintly translucent. He watched Kris intently, eyes large and lips pursed. Kris stared back in astonishment.
"Who are you?" Kris croaked at last.
"Mickey," the boy responded faintly after a moment.
"What are you doing here?" Kris asked, still trying to get a handle on the situation.
"What are you doing here?" the boy responded with a faintly amused curl to his lips.
Kris briefly recalled the row with his father and the slamming of the front door which had led him to seek shelter in this big, old derelict building before pushing the memory from his mind and replying: "Sleeping... Or trying to, anyway."
"Me too," said the boy with a grim half-smile.
Without taking his eyes from the ghost, Kris sat up, leaning his back against the wall and holding the candle between his raised knees. The boy didn't move.
Taking in his surroundings, Kris could make out the dusty floorboards and the crumbling plaster on the walls. The room was bare apart from some empty beer cans in the corner to his left: evidence that Kris wasn't the only person to occasionally spend the night in this dilapidated Victorian workhouse which, in a more favourable location, would long since have been converted into luxury apartments for yuppies.
"I need to show you something," Mickey said suddenly after a silent moment, his face sombre and his eyes pleading. He continued in a quiet, strained voice: "You must help me, please! I can't rest in this place where I lived; there are too many memories of old cruelties and sufferings. Will you help put me to my rest?"
Flustered by this heart-felt torrent, Kris stammered in reply: "I'll try... What do you need me to do?"
"Come with me," said the spectre, suddenly standing up.
"Where?"
The shade seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if preoccupied and stared at the ground. Glancing back at Kris, it tersely replied, "The coal cellar," before turning and walking briskly from the room.
Kris stumbled awkwardly to is feet, still holding the candle and hurried to catch up with the ghost, though his pace was constrained by the flickering flame, fearful it might be blown out. Shielding it from drafts with his hand, he quickstepped from the room and into the corridor, where he found the ethereal urchin waiting impatiently at the top of the stairs. He followed the boy down them, trying not to notice that the closer he was to the light, the more clearly transparent he became. Kris began to wonder if he was dreaming.
At the bottom of the stairs they came to a corridor with several adjoining rooms, much like those on the previous floor. They were now at ground level, and although it was now alive with shadows, it was still familiar enough to Kris from his previous explorations of the building. At the end of the corridor, they came to a recess with an open door. Kris wondered briefly about this: he had previously found this door but had been unable to open it. Before he could ask any questions though, he was being led through it.
"This way," said Mickey with a barely suppressed edge of excitement to his voice.
The door opened onto a staircase descending to the cellar. The phantom boy almost ran down the stairs and it suddenly occurred to Kris that his were the only footsteps to be heard. Cautiously, he followed the boy down to the cellar.
The ghost waited by the foot of the stairs as Kris emerged into the cellar. Wordlessly, it pointed to the dark far-side of the room. Kris hesitated for a moment, and seeing the fierce anticipation on the spectre's face, he slowly turned in the direction it pointed.
The cellar was quite large and had a concrete floor, coated with some black, grainy substance - coal dust, he supposed. The bare walls were of decaying and crumbling red bricks. To one side were the petrified remnants of wooden coal bins. As he slowly advanced, the far wall came into view and on the ground beside it was a scattered pile of sticks - no, not sticks, bones.
Human bones.
"Oh my god..." Kris breathed quietly and walked quickly over to them. He knelt down to examine them. Child's bones.
"Is... is this you?" asked Kris.
He turned, still kneeling, and in one brief, awful moment saw that the ghost had silently followed him, face twisted with murderous, gleeful hate, and was somehow gripping an ancient coal shovel which it brought crashing down on his head again and again...
Finally, the blood-spattered shovel dropped to the floor with a clatter. The corpse twitched and fresh gore seeped from it's broken skull into a quickly coagulating pool. The ghost began to laugh, loud and wild: they fell for it every time...
The End
Written 18/6/08