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By Root 737 0

thought she saw someone in a loose, white robe with a hood. The way the garment was worn hid the person's arms, legs and head completely so that it was impossible to tell who it might be. The figure darted away, moving quickly and smoothly as though it was floating across the ground. As she watched, it disappeared behind the dark glass corner of the dark glass building they had just passed.

'What do you keep looking for?' Leela asked.

'Nothing,' Chloe said a little too quickly.

'Is it the walking corpse?'

No.' Chloe hesitated. Yes.'

'Have you seen it?'

'I don't know,' Chloe said miserably. 'I think I may have done. Or I may have imagined it. I think I may be losing my mind.'

I have seen it too,' Leela said. She drew her knife. 'Wait here.'

Chloe nodded. 'I'll wait here shall I?'

Leela trotted back to the building and ghosted along the wall parallel to the one she had seen the figure take cover behind. When she reached the first corner she paused, listening and watching. Then, holding the knife low, she ducked round the angled glass. There was no one there. There was no sign of the white-robed figure she had seen.

She ghosted on to the second corner. If the figure was hiding where it had first gone, Leela's move should take her behind it. She waited a moment and listened and sniffed the air. Very quietly she stepped round the next corner. Again there was nothing.

If someone was tracking them, she thought, then they were fast and they were clever enough to realise that she would try to flank them by circling the walls. She walked on to the next corner. She was stepping round it to the front of the building when suddenly, tall, faceless and stinking of ancient death, the white-robed figure loomed over her.

Instinctively she lunged at it with her knife.

It had fooled her. No.

She brought the blade up smoothly.

It had been hiding at the front of the building. No.

She aimed the thrust at its chest.

She had circled and it had waited at the front of the building. No.

She leant her shoulder into the thrust.

It had waited at the front of the building. No. That did not follow from its actions. No.

At the front. No.

Stop this. It was a mistake. Stop.

She aborted the knife thrust as the tip of the blade pushed into the whiteness of the robe. Immediately the figure faded and vanished and Leela found herself looking into Chloe's horrified face.

'You nearly stuck me with that thing!' Chloe protested, staring down at the knife point that was pressing lightly against the lower edge of her ribcage.

'What's the matter with you?'

'I told you to wait.' Leela tried to keep the shock out of her voice. 'You said you would wait.' How could that have happened? What was it she had seen? 'You should have done as I told you to do .'Was it a ghost she had seen?

'Who died and left you in charge?' Chloe demanded.

Leela sheathed the knife. 'I could easily have killed you.'

'I can see that,' Chloe said. 'But why? What were you thinking of?'

Leela thought, there are no ghosts. I must have let my imagination run away with me,' she said. But she had seen something.

Chloe said, 'You have a seriously dangerous imagination.'

They began to walk again, still following the route Leela had mapped out in her mind.

'Why did you come to the corner of that building?' Leela asked.

'You were gone a long time,' Chloe said. 'I mean a really long time. I got worried.'

'You did not come because you saw the walking corpse?'

'No.' Chloe glanced back over her shoulder. 'Did you see it again?'

'Yes.' Leela was becoming aware of the faint whisper of strange background sounds that came and went. There were brief rushing winds and dull groaning roars. 'Yes, I saw it.' Underneath it all there was a background humming that seemed almost constant. 'I saw it and I smelled it.' The noises seemed as though they should be far away, but some part of her instinct told her they were closer than they seemed. And if they were closer than they seemed then none of these small sounds should