It's cold. So cold. I’m so very cold. And it’s dark. So very dark. Ow! A flicker of light. Another. Ow! It's too bright ... Ah! ... that’s getting easier. My sight’s adjusting. Oh! So that’s it. I’m in hospital. White ceiling. Fluorescent tubes. Like a supermarket - only not so clean. 
What am I doing here? I don't ... I think … oh yes, I remember now. That urchin. Dave. Dave Whatsisname. He must have … with that knife. I can picture its blade flashing under the street light. 

“Oi, bugger off!” I’d said. “Think I’d let a kid like you take my wallet? And pull your trousers up, too, your Calvin Klein's are showing."

“Oh come on, mate. Just do it. I’m a Spectre you know. Don’t be tricky. Just your phone and wallet. Then you can go. Oh ... and I’ll have your watch as well.

“You’re jokin’ kid. I ain’t giving my hard-earned to the likes of you.”

Then came a voice from beyond the street light. “Dave! Hurry up. Just get his bleedin’ wallet and phone. Or are you the wimp we thought you were?”

“Hey, Higgins, you little runt.” It was another voice, deeper and nastier. “Get the effin’ swag now, or go home to your mum. Don’t know why we let you come with us in the first place."

Well, that sort of got him all urgent, like.

“Now give me your stuff or I’ll …”

“You’ll what?”

That was when I saw the flashing knife. I felt it, you know. Bit of a surprise really. It was just like a punch. Not a very hard punch either. I looked down and I could see his hand just there on my chest. But he was still holding the handle. The blade had disappeared. First I thought it was one of those kids’ knives, the ones where the blade springs into the handle.

“You've gotta be joking,” I said to him. But he was staring at his hand on my chest. Slowly he pulled it back and I saw the blade again. It wasn’t shining no more neither. It was all dark. Then it was completely out and there was a sort of rushing sound and a fountain of blood just squirted from where the knife had been.

“What d’you do that for?” I said to him. I didn’t really know what else to say.

“I’m sorry … I’m sorry … I didn’t think it would’ve …” he muttered, but he was just staring at the knife in his hand.

“I’ll get you, lad.  I’ll get you.  You little shit…” I said. Then it was like one of those times you stand up too fast and you feel like you’re in a lift and your brain sort of sinks into your middle. But the feeling didn’t stop and I was on the pavement and he had turned away and I read ‘Spectres' on the back of his bomber jacket, and now I’m here.

Echoes. Footsteps on hard floors. Voices. There are two faces looking down at me. But they are just silhouettes. Don’t they even give you a sidelight in these places? 

“Just an hour ago,” one is saying to the other, “Sherman Street. By the clubs.” 

“You wouldn’t catch me down there. Not at night, not with that whatjamecallit gang about.”

“Yeh, the Sherman Spectres. Knife must have slipped straight in, just there, between the ribs.” 

“Hang about, you two,” I say, “I’m here you know.” But it just comes out as a sort of wobbly  “Ooooh!  Ooooh!" Now I’m sitting up and I can see the two of them running through the door. “Oi! Come back!” I shout, but it sounds like “Ooooh! Ooooh!” again.

I look back into the room. There’s a sort of shiny trolley. On top of it there's a … a shape like a …  a body.  Blimey! It’s mine.

 “David Higgins and all you other Spectres, I’m coming to get my revenge!"  I'm shouting as I float along the corridors and out into the night. 

But it still just sounds like “Ooooh! Ooooh!”