He tried to twist away but the man's grip was too strong.

"We should get our story straight first," the man whispered, as if they had both run over the man.

"Let go of me."

"In a minute."

"Let go."

"In. A. Minute." His grip tightened. Matt looked down and realised he was standing in the dead man's blood. The pain in his wrist subsided, but the man didn't let go of him.

"Now tell me what happened, from the start." The man smiled again. It really was a miraculous smile. Matt had never seen one quite like it. He almost forgot to be afraid of him when he smiled.

"I was walking. Down the street."

"You were walking down the street. Good."

"And I heard your car coming."

"How fast do you think I was going?"

Too fast, Matt thought. "About normal," he said.

"About normal," the man said, with a nod. "Like, maybe fifty or suh-sixty?"

"Yeh."

"Actually, I was going fifty-five."

"Fifty-five," Matt murmured. He could feel the man's warm breath on his ear. He smelled of dry-cleaned clothes and aftershave – not the one his Dad wore, something subtler. But the smell of death was stronger. Matt's stomach churned.

"Then what happened?"

"The man a -" Matt swallowed.

"Appeared. Out of thin air."

Matt nodded.

"No he didn't," said the warm breath. "Because that's not possible." The last two words were accompanied by two firm squeezes on Matt's wrist.

"You saw it too," Matt said, but without much conviction.

The man shook his head sagely. "I only thought I did. It must have been my imagination. Anyway, who would believe us?" He laughed. It was such a natural, easy laugh. "They would lock us up in the luh-loony bin. No," he said, his voice growing serious again. "He walked out in front of my car. Suddenly. I had no time to stop. What did he do?"

"Walked out."

"Ahuh."

"In front."

"Exactly." The man smiled.

Matt twisted his arm away. This time it was released.

The dead man at their feet did what dead men do.

"You'd better call an ambulance," the man said, as if it had been his idea all along. "I'll wait huh-here."

Matt ran up the street, past the car with the smashed windscreen and dented bonnet, past the long black skid marks on the road, his schoolbag bouncing on his shoulders, his stomach still roiling. He turned the corner onto the main road, went into the phone box, and dialed triple zero. As he spoke to the lady on the other end he kept glancing back at the entrance to the street, as if the man might emerge from it, like a snake. The lady asked him where he was. He looked up at the street signs and told her. She asked for his name and he gave it to her. Then she wanted to know where he lived, and his home phone number, and where he went to school, and all of that.

Matt soon heard sirens in the distance. He never could tell the difference between ambulance and police sirens, but there were two different sirens, so he figured it was both. The woman kept asking him questions, like what was his favourite food, and things like that, and he realised she was only doing it to keep him on the phone. While she was talking he gently hung the phone back up on the cradle. Then he just stood there listening to the sirens.

He got out of the phone booth and took two steps towards the street entrance. The sirens were very loud now. They could only be a couple of blocks away.

He turned and ran off in the other direction.

Kids are so stupid.