Simon Green - Ghost of a Dream

Laurie stepped back, into the main station building, as though he felt safer inside, in the candlelight. Dr. Todd drifted back before the fog, to stand with the Ghost Finders. He still stared unblinkingly through the thick grey mists, at where he believed the tunnel-mouth to be. The fog was cold and wet and intimidating. It felt like being trapped underwater, cut off from the rest of the world, every sound eerily muffled. The foggy air smelled of smoke and coal dust and times past. It grew slowly, steadily thicker.

Happy suddenly put both hands to his head and pressed hard against his ears to keep out some terrible sound only he could hear. His face screwed up, and he stumbled away from the others. JC yelled for him to come back, but Happy couldn’t hear him. He disappeared into the curling folds of the fog, becoming a dark and indistinct shape. And then he disappeared from sight completely, as his feet took him over the edge of the platform, and he fell.

But Melody was right there behind him.

She’d followed him into the fog, and when he fell, she threw herself forward and grabbed his out-flung hand at the last moment. She slammed facedown onto the platform, driving all the breath out of her lungs with the impact; but still she held on to Happy’s hand with desperate strength.

“Don’t let go!” yelled Happy, his voice rising from the deep gap between the platforms. “I’m not sure there’s anything here, any more! The fog’s eaten it all up! There’s nothing underneath me!”

“Oh hush up, you big baby,” said Melody, between gritted teeth. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

While they were busy with each other, the fog took advantage of the moment to surge forward, from both ends of the platform at once. A great grey wave swallowed up everything. JC lost sight of Melody, grimly hanging on to Happy’s hand. And when he looked back, he couldn’t see Laurie or Dr. Todd. He was cut off from everyone, standing alone in a great grey sea that was becoming steadily thicker all around as though it was walling him up.

And then Kim Sterling came walking out of the fog, heading straight for him. His lost love, his ghost girl, striding towards him, smiling. The fog fell back from her, as though intimidated by her presence, as though it couldn’t touch her. Kim came walking through the fog, and her feet on the platform didn’t make the slightest sound. She slowed to a halt before JC, and his unbelieving smile slowly widened to match hers. He took off his sunglasses, so he could meet her eyes with his, and the blazing light from his altered eyes blasted the last of the fog away, illuminating Kim like summer sunshine in a church. She stood tall and easy before him, a magnificent pre-Raphaelite beauty with long red hair, in a shimmering, long, white dress. She had a high-boned, sharply featured face, and her wide mouth was a red dream with a smile always tucked away in one corner. She looked so fine, so wonderful, so full of life…JC reached out to take her hand, and she reached out a pale hand to him…but his hand passed right through hers. Because only he was really there. The living and the dead were never meant to touch.

“Where have you been?” said JC; but Kim smiled sadly at him.

She gestured at the sunglasses in his hand, then looked right into his eyes in a meaningful way. JC nodded slowly, looked around him at the fog, and said, very distinctly, “I can still see the platform.” The fog rolled back before him, giving up its hold on the station, unable to withstand the otherworldly glare of his eyes. It slowly faded away and disappeared, as though it had lost its grip on the world. JC looked around for Kim; but she was already walking away, back down the platform. By the time the fog was completely gone, so was she. As though she had never been there.

“I’ll find you,” said JC. “I’ll never stop looking.”

JC didn’t waste time with regrets. He hurried over to where Melody was still lying facedown on the platform, one hand over the edge, grimly hanging on to Happy. JC knelt and grabbed Happy’s other hand, and, between them, he and Melody hauled Happy back up to the platform. Happy scrambled up onto his feet, breathing hard, then retreated quickly away from the edge. Melody went with him, while JC took his time getting back onto his feet, brushing fussily at his marvellous ice-cream white suit.

“What the hell did you hear,” Melody said to Happy, “to make you go rushing off like that?”

“A steam-whistle,” said Happy. “Like a howl out of Hell, getting closer by the moment.”

Melody nodded, then turned away to look back at JC. “Before you ask. Yes, I saw her, too.”

“Saw who?” Happy said immediately. “What did I miss?”

“Kim,” said Melody. “She was back. She helped save us from the fog, then disappeared again.”

“She looked exactly the way she did when I first saw her,” said JC. “Down in the Underground.”

“Everyone else has a guardian angel,” growled Happy. “Trust you to be different and have a guardian ghost. Did she say anything to you, like where she’s been all this time? Who was holding her; how she broke free?”

“No,” said JC. “She didn’t say a word. But at least now I know…she’s not lost. Not gone. She’s…out there, somewhere.”

“Then where’s she been all this time?” said Happy; but JC wasn’t listening. He looked across at Laurie, standing stiffly in the candle-lit doorway. JC considered him thoughtfully for a long moment, then looked across at the ghost of Dr. Todd, back where he used to be, staring into the darkness of the tunnel-mouth. JC moved away from both of them and gestured for Happy and Melody to join him.

The three Ghost Finders stood close together, speaking in quiet voices.

“The train is coming back,” said JC. “We can’t hope to stop it, so I say we do all we can to encourage it and keep all the weird shit limited to this one location.”

“Good idea, oh great boss and leader,” said Happy. “You get on with that while I sprint for the nearest horizon. Be sure and send me a nice postcard when it’s all over and let me know how it turned out.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t do this without you,” said JC. “So stay where you are, or I’ll nail your feet to the platform. Or maybe I’ll only nail the one and watch you walk round and round in circles.”

Happy scowled at him. “You would, too, wouldn’t you? Bully. All right. What do you want me to do, and I know I’m going to hate it.”

“I will use my amazing eyes to find the weak spot in reality,” said JC. “And then you will use your amazing mutant mind to force it all the way open. Lance the boil before it bursts.”

“You have such a way with words,” said Happy. “And all of them bad.”

“You really think that’s going to work?” said Melody.

“Oh yes,” said JC. “The train wants to come home. The Ghost Caller wants to come home. They’ve been Away too long. All we have to do is open the door a crack, and they’ll force it open the rest of the way, from the other side.”

“I’m more worried about what might come through with them,” said Melody.

“I should have been a plumber, like Mother wanted,” Happy said miserably. “Always good money, in plumbing.”

In the end, it really was that simple. JC and Happy stood together on the platform, concentrating on the dark tunnel-mouth, while Melody hurried back into the Station building, gathered up her precious instruments, and hauled them out onto the platform. Laurie watched interestedly, but he had apparently observed enough of Melody in action not to make the mistake of offering to help. The ghost of Dr. Todd ignored them all, still orientated unwaveringly on the tunnel-mouth. JC and Happy gave him plenty of room. It was cold on the platform, but the natural cold of an evening shading into night, not the unnatural chill Dr. Todd had brought to the Station room. Presumably he didn’t feel the need for any more energy; and JC and Happy were quite content for him to go on feeling that way.