The Ghouls

by Fred Crawley

  “I’m looking for Porter House,” she said. “Can you tell me where it is?”

  Nathan was unaccustomed to being spoken to like he was an actual human being, even if his only use was to give directions. He was drawn to the woman at once.

  “Well?” she said. “Can you help me or not?”

  Nathan nodded. “Sure,” he said. He knew Porter House because one time the woman who worked in the coffee shop next door had come out and given him a bag full of out of date pastries that she said were just going to end up in the bin if he didn’t take them. He had been back again since, but he’d never been lucky enough to run into her again. “It’s right along the street, take a right when you get to the junction and then straight down. You can’t miss it.”

  The woman sighed with relief. “Thank you,” she said.

  She reached into her red handbag and took out a purse. Nathan was not used to people taking out wallets and purses in front of him. Most of the time they seemed to think that, if he saw them do that, he would ask for more money or just take it. It never seemed to occur to them that he would be happy for anything they were willing to give.

  The woman took out a ten-pound note. He watched her face, but her eyes had already glazed over, as if now that she had the information she needed he barely existed. Then she handed the note to him and smiled. She was wearing red lipstick and her teeth were slightly yellow.

  “Thank you,” she said without breaking eye contact. “I really appreciate it.”

  Nathan looked down at the ten-pound note. It was the most money that anyone had ever given him in one go. He could hardly believe the generosity of the woman. It couldn’t all be because he’d known where Porter House was. Could it?

  He looked up again intending to say something. At the very least he wanted to thank her. But she was already gone. She was halfway down the street towards the crossing. He watched her walk for a moment and then decided that he couldn’t just let her leave. She would think he was rude if he didn’t say something.

  Nathan hurried along the street after her, but he was slow. After more than a month spent on the street, in fear for his life, his bones and muscles had weakened and he felt tired and powerless. He hurried after the pretty woman for as long as he could, but she was too quick for him.

  She crossed the road ahead, just as he had directed. A minute later he did the same. He could feel his sleeping bag banging against the tops of his legs as if it was coming loose. He turned down the street, but she was gone.

  Nathan stopped at the top of the road. The street was too busy to see her. He looked in the direction he knew that she must have gone and after half a minute he saw the top of her head. He started walking after her again.

  The people on the street seemed reluctant to get out of his way. Usually, they gave him a wide berth but for some reason, today they didn’t move. He had to dodge pushchairs and swinging bags and people stepping in front of him without looking first. He lost more time and she got further away.

  By the time he reached the end of the street, he thought that she must have reached Porter House already. He stopped again and stared after her. There was no sign and he wondered, briefly, if she had been rushing to try and avoid him. But that didn’t seem right at all.

  He looked down at the money she had given him. It would feed him for a whole day. She had given him the money; she wouldn’t want to avoid him now when all he wanted to do was thank her.

  He bought food at McDonald’s and carried it back to the abandoned part of the city that he had walked through earlier. He found a side street that was barely big enough for him to walk down. At the end, there was a battered wooden fence. Unwrapping his burger, he sat down.

  Out of the wind and away from people he felt exhaustion creeping up on him. He managed to finish his food before laying his pieces of cardboard on the ground and unrolling his sleeping bag. He tucked the change from the money she had given him into an old sock and put that in his bag which he used as a pillow. He lay down and closed his eyes. For once it wasn’t the ghouls that he saw but the face of the mysterious woman who had made it possible.

  CHAPTER 18

  NATHAN OPENED HIS EYES AND RUBBED HIS FACE. For a moment, he thought that he had slept right through to the evening. He sat up and thought that they were standing at the end of the street watching him, but there was nobody there. A part of his dream must have followed him through to the waking world.

  It wasn’t dark yet, but it would be soon. Nathan sighed and climbed out of his sleeping bag. It wasn’t cold, but he shivered. He had slept in all of his clothes.

  He packed up his bag and pulled out the sock containing the rest of the money the woman had given him. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew that he needed to eat.

  He bought another burger from McDonald’s. He’d never eaten so badly in his life, but it was quick and cheap and full of calories. It was probably the only thing keeping him alive. He thought about buying alcohol instead, but the nights were scary enough without being drunk.

  It was warm in the restaurant but the way the girl looked at him as he handed her the money told him that he wouldn’t be allowed to sit down and eat. Even in the half empty restaurant he wouldn’t be welcome, probably worried that he would put off anyone who looked in the window. He stood on the street outside and ate quickly.

  There were still people on the high street. There would be until the shops closed in an hour and then the people who worked in them would leave in dribs and drabs. Following them would be the students who were coming out to drink. Only when they were inside would the streets become quiet and he could begin his work. Only when they had staggered home drunk would the ghouls come out to play.

  Nathan walked past Porter House, but the lights were off. He thought about the woman and wondered if he would ever see her again. He wanted to thank her, but there was more to it than that. She had helped him. Maybe she would help him again. There was only one way he would find out, but he had no way of contacting her and she had obviously been a stranger to the city.

  The search for Gwen had been fruitless so far. It was proving more difficult than he had thought to look for the ghouls while at the same time trying to avoid them. The previous evening he had managed to follow them onto the high street but lost them when a crowd of students had come stomping up an alleyway, singing loudly, obviously drunk.

  He wondered where he would start that evening. He had no idea where the ghouls went during the daylight hours.

  A woman with a shopping bag hurried past. She took out her phone and crossed the street, pretending that she hadn’t seen him. Maybe she was also pretending to speak to someone on the phone but Nathan had little interest in finding out. He let her go and continued to walk towards the old mall.

  He passed weary looking shop managers standing at doorways waiting for the last of their staff to leave. He considered offering his services. He could go into the shop and chase them out. They wouldn’t hang around for long once they saw him.

  Finally, the night settled in and the street was quiet. Soon there would be police walking around. When he had first seen them, he’d thought they were looking for him and that somehow they had discovered where he had gone. But that hadn’t been it at all.

  Nathan had never been much of a late night partier so he had been surprised by how rowdy things got a few hours after dark. People stumbled around, laughing and shouting, but the police didn’t do anything about that. They were there for the quiet one’s who weren’t just looking to make some noise but wanted to fight.

  In the time, he had been on the street he had seen more than twenty fights. Sometimes the police in their luminous jackets came running, sometimes they took their time. They always broke up the fights though and only once had Nathan seen someone arrested.

  He walked along a side street and crouched down in a doorway. He could hear people walking past. When he turned to look, he saw a group of five girls not wearing enough clothes for the temperature. They would be col
d when they left, but he doubted they would notice.

  The last of the voices died away in the distance and then he felt as if he was all alone. Before he stood up, he conjured an image of Gwen. Seeing her, even in his imagination, gave him strength. She was somewhere out there, alive, he was sure of it, even though everyone else seemed to have given up hope. Of course, they all blamed him for that and it wasn’t just the police and the ghouls that he had to worry about. If her brother or family found him, he would be in just as much trouble.

  Nathan walked past the empty shops. He kept to the shadows, moving slowly and feeling like a ghoul himself. They were out there somewhere and all he had to do was see them before they saw him. If he could manage that, then he could follow them and find out where they were keeping her. It wasn’t a complicated plan, but it was the only one he had.

  Empty burger wrappers and torn shopping bags drifted on the gentle breeze. There was a light on above one of the shops and it might have been somebody’s flat, but he thought it was more likely to have been left on. He walked all the way to the end of the street where a glass fronted bank was flashing its blue neon signage. Inside it was dark and empty.

  He turned around to walk back but something caught his eye - a hunched figure with its back to him, hurrying along the road past Primark. Even from a distance Nathan could see that the way it moved wasn’t quite human. Its shoulders were too broad.

  Nathan hurried across the road, not stopping to look for traffic because he would hear any cars coming long before he saw them and the world was quiet. He stopped on the other side of the road and pressed himself against the wall of the 99p shop. He looked after the creature, but it hadn’t changed its strange walk and it wasn’t looking back at him.

  He kept as close to the shops as he could, not wanting to give himself away by casting a shadow that the creature might see.

  At the end of the street, he stopped outside a charity shop and watched the ghoul cross the road. For a moment, he thought that it was going to go into the church. He couldn’t imagine why, unless he had been wrong and it wasn’t a ghoul at all. It might have been a stocky old man who was going to evening worship.

  The creature stopped at the gate and Nathan pressed himself back against the wall. From this distance, he would see that it was dressed in loose fitting grey Adidas trousers and a white t-shirt. It looked almost human, but it wasn’t. He had to remember that this was not a rational creature. It had kidnapped his girlfriend and killed his housemates.

  He watched out the corner of his eyes but the ghoul didn’t turn back. It walked along the old stone wall, past the blinking traffic lights and turned down the road that ran alongside the old Sainsbury’s. Nathan waited a moment before setting off after it.

  At the bottom of the hill, the ghoul turned right, away from the main road, where Nathan could hear cars driving past, and up towards the station. Ahead of him he could see the stairs that he had been chased away from earlier that day. No. He corrected himself, where he had imagined being chased away from when he’d tried to help the old woman but scared her instead.

  He couldn’t believe that the ghoul was going to walk straight up to the station where even at this time of night there were bound to be people around.

  Something moved behind him. He heard shuffling footsteps and knew that it was one of them. While he had been following, the first ghoul others had found him. Maybe the first one had even been a trap: bate to lure him into a dark and deserted place. No, that wasn’t right. The station was the place where they were most likely to find people at this time of night.

  He stopped and turned, but there was nothing there. He could see all the way down the hill to the pub where the windows were dark, but there were people moving around within. Nathan watched for a moment longer, but the ghoul’s which he had been sure were following him didn’t appear.

  When he was sure that nothing was going to jump out at him from the shadows he turned back to the stairs, but the ghoul that he had followed was already gone.

  Nathan ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The paved area outside the station was empty, but the shutters were still open. Two men in yellow vests stood outside smoking cigarettes.

  He looked around, but the ghoul wasn’t there. It felt as if he had been closer than ever, that he had only missed finding Gwen by the skin of his fingers. Which he knew was ridiculous. Even if he had found the ghoul’s hiding place, he wasn’t in any position to go in and rescue her. If he tried, he would probably just get himself killed. It was just another delusion to think that he could rescue Gwen so easily, but it was one that helped him to get to sleep when all he could think about was the monsters chasing him.

  “Hey you!”

  Nathan looked in the direction of the two men who had been smoking outside the station bar. One of them was walking towards him. He threw his cigarette on the floor and took out his radio. Nathan read the writing on his vest for the first time and saw that he was a police officer. He turned and started to walk away.

  “Stay where you are,” the man shouted.

  Nathan looked back. It wasn’t any of the police officers that he recognised, but he doubted that made a difference now. They didn’t need to have seen him in person to know who he was. His face was all over the newspapers and probably at the police station as well. He was practically famous.

  He didn’t stop as he had been instructed to do. He started to run, even though he knew it was pointless. He could hear the snap and crackle of the officers radio behind him, backup was probably already on its way. The thought of being caught and put in prison was bad enough, but it was the realisation that, if it happened, there would be no one looking for Gwen, that forced him to keep going. Nathan ran and the police officer followed.

  CHAPTER 19

  NATHAN RAN ACROSS THE ROAD AND DOWN THE hill. On one side of him was the back of the shop where earlier that day he had found the cold chips. On the other side, there was an old brown building wrapped in scaffolding.

  He could hear the slapping sound of the police man’s boots running up behind him. In the distance, he heard the whale of approaching sirens which he thought were probably also for him.

  Ahead there was an old carpark and past that a pub that looked as if it had been closed for the better part of a decade. His chest hurt and the rush of panicked energy was only going to take him so far. Nathan knew that it was only a matter of time before the police caught up with him.

  The road levelled out at the bottom of the hill. He kept running. He was still on the road and there was nowhere for him to go. He imagined police helicopters and cars appearing at the end of the street, blocking his path. Would they have guns? Would running away count as ‘resisting arrest’?

  “Stop!” shouted the police man. He sounded as if he was out of breath. Nathan wondered if he was running faster than he had thought. “Stop right--“

  The police man screamed.

  Nathan kept running.

  He turned to look back over his shoulder and at first it looked as if the man had fallen over. The police man seemed to be rolling down the hill towards him but then Nathan saw that he wasn’t alone.

  There were two ghouls on him.

  In the darkness, it was impossible to distinguish between the police man and the creatures. Arms and legs seemed to fly out at all angles. Nathan slowed down enough to walk backwards and watch in horror as the police man continued to cry out and the ghouls tore into him with savage delight.

  It took him a moment to realise that he had stopped walking. Nathan stood in the middle of the road and looked back towards them. The growls and animal snorts of the ghouls drowned out the police man’s cries for help.

  Nathan felt sick, but he couldn’t look away. A part of him wanted to try and help the police man. He felt little ill will towards him, he had just been doing his job. So why had the ghouls attacked him?

  There was a cracking sound and then the police man was silent. Now there was only a black shape in the
middle of the road. There was nothing that Nathan could do now to help if there ever had been. Yet he was reluctant to turn away.

  The police sirens got louder and then he could hear engines. Nathan looked at the ghouls who were now looking up the hill to where the police cars had stopped. Nathan could hear the ghouls growling and noticed the change of pitch. He wondered what they were saying to each other.

  The ghouls backed away from the dead police man. They seemed to merge with the shadows beside the old brown building and then disappear completely.

  Nathan stood in the road and looked up at the police cars. The doors opened and he heard the crackle of radio static as people climbed out. He was suddenly very aware that it was just him and a dead police man on the road. Fear settled over him as he realised that he would not be able to explain what had happened. They would think he had done it because no one would believe him about the ghouls.

  The police officers at the top of the road moved slowly. Nathan could see them turning to each other, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. They were getting closer to the dead police man but none of them seemed to have noticed him yet.

  Nathan couldn’t move. A paralysis had taken hold of him and all he seemed able to do was watch the newly arrived police officers walk down the hill. It was surely only a matter of seconds before they discovered their dead colleague and then they would notice him. They would arrest him and take him away and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His legs simply wouldn’t follow the instructions he was giving them.

  Two police officers approached with caution. They seemed not to be aware what the dark shape in the middle of the road was. At the top of the hill, three more officers had arrived but they stayed where they were and waited.

  “What is it?” one of them said.

  “I don’t know,” said the other. He took out a long stick that Nathan could practically feel beating him over the head.