Simon Green - Ghost of a Dream

Happy glared at her. “They had some moved in, for camouflage.”

“You’ve been working your way through the forbidden files I downloaded, haven’t you?” said Melody. “Good boy. There will be treats later.”

“Young rebels in love,” said JC. “The horror, the horror…Get on with the story, Melody. It’s getting late.”

“Later than you think,” said Laurie. The others looked at him, but he had nothing more to say.

“Anyway,” said Melody. “Pressing on. Enter Dr. Todd, again. It seems he was now so scared of the Ghost Caller, and what it could do, that he wanted it gone. Destroyed, or at the very least, made safe. Apparently he didn’t trust what Her Majesty’s Government of that time might do with it. So he made a deal with Someone, or Something, presumably the same Power that made the Ghost Caller for him in the first place, and had them send the Ghost Caller…Away. You have to understand, though, all of this is conjecture, put together after the fact. No-one knows anything for sure.”

“Oh, I think we can make some pretty good guesses,” said JC. “The Ghost Caller was placed on a train, which entered a tunnel, and was never seen again! Because it was sent Away, out of our reality, to some Other Place. So no-one else could have it. And Dr. Todd’s ghost is here to guard the station, to frighten people away…so no-one could do anything that might bring the train back again. He’s stood guard all these years, to protect us all from the terrible machine he made.

“But the volunteers came and made changes in the station, changing the conditions that helped keep the train Away…And now there’s a dimensional weak spot where the accumulated pressure has burst through. A doorway, or at least a potential doorway, between here and Away.”

“You think the missing train is coming home, at last?” said Laurie.

“And bringing the Ghost Caller with it,” said JC.

“All right, I’m sort of with you,” said Happy. “But none of that explains why the top of Dr. Todd’s head is missing.”

“One thing at a time,” JC said cheerfully. “Let’s go out onto the platform again. See what there is to see.”

“It’ll all end in tears,” said Happy. “Probably mine.”

They went back out onto the station platform, JC leading the way and looking cheerfully about him. He’d recovered a lot of his usual cocky bravado. Happy wasn’t sure whether he approved or not. Yes, it was good to see JC back to his old self again; but the old JC did have a distressing tendency to rush in where angels wouldn’t show up on a bet. Usually while shouting Follow me! to Happy and Melody. Happy looked nervously up and down the platform, sticking close to Melody. It was very late evening now, not much light left in the sky. Hardly any of the station room’s candlelight followed them out through the doorway, and the lights built into Melody’s instrument rack had dimmed right down. Even the sound of their footsteps seemed muffled, far-away. There was a terrible stillness to everything, as though everything in the station was waiting for something. An almost unbearable sense of anticipation, of something important and significant, about to begin.

Laurie stayed in the doorway, looking at the three Ghost Finders as much as the station.

JC strode right up to the edge of the platform and stopped, the tips of his shoes protruding over the drop, and the tracks. He bounced up and down happily, peering into every dark and concealing shadow as though he expected something to emerge and present him with a box of chocolates. He studied the weed-choked tracks, and the heavily rusted rails, before finally giving his full attention to the gaping tunnel-mouth. He studied it thoughtfully for some time. Darkness looked back at him, complete and implacable.

“This where you detected the dimensional weak point, Melody?” he said, without looking back.

“Not so much a door as where a door could appear,” said Melody. “And the more the pressure builds, the bigger that door’s going to be. And the greater the impact it will have upon our reality. You can’t force an opening between worlds without some inevitable spiritual fall-out.”

“Such as?” said Laurie from his doorway.

“Rains of frogs, spontaneously combusting cows, and the dead coming home to roost,” said Happy. “The universe doesn’t like being messed about with and has a tendency to act up cranky, in protest. Is there any way we can stop the train’s coming back, JC?”

“We don’t want to,” JC said briskly. “The train wants to come home, where it belongs. And we want that pressure relieved because it’s been building for over a century; so when the doorway finally opens, it’s all going to happen at once, in a big way. Best we can do is hope to control the situation and keep the nasty side effects contained, here within the station. That train is on its way back, finishing its long journey at last, and nothing in or out of Heaven or Hell will stop it now.”

“The train isn’t the real problem,” said Melody. “Don’t get side-tracked, JC. The real problem is the Ghost Caller. It was dangerous enough when it was first placed aboard the train; by now it could have accumulated enough power to blow a hole clean through the Space/Time continuum. If the stress of the return activates the machine, we could be talking about a mass psychic summoning. One last call for all the dead that ever were.”

“I am leaving now,” said Happy. “Try and keep up.”

“Stand still! Show a brave face, Happy,” said JC, sternly. “There are civilians present.”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Laurie. “I told you, no-one with any sense stays here once it gets dark.”

“See!” said Happy. “See!”

“We should get danger money,” said Melody.

Happy stopped and looked at her. “It would help,” he said finally.

“Hold it,” said JC. “We have company.”

They all looked around, to find the ghost of Dr. Todd had joined them out on the platform. He stood on his own, some distance away, staring unblinkingly into the dark tunnel-mouth. JC calmly strode forward to join him, looked into the tunnel opening, then right into the ghost’s face.

“Why are you here, Dr. Todd? You’ve failed to prevent the train’s return, so why are you still here?”

The ghost looked straight through him, as though he weren’t there, and said nothing at all. JC glanced back at Happy.

“Are you sure you aren’t picking up something from him? Anything at all?”

“No thoughts, no personality…it’s as though he’s so far-away, I can barely see him. Something really bad happened to Dr. T; and I don’t think it was only the head injury. I think part of it is still happening. There’s a definite connection between the ghost, the missing train, and the Ghost Caller. I can sense it, feel it; this whole setting is soaked in information. And JC…I can’t feel Dr. Todd, but I can feel something that I’m pretty sure is the Ghost Caller. It’s not simply a machine. It’s close now, closer than it has ever been, ready to break through…And I think it needs Dr. Todd to be here when it arrives. He’s not here through his own free will; the Ghost Caller holds him here.”

“Why?” said JC. “What’s the connection?”

“I don’t know!” said Happy. “I’m getting a headache trying to process all this. It’s something to do with the price Dr. Todd paid for the creation of the Ghost Caller.”

“No-one move,” Melody said quietly. “But look around you. The fog is rolling in.”

They all looked carefully up and down the platform. A shimmering grey fog had descended on both ends and was creeping slowly and remorselessly along the platform towards them. It rose out of everywhere at once, curling and coiling thickly on the still evening air, pulsing with its own eerie light. The tunnel-mouth was already lost to sight. In a few moments, the fog was already so thick that none of them could make out the opposite platform. The pulsing mists spilled along the railway tracks, covering them up in a thick grey tide, and soon the Ghost Finders and Laurie and the ghost of Dr. Todd were surrounded by a grey sea of impenetrable fog, filling the station with its own sour and bitter light.