The hand had gone. Peter’s heart pounded, driving his fist towards the blade in his pocket. He focused on the theatre’s broken doors, waiting for the familiar thump and scrape of footfall as the thing made its way out of the booth, followed by the dull crunch of glass into bare feet as it cleared the entrance on its way out to get him. But it didn’t come.

The hand appeared through the slot again. Its fingertips searched like worms hungry for the light. A moment later, the hand retracted through the slot only to reappear again, repeating the action. Peter relaxed his fist, letting go of the blade. Instead, he took the ten-dollar bill given to him as change when he bought Cooper’s neckerchief, and slowly made his way up to the booth. He set the note down inside the shallow trough beneath the slot and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. The pale hand emerged, fingering the corner of the note like an animal making sure the food it found was suitable. Apparently it was. The fingertips clutched, scrunching the note up with it, and the hand quietly withdrew. But just when Peter thought it was done, the hand returned, only this time it wasn’t seeking payment. Those pale fingers and thumb came clasped. It was holding an invisible ticket.

Peter stepped back into the street. Inside the ticket booth was a boy. Or something that had only just stopped being a boy. His floppy hair was much fairer than Peter’s, but the white T-shirt with a black dickie bow printed across the neckline was identical to his own. The boy’s milky eyes didn’t widen in hunger on seeing Peter standing there. He just sat looking out across the road, his hand doing one thing, that dull gaze doing another. Vacant. Blank. Believing Peter to be his own reflection, even. And in the strange calm of that pale face, it was all too easy for Peter to believe he wasn’t looking at another boy either, only himself. But this reflection wasn’t the kind where you’ve composed the version of yourself you already know in front of the mirror, but when you haven’t and you catch yourself completely unaware in the glass. Peter saw himself not as he believed himself to be, but as he really was to the rest of the world. Lost inside his own unhappiness.

He stepped away from the boy, the sharp crunch of glass beneath his feet barely registering. He must’ve been bitten, but something other than the Dead had taken hold of him.