I first saw the eerie figure across the road from the village pub one bitter winter’s evening. He was dressed as if for a fine summer day in tight shorts and t-shirt. He didn’t feel the crisp frost beneath his sandals.
I saw him again the following night. He was about eighteen, and it occurred to me that his clothes were about 50 years out of date, as if he’d stepped out of a 1960s’ teen movie.
I didn’t recognise him. Cockforth is a small village and since they built the by-pass we don’t get traffic coming through. We all know each other in the Landed Gentleman and its cosy and rarely busy.
Other people started seeing the figure; first at the disused village school, then standing in the church’s shadow: one chap said he saw the boy ‘floating’ in a farmer’s field.
Harry, the keeper of the village’s history, looked up the Echo archives and found that in 1956 two teenagers had raced their cars through the village one summer’s night. One crashed into a tree, burst into flames and the kid driving it was killed.
Now, Cockforth had its very own ghost and just about everyone in the pub said they’d seen the boy and the story went viral on social media.
It’s summer now and the Landed Gentleman is busy. It’s pretty and the beer’s good, but people are never going to see a ghost. A little bird tells me the landlord has a young nephew …
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 