• A man going home late at night to Birkenhead stops to give a hitch-hiker a lift at the entrance to the Mersey Tunnel. The hiker is a girl and, seeing her shiver, he lends her a sweater. She tells him her address in Birkenhead, but then, as they emerge from the tunnel, he turns and the girl is just not there...
    … As he exits the tunnel, the eerie silence of the glassy, obsidian night becomes apparent. The roads are empty apart from himself and the car in front. The few trees are like stalagmites in an ancient cave, covered in frost and surrounded by fireflies. He looks back at the seat to check that the girl is really gone. Only a slight indent shows any sign of a hitchhiker.
    He begins to smell a kind of rotten, flowery smell in the vicinity, rather like his grandmother’s house. He pulls over and cuts the engine. He removes his seatbelt, clambering into the back to investigate; hoping insanely that his grandmother is hiding somewhere. All he notices is a white powder on the floor precisely where the girl’s feet had been. He scoops some up, thinking of a movie he had been to with his brother where the dead were everywhere, leaving trails of dust wherever they went. He smells it carefully and recoils at the stench. Uncertainly, he smells it again. It goes up his right nostril, making him gag. Curiosity killed the cat, he thought. No matter how hard he looks, he can’t seem to find anything. The only difference is the eerie screech over the wind.
    Dismayed, he looks back at the powder and spots a protuberance. Blowing the dust off, he discovers a charm bracelet with complex, silver cubes engraved with black stars. He picks it up, wincing at the sub-zero temperature of it. He has a sudden urge to go to the address the girl gave him earlier to return the bracelet. He starts the car, dropping the bracelet into an indent in the armrest. He drives as fast as he dares, not even bothering to fasten his seatbelt.
    He thinks of the girl as he drives, of her flame-red hair, her odd yellow eyes, her chocolaty skin, her sun-yellow silk dress and her bag that looked like it was made out of palm leaves. She’d looked like she was a runaway orphan from her hollow cheeks, slight figure and bare feet. Despite this, she had been witty and charming, filling the car with a carefree aura.
    Speeding up a bit, feeling that the sooner he found out what on earth was going on, the sooner he could get back home to bed, he begins to ask himself questions. Was she human? Was she a witch? A spook? A spirit? A mere figment of his imagination? Did her foreign appearance tell the truth? Was she serious? Or just playing games? Was he part of some weird secret? Was he some kind of ‘Chosen One’? Was he a pawn? Did his life matter? Would he die? Did any of this exist? Was he dreaming? There is only one way to know for sure – Find this girl and ask her. Was that even possible? No idea, but I’ll find out soon, he thinks.
    He is so busy pondering over things, he doesn’t notice his surroundings. It is a spectacular car accident, despite the fact he only crashes into an oddly placed tree. He is rather shocked to crash into a tree that happens to be growing in the middle of the road. He clambers out, grabbing the bracelet on the way. He walks, not noticing the odd transformations of the tree and the bracelet. As the tree shrinks into a scarab beetle and the cubes turn into sapphire spheres, the man merely walks along the highway towards Birkenhead. He is unaware of the plague of ants that is following him at close quarters. Somehow, he unexpectedly finds himself in front of number 13, where a notice is tacked to the door.
    “Gone ghost fishing. Visitors must go to Alice Cullen’s grave to meet me.” It declares boldly.
    “Ghost fishing? What’s that mean?” he asks himself. He walks towards the cemetery, still completely clueless of his pursuers. As he approaches Alice’s grave, he spots an elderly woman with a fishing rod sitting on the grave stone. She has a box in her hand labelled “Bat Beards” in elegant, bloody script. He approaches her cautiously; uncertain if this is the resident or merely another visitor. She appears to be wearing a jet-black sweater embroidered with silvery thread.
    “Good evening.” she greets him pleasantly.
    “Good evening.” the man replies timidly.
    “Come here a second. I have something you will be interested in. You must give me the armlet first though.” the woman says with a snaggely-toothed grin.
    “Who are you? If I can trust you, the armlet is yours.” the man bargains, protecting it in his grip.
    “Why, I am the sister of the girl you assisted earlier. My name is Lucinda. My sister is called Tulip. She requested that I retrieve her armlet in return for your sweater.” Lucinda replied simply. She held out the man’s sweater, grinning.
    “I do not trust you. Neither do I want the sweater.” the man retorted heatedly.
    “That girl chose her guardian well, you seem unwilling to co-operate.” Lucinda snarls.
    “Guardian? Explain, woman.”
    “Tulip swore she would entrust her spirit with a trustworthy person before I could seize her father’s spirit. She was evidently correct.” she hisses.
    “I will guard her with my life – I am her sentinel!” the man declares.
    He turns, only to come face-to-face with the hoard of ants.
    “Keep her here, I must take this somewhere safe.” he commands the ants, which immediately swarm all over Lucinda.
    “I’ll be back!” she screamed, “I’ll be back, you see if I’m not!”
    The man sprints all the way home, passing a number of billboards featuring a picture by Van Gough that weren’t there before. He only manages to make it home and lock the door before he flops on the sofa, exhausted. The door shakes violently in the wind. He looks at the armlet curiously, just as the spheres change into gold pyramids. He gasps, staring. The girl’s voice emanated from it.
    “Thank you for protecting me. I will reward you in due time. Goodbye…”
    The armlet evaporated, as the man fell asleep on the sofa....