“Just get lost in the backpack, for goodness’ sake!” Tom snapped at him. “I don’t want anyone to see you. Can’t you get it into your pale skull? If Slimeblott finds out about you, I’ve had it!”
“Yeah, yeah!” breathed Hugo, offended, and squeezed himself into the backpack, which was already stuffed full. “I ooooonly wanted tooooo help.”
“But you shouldn’t help me!” hissed Tom over his shoulder. “Have you already taken your Ghostly Energy Anti-Sensor?”
“Of coourse!” breathed Hugo. “Though it gives yooooou a terribly tickly throoooat.” (Hetty Hyssop had invented the GEAS especially for Hugo. It was hardly any bigger than a sucking candy, but it made sure that the ghosthunters’ devices didn’t go off when Hugo went near them.)
“Oh good. Well, that’s something, at least,” growled Tom. “And woe betide you if you slime everything up in there again.” Then he took his Ghostly Energy Sensor out of his jacket pocket and walked side by side with Hetty Hyssop to the church. “Bingo!” he said as the needle started to quiver.
(Gentle reader: People who don’t know anything about ghosthunting mostly mistake the GES for an alarm clock with four fingers.)
“Clear traces of ghostly energy,” Tom announced. “I’d say the ghost was at work here the whole of last night. With a bit of luck, we’ll get another look at him tonight!”
“Entirely possible,” said Hetty Hyssop. “Category Three ghosts are often out haunting every night. And it’s absolutely fantastic for you, Tom, that he’s chosen a church. You can make great sound recordings in churches. They give all the howling and moaning a nice little echo.”
Hugo’s head poked slightly out of Tom’s backpack. “If Iiiiii coould just say soooomething,” he breathed. “Iiiiii …”
“One more word,” growled Tom, “and I’ll get my saltshaker. Do you know what the punishment is for breaking a ghost’s unholy honor?”
But Hugo had already disappeared.
Hetty Hyssop suppressed a smile. “Good!” she said, turning away from the church. “Let’s get to that inn. We need to get our strength up; it might be a turbulent night.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Tom, putting away his GES. As he took a last look around, a strange feeling of discomfort crept across his limbs — as if he were a mouse who had run into a trap without realizing it and suddenly heard it snapping shut on him.
“Snap!” muttered Tom, looking again at the church steeple looming high above them.
“What did you say?” asked Hetty Hyssop.
“Oh, nothing,” murmured Tom — and raised his head, listening carefully. A peculiar hissing sound was coming from somewhere and penetrating his ear. It sounded sharp and threatening.
“Careful, Tom!” cried Hetty Hyssop, and made a lunge for him.
But Hugo was quicker. He shot out of the backpack, grabbed Tom with his icy arms, and whisked him up into the air. As he did so, the hour hand of the clock plunged down and bored its way into the ground in front of the church. Quivering, it lodged itself between the stones in exactly the place where Tom had just been standing.
“Someone’s ooorganiiiiized a welcome committeeeee!” breathed Hugo, putting Tom back on his own two feet.
“That’s a pretty violent way for a Category Three ghost to say hello,” said Hetty Hyssop with a frown. “Oh well, I thought it was odd that there seem to be so few people in this village. But who knows what else this ghost has been dropping on people since it started getting up to mischief here.”
Tom pushed his glasses straight. They had almost slipped off his ears, and his fingers were still trembling from the shock. “Thanks, Hugo!” he stammered. “That thing nearly speared me like a marshmallow!”
“Noooo worrieees!” breathed Hugo. “Although, of course, Iiiiii wasn’t, in fact, supposed toooooo lift a fiiiinger.”
“Oh, I see no reason to tell Professor Slimeblott about what happened,” said Hetty Hyssop. “After all, Tom’s not properly got down to work yet.”
“Exactly,” murmured Tom, staggering to the clock hand, his legs still wobbling. When he ran the GES across the rusty metal, it began to glow silver. Sparks shot out onto Tom’s hand, as cold as snowflakes. “Well, there we have it,” he said. “That thing definitely did not fall down by accident.”
He looked up at the huge church windows. Behind them, he thought he could see something flickering. “You wait,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I’ll put a stop to your nasty jokes, you miserable whatever-you-are.” He straightened his back and resolutely strode toward the church door, but Hetty Hyssop stood in his way.
“Leave it, Tom,” she said, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Anger isn’t a good guide, and you’ve got no idea what’s lurking in there.”
Reluctantly, Tom let her pull him back toward the car. As he got in, he again thought he could see something flickering behind the dark church windows, something as pale as the fog that still hung over the houses.
Then it disappeared.
3
The inn, the Final Round, was only a few yards from the church. Its walls were clad in a leafy cloak of ivy; even the windows were half covered. Only on the ground floor did light fall through the windowpane and out onto the fog-shrouded road.
“The Final Round?” grumbled Tom to Hetty before they opened the front door. “What kind of name is that supposed to be?”
Hugo was tucked in the backpack, in spite of his usual protests. After all, if people don’t have much experience with ghosts, the sight of even a (relatively harmless) ASG is enough to make them pass out and stutter for days.
However, the innkeeper of the Final Round didn’t look particularly easily scared. He was built like a brick outhouse.
“Hetty Hyssop and Tom?” he growled, as Hetty signed herself and Tom into the guest book (not mentioning Hugo). “Aha, so you’re the ghosthunters. Well, we’ll see whether you have better luck than your colleagues.”
“Colleagues?” asked Hetty Hyssop, casting a surprised look at Tom.
“Oh yes, we’ve already had several ghosthunters stay here,” said the innkeeper, banging the book shut. “This is the twelfth ghost we’ve reported to those ghost authorities. Curses, I can never remember their proper name.”
“ROGA,” said Tom. “Register Office for Ghostly Apparitions.”
“Precisely!” growled the huge innkeeper.
“The twelfth one you’ve reported?” said Hetty Hyssop. “That really is something.”
The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, this village attracts ghosts the way that cow pies attract flies. Nobody knows why. Quite a lot of the houses here are already standing empty because of it.”
“Really? Very interesting,” said Hetty Hyssop. “Well, the ghost that we’re here for is supposed to have appeared for the first time just a couple of days ago.”
The innkeeper nodded and noisily blew his nose. (He had a nose that looked as if someone had squashed it flat.) “Yes, one comes and another one goes. This new one gets up to its tricks mostly in the church and the vicarage. Although I’ve not had the pleasure myself, apparently it’s as gray as roofing felt, this one.”
“Gray?” Tom and Hetty quickly exchanged glances.
“Can you tell us anything about its haunting activities?” asked Tom, pushing up his glasses.
“‘Haunting activities’? Well, you put it very nicely, don’t you, laddie?” said the innkeeper, stuffing his handkerchief back in his pocket. “Hmm, well, it’s supposed to throw stuff around. Does a lot of howling, too, it seems. And they say its screeching is truly earsplitting. The vicar’s sister looks pretty done in already.”
“Really …” murmured Tom. He couldn’t help but remember the hour hand. He suddenly felt sick. “Does it do anything else?” he asked.
“Well, you’d be better off asking the vicar and his sister. The vicarage is right behind the church.” The innkeeper ran his fingers across his stubbly chin and pushed the room key across the counter to Hetty
Hyssop. “Up the stairs. Second door on the left. Would you like me to bring you something to eat?”
“That would be very kind.” Hetty Hyssop picked up her suitcase — and spotted Hugo’s icy fingers, which were just about to write something in the guest book.
“Hugo!” she hissed, and the fingers disappeared back into Tom’s backpack.
“Hugo? No, my name is Erwin. Erwin Hornheaver,” growled the innkeeper. “How about poached egg and chips?”
“Without the egg, thanks,” said Tom, dragging his luggage to the staircase that led up to the first floor.
“Ghosts can smell you a mile off if you’ve been eating eggs.”
“Well, I never!” growled Erwin, looking at him in astonishment. “Pretty young to be a ghosthunter, the little lad, isn’t he?” he whispered to Hetty Hyssop.
“That’s Tom — a first-class ghosthunter, my dear man,” replied Hetty Hyssop. “He has already taken on ghosts the mere sight of which would turn you to dust before you could say ‘egg and chips.‘”
Then she followed Tom up the steep, creaky staircase. When she turned around once more, she saw Erwin Hornheaver watching them, surprise written all over his face.
The chips were delicious. Tom tipped a great load of chili and garlic powder over them so that he and Hetty would smell unappetizing to ghosts that night — which meant that Hugo had to stick a clothespin on his pale nose.
“Gray!” mused Tom as he speared his last chip. “That covers loads of different types of ghost. D’you think it might be a negative projection?”
Hetty Hyssop shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not likely, but you ought to be prepared for it,” she said.
Tom pushed his plate aside and spread out his equipment on the bed. “Hugo, we don’t know when we’ll get back from the vicarage. The ghost might appear when we’re talking to the vicar and his sister. Nobody knows better than you how much ghosts like to appear when people are discussing them. But however long we’re gone, you’re to stay in this room — got it?”
“Why? I’ll be booooored to death!” groaned Hugo, slumping down on the windowsill.
“Don’t talk nonsense — you’re already dead,” said Hetty Hyssop. “And get away from the window.”
With a defiant expression, Hugo leaned his pale back against the cool glass. “But there’s such a looooovely draft here,” he groused.
Irritated, Hetty Hyssop pushed him aside and closed the curtains. Tom stood in front of the bed, frowning as he sorted out the equipment he wanted to take with him.
“You really should use the HYper-SOund Filters,” said Hetty Hyssop. “To judge by what Hornheaver said, we might be dealing with a screecher.”
“I’ve already put them behind my ears,” said Tom.
(Gentle reader: Screechers are ghosts who make straight for their victims, screeching so penetratingly that they even bend metal objects. It had happened to Tom once, and he’d been stone-deaf for thirteen days afterward. Since then, he always wore HYOSFs behind his ears when he went on missions.)
“And have you got your NEgative-NEutralizer Belt on?” asked Hetty Hyssop, tossing Tom his protective helmet.
“Yep, check, the NENEB is on,” he answered, donning the helmet and lifting up his sweater. A broad black belt was slung around his hips. A net of silver thread reached up from it to his chest.
“Excellent,” said Hetty Hyssop. “What about your camera?”
“Ready to shoot,” said Tom. “I’ve got my dicta-phone as well. Recording what the vicar tells us is bound to be useful for my report.”
“Can’t I at least scaaaaare our fat landlooooord?” Hugo called after them as they were already standing in the door.
“Don’t you dare!” said Tom, and closed the bedroom door behind him.
4
It was dark outside now, but the fog still hung in white streamers between the houses. There was nobody around as Tom and Hetty Hyssop crossed the church square. Their steps echoed on the damp paving stones, and a dog barked somewhere. The air smelled strangely musty, as if someone had stuffed it into a preserving jar and let it out again a thousand years later. As they passed the church, Tom’s head turned automatically to look at it. The windows were dark, and up on the church steeple clock, the minute hand was doing its lonely round.
They found the vicarage right behind the church, just where Erwin Hornheaver had said it would be. It was hidden behind a high wall covered in dense foliage. The wrought-iron gate was open a crack, and the path that led to the house was so muddy that the ground squelched beneath Tom’s boots. The house itself looked strangely crooked, as if it were bending down toward the dirt. A light was on in one of the windows on the ground floor. It glowed brightly in the gathering gloom.
“Oh, fantastic, someone’s at home!” whispered Tom, pressing the bell. “But who on Earth built this house? Looks as if it’s about to fall down any minute.”
Hetty Hyssop didn’t answer. She poked her umbrella into the flower bed next to the front door, held the tip up to her nose, and sniffed it. “The same musty smell that’s in the air,” she mused. “Strange. Does it say anything to you?”
“Well, it doesn’t seem as if we’re dealing with a Bog and Swamp Ghost,” replied Tom. “As far as I remember, they make everything smell of lilies. But here it stinks like someone’s airing out an old crypt.”
At that moment, the vicarage door opened. A little old lady as thin as a stick of asparagus brandished a poker at them threateningly. “What do you want?” she asked brusquely.
Her face wasn’t particularly pale, but her earlobes trembled and her eyebrows kept twitching nervously upward as if they wanted to run away. Clearly the result of ghostly encounters, as Tom recognized only too well.
“Good evening,” said Hetty Hyssop, pushing the poker aside with a friendly smile. “My name is Hetty Hyssop, and this is my colleague, Tom. We’re ghosthunters, and we’d very much like to have a chat with you about the ghostly apparition that’s been visiting you for the last few days.”
The skinny little woman jumped so violently that three bobby pins slipped out of her icy gray bun. She screwed up her eyes and looked around; then she listened into the brightly lit house behind her — and bent down to the pair of ghosthunters. “This village is cursed!” she whispered, thrusting the poker at Tom’s chest. “Go home, quickly! We should all leave, but nobody listens to me, not even my own brother!”
At that very moment the light went off behind her. With one fell swoop all the windows of the house went dark, and a deep sigh came from the open front door. It stroked Tom’s face like the damp breath of an invisible animal.
“May I?” Tom said, and moved the little woman and her poker to one side. Then he quickly entered the pitch-dark house with Hetty Hyssop close behind. A couple of steps across a narrow hallway, and the two were standing in, as far as Tom could make out in the darkness, the living room. “I think we’ll need the magnetizer!” he whispered to Hetty Hyssop.
“Good idea!” she whispered back.
Tom clasped his backpack between his legs and pulled a horseshoe-shaped object out of it. Hetty Hyssop was already holding her magnetizer.
“Go outside!” Tom told the little old lady when she appeared in the doorway. “Things will get pretty unpleasant in here in a minute!”
Something was bumping and banging above his head, and he could hear steps, heavy and irregular.
“Into position, Tom!” cried Hetty Hyssop, standing exactly four paces away from him and aiming her GHOst Magnetizer at the ceiling.
“It’s resisting!” cried Tom as his magnetizer began to hum like an angry wasp. “I’m switching mine to full force!”
“Agreed!” cried Hetty Hyssop.
A fierce screech resounded above their heads, and suddenly something fell through the ceiling. With a dull thud, it landed on the carpet in front of them.
“A NEPGA!” cried Tom. He hastily threw his magnetizer onto the ground and pressed the buckle of his NENEB. The gho
st stood up, panting, and remained cowering in the middle of the room. It shimmered gray in the darkness; its shape was outlined by a blaze of light; and it radiated icy coldness.
Tom had read several things about NEgative Projections of a Ghostly Apparition, but he’d never come face-to-face with one in person. The NEPGA took a human form, but it didn’t glow pale white like most ghosts do, being instead the color of dirty smoke. Its blazing outline pulsated as if blood were still flowing through its ghostly veins. But the spookiest thing about it was its face. It looked like the negative of a black-and-white photo.
The pale eyes made Tom shudder. Their pupils were an icy white color and they bored into Tom’s face like pins.
“Come on, concentrate, Tom!” he muttered to himself, not letting the NEPGA out of his sight for a second. “Think of your diploma. Take a picture of this monster!”
It took his fingers a moment, though, to obey his thoughts and pull the tiny special camera out of his pocket. Tom managed to press the button only once before the NEPGA whizzed into the air and floated toward him, its arms outstretched. As an experienced ghosthunter, Tom knew only too well that any unprotected contact with a NEPGA had extremely painful consequences for living beings, but he didn’t move a muscle.
“Yooou’ve had it!” breathed the ghost in a voice that came from the very depths of its body. Then it poked a smoky gray finger at Tom’s chest — and froze.
“Ha, that surprised you, didn’t it?” Tom grabbed the NEPGA’s arm before it could get over its shock that its victim had not doubled over with pain.
“That business with the clock hand,” Tom continued. “I really took that personally. What a mean-spirited joke. You can be sure I will get a lot of pleasure out of putting you in a nice cozy —”
Sadly he didn’t get any further. Someone shoved him aside so violently that he let go of the ghost’s arm. With a cry, the vicar’s sister pushed past Tom. “You miserable, revolting, glass-shattering thing!” she yelled. And before Tom or Hetty Hyssop could stop her, she walloped the NEPGA on the head with her poker. The poker immediately turned as floppy as a stick of licorice. The ghost, however, floated past Tom with an evil laugh and disappeared out the door and into the foggy night.
Ghosthunters and the Muddy Monster of Doom! Page 2