“I am seeing serious cold, JC!” she said, forcing the words out between chattering teeth. “And I’m talking deep cold here, unnatural cold! But according to my sensors, only in this room!”
“Now this is what I call a cold spot!” said JC, beating his hands together, then rubbing them briskly. “This is more like it! Traditional ghost sign; something is draining energy out of the immediate surroundings to fuel an imminent manifestation. Take up your positions, people; we have a ghost heading this way.”
“Yes,” said Laurie. “It’s here…”
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.”
“Then what do all the manifestations and things here mean?” said Laur
ie.
“Simple,” said JC. “Someone, or Something, was disturbed when the volunteers started changing things in the station, and it has been working ever since to drive everyone else away. It doesn’t want things to change enough for the train to be able to return; or, failing that, it doesn’t want anyone here when it does.”
He broke off; and they all looked around at the wedged-open main door and the platform beyond. Slow, steady footsteps were advancing down the platform from the far end, heading straight for them. Heavy, regular footsteps, not hurrying, taking their time. As though whoever was responsible wanted them to be heard, for the people hearing them to have a chance to get away. There was something off, something not quite right, about the footsteps. Too loud and too heavy for any single man to make; and each and every echoing tread seemed to linger that little bit too long, as though every step had something of eternity in it. A sound that was always there, even when you couldn’t hear it.
A dark figure walked past the window. It looked like a man, but its movements were wrong. It took too long to make its movements, as though the body wasn’t affected by things like gravity or inertia any more, as though it accepted no authority but its own. A human shape, broken free of the ties of this world. And though everyone in the room only saw the dark shape at the window for a moment, they all thought the same thing. There’s something wrong with its head… It passed by the window, then, after a heart-stoppingly tense moment, it came in through the door, and stopped there, facing them. The ghost of Bradleigh Halt.
It looked like a man, standing tall and slender and proud, dressed like a proper gentleman of Victorian times. A smart, even elegant, outfit, but…hard worn, as though it had been put to use for much longer than it should have. A middle-aged man, with a grey, sad face and fixed, staring eyes. His arms hung unmoving at his sides, the pale, long-fingered hands twitching slightly. For all his stillness and silence, there was a dreadful urgency to the man. You couldn’t not look at him; by being there, he weighed so heavily on the world that he drew all the attention in the room. Because simply by being there, he was the most important thing in it.
“See?” Laurie said quietly. “The head. Look at his head.”
They looked, and they saw. The top part of the ghost’s head was gone. Missing. As though someone had sawn the top of his head right off, directly above the bushy eyebrows. A very neat cut, with not a single jagged edge; a very professional job indeed.
JC moved slowly forward, and the ghost didn’t react. It stood there, glaring at them all. Step by cautious step, JC walked right up to the ghost, until he was face-to-face with it. JC’s breath steamed thickly on the bitter cold air, but no breath moved from the ghost’s lips. JC lifted himself up onto his tiptoes, and looked down into the ghost’s cut-open head. And then he stood down again and carefully backed away from the ghost, never taking his eyes off it.
“Well?” said Happy.
“Well,” said JC. “That’s…really quite interesting, actually. There’s nothing inside his head. His brain has been removed.”
TWO
LAST CALL FOR THE DEAD
“Removed?” said Melody. “You mean surgically?”
“Could be,” said JC. “Or it’s the most extreme case of trepanation I’ve ever seen.”
“What?” said Laurie.
“Where you drill a hole in your head to make yourself smarter,” said Happy. “Trust me, it doesn’t work.”
“Hold everything, shout halleluiah,” said Melody. “I think I know who that is. I’ve seen that face before…in an old photograph. Nothing to do with this case…another case altogether…Yes! Got it! People, we are looking at someone who used to be very famous indeed. This is all that remains of that great Victorian medium and spiritualist, Dr. Emil Todd!”
“You never forget anything, do you?” said Happy, admiringly.
“The name rings a vague bell,” said JC, which was his way of saying he’d never heard of the man but was willing to admit that Melody had. “Still, a dead Victorian medium, and a missing Victorian train. Has to be a connection. But why is he here now?”
“Ask him,” said Happy.
“You ask him,” said JC. “You’re the team telepath. Look inside his mind and see what this is all about.”
“I can’t,” said Happy, frowning. “And not because there’s a whole bunch of fresh air where his grey matter used to be. This is a really powerful manifestation, and it’s very powerfully shielded. I wouldn’t even know this ghost was here if I couldn’t see it standing there scowling at me, and I do wish it would stop doing that.”
“You really think you can get answers out of that thing?” said Laurie.
“Why not?” said Melody. “It’s a ghost. Most of them only stick around because there’s something they need to say to someone. Even if it’s simply Look what you made me do, aren’t you sorry now?”
“You can leave now, if you wish, Mr. Laurie,” said JC. “You shouldn’t have to deal with things like this. Coping with ghosts is our business. We’re trained to deal with things that go Boo! in the night.”
“No,” said Laurie, after a moment, staring steadily at the ghost before him. “Now I’ve seen what it is, up close, it doesn’t seem that scary, after all. It’s a man, isn’t it?”
“Or what’s left of one,” said Happy. “That’s all ghosts ever are, really—people with unfinished business. If you weren’t scared of a man while he was alive, why be scared of him once he’s dead? Even when they walk through walls, or rip their own heads off, they’re only indulging a thwarted theatrical streak.”
“So why is this man running around with his head empty?” said Laurie.
“Because that was the last important thing that ever happened to him,” said Melody. “A ghost’s shape and aspect is determined by its most significant memories.”
“And that certainly made one hell of an impression on him,” said Happy.
“Is this figure what the other volunteers saw, Mr. Laurie?” asked JC.
“I don’t know,” said Laurie. “Maybe. I never saw anything like it before, and I’ve been around here longer than most.”
“Why isn’t he saying anything?” said Melody.
“He’s a Victorian gentleman,” said Happy. “Probably waiting to be properly introduced.”
The ghost of Dr. Todd stood very still, glaring at them all impartially. JC stepped forward again.
“What are you doing here, Dr. Todd?” he said carefully. “What holds your spirit here? Is there anything we can do to help?”
The ghost didn’t speak, didn’t move. His eyes didn’t blink; his mouth remained a flat grey line. He might have been alone in the room.
“This is like when we have an argument,” Happy said to Melody. “And you go stomping around the room, being mad at me but refusing to say what’s wrong because I’m supposed to know. And I never do.”
“There’s no blood on the doctor’s face,” JC said thoughtfully. “Which suggests that the…rather dramatic cranial damage occurred sometime after his death. Ghosts usually like to show off their death-wounds, especially if they’re a bit gory.”
“They do?” said Laurie.
“Oh sure,” said Happy. “Ghosts are all about the show. Bunch of drama queens. Look what happened to me! Aren’t you impressed?”
“It could be surgical,” said JC. “Given the neatness of the job. How did Dr. Todd die, Melody? Do we know?”
“According to the records I am accessing right now,” said Melody, from behind her bank of instruments again, “the files say…nobody knows. He disappeared. Body never found. Big mystery, back in the day.”
“Ah,” said Happy, wisely. “One of those…”
JC nodded to Happy, and they both moved in close, looking the ghost over carefully at point-blank range. He didn’t blink, or flinch, in the slightest. And then they both started shivering violently and quickly backed away. A thin layer of new frost covered both their faces. They wiped it away with their sleeve
s, looked respectfully at the ghost, and backed off some more.
“Damn, that was cold!” said Happy, beating his hands together to try to force some feeling back into them.
“I could feel the heat being sucked right out of me,” said JC, stamping his feet hard on the wooden floor. “Melody?”
“My short-range sensors are registering a major heat-sink,” said Melody, frowning. “Dr. Todd is still draining energy out of the room to maintain his presence in the material world. Get too close, and he could shut you right down.”
“But it’s not like he’s doing anything!” said JC. “What does he need all that energy for?”
“I think he’s used to scaring people off, simply by turning up,” said Happy. “He isn’t used to people who don’t go all to pieces the moment they see a ghost. I have to wonder: is this all he’s got, or does he have a second act?”
He didn’t have long to wait for an answer. The main-entrance door began to force itself closed. It pushed itself forward, pressing against the wooden wedge set in place to stop it, straining forward in sudden jumps and surges, determined to close. The wooden wedge squealed loudly as it scraped across the wooden floor, and smoke curled up from the contact point. JC moved forward, another wedge already in his hand, only to stop himself abruptly as the wedge under the door exploded, blown apart by the sheer pressure behind it. JC turned his face away as wooden splinters flew through the air like shrapnel. The door surged forward triumphantly. JC ran forward, grabbed the edge of the door with both hands, and threw his weight against it. He struggled for a moment, setting his merely human strength against the implacable unnatural force behind the door. Then JC ripped the door right off its hinges and threw it to one side.
Ghost of a Dream g-3 Page 4