Ghost of a Dream (6 page)

“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.”

“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 sleeves, 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.

The door hit the floor with an echoing crash, loud enough to wake the dead; and then it rocked briefly back and forth before lying still. But no-one was looking at the door. Everyone was looking at JC. He was looking at his hands, turning them back and forth as though he’d never seen them before.

“When did you turn into the Incredible Hulk, JC?” said Happy.

“Beats the hell out of me,” said JC. “I’m as mystified as you. It was as though the door suddenly didn’t weigh anything at all.” He looked at the shattered brass hinges, hanging loosely from the solid door-frame. “It would appear that the change started in me, by my contact with the Outside, is an ongoing process. That isn’t finished with me yet.”

He knelt beside the door, tried to lift it with one hand, and found he barely had the strength to raise it off the floor. Whatever more-than-human strength had moved in him moments before, it was clearly gone. JC stood up, turned his back on the fallen door, and smiled briefly at the others.

“As long as I’m not actually turning green and exhibiting a more-than-usually-surly disposition…I wouldn’t worry about it.”

The ghost of Dr. Todd advanced suddenly on Happy, striding forward with uncanny speed. The cold, grim expression on the ghost’s face didn’t change at all. Happy quickly backed away, but the ghost went after him, rapidly closing the gap.

“Don’t let him get too close!” said Melody. “He’s still sucking the heat out of everything!”

“I had worked that out for myself, thank you!” said Happy, back-pedalling fast. “I’m trying to hold him off telepathically, but I can’t find anything to lock onto. I’m not even convinced there’s anything there to reach, with his brain gone. All I’m picking up is his presence, a shape impressed on reality through sheer force of will. He shines so bright, JC! Looking at him is like being blinded by a spotlight!”