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thing, but it wasn’t Silas’s cup of tea. Not quite enough adventure on the high seas for his liking. Still, he’d promised her that he would give it a go, and now seemed like the perfect time.
    Not that he had been honest with her about why he was so stressed, of course. He could never tell her that. He’d given her some bunkum about work piling up in his tray, his impending sergeant’s exams, and the asshole colleagues on his shift. He felt particularly bad about that last one. They were a nice bunch, really.
    He removed the bookmark and read a paragraph, before flipping back a page to refresh his memory. He found that he couldn’t recall reading anything that had come before, despite only starting the book two weeks earlier. He flipped forward and read the paragraph again.
    And again.
    (Screeee—screeee—screeee—screeee—)
    Quiet times were always the worst, because the bad memories carried with them an overwhelming noise that was impossible to ignore. The flashes of image and bursts of sound were like a mental battering ram, slamming relentlessly against the walls of his sanity.
    Silas slid his marker in the page and closed the book, chuckling at the peculiar irony that he was unable to relieve his stress because he was too stressed to read how.
    He heard the gush of running water coming from upstairs. Good for her , he thought. Making herself at home.
    He settled back in the chair and closed his eyes.

    (Screeee—screeee—screeee—screeee—)
    “We’ll draw straws.”
    That was how it always started when the alarm went off in the empty cell block.
    The alarm had frightened everyone enough times that Silas knew exactly how each of his colleagues would react. They all shared the same initial response on hearing that awful squeal - a stunned silence, looks of mock-horror, and a general open-mouthed amusement at their predicament - but then the familiar patterns emerged.
    Wendy always looked terrified, but she didn’t like to show weakness and was often the first to volunteer. Kelvin leaned back in his chair and took another bite of his chocolate bar. He was twenty-one, he was cool (or at least, that’s what he wanted everyone to think), and he couldn’t give a shit. And Roland treated it all as one big joke. A way to torture Maisie, the young Community Support Officer, by threatening to send her down there.
    “We’ll draw straws,” said Brian, the level-headed sergeant, but Silas shook his head and stepped forward.
    “I’ll do it.”
    “Woo, big man,” Roland mocked, a curious mix of relief and jealousy washing over his scrunched features. But Silas didn’t believe that putting himself forward was particularly brave or noble ( although he certainly didn’t want to see poor Maisie sent down there). He volunteered only because to him, the whole thing was bullshit.
    Wendy, Brian, Kelvin, Roland - they all believed the ghost stories. Especially Roland. His jokes, his banter - it was all a smokescreen. He was the most terrified of the lot of them. Silas saw it in his eyes.
    Silas had never tolerated any of that supernatural nonsense. The alarm wasn’t ringing because some kind of spectral pest had set it off - it was ringing because the cell block was old, and the alarm had an electrical fault.
    Even if it turned out he was wrong, and there really was a phantom setting off the alarm in the abandoned cell block of Chalkstone police station, then so what? In his years as a police officer he’d seen his share of true horror - a motorcyclist with his forehead crushed the way a boiled egg cracks when bashed with a spoon. A beautiful young woman, her brains splattered on the sidewalk after a drunken fall. The blackened husks of two children, burned to death in their car seats.
    He could handle one little ghost.

6

    A large spider spun a new home for itself in the corner of the kitchen window as Oona washed dishes at the sink. She admired the elegance of the creature even as it repulsed her, its spindly