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And suddenly I know.

“They aren’t ghosts,” I whisper. “Not like I know them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Boynton’s raised the long dead.”

A dark cloud fills the crossroads. A low, muttering sound fills my head, voices whispering phrases I can’t understand. It dulls my brain so I can’t think straight.

I rub my hands hard down my face and slap my cheeks. The muttering in my head becomes a slow, rhythmic chanting. It reminds me of a church where Will and I had stayed and we’d watched Evensong. But this chanting becomes louder, harsher. I groan, putting my hands over my ears and rocking slightly. “Make it stop.” I whisper.

“Make what stop?” Levi asks, taking my hand. “Blue?”

I cling to his faint voice like a light in the dark. My head falls back against the seat. I don’t have the strength to lift it. Levi cups my face in his hands and they’re so warm.

“Shit, you’re freezing,” he whispers.

“N-No, I’m not,” I say, teeth chattering.

“We need to go.” I blink and realise he’s been talking and I drifted out.

“What?” I say thickly. My mouth doesn’t work properly. Copper suddenly fills my throat, thick and viscous. I choke and gag, spitting instinctively into my hand and then staring at my palm. Blood has a certain colour in the moonlight. Once you’ve seen it you never forget.

“Blue?” Levi says in horror.

“Someone’s doing this to me,” I say hoarsely.

Blood fills my mouth again and I cough, shielding the sound in my jacket sleeve. Levi’s hand is on my back rubbing circles. “Breathe,” he whispers. “Breathe.”

I reach up clutching my throat. I can’t get any air. I struggle and heave and then turn my head, vomiting more blood out of the window. A huge gout of blood splatters the ground and I cringe.

For a second, nothing happens. The blood vanishes from my throat as quickly as it came. I open my mouth to reassure Levi and then, as one, the creatures turn. It’s so eerie that I shudder—a coordinated move by people who’ve been dead and buried for hundreds of years.

One of them raises its head and I hear the hungry sniff over the night air. “Flesh,” it breathes and the others chitter.

“Oh shit,” I say. “He’s made the dead hungry. That blood was made to get their attention.”

“Out,” Levi snaps. “Your side of the car. We go into the wood.”

I cast a glimpse at the darkness beneath the trees. It’s dark and impenetrable but it’s our only option. “We get out the car and we run for it, yes?”

He eyes me and then nods. “Fast as we can, baby.”

“Faster if possible.”

He reaches over me and flings open the door, shoving me out. I teeter for a second, hit by a wave of dizziness. The creatures are moving fast towards us. Faster than anyone not alive should move. It’s a horrible, skittering, jerky walk, and it makes my blood turns to ice.

Levi is wriggling over the console. “Levi!” I shout. “Watch out.”

One of the creatures reaches through the open window and grabs Levi’s jacket.

I reach in and karate chop its arm, half expecting my hand to pass through it like it would a spirit’s, but it feels hard, with sticky flesh that slides sickeningly. What the fuck is this?

Levi scrambles out of his jacket, and moving quicker than I’ve ever seen, he boots it out of the car, grabs my arm, and we start running for the fence. There’s a horrible shriek and the sound of unsteady footsteps. One of the creatures moans desolately. “Flesh,” it cries.

“Over,” Levi says in a hard voice, hoisting me over the fence. I feel drugged, like my legs have turned to jelly and the world has slipped slideways.

“Run!” he commands as he starts to climb the fence.