The three of them stood in the far corner of the cemetery with their backs bolt upright waiting for something to happen. Whilst Deyna gripped his arm cutting off blood flow, Stephen had a thought; a ghost wouldn’t just appear in front of them without something bad happening.
The world was ending.
The apocalypse was here.
He’d seen ghost programmes and the spirit world always threw rocks. Nothing ever appeared and confronted them angrily so this made him question everything he’d ever believed. He hoped this ghost didn’t start throwing rocks because they would hurt.
Stephen and Phillip held their arms out to shield Deyna from the threat of the angry ghost, it felt like the right thing to do, you protect the woman, plus, this ghost was angry. In unison they slowly backed away from the ghost into the trees that surrounded the cemetery. They were cornered but he wasn’t going to run through the ghost to get to the exit. Could you run through a ghost? He’d seen it in films but this ghost didn’t look like those ones. He looked like a person and, in his mind, running through a person wasn’t right.
“What have you done?” The man shouted, gesturing to his obliterated headstone.
“Your...your...” Phillip stammered.
Stephen didn’t laugh at Phillip’s lack of speech. He was at a loss of words himself; it wasn’t everyday you were accosted by a ghost demanding to know what had happened to his headstone.
You were walking along one day to visit your relative in a cemetery, imagine it, and let’s just say the headstone had a good sized crack in it. There you are, pruning the pretty bouquet of daisies you had chosen to brighten up the plot when suddenly, there’s your dead uncle demanding to know why there was a crack in his headstone. You would most likely faint at the scene and no one could blame you. Your head would tell you it wasn’t real, that there wasn’t a logical reason behind it. Brains seemed to run on logic, things like this weren’t digested.
“We didn’t do anything to your headstone,” Stephen snapped stepping closer to the ghost. He wasn’t afraid.
At the end of the day what could a ghost do? Walk straight through them? Scary. He smiled and crossed his arms.
“You did, you broke it you lying little squirt. I saw it!” The ghost edged closer towards them.
“It was an accident...” Deyna squeaked.
Stephen turned looking at Deyna. Grey clouds now covered the lovely green of her eyes and her lips were tinged with a frost blue. She looked like she was going into shock so Stephen was impressed that she’d managed to find her tongue.
The man’s black soulless eyes swung around to look at her. “I don’t care if you say it was an accident, it needs fixing, now!”
“We can’t fix it!” Stephen bellowed. “It’s a headstone, does it look like we can manifest one right now?”
The ghost barrelled towards Stephen, the translucent figure actually dipping into his body as he came to an abrupt stop. Stephen swallowed his own tongue when he felt the contact. It was like nothing else he’d ever experienced.
With just one touch he felt sorrow and overwhelming amounts of grief. Was that how this ghost felt? He shivered uncontrollably as the ghost pushed its face close to his. Stephen’s breath clouded around his head as the temperature around them seemed to dip several degrees. He didn’t know what to focus on, the face or the tree he could see through the face.
“You will fix it!” the ghost demanded.
“I don’t see why we should; it was an accident, Mr...” Deyna pulled back on Stephen’s arm, trying to control the situation.
“Lester Andrews,” the ghost snapped answering Deyna whilst the dark pits continued to stare at him.
“Oh my god,” Deyna gasped.
She started panting, her hands fluttered up to her face as she struggled to breathe. Stephen held onto her, her eyes yet again rolling around in their sockets. She was in danger of fainting and he didn’t know how to deal with that. Could you slap someone around the face?
“You’re the... murderer. You murdered...” Deyna stuttered.
Lester’s soulless black pits rested on Deyna’s face almost daring her to spit out what she was about to say.
Stephen also wanted her to say the words, who had he murdered? Lester glided towards Deyna and then stopped. His eyes, or the place where his eyes should have been, came to rest on the piece of paper in her hand. An expression, one Stephen couldn’t read, crossed his face.
“What is that?” Lester demanded.
“It’s nothing.” Stephen snatched the map from Deyna’s hands and he pushed it under his coat and then under his jumper. Something about the greedy look on the ghost’s face made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t trust Deyna with the map, she would hand it over if the ghost pushed her to do it.
“That map... it shows the way to Lehstreous.”
Firstly, Stephen thought, how did the ghost know it was a map? Okay, granted, the paper looked rather old but you wouldn’t just jump to that conclusion. It could have been a lost love letter for all he knew. Although, he seriously doubted this if it was this ghost’s headstone.
Secondly, how did the ghost know that this was a map of the place he’d just said? There was no way Stephen could repeat that name, the Lehs.... name, but the paper did have the stained look of something old yet it could have been a map to any location.
The ghost had to be lying, he’d made up the name of the place in the hope that they would hand it over like three stupid teenagers. He wasn’t a stupid teenager. He smiled; the ghost had already underestimated him.
“It’s not a map,” Stephen stated matter of fact.
“Yes it is,” the ghost argued back.
“How do you know it is?”
This ghost didn’t know anything, he was bluffing, he had to be.
The ghost chuckled. “I made it.”
“What are you talking about?” Stephen asked, feeling tempted to get the map back out and look at it. He wanted to see if the name was on the map. And if it was? What then?
Stephen shook his head in frustration. He wouldn’t get it back out. He didn’t know if the ghost could actually take objects from the physical world but he wasn’t going to risk it either way. Something about the ghost’s desperate need to get his shimmery hands on the map made Stephen want to keep it all the more.
“Is that even a real place? I’ve never heard of it and I know places very well...” Deyna whispered. Stephen didn’t argue with Deyna, she was a grade A in her geography lessons so if she said it, then he believed her.
“Of course it’s a real place,” Lester spat angrily. “I know about it. Where did you get that map?”
“It was in your headstone,” Phillip answered. “Your headstone shattered and we found it, the headstone was flimsy.” He shrugged like he didn’t care.
“Yeah, you should really sort that out, oh sorry, I realise you can’t do that and I doubt any loved ones will want to help you,” Stephen said smartly.
Lester locked eyes with him. “It sounds like you have a little too much attitude, lad!” Lester turned from him and started floating, he could be pacing if he had feet. Little wisps of white slid along the ground, raking at the grass like a long skirt.
Stephen saw Deyna pull on Phillip’s arm and cricked her head to the side motioning for them to get out of the cemetery. The gates were accessible now that the ghost had moved. He judged that they would have a lengthy run but if they were fast enough, they could make it. She looked across to him, her eyes pleading but something was keeping him in this cemetery. Something tugged deep in his gut telling him to find out everything he could about this map. He didn’t want to leave. Not yet.
Losing the fight to resist, Stephen pulled the map back out. If this ghost knew about the map, how old did that make it? The ghost looked like a middle aged man, maybe in his mid 50’s. He couldn’t push away the thought of the prize, every map led to a prize, right? Gold, money, whatever it was,
it could possibly change his life. He would be able to leave Amblewood. He wouldn’t need his exam results because, as it stood, they weren’t going to help him anyway.
Of all the headstones in the cemetery, Deyna had picked to sit next to the one belonging to the ghost. She could have picked any headstone in there, but she’d chosen this one. He couldn’t shake the thought that this was too coincidental.
“The map, what is the prize? How do we get there?” Stephen asked as he heard Deyna’s protesting tut and Phillip’s sigh. They knew him well enough, knew that he couldn’t leave this alone.
He could see that the ghost knew something. He caught a flicker of it move across its face. The little voice inside his head told him that they should have made a run for it whilst they had the chance. Yet, even thinking of running didn’t feel like the right thing to do. Something had dug itself deep inside him and refused to let go. He was working off his gut and 90% of the time your gut instinct is usually right. He didn’t even consider the 10%.
Lester stopped pacing. “The map leads to the best prize a person could ever ask for.”
Stephen looked at Phillip and Deyna and pleaded with them silently but they didn’t look impressed. Their faces were as white as a ghost’s and their eyes grew wider with each passing second. He couldn’t leave, if there was chance of finding money, because that had to be the best prize a person could hope to find, he couldn’t leave.
Deyna had already pulled Phillip and they were slowly edging their way out of the cemetery. Weren’t they the least bit interested where this map could take them?
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Lester stepped closer to Stephen, as he did so, he assessed the young man. He appeared to be the right one, however he’d made this mistake once before. Yet, he looked so much like her, the shape of her eyes, his lips. He was an Evans boy, he knew that for certain. This was his chance. Lester had waited thirty years for this moment to arrive. He couldn’t ruin it now however he couldn’t help but notice how the young lady and the quiet young man stood back, away from Stephen. They were going to be the difficult aspect of this quest.
He knew that the young man wouldn’t run now, the idea of following a map had taken hold. His jaw was set in hard lines as vibrant mint green eyes glowered at him. This kid had guts and he appreciated that, plus the boy will need them when it came to what was to come. He knew whatever happened was going to test the young lad and his friends. Lester floated closer to the boy hoping to convince him that this quest was worth all the risks.
A loud intake of breath sounded from Stephen’s two friends. Lester stopped advancing towards Stephen, their intake of breath wasn’t because of him. A loud snap sounded in the otherwise quiet night.
This wasn’t good.
He looked at Stephen who still hadn’t moved. Lester caught the terrified whimper from the girl who was clinging to the boy stood next to her like her life depended on it. She could see something.
The sound had come from deep within the woods but Lester didn’t turn around. He heard Stephen inhale a breath, the exhale didn’t come. Something was coming and judging by their expressions, something more terrifying than him. Lester wasn’t shocked because he’d expected this; he just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.
It had already begun and he’d barely had the time to convince the youngsters that he was worth the risk. They would have to find out for themselves.
A loud, angry growl made the air around them cackle with energy. The children jumped, their nerves wound so tightly they would have jumped at the sound of a pin dropping to the floor. He looked at Stephen who also looked at him with eyes full of questions.
It was now or never. Stephen would have to trust him because if he didn’t, they would die.
“Run,” he whispered. “Now!”
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CHAPTER THREE