Simon Green - Ghost of a Dream

JC beckoned Happy forward, and the two of them stood back-to-back, looking quickly about them. Melody ignored the room completely, giving all her attention to what her sensor readouts were telling her. Laurie stood alone, looking out the open main door at the platform beyond. All around, shadows were moving slowly, subtly, creeping forward, pushing back the light. The room was full of a sense of movement, of things that came and went, gone the moment you looked at them directly. And there was a growing sense of presence , an overwhelming feeling that they were no longer the only ones in the room. That something new was approaching from an unknown direction, to join them.

“Told you,” said Laurie. He was the only one not looking around him, apparently entirely unconcerned. “It’s not safe to be here, not now it’s got dark.”

“Please stand your ground, Mr. Laurie,” JC said firmly. “Don’t go, not when things are starting to get interesting. You really mustn’t let these things bother you. It’s all smoke and mirrors, when you get right down to it—meant to soften us up for the main event. To put us in the proper mood for when our ghost finally deigns to make his entrance. Never met a ghost that wasn’t a drama queen. Melody, tell me something!”

“Power readings are off the scale, JC,” said Melody, her eyes darting from one monitor screen to another. “Room temperature’s stabilised, even starting to rise again. A little. Which would suggest our mysterious prime mover now has all the power it needs to materialise. Something is coming. Heading our way from a direction I can’t even describe. From Outside, from far beyond the fields we know. Hold it…hold it…I’m getting something. Something drawing near. I can’t say what it is or how it’s related to what’s been happening here…but I’m quite definitely detecting a weak spot in reality, in our Space/Time continuum…Outside, at the far end of the platform, down by the tunnel-mouth. I think…it’s a doorway, or at the very least a potential door, an opening between here and Somewhere Else.”

“Great!” said Happy, miserably. “Fantastic! Just what we needed—more complications. I may cry. Why isn’t anything ever simple and straightforward?”

“Because the world isn’t like that,” said JC. “Ours, or anyone else’s. Okay! Everyone come together, in the middle of the room. And, yes, that very definitely includes you, Melody. Your precious toys can look after themselves for a moment. Come along, come along, hoppity hop! In a circle, please, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the room.”

“We’re not going to have to hug each other, or hold hands, are we?” said Happy suspiciously. “You know I’ve never been keen on that hippy touchy-feely crap.”

They all stood close together, shoulder pressed against shoulder. JC could feel the tension in Happy’s shoulder on the one side and the cold, hard presence of Laurie on the other. Happy glared about him, a bit more focused now he had something definite to disapprove of. Melody’s hands had closed into bony fists, more than ready for a close encounter with the mortally challenged. JC couldn’t keep from smiling. He lived for moments like this, a chance to grab the supernatural by the shoulders and give it a good hard shake till it agreed to start making sense and give up its secrets.

“Ignore the advancing shadows, and the strange shapes jumping at the corners of your eyes,” he said loudly. “It’s all misdirection. We’re meant to look at them, so we won’t see what’s really important. Keep your eyes open and listen to my voice. Consider. What made Bradleigh Halt such a bad place, so recently? A genius loci and a centre for bad happenings? What’s powering the unnatural events in this out-of-the-way place? It has to be connected to the train that disappeared into a tunnel. Snatched out of this world and taken away to Somewhere Else. Because that’s the only story, the only event, that contains a general-weird-shit event and general loss of life. The usual prime causes of a haunting.

“I think the train is still Out There, somewhere, locked in place, preserved, like an insect trapped in amber. Held there, in equilibrium, unable to go forward or back. And then the Preservation Trust volunteers started work here, ripping out the old to install the new. Changing things…changing the situation. Enough to upset the delicate balance and blast the trapped train right out of its holding pattern. You should never move things, Mr. Laurie; it leaves gaps. And, sometimes, it attracts the attention of things from Outside.”

“What are you saying?” said Laurie. “What’s happening here? What’s going to happen?”

“I think your little lost train is finally coming home,” said JC. “All the time it was trapped and held Somewhere Else, it’s been trying to get home. Straining against the bonds that hold it. Think of it as pressure building, like steam in a kettle. Building up a head of steam powerful enough to break free at last. And, as Melody said, there’s now a weak spot in reality, right by the tunnel-mouth. Where the train will come through…When the accumulated pressure finally blows it wide open. So that the train and its carriages and passengers can finally come home. Which might be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on what state the train and its passengers are in. Whether they were trapped in a timeless moment, or whether they had to endure every bit of the long years they’ve been missing, in that Other Place.

“And, of course, there’s always the problem of what the train might bring back with it, from that Other Place. There are always terrible things lurking on the threshold of reality, waiting for a chance to break in. To feed or destroy. Or, much worse, make us over into things like them.”

“If the train was trapped in a moment out of Time, then the passengers could return without knowing anything at all has happened to them,” said Happy. “They could come home safe and well. They’ll need debriefing, of course, but…”

“Dear Happy,” said JC. “Always hoping for the best.”

“And nearly always being disappointed,” growled Happy. “Why can’t we have a happy ending, for once?”

“Because it wasn’t temporal energy I was picking up,” said Melody. “Or I would have said. My instruments were registering powerful other-dimensional energy spikes. And besides, trains don’t simply disappear. Something reached into this world and took it away. And, given the way things have been acting up around here, I don’t think that train was taken with good intentions. Do you?”

“Why can’t we all get along?” said Happy, plaintively.

“So,” JC said firmly. “A train with carriages packed full of people, taken Outside of Time and Space, and held Somewhere Else, for over a century. And no way of telling for what purpose. After being held for so long, under unknown alien conditions, there’s no way this can turn out well. I think the best we can hope for is that everyone on the train is dead.”

“What?” said Laurie, looking around sharply.

“You can’t live under alien conditions without being changed in alien ways,” JC said patiently, and as kindly as he could. “You can’t live in an alien place and stay human. The only way to survive is to change and adapt. After all those years away, completely cut off from Earth-normal conditions; who knows what shape the train’s passengers will be in? Physical or psychological? The shock of the return might be enough to kill them.”

“So…you’re saying we should try and stop them coming back?” said Laurie, frowning.

“I’m not sure that’s an option any more,” said JC. “Not with so much pressure building behind it for so long.”