Enter Black

“She’s in there, boss!” I shouted.

I was already running—torch in one hand, boots thudding across rain-slick concrete—before Ken could reply. He lagged behind, panting.

The house loomed at the end of the terrace like a last rotten tooth, half-swallowed by fog. The demolition crew had already cleared the others. This one was the only thing left standing, boarded and bowed, clinging on like it hadn’t heard the order to go.

I reached the door and tried the handle. Locked. Rotten wood, though.

“Back entrance?” Ken called, catching up, his breath clouding in the cold.

“No time.” I stepped back, raised my boot, and kicked. The frame shuddered but held. Again—splinters this time. Third time lucky.

The door slammed open with a crack like a gunshot, revealing a pitch-black hallway that smelled of mold, piss, and something worse.

“The caller was very specific,” Ken said.

I nodded once, sweeping my torch across the damp plastered walls. “We can’t be too late. I promised her mum.”

We moved fast—footsteps soft on spongy carpet, torchlight carving through the dark. Bits of ceiling dangled like cobwebs. Wallpaper peeled in strips. A child’s shoe sat abandoned halfway up the stairs.

A cold shiver ran through me. Not fear—something older. Instinct. The kind that creeps up the spine and warns you to stop before you open the wrong door.

From above came a single, heavy thud.

Another thud. Then silence.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?”

“She’s up there,” I said. “Room at the back.”

The stairs groaned under us. I led, stepping over a collapsed banister. Rain tapped the glass on a cracked skylight. My breath hung like smoke.

Four doors off the landing. Three ajar. One closed tight. The smell was stronger here—coppery, like meat left out too long.

I tested the handle. Locked.

Ken raised an eyebrow. “I suppose it’s my turn to kick the door down, but at my age, the legs aren’t quite…”

I slammed my foot into the door before he started listing symptoms. It didn’t budge.

I stepped back and drove my shoulder into the panel. It cracked. Again. A jagged tear opened near the latch. The third hit did it—wood splintered inward, the whole door swinging wide on broken hinges.

The room beyond was almost empty. Torn curtains. Bare boards. Dust like snowfall. But the far wall caught my eye—too clean, too flat, too white. The paint hadn’t even finished drying. It gleamed faintly in the torch beam.

Ken stepped in beside me. “Who builds a new wall in a condemned house?”

I didn’t answer. I’d already crossed the room.

I crouched. The air was cold here—much colder than the hallway. I pressed my palm to the plaster. It was ice. The kind of cold you feel in your bones.

Then I heard it.

Faint. So faint I thought it might be in my head.

A voice. A girl’s voice.

“Help me.”

I jerked back.

Ken saw my face and didn’t ask.

“I’ll go and fetch the crowbar,” he said.

Alone, I stared at the wall. The fresh paint. The deep chill. The scratch marks gouged into the floor.

My torch flickered.

There was a knock.

One soft knock.

From the inside.

Ken returned with the crowbar and a look that said he’d rather be anywhere else.

“She’s in there,” I said, in a low voice.

He didn’t answer. Just handed me the bar and stepped back.

I wedged it into a seam in the plaster, near the gouges in the floor. The wall gave with a faint crunch—cheap work. Someone hadn’t even bothered to screw in proper joists. I tore into it, section by section, plasterboard splitting like dry cake.

A wind kicked up. Not from outside. From within. Cold air spilled into the room like water from a broken pipe, carrying with it an overpowering stench.

Behind the wall, darkness.

Then—I saw her.

At first, it didn’t register. My brain refused. She was sitting upright, knees tucked under her chin, arms wrapped around herself like she’d curled up to sleep.

But her eyes didn’t move. Her lips were blue.

I’d seen her last on a missing person flyer. Sophie Langton, fifteen.

And her skin… gray. Mottled.

I dropped the crowbar. The clang felt distant.

Ken swore behind me.

We stared.

“I heard her, though.”

Ken gave me a concerned look.

I took a cautious step forward and reached out. Her body was wedged into the cavity like a final insult, half-hidden between plaster and brick.

Laid across her lap was a flower. A dark thing. Withered, like it had been dried in salt and ash. A black tulip, maybe. I’d never seen one before.

“She’s been here a while,” Ken murmured. “Days at least, maybe longer.”

I was shaking. I hadn’t noticed. My hands refused to steady.

Ken backed away. “I’ll call it in.”

I stayed.

There were marks on the brick behind her—scratched into the wall in a frantic, looping pattern. A spiral, over and over again. Something about it made my stomach turn. At the center of the spiral were three slashes, like claw marks or tally strokes.

And then I saw her hand.

It was resting awkwardly against the brick, the fingertips bent. Under her nails, dried blood. Her last act had been trying to scratch her way out.

I knelt. Looked closer.

All my training, all my rational, logical outlook seemed to drain away. I reached out to touch her hand.

The moment my gloved fingers brushed her skin, I felt it.

Heat.

Only for a second—but unmistakable. A bloom of warmth, like flesh coming back to life.

Her eyelids fluttered.

I gasped and stumbled back.

Ken came running. “What? What is it?”

I looked at the girl. Still. Cold. No sign of life. Her eyes shut. Lips parted in the same silent cry.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just slipped.”

He frowned but didn’t push.

We both stood there, breath shallow, listening to the groan of the broken house.

Far below us, a door slammed—though we were sure no one else had entered.

I felt something change then. Not in the room. In me.

Something that had been solid now cracked. And something else—something older, harder—filled the space it left behind.

“I’ll wait for Forensics,” Ken said softly. “You get some fresh air.”

I was already walking out of the room. Down the stairs. One step at a time.

Outside, the rain hadn’t stopped. But I didn’t feel it.

The girl’s face was still with me. The scratch marks. The black flower. The heat.

And that knock—from the inside.

It took six hours for the paperwork to start.

They’d sealed the house by ten. Forensics swept in—boiler suits, clipped voices, no eye contact. Sophie was bagged and tagged like evidence rather than someone’s little girl, wheeled out past us on a stretcher. Her eyes had been taped shut. I knew that trick. Didn’t help.

John Bell arrived around noon, as if summoned by the scent of blood.

“Well,” he said, looking at the ruined doorway. “I told them you’d get sentimental. This work needs someone with a stronger stomach.”

I tried to ignore him.

Ken looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. He’d seen that look on my face before. The one I got when Bell was around.

“She’s the Langton girl,” I said flatly. “The one reported missing last spring.”

Bell squinted. “Can’t be. Langton was seen in Sheffield three weeks ago. A lad claims she nicked his Walkman.”

“She’s been in that wall for months.”

“Could be someone else, then.”

“It’s her.”

He turned away, giving me that dismissive little wave he reserved for female colleagues. “Pathology will confirm. Don’t make this another one of your crusades.”

And that was it. That was the moment.

Something inside me broke. Months of searching for Sophie. The promise I had made to her mum. “I’ll find her.”

Years of Bell’s, “Make us a brew, love, while we solve this crime.”

Now here he was, a girl dead, and him seeing nothing but an opportunity to get one over on me.

Reader, I punched him.

If I had thought about it for a second, I would have stopped myself, but in that moment, I saw red.

He looked at me askance, and then suddenly a smile spread across his face.

“I’ll have your badge for this.”

I didn’t answer. Just walked past him, down the steps and into the rain. By the time I reached the car, I was shaking.

Inside, it was silent. I sat for a moment, hands on the wheel, not starting the engine. My fingers felt numb.

I took a breath. It tasted like plaster dust and copper.

The windscreen was fogged up.

I frowned, leaned forward, wiped it with my sleeve.

And froze.

There was a handprint on the inside of the glass.

Small. Child-sized. Perfectly formed.

I turned in my seat, heart thudding.

The car was empty. Doors locked. Windows up.

I reached out slowly and touched the print. It was warm.

Then the car radio crackled to life. Just static. No signal. The volume knob spun on its own—click, click, click—rising steadily.

I shut it off with a jolt. Silence returned like a held breath.

Then—

A knock.

Soft.

From inside the boot.

I didn’t move. I just sat there, listening.

And for the first time in years, I was afraid.