Ghost of a Dream

ONE ONE OF OUR TRAINS IS MISSING

The Past is only as dead and gone as we allow it to be. It has a tendency to cling, to hang on—like lovers who can’t bring themselves to accept it’s over. There will always be some who find the Past more comforting than the Present, people who look back on the way things used to be and make everything make sense with the benefit of hindsight. So it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that there are always going to be people who prefer to give all their spare time, their personal time, to looking backwards instead of forward, investing all their happiness in re-creating some one special part of the Past.

Once upon a time, in the grand days of Old England, there were wonderful things called steam trains: huge steel beasts thundering across the great green countryside, connecting even the smallest of communities, one to the other. They roared like dragons, breathed fire and smoke, and the ground shook at their passing. But time passed, as it will, and steam reluctantly gave way to electricity. Less romantic, perhaps, but undeniably faster and more efficient. And then there came an infamous man called Beeching, in that far-off time called the sixties, and he shut down all the smaller stations, all the lesser-used branch lines, in the name of progress and efficiency. Sacrificing the needs of the smaller communities and the smaller people to better serve the needs of larger communities and more important people. And so the Age of Steam passed, and no-one realised what they’d lost until it was gone. The small railway stations were abandoned, left to rot and ruin in a slow, sullen silence. Ghosts…of an old way of life.

But wherever the Past is remembered, and sometimes even worshipped, it is never really gone.

The Ghost Finders came to Bradleigh Halt, in Yorkshire, on a cool autumn evening. Once a small but thriving railway station, in the very north of England, Bradleigh Halt was left behind when the map changed, and its trains were sent somewhere else. Now it was a few abandoned buildings, full of dust and shadows and rusting rails covered in weeds. Set in the bottom of a deep, dark valley between two tall, grassy walls, with wide mountainous slopes stretching away on the one side and great stony inclines on the other; a cold wind blew fitfully through the station gap and sighed mournfully in the single tunnel-mouth.

You could drive right past and never know Bradleigh Halt was still there; and for many years, most people did.

An old-fashioned black taxi-cab delivered the Ghost Finders to the top of one grassy slope, after a lengthy journey down many winding roads, from the main-line railway station at Leeds. The taxi-cabby slammed his vehicle to a halt a more-than-comfortable distance away from the top of the valley and sat grimly in his seat, refusing to emerge, even to help his passengers with their luggage. He stared straight ahead, as though concerned with what he might see, dourly still and determinedly silent, as JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer clambered out the back of his cab, stretching slowly and massaging aching back muscles. Melody dragged her scientific equipment out of the boot while JC paid the driver, and Happy took in the new surroundings with his usual miserable and put-upon expression. The taxi-cabby snatched his fare the moment it was offered and departed at speed, not even bothering to check if JC had added a tip. The three Ghost Finders watched the taxi depart, then looked at each other. JC smiled vaguely, Happy sniffed loudly, and Melody turned away and gave all her attention to her precious scientific instruments. It was a late evening in early September, under slate grey skies. The light was beginning to drop out of the day, and there was already a definite chill in the air.

Not far-away stood the original station sign: old lettering on old wood, much reduced by long exposure to wind and weather and many years of neglect. The sign should have read Welcome to Bradleigh Halt, but someone had recently put a painted slash through the word Halt, and replaced it with Hell.

The three Ghost Finders stood together at the top of the steep, grassy slope, looking down into the valley below, taking in the sights, such as they were. Battered stone-and-wood buildings stood slumped together on either side of the sunken railway lines, the long platforms hidden under accumulated junk and rubbish and lengthening shadows. To the east, the railway tracks disappeared into the gloom of the tunnel-mouth, and into the long-disused tunnel that passed through and under the great, sprawling slopes known locally as the Grey Fells. The lines reappeared on the other side, many miles away, in another abandoned station halt, that no-one cared about any more. To the west, the weed-choked rails stretched away far and far, disappearing into the distance, between two sets of stony grey slopes. Going nowhere and taking their own sweet time about it. The whole scene had a quiet, wistful air, though adding the word peaceful would probably have been stretching it. Even without knowing what the Ghost Finders already knew, Bradleigh Halt didn’t even try to look inviting.

Birds sang on the evening air, insects buzzed industriously, and the gusting wind murmured querulously to itself. The sun was sinking slowly in the sky, in a warning sort of way. There was a pervading sense of the world’s having moved on, leaving Bradleigh Halt behind.

JC Chance stood at the very edge of the high slope, smiling thoughtfully, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets. It had to be said, he lacked a lot of his usual cocky bravado. Recent events in the secret hidden world had conspired to knock a lot of his usual over-confidence out of him. And the stealing away of the love of his life, the ghost girl Kim, had punched the heart right out of him. But he persevered. Because he was a Ghost Finder, because it was his job and his calling. And because he had nothing else to do.

JC was tall and lean and perhaps a little too handsome for his own good, or anyone else’s, for that matter. He was well into his late twenties, with pale, striking features under a rock star’s great mane of long, wavy, black hair. He had a proud nose, a grim smile, and he wore very dark sunglasses all the time, for very dark reasons. He also wore a rich cream white suit, of quite extraordinary style and elegance, along with an Old School tie that he might or might not have been entitled to. JC never let little things like authenticity get in the way of looking good. He also had a tendency to strike a pose, whether anyone was watching or not. Though, to his credit, he would knock it off at once if it was pointed out to him.

On any case, on any mission, under any circumstances, JC could always be relied on to be the first to charge into danger, looking around eagerly for some new trouble to get into. Losing his one true love had slowed him down, some. He wanted to be out looking for her; but since he didn’t have a single clue where to start, he insisted on taking any case the Carnacki Institute could provide…On the grounds that it was better to be doing something than to be doing nothing.

Melody Chambers stood a little way behind him, studying JC carefully but saying nothing. Melody was the big-brain scientist of the team and proud of it. Fast approaching thirty with the brakes off and loudly not giving a damn, Melody was conventionally good-looking in a threatening sort of way. Short and gamine thin, she burned constantly with enough raw nervous energy to run a small city for several weeks. Melody was a great one for getting things done and walking right over anyone and anything that threatened to get in her way or slow her down. She wore her auburn hair scraped back in a severe bun, glared at the world through serious glasses with dull functional frames, and wore clothes so anonymous they actually by-passed style and fashion without noticing them.

She gave up worrying over JC as a bad job, returned her full attention to the assorted technical apparatus she’d hauled out the boot of the taxi, and piled it all onto a small self-assembly trolley of her own design. Without anyone else’s help. Admittedly, mostly because Melody had a tendency to strike people viciously about the head and shoulders if they touched her things. She preferred machines to people, on the unanswerable grounds that when machines decided not to do what they were supposed to do, you could fix them or hit them until they did. People were more complicated. Melody had a first-class mind, more balls than a tennis court, and a sex drive that would have frightened Casanova into early retirement. It’s always the quiet ones you have to keep an eye on…

Happy Jack Palmer stood alone, glowering at the world in general. Happy was the team telepath, observer of the hidden realms, and full-time grumpy bugger. He’d only recently hit thirty, and thirty was hitting back. He was short, stocky, and prematurely balding, all of which he took as proof positive that God hated him personally. He might have been attractive enough if he’d ever stopped scowling, slouching, and saying inappropriate things in a loud and carrying voice. He wore grubby jeans, a staggeringly offensive T-shirt, and a battered leather jacket that had probably looked better when it was still on the cow. Happy’s marvellous mutant mind allowed him to see and hear things no-one else could detect, and even have long conversations with them, and, as he was fond of saying, If you could see the world as clearly as I do, you’d be clinically depressed, too. Neither of his fellow team members knew who had originally named him Happy. They could only assume his school days must have been an absolute hot-bed of irony.

Happy used to take an awful lot of pills, potions, and special medications, mixing and matching as necessary to keep the world outside his head. Because both the real and the hidden worlds were full of things he didn’t want to think about. He was trying to do without his little chemical helpers these days because they got in the way of having lots of sex with Melody. Happy and Melody were something of an item; and it would be difficult to decide which of them was more surprised. The things we do for love. Love, or something like it.

“I really don’t like that sign,” said JC after a while. He indicated the Bradleigh Hell sign with a jerk of his head. “That sign speaks of well-established phenomena, ghosts and hauntings and general weird shit, seen by far too many civilians. As in, ordinary everyday people completely untrained or unused to dealing with bad things on the move. I say we withdraw and nuke the whole place from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

“If I hadn’t seen your lips move, I would have sworn I said that,” said Happy.

“We all know you don’t want to be here, JC,” Melody said carefully. “We’re worried about Kim, too.”

“I’m not,” said Happy. “I mean, come on; it’s not as if she’s in any danger, wherever she is. She’s a ghost! She’s dead! What else can happen to her?”

“For you, tact is something other people do, isn’t it?” said Melody.

“What?” said Happy.

“Mouth is open, should be shut.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Somebody has her,” said JC. “Somebody took her from me. And if they have the power to hold a ghost against her will, who knows what else they can do? I swear…I will move Heaven and Earth with a really big stick to get her back. I’m only staying with the Carnacki Institute so I can make use of their resources.”

“I don’t trust the Institute any more,” said Happy.

“You never did,” said Melody. “In fact, you are famous for never trusting anyone or anything, including yourself.”

“And I was right!” Happy said loudly. “I was dangerously paranoid even before we found out the Institute had been infiltrated by Big Bads from Beyond! Imagine my shock when all my worst dreams were proved true. I was so much happier when I only thought I was crazy…”

“Let us all concentrate on the mission at hand,” said JC, not unkindly. “Since we all have so many things we’d rather not be thinking about…it’s best to keep occupied. And hopefully come across something here so sufficiently nasty we can justify kicking the shit out of it in the cause of justice and therapy. I feel like hitting something.”

“Never knew you when you didn’t,” muttered Happy.

JC led the way down the steep, grassy slope, leaping and bounding along with cheerful abandon. Happy followed after, far more cautiously. And Melody brought up the rear, lowering her trolley of piled-up special scientific equipment foot by foot while filling the air with foul language every time something inevitably fell off, and she had to stop and put it back on again. She glared after the others, but knowing better than to ask for help. JC and Happy could break delicate equipment merely by looking at it the wrong way. Bradleigh Halt loomed up before them, still and silent, holding shadows and secrets within. It didn’t look any better as it got closer.

“Talk to me, my children,” said JC as he descended. “Tell me things I need to know.”

“Starting with, what the hell are we here for?” said Happy.

“Just once, I wish you two wouldn’t leave it to me to read the briefing files,” said Melody. “We all spent hours on the train getting here…”

“I had some important dozing to be getting on with,” said JC.

“And you know I don’t like to read anything scary,” said Happy. “It gives me nightmares. And wind.”

Melody sighed, loudly and pointedly. “All right. One more time, for the hard of thinking at the back. This one seems straightforward enough. Until very recently, Bradleigh Halt was another run-down, long-time-closed, small-time railway station. One of the many shut down by Dr. Beeching, back in the sixties. But, the halt was due to be renovated and reopened, by the Bradleigh Preservation Trust—a bunch of old-time steam-train enthusiasts. The volunteers had only started work here, rebuilding and repairing and generally putting the place in order for a Grand Reopening…when they started seeing things. And hearing things. All the usual disturbing supernatural phenomena…More than enough for the volunteers to down tools and run for the hills. Somebody in the Preservation Trust knew enough to get the bad news to the Institute, and somebody at Carnacki apparently loves steam trains, too…So here we are.”

“Yes,” JC said patiently. “Got that. But what about the details, Melody? All the helpful little details, so we can figure out exactly what we’re dealing with here? What exactly did the volunteers see and hear? Revenants? Poltergeists? The Blair Witch on a Broomstick?”

“I don’t know,” said Melody. “Nothing in the briefing. Only a note to say that we are to be met here by one of the volunteers from the Preservation Trust. Who will hopefully tell us what we need to know.”

“Wouldn’t put money on it,” growled Happy. “Civilians…Always more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Oh hush,” said Melody. “You know you love the chance to feel superior to someone.”

“Almost as much as you love a chance to lecture us,” Happy said sweetly.

They looked at each other and exchanged a smile. Shared emotions were unfamiliar territory for both of them; but perhaps it takes one broken soul to mend another.

“I can hear you two smiling at each other, and I do wish you wouldn’t,” said JC, not looking back. “You know your entire relationship creeps me out big-time. Young Ghostbusters in love. The horror, the horror…”

“And this from a man in love with a ghost,” said Melody. “At least Happy and I can touch each other.”

“And we do,” said Happy. “Often into the early hours…”

“And you call my relationship unnatural,” said JC.

“The living and the dead aren’t supposed to get that close,” said Melody. “For all kinds of worrying and unsettling reasons.”

“It’ll all end in tears,” said Happy.

They reached the bottom of the grassy slope pretty much at the same time and stepped carefully down onto the end of the waiting platform. JC peered easily about him, pretending to look the place over, giving Happy a chance to cough up half a lung getting his breath back, while Melody counted all her precious bits of equipment, twice, to make sure she hadn’t left anything important behind. It had to be said: the Station Halt didn’t appear particularly welcoming. Some attempt had been made to clean up the place, but with only limited success. Soap and water and industrial-strength detergent can only do so much in the face of decades of dust and grime and disinterest. Various rubbish and debris had been brushed roughly to one side of the platform; but the standing structures, the original station buildings…looked distinctly uninviting.

The old stone walls, sourced from local quarries, were stained and discoloured the exact shade of old piss, and the wooden facings, shutters, and doors were all pitted and rotten, looking almost diseased in the limited light. Newly replaced glass windows gleamed brightly enough in the gloomy surroundings, and a few new doors stood proudly open, showing only darkness within. Freshly painted signs hung here and there, saying Ticket Office, Waiting Room, and the like, in clear but still traditionally old-fashioned lettering. No-one had done anything for the buildings on the opposite platform. The slumping, single-storey structures across the tracks looked dim and distant, as though they were miles away.

It was all very still and silent, without even the bird-song and insect buzz from above to add a sense of life to the place. At the bottom of the valley, between the two steep slopes, it all seemed so much darker; as though the light had to struggle to reach so far down. The wind seemed stronger, though, gusting along the open platform with sudden loud murmurings, like a hound on the trail of a scent. The pit between the two platforms was choked with weeds run wild though efforts had been made to clear a short length of track. It seemed to JC that efforts to clean up the halt had stopped and started several times before something drove everyone away…

“First impressions, Happy?” JC said brightly, on the grounds that someone had to be bright and cheerful before they all burst into tears.

“Nothing obvious,” said Happy, glowering about him. “I’m not picking up any manifestations, no stone-tape imagery…But it does seem a lot darker and gloomier down here than it should, as though we’ve left the evening behind, up above, and come down into the night. Look up. Does that look like an early-evening sky to you? Wait a minute, hold everything, drop the anchors. Did anyone else hear that?”

They all moved closer together and stared down the long platform. A light had appeared in the window of the furthest building, the Waiting Room. It was a warm, golden glow, calm and cheerful and quite out of place in the generally forbidding atmosphere. The light moved out of the Waiting Room and quickly revealed itself to be an old storm lantern, held high in the hand of a dim figure. JC looked sharply at Happy, who shook his head and mouthed the word civilian. The figure came walking slowly down the platform towards them, taking its time, holding the lantern out ahead. The advancing golden glow quickly revealed an old man, in comfortable clothes and sturdy working-man’s shoes. He finally swayed to a halt in front of the Ghost Finders and looked at them. He didn’t give any impression of being particularly impressed. He squared his old shoulders, lowered the storm lantern some, and nodded brusquely.

“About time you got here,” he said, in a rough, worn-out voice. “Ronald Laurie, representing the Bradleigh Preservation Trust.”

“Here to help us of his own free will,” murmured Melody. “Try not to frighten him.”

Ronald Laurie was a tall but stoop-shouldered old fellow, well into his seventies, in a battered tweed suit of a kind that men of a certain age like to wear when gardening, or doing odd jobs, until their wives decide they can’t stand the sight of it any more and drop it off at a charity shop when their husband’s out and can’t object. Laurie wore a battered cloth cap on a bald head, troubled here and there with a few wispy grey strands. He had a deeply lined face, a pursed mouth, and piercing steel grey eyes. He managed a small smile, for each Ghost Finder in turn, but didn’t offer to shake hands. He still held the lantern high as though to be sure he was spreading the light as far as he could. And he took his time looking the Ghost Finders over, as though he wanted to be sure they were what they appeared to be.

He’s seen something, thought JC. What have you seen, old man?

“So,” Laurie said finally. “You’re the experts, are you?”

From the way he said the word, it was clear he didn’t take much assurance from it. In his world, experts were people who came down on orders from the bosses to meddle in things they didn’t understand.

“That’s us,” said JC as positively as he could. JC was usually the one who got to talk to civilians and put them at their ease, as much as was possible. Happy and Melody didn’t have the knack. Or the inclination. JC offered Laurie his hand, but the old man nodded brusquely again.

“You took your time getting here,” he said. “It’s late. Getting dark. But then, we’re a long way from anywhere. These days.”

“We got here as soon as we could,” JC said smoothly. “Hope you haven’t been waiting too long. It was good of you to agree to meet us and help out.”

“Aye. Well,” said Laurie. “Didn’t seem right to let you just walk into this ungodly mess without at least a warning.”

“I want to go home,” said Happy. “Right now.”

“So this is a bad place?” Melody said to the old man. “Nice to have that confirmed. What have you seen here?”

“This is Melody Chambers, girl scientist and plain speaker,” murmured JC. “That cheerful soul is Happy Jack Palmer, professional worrier. Don’t get too close or try to feed him. And I am JC. I lead this team, for my many sins. Let us all play nicely together, people. We’ve a lot to discuss and not much time before night falls. It would help us a great deal, Mr. Laurie, if you could fill us in on exactly what’s been happening here. We do have official reports, but we prefer to get our information from first-hand sources, wherever possible. From people who’ve actually experienced the events in question. Whatever they may be.”

“Details,” said Melody. “We want details.”

“And you can leave the rumours and gossip at home,” said Happy.

“Hush, children,” said JC. “Daddy’s working.”

“Who are you people?” said Laurie, looking back and forth between them. “All I was told was to expect some experts. Are you with British Rail?”

“Not in any way, shape, or form,” said JC. “We are all experts in the field of unnatural situations. We investigate bad places, determine what’s going on, then do something about it. We are here to help, Mr. Laurie.”

“Aye. Maybe.” Laurie still didn’t look convinced, but he made a clear effort to be reasonable and get along. He tried his brief smile again, then looked up and down the long, gloomy platform. A low murmuring sound issued from the tunnel-mouth at the opposite end, and they all turned to look. There was nothing there. Only the tall, brick-lined arch, the deep, dark shadows, and a few leaves blown back and forth by the breeze. Laurie looked back at JC. He seemed suddenly older, even fragile.

“You can’t trust anything around here. Can’t turn your back on anything. You know why no-one else from the Trust is here to meet you? Because I’m the only one who’ll come here any more. None of the rest of them’ll set foot here, for love nor money. Not after what happened.” He looked sadly at JC. “Must be nice, to be an expert. To be a scientist and understand everything, so there’s nothing left to scare you.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Happy, immediately.

“It’s only sensible, to be afraid of things that are dangerous,” JC said carefully. “But you can’t let it stop you from doing what needs to be done. We are all of us trained to deal with…extraordinary situations. Please tell us what it is that’s happened here, Mr. Laurie.”

“I never used to believe in the supernatural,” said Laurie. “Or ghosts.”

“That’s all right,” said JC. “They believe in you. In fact, that’s pretty much the definition of supernatural—things that insist on happening, whether you believe in them or not. Have you seen ghosts here, Mr. Laurie?”

“I want this taken care of,” said Laurie. “I want this unholy mess dealt with, forced out of here, so I can take it easy again…and the Trust can get on with opening up the station. Used to be a fine old place, this, back in the day. Always liked it here. Nowhere else I’d rather be.” He glared quickly about him, as though defying the shadows to do anything. “I’m the only one who’ll come here now, and I can’t stay. Not once it starts getting really dark. No-one will stay here once it starts getting really dark. I’ll tell you what’s what, show you where everything is; but then I’m gone. You’re lucky I stayed to meet you, this late in the day.”

“But what is it?” said JC. “What is it that scares you, Mr. Laurie?”

“We thought it was kids, at first,” said Laurie. “Teenagers, with nothing to do, nothing to occupy them…messing about, making trouble. You saw the sign, up top—Bradleigh Hell? Aye. That was them. The last thing they did, before they ran away. They used to come here after dark, you see, to do all the things their parents didn’t need to know about…but you couldn’t drag any of them back now. Not after what they saw.”

“What did they see?” JC said patiently. “What happens here once it gets dark?”

“I think maybe…everyone sees different things,” Laurie said slowly. “I think maybe this place shows you whatever it is that scares you most. Because that’s the best way to get rid of you. The volunteers woke something up; and it wants us gone. You’ll see. All of you. Whether you want to or not. Come with me. I’ll show you where everything is, then I’m out of here.”

“Please don’t rush off, Mr. Laurie,” said JC. “Stick with us for a while. You’ll be perfectly safe, with us. After all, no-one knows this place better than you.”

Laurie managed his small smile again. “Aye. Maybe I have been here longer than most. I can still remember when Bradleigh Halt was a going concern, and the old trains came through here regular. Marvellous it was, the sight and sound of a steam train coming into the halt. My old dad used to work here, in the Bookings Office. I used to bring him his lunch every day, when I was a kid, along with a bottle of beer now and again.”

“Do you ever see your father among the ghosts?” said Melody.

“No, lass,” said Laurie. “I would have liked to…but it’s not spirits, as such, you see. I’m not sure whatever walks here now has anything human left in it. Whatever’s not finished with this place, it’s nothing to do with human needs or human business. No…Something bad is coming. And it’s getting closer all the time.” He broke off abruptly to glare at JC. “Why in God’s name are you wearing sunglasses at this time of night, boy?”

“Sensitive eyes,” said JC. “Work-related injury. You know how it is.”

“Hello!” Happy said suddenly. “That’s new. That’s…really quite nasty, actually.”

He’d moved away on his own, staring into the dark tunnel-mouth. He was frowning hard as though trying to focus on something he couldn’t quite identify or pin down.

“Excuse me a moment, Mr. Laurie,” said JC.

He moved quickly over to join Happy and laid a heavy hand on the telepath’s shoulder.

“What is the matter with you, Happy? I was starting to get some useful information out of the old man! Have you been indulging yourself with mother’s little helpers again?”

“It’s not the pills,” said Happy. “Wish it was. No; when the old man said something bad was coming, I got a flash…There is definitely something Out There, outside the world we know…dragging itself closer, struggling to break in. Something connected to this station, but not in any way human…”

JC waited, but Happy had nothing more to say. “From now on, keep it to yourself,” JC said quietly. “We do not want to freak out the natives till we have to. Mr. Laurie is our only source of first-hand information, and I don’t want him spooked.”

He moved back to join Laurie, smiling easily and reassuringly. “No problems. Everything’s fine. Oh yes. Happy’s a little…highly strung. Now, you were about to tell me what’s really going on here.”

“No I wasn’t,” Laurie said stubbornly. “You’re not ready yet. It’s not like I’ve seen anything definite…”

“None so blind as those who will not see,” said Happy. “Ow! That hurt!”

“It was meant to,” said Melody. “Carry on, JC.”

“Most people never encounter the hidden world,” JC said carefully to Laurie. “Never see a ghost, never hear voices in the night. It takes the right kind of person, in a really bad place, at a very bad time…to actually see anything from out of this world. Ghosts are rare. Mostly, the dead go where they’re supposed to. Please don’t ask me where. I don’t know, that’s not my department. It’s my job to deal with the problems of this world, not the next. No, only very rare people, under very rare circumstances, become ghosts; otherwise, we’d be hip deep in the things by now. Like you said: it’s mostly people with unfinished business. Hanging on to places like this, that mean a lot to them.”

“Aye,” said Laurie, unexpectedly. “Like I’m fond of this place because me dad worked here, and my son is so keen on reopening it.”

“And most ghosts can only be seen by the properly trained,” said JC. “People with the proper skills…”

Laurie looked at him steadily. “Who are you people? Really?”

“You don’t need to know,” said JC, just as steadily. “In fact, you don’t want to know. You’ll sleep more easily that way. Think of us…as the clean-up crew. And that’s all that really matters. Isn’t it?”

“Aye. I suppose so,” said Laurie. He nodded briskly, as though he’d made a decision. “Suppose I’ll stick around for a while. Come with me. I’ll get you settled, get you started. Fill you in. But I’ll tell you now, for nothing—this isn’t a good place to be, even before the sun goes down. Ghosts or whatever, there’s something in this place that wants us out. Doesn’t want anything human here. No-one’s actually died of fright here, not yet; but if I was a betting man, that’s where the smart money would be going. Because whatever’s here will stop at nothing to have this place to itself.”

“I want to go home,” said Happy.

Ronald Laurie led the Ghost Finders through a propped-open door and into the main station building. There was no sign hanging over the door, old or new. Laurie held his storm lantern high to spread the light and indicated the single lighting switch to JC. Who turned it on, with a dramatic flourish, and was pleasantly pleased when stark, modern light filled the room. Everything inside had been cleared away and cleaned up, leaving a bare, open room with more doors leading off, and a lingering smell of disinfectant. The doors to the Ticket Office and Waiting Room were clearly labelled, and there was no dust, no cobwebs, no unnaturally dark shadows. There was still…an uneasy feel to the room. As though none of them was really welcome.

“Pleasant enough setting,” said Happy, determinedly. “I’m not getting any bad vibrations, not much of anything, really. I don’t like the place, but how much of that is me and how much the room…”

“This is as far as the volunteers got,” said Laurie, and the others all jumped to find he’d moved silently forward to join them. He’d left his storm lantern behind and was looking around the refurbished setting with a pleased, almost proprietorial air. “Don’t go in the Ticket Office, though. It’s a dump. This is as much work as got done, before everything went to hell in a hurry. The Trust were going to make everything spick and span again…working from old photos, taken back in the day. They had the exact right shade of paint, specially remade furnishings, the lot. And then…”

They all waited, but he had nothing more to say.

“I saw an old signal box further down the track, when I was up top,” said JC. “Anything there we should be concerned about?”

“No,” said Laurie. “This is it. This is the bad place. I think…something really bad happened here, long ago, and part of it is still happening.”

“What do you think is behind all this, Mr. Laurie?” said JC, still being very patient because it was either that or scream out loud and stamp his foot. “You must have a theory. You know the history of this station. Has there ever been a bad crash here or some natural disaster? A murder, or a mystery…?”

“There is an old story,” said Laurie, reluctantly. “Not something most of us around here care to talk about. Dates back to Victorian times. Summer of 1878. A train was seen to enter the tunnel, on the other side of the Grey Fells, heading for Bradleigh Halt. Twenty, maybe thirty people saw that train enter the tunnel, going strong and steady, leading six, maybe seven carriages, packed full of passengers. A routine journey. But no-one ever saw the train come out of the tunnel, at the other end. It never arrived here, at Bradleigh Halt.

“It got later and later, and people started to worry. The signal box sent warnings up and down the line, stopped all the other trains. At first people thought there might have been some kind of accident. Maybe a crash though there shouldn’t have been anything else on the line for the train to hit. The way was clear. The other station put out the alarm, and volunteers came running from towns on both sides of the Fells. Everyone would turn out, in those days. There were no real emergency services then like there are now. The men entered the tunnel from both ends, slowly and cautiously, taking their own lights in with them. A train crash in a tunnel could be a terrible thing back then. A crash meant fire, you see; and there was nowhere for the heat to go. The enclosed space of the tunnel would turn it into an oven. A furnace.

“So the men walked down the tracks, holding their lights out before them, calling out…and hearing only the echoes of their own voices. In the dark. In the tunnel. Until, finally, they saw lights and heard voices. But it was only the other volunteers, coming the other way. They met in the middle of the tunnel, deep under the great wide weight of the Fells; and for a long time they stood there, looking at each other. Because there was no sign of the train anywhere. Or the carriages, or the passengers. There were no side tunnels, nowhere the train could have gone.

“All those people saw the train go in; but no-one ever saw it again. Local legends have it that the train isn’t really gone, just lost. Delayed, somewhere. And that one day it will return, thundering out of the tunnel-mouth and into Bradleigh Halt. A ghost train, carrying dead men and women as its cargo, all of them driven mad by all that time away…The train will come back, they say, come home, to announce the end of the world, perhaps.

“There are those who say you can still hear the train travelling at night, sounding its awful whistle as it enters the tunnel on the other side of the Fells; but no-one’s ever heard it here. You can always find someone in a pub, ready to tell you the story for the price of a pint, how they’ve heard steel wheels pounding along tracks that aren’t there any more. That old steam-whistle, like the scream of a soul newly damned to Hell…Cutting off abruptly as it enters the tunnel, going nowhere…”

“But no-one here’s actually seen it?” said Melody, looking up from assembling her equipment.

Laurie shrugged briefly. “Who would want to? Local feeling is, if you can see it, then it can see you. And it’s never good to attract the attention of something from the dark side.”

“So that’s why we’re here,” said Happy. “A late-running train. How very unusual.”

Laurie gave him a hard look. “Was a time I would have said it was only another tale, for telling on a windy night by a roaring fire. Like Black Shuck, the huge black dog that wanders the back lanes late at night, confronting people and telling them their fortunes—always bad. Or like the local mine-shaft they had to close down because miners working on a new seam heard sounds of someone else digging on the other side. Or maybe the graveyard up the road, so old they’re buried three deep in places; where it’s said the dead rise out of their graves on Midsummer’s Eve, to dance till dawn. There are always stories…and after what’s been seen and heard here, I don’t know what I believe any more.”

He sighed heavily, turning his back on the Ghost Finders to look about him. “The Trust had such plans for this place. A fully refurbished Bradleigh Halt, after all these years. They’d made contact with other steam enthusiasts, made arrangements to have a proper steam train run through. There are still some out there, you know, running private services. My son Howard had it all set up; we were going to have regular excursions coming through…And now, no-one will come here. No-one dares.”

“Don’t give up yet, Mr. Laurie,” said JC. “We’ll sort things out and put them right. That’s what we do.”

“Mostly,” said Happy.

“Don’t think I can’t reach you from here,” said Melody. She consulted her various pieces of equipment, arranged before her in a semi-circle, on a collapsible stand of her own design, and seemed pleased enough. Sensors and scanners, computers and monitors, and more than a few things that only made sense to her. Laurie looked it all over with a sceptical eye. Melody stared him down. “This isn’t as much as I’m used to, Mr. Laurie, but this was all I could fit into the boot of the taxi. More will follow, if necessary.”

“All very shiny and impressive, I’m sure, miss,” said Laurie. “But I can’t guarantee you how much of it’ll work here.”

“I don’t need to rely on your local power supply,” Melody said easily. “My babies have their own generator.”

“There’s a sentence you won’t hear very often,” said Happy. He strode across to the Waiting Room door, pushed it wide open, and looked inside. Shadows looked back at him, quiet and unmoving. Happy sneered at them, shut the door carefully, and looked back at Laurie.

“So what are we waiting for? What’s going to happen? Is it going to involve ectoplasm? Because if it does, I’ll put my heavy coat on. Messy stuff…”

“It’s the small things you notice, at first,” said Laurie. “You’ll see. The doors here don’t like to stay closed. Or open. Any of them.”

They all looked back at the main door they’d come in through, giving out onto the platform. It stood wide open, spilling bright electric light out into the evening. They all studied the door carefully for a long moment. Nothing happened. And then Happy frowned suddenly.

“Wait a minute…I shut that door behind me when we came in. Didn’t I?”

None of the others had an answer for him, one way or the other. Happy scowled, strode quickly over to the open door, and slammed it shut. Then he backed quickly away from it to rejoin the others, not taking his eyes off the door all the way. It didn’t move.

“Look at the Waiting Room door,” said Laurie.

They all turned, and looked. The door was standing all the way open. Happy swore softly.

“Okay; I know I shut that one a moment ago. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything, though. Could be the door isn’t hung right, or the floor’s off at an angle…”

“No,” said Laurie. “That’s not it.”

JC strode unhurriedly over to the Waiting Room door, studied it for a moment, and produced a small wooden wedge from an inside pocket. He forced it into place under the bottom of the door, stepped back to look over his work, then went to the open main door and did the same thing with a second wooden wedge. He smiled cheerfully across at the others.

“That should hold it,” he said. “The simple answers are always the best.”

“Might work,” said Laurie. “Might not. The Trust volunteers tried that as well, at first. Because it was small things, to begin with. Small, disturbing things. But if it were as easy as that to deal with, we wouldn’t have needed you…There. See?”

They all looked around sharply, as the single naked light bulb overhead began to go out, the harsh electric light dimming, bit by bit, as though it had to come from further and further away. The light went out of the room, and the shadows pressed forward. The bulb went out, then the only light in the long room was the late-evening light, spilling through the new glass windows and the wedged-open door.

“You can replace the bulb, if you like,” said Laurie. “It won’t make any difference. It’ll keep going out. Any bulb, in any room, anywhere in the station…My son Howard helped install the new lights, and the new wiring; nothing wrong with any of it. It seems that there’s something here that doesn’t like the light.”

Melody snorted loudly, hit some switches on her display, and half a dozen small floods kicked in, blazing light from her instrument stand. Not enough to fill the whole room but more than enough to force the shadows back where they belonged. Melody smiled triumphantly at Laurie, then, one by one, the floodlights began to fade out, too. Melody swore harshly, her fingers stabbing at the keyboards set out before her, bringing all the power in her generator to bear. The floods stopped fading, but they didn’t regain their former brilliance, either. Melody’s eyes darted back and forth before she finally nodded, reluctantly.

“Nothing on the sensors, nothing on the scanners—short- or long-range. All of my tech is specially protected from Outside influence; but something’s got to them. I’ve never had my lights go out on me. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Will the lights stay on?” said Happy.

“They will if they know what’s good for them,” said Melody.

“What readings are you getting?” said JC. “Anything useful, or even interesting?”

“I’m getting electromagnetic fluctuations, other-dimensional energy spikes, and really strange barometric pressures,” said Melody, her eyes darting from one monitor screen to another.

“If you don’t know, say so,” said Happy.

Melody stuck out her tongue at him. “The readings are clear. However, I don’t know enough about local conditions to make sense of them. Yet.”

Laurie managed another of his small smiles, for JC. “Been together long, have they, those two?”

“You can tell?” said JC.

“Oh aye,” said Laurie. “I was married, once. But I got over it.” He looked about him. “Your machines are impressive, but you’ll do better with candles. The Trust laid a stock in—over there.”

He nodded to a small cupboard, set to one side. JC moved across, opened it, and brought out a dozen large candles, each in its own separate holder. JC set them about the room at regular intervals, lighting them one at a time with his Zippo. He didn’t smoke any more, but he liked to have something in his life he could depend on. He came back to join the others, looked about him, and nodded, pleased at the gentle, golden warmth the candlelight added to the room. Soft as butter, golden as buttercups.

“Keep an eye on the candles,” said Laurie. “They have a tendency to go out. When it’s most inconvenient.”

And then he broke off and looked hard at JC. Around the edges of JC’s heavy, dark sunglasses, a bright light was shining, sharp and distinct.

“Dear God, man,” said Laurie. “What happened to your eyes?”

“Laser surgery,” said JC. “I’m suing. Don’t worry about it.”

“JC,” said Happy. “Look at the main door.”

They all looked. The door JC had so carefully wedged open was now closed. The wedge lay alone on the floor, some distance away. JC studied the situation for a moment, then strode across the room, yanked the door with one hand, and pushed it all the way open. He then retrieved the wedge and forced it back into place, using all his strength. He studied the wedge, breathing hard, and knelt to check that the wedge was as securely positioned as he thought it was, testing it with his bare hand. He nodded, satisfied that he’d have a job getting it out again without the assistance of a hammer and chisel. He stood up, brushed himself down a bit fussily, and smiled easily at the others as he came back to rejoin them.

“Didn’t bang it in properly, the first time,” he said. “So, Mr. Laurie, doors that don’t like to stay open or closed, lights that don’t like to stay on. What else can we expect?”

“It gets cold,” said Laurie. “Cold, for no reason. Cold as the grave.”

“No central heating here?” said Happy.

“Remember where you are, lad,” said Laurie. “They didn’t have such things, back in the day. Didn’t believe in them. My old dad always said central heating made you soft. And who’s to say he was wrong? There’s a decent-sized fire-place if you need one in the Waiting Room. And an authentic paraffin stove, in the Ticket Office. Not much fuel in it. So don’t waste it. Never know when you might need it.”

“Hold everything.” Melody looked quickly from one set of readings to another. “Something here, or very near here, is interfering with my equipment. My short-range sensors keep locking onto something, then losing it for no good reason. There’s something here with us, JC. Can’t tell you what it is yet, but it’s weird and powerful and very slippery…”

And then Happy cried out—a sudden, shocked sound. They all turned to look at him. He was pointing with a trembling hand at a small mirror hanging on the far wall. It was an ordinary, everyday mirror; in a straightforward ornamental frame. Afterwards, no-one could be sure exactly what they saw there, only that there was a face in the mirror, watching them. And it wasn’t the face of anyone in the room. The image disappeared the moment they all rushed forward to look at it, and by the time they all got there, the reflection showed only their own faces, looking back at them with wide eyes and shocked, startled expressions. At what they’d seen, or thought they’d seen. It took the Ghost Finders a moment to realise Laurie wasn’t there with them. They looked back; and he was standing right where he had been. He nodded slightly and shrugged one shoulder, as if to say, What did you expect?

JC very firmly turned the mirror over, to face the wall, then looked thoughtfully at Laurie.

“This isn’t the first time that’s happened, is it? You’ve seen this before?”

“Aye. Everyone has, who’s spent any time here. Someone is always watching us. But don’t ask me who.”

“What did you see in the mirror?” said Melody. “Who did you see?”

“Once,” Laurie said slowly, “I thought I saw myself; as I might look after I’d been dead and in the ground for a good few years.”

“It’s mind-games,” JC said briskly. “Everything we’ve encountered so far has been nothing but supernatural parlour tricks, designed to scare us off. Whatever’s here can’t be that powerful, or it wouldn’t need tricks. It’d simply kill us, or throw us out of here. But it hasn’t because it can’t. That’s why it’s hiding from us.”

“It?” said Laurie, pointedly.

“Oh, there’s always an It,” said Happy.

“Details,” said JC, advancing purposefully on Laurie. “I need details, on everything that’s happened here. Tell me about the experiences of the other volunteers, Mr. Laurie. The time has come to tell the tale, supernatural warts and all.”

“Sounds,” said Laurie. “Voices. Saying…disturbing things. The sound of footsteps, walking up and down the platform; but when you go out and look, there’s never anyone there. Station announcements, over speakers that aren’t there any more, for trains and services that haven’t run in decades. Voices in the room next door, blurred and indistinct, like the words we hear in dreams…They sound like old friends, or dead relatives, desperately trying to reach us, to warn us about something terrible that’s coming. And there’s always this feeling of someone here that shouldn’t be, watching from the shadows, or from just behind you. And you never turn round to look because you know, you just know, there’s nobody there…or at least nobody you’d want to see. I’ve spent years in this place, and never once felt threatened or in any danger, until now…The last volunteer to leave said he was convinced there was always someone sneaking up behind him, looking over his shoulder…”

By now Happy was trying to look in so many different directions at once that he was turning round and round in circles. He was breathing heavily, his eyes painfully wide. He realised that the others were looking at him and stopped abruptly. He took out a handkerchief, wiped the sweat from his face, and smiled weakly. Then he put the handkerchief away, marched over to the nearest wall, and put his back to it, arms folded defiantly across his chest.

“I’m fine!” he said loudly. “Fine and dandy, oh yes! And no, I’m not picking up anything. Which is odd, because I should be getting something by now. So I can only assume that whatever particular It is haunting this place, it’s pretty damned powerful. And I’d really like to get the hell out of here before It turns up and shouts Boo! in my face. Please pretty please.”

Laurie looked at Happy, then at JC. “I thought you people were supposed to be experts.”

“Oh, we are,” said Melody, not looking up from her instruments. “But then, there’s experts, then there’s experts.”

“You have to make allowances for Happy,” said JC. “Because if you don’t, he sulks. Or gives you ulcers from the sheer frustration of trying to keep up with his many and various mood swings. Happy is a sensitive soul, and not nearly as heavily medicated as he used to be. Feel free to hit him. We do.”

“At least I’ve got enough sense not to hang about in places where I’m clearly not welcome,” said Happy.

“Then you are very definitely in the wrong business,” JC said cheerfully. “Now quiet down and be a brave little ghost finder, and there shall be Jaffa Cakes for tea. Go on, Mr. Laurie, I’m still listening. What else has happened?”

“Isn’t what I’ve told you enough?” said Laurie.

“Information is ammunition,” JC said solemnly. “Which we can use to kick the arse of our paranormal enemy. Ghosts deal in uncertainty. Things we see out of the corners of our eyes, come and gone in a moment, are always going to be more frightening than some blurry shape in a doorway, not even solid enough to rattle its chains.”

“Most of what I’m telling you is only stories,” said Laurie. “Things the volunteers talked about, among themselves. Some did say they’d seen, or at least glimpsed, a figure. Never up close, and none of them saw it clearly, but they were all very sure they’d seen something. And some of them said it wasn’t human. As such.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said JC. “You ever see this figure yourself?”

“I might have glimpsed it, from time to time,” Laurie said reluctantly. “An old-fashioned type, tall and thin, dressed like a gentleman from my grandfather’s time.”

“And you never thought to mention this before?” said Melody, sharply.

“You stick around this place long enough, and your senses will start playing tricks on you, too,” said Laurie. “But if I did see what I thought I saw…there was something wrong with its head. Like maybe…part of the head was missing.”

JC considered this. “Does this…disfigured figure fit in with any of the local legends?”

“No,” Laurie said firmly. “This is something new. Something else. Even if it does have its roots in the past.”

They all suddenly stopped where they were and shivered violently. The temperature in the room had plummeted in a moment. Their breaths steamed heavily on the still air, and they all hugged themselves against the sudden, bitter cold. Great whorls of hoarfrost spread slowly across the walls, like massive fingerprints. Frost and even solid ice formed on Melody’s instrument panels and monitor screens. She frantically wiped it away with her sleeves, but it came back again. The room was so cold now, it burned exposed faces and hands and seared the lungs that breathed it in. Of them all, Laurie seemed the least affected. Probably because he was northern, one of those hardened souls who claim not to feel the cold and only put a vest on when there’s an actual blizzard outside. Melody fired up the heating elements in her support system, scraping the frost off her sensor screens with her fingers, so she could make out the new readings.

“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 Laurie.

“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.”