Jeff decided not to dive through the back door into the store and run the risk of getting entangled with the clutter of goods within. Instead he ran around the back of the low wooden building towards the busier thoroughfare at the front, stumbling out into the dusty open space and tripping over hard-baked wheel ruts that only a few days ago had been mud, churned into grooves and ridges by large steel-rimmed wheels.

‘Jesus, help me!’ he screamed as he scrambled to his feet again. ‘There’s a… there’s a… there’s a skeleton man round the back!’

The nearest people to Jeffrey were bemused at the sight of the mop-haired, lanky teenager stumbling over his own clumsy feet and bellowing with fear.

Jeff turned to look back at the side of the wooden fencing around which he’d just sprinted, expecting to see that shuffling bone-white creature emerge.

‘Oh, Jesus, it’s… it’s…’

Gordon Palmer, a loader who worked out the front, shook his head at Jeff’s delinquent craziness. The boy was prone to goosing around at work — a practical joker rather than a real grafter.

‘What’ve you seen, lad?’

Jeff looked up at him. ‘A skeleton! It just charged out of the woods at me!’

Gordon straightened up, sensing that maybe this time the boy might not be playing the fool. It could be some goddamned Nez Perce. He’d heard that tribe sometimes wore chalk-white body paint on raiding parties.

‘What exactly did you see?’

Jeff pointed to the wooden wall leading round to the rear of the compound. His finger wobbled uncertainly. ‘Just there… I swear I saw someth-’

And then Gordon saw it for himself.

The skeleton staggered forward, one bony hand held out and running along the wooden slats of the wall for support, for guidance. Gordon’s first impression was identical to Jeff’s, identical to the two little girls’.