The lane was empty.

Callum’s footsteps faltered. He’d never, ever passed this way, even in daylight, without seeing some sign of the dead. The sight of the ghosts had always been unsettling, but their strange and sudden absence was worse. There was no reason for it, no explanation. Unless . . .

Unless the ghosts had been scared off by something.

Callum swallowed, his throat dry. He didn’t want to think about what that something might be.

Ahead, through the trees, he could just see a pinprick of light. Home. Callum and his grandmother lived in the only inhabited cottage in a row of derelict alms houses, all that was left of the village of Nether Marlock. Everything else – the church, the old mill and all the other cottages – had been abandoned long ago.

Callum fixed his eyes on the warm, welcoming light beckoning from the house.

‘Come on, not far now,’ he encouraged himself.

As if in answer, a chilly wind sprang up around his feet, clutching at his legs with icy fingers. The wood was eerily quiet now. Nothing disturbed the perfect silence, other than the crunch of his own feet. And yet Callum could feel footsteps behind him. Soft, padding footsteps coming closer, closer . . .

He whirled round.

For an instant, he thought he saw something – a red gleam in the darkness. But whatever it was winked out so quickly, Callum couldn’t be sure it had really been there at all.

Every cell of his being screamed at him to run, but his body seemed unable to obey. Slowly, Callum backed away, his eyes wide in the darkness. He could feel the prickle as the hairs on the nape of his neck stood up. His Luck had been right – there was something there in the shadows.

Moving painstakingly slowly, Callum backed down the road. He was drenched with sweat, as if he had run a marathon rather than walked a couple of miles, but he felt freezing. He almost screamed when he felt his legs bump into something, before he realised that it was just the low brick wall that ran around the cottage garden. He’d made it. Almost.