The vicar pulled his hat back on and hurried out of the gate. He slithered over the damp leaves on the path and hurried up the path to the vicarage. The porch light was welcome as a lighthouse to a lost sailor. In his study the fire was still glowing. He stirred it back into life and held his pale, thin hands up to the flames.

There was a noise behind him. A soft scratching like a cat's claw on a gravestone. Someone trying to get into the window; the window that overlooked the churchyard. The vicar stepped across to it and pulled the curtain back.

He gave a gasping cry as shocked as a man falling into an icy sea. The face that looked in at the window was moon-white and glowing. It's eyes were wide with terror and the claw-hands seemed to be tearing at the air in front of it. The hand's weren't touching the glass yet the vicar could hear that scratch-scratch-scratch. The phantom face's colourless lips seemed to be saying something. There was no sound but the young vicar, more rigid than an icicle, knew what it was saying. "Let me out! Let me out!"
The young man clutched a hand to his shuddering heart, nodded at the vision and cried, "I'll come to you, my friend. Wait!" before he rushed to the door and out into the damp grass.
No one stood outside the living room window. But from across the garden wall the familiar voice wailed, "Let me out! Let me out!" The young vicar's fingers tore at the wall until they bled. He scrambled at any small foothold or fingerhold and raised his head over the wall.
The graveyard was dark as ever but the voice echoed around it, "Let me out! Let me out!"
"What is it? What's wrong? Tell me . . . tell me who you are! I can help you!"
But the only reply was thin as the east wind, "Let me out, let me out!"
At last the vicar's grip loosened on the top of the wall and he slipped back into the vicarage garden. He rested a cheek against the cool wall, closed his eyes and murmured a prayer. Then he felt a tickle at his wrist and realised blood from his torn hand was running down his arm.