‘It’s foggy, too,’ said Bigmac.

‘It’s just the mist off the canal,’ said Johnny.

Wobbler stopped.

‘Oh, no,’ he said.

‘It’s quicker this way,’ said Johnny.

‘Oh, yes. Quicker. Oh, yes. Because I’m gonna run!’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘It’s Halloween!’

‘So what? You’re dressed up as Dracula – what’re you worried about!’

‘I’m not going past there tonight!’

‘It’s no different than going past during the day.’

‘All right, it’s the same, but I’m different!’

‘Scared?’ said Bigmac.

‘What? Me? Scared? Huh? Me? I’m not scared.’

‘Actually, it is a bit risky,’ said Baron Yo-less.

‘Yes, risky,’ said Wobbler hurriedly.

‘I mean, you never know,’ said Yo-less.

‘Never know,’ Wobbler echoed.

‘Look, it’s a street in our town. There’s lights and a phone box and everything,’ said Johnny. ‘I just . . . I won’t be happy until I’ve checked, OK? Anyway, there’s four of us, after all.’

‘That just means something bad can happen four times,’ said Wobbler.

But they’d been walking as they talked; now the little light in the phone box loomed in the fog like a blurred star.

The other three went quiet. The fog hushed all sounds.

Johnny listened. There wasn’t even that blotting-paper silence that the dead made.

‘See?’ he whispered. ‘I said—’

Someone coughed, a long way off. All four boys suddenly tried to occupy the same spot.

‘Dead people don’t cough!’ hissed Johnny.

‘Then someone’s in the cemetery!’ said Yo-less.

‘Body snatchers!’ said Wobbler.

‘Burke ’n Head!’ said Bigmac.

‘I’ve read about this in the papers!’ whispered Wobbler. ‘People digging up graves for satanic rites!’

‘Shutup!’ said Johnny. They sagged. ‘Sounded to me like it came from the old boot factory,’ he said.

‘But it’s the middle of the night,’ said Yo-less.

They crept forward. There was a dim shape pulled on to the pavement where the streetlights barely shone.

‘It’s a van,’ said Johnny. ‘There. Count Dracula never drove a van.’

Bigmac tried to grin. ‘Unless he was a Vanpire—’

There was a metallic clink somewhere in the fog.

‘Wobbler?’ said Johnny, in what he hoped was a calm voice.

‘Yes?’

‘You said you were going to run. Go round to Mr Atterbury’s house right now and tell him to come here.’

‘What? By myself?’

‘You’ll run faster if you’re by yourself.’

‘Right!’

Wobbler gave them a frightened look and vanished.

‘What, exactly, are we doing?’ said Yo-less, as the other three peered into the fog.

There was no mistaking the noise this time. It was wrapped about with fog, but it was definitely the sound of a big diesel engine starting up.

‘Someone’s nicking a bulldozer!’ said Bigmac.

‘I wish that’s what they were doing,’ said Johnny, ‘but I don’t think they are. Come on, will you?’

‘Listen, if someone’s driving a bulldozer without lights in the fog, I’m not hanging around!’ said Yo-less.

Lights came on, fifty metres away. They didn’t show much. They just lit up two cones of fog.

‘Is that better?’ said Johnny.

‘No.’

The lights ground forward. The machine was bumping towards the cemetery railings. Old buddleia bushes and dead stinging nettles smashed under the treads, and there was a clang as the blade hit the low wall.