trusted methods. I shall be about them. You and your colleagues can do as you please!”
And he stomped off into the dark interior of the factory, holding his storm lantern out before him, a pool of golden light advancing into the darkness. Susan looked after him, not sure whether he wanted her company. She scowled at JC.
“Official… What kind of official? You’re not the police.”
“Heaven forfend,” said JC. “Let’s just say we’re professionals. We have a lot of experience in this field, enough to know that what’s happening here isn’t an ordinary haunting. Albert Winter didn’t just happen to die in this place. Something lured him in here, then took its own sweet time killing him. And whatever did that is still here.”
Susan shuddered suddenly, despite herself. She could hear the truth in JC’s calm voice. She looked over at her grandfather. “Gramps took up ghost-hunting as a hobby when he retired. Something to keep him occupied… But after Grandma Lily died last year, he’s been taking it all a lot more seriously.”
“Am I to take it that you’re not a believer?” said JC.
Susan snorted loudly, looking him over scornfully. “Of course not! I’m here to keep him company and see he doesn’t get into any trouble. I’ve watched his back on a dozen cleansings and never seen or heard a thing. It’s all empty rooms, shadows in the corners, and plumbing rattling in the walls. You know a lot about the killing; you sure you’re not some kind of police?”
“How can I be sure, let me count the ways,” murmured JC. “Trust me, Susan, there isn’t a branch of the police that would accept any of us on a bet. Except perhaps as Bad Examples. But there was a murder here, and we are looking into it. We are concerned as to how it may have happened.”
They all looked round as Graham Tiley came striding back, his footsteps echoing in the quiet. He stopped right before JC and looked at him sternly.
“I’ve had a look at your machines. Machines won’t help you with the spirit world. Nor will official attitudes. It’s all about prayer and belief and compassion. Spirits who are having trouble passing on respond best to the personal touch. Human contact, kindness, sympathy, positive attitudes. I’m here to talk and to listen, and to help if I can.”
“An entirely worthy intention,” said JC, getting in quickly before Melody could stop sputtering long enough to say something unhelpful. “Unfortunately… not all ghosts want peace. Some have to be pacified.”
Suddenly, without any warning, the whole building was shaking with the deafening sounds of machines working filling the air. Huge machines slamming and grinding, overpowering. The floor vibrated heavily, shaking everyone with the brutal power and motion of unseen machinery. They all put their hands to their ears, but it wasn’t the kind of sound they could keep out. The roar of the machines filled the whole factory floor, filled their heads, and rattled their bones. Susan grabbed onto her grandfather’s arm with both hands, to hold him steady. They all looked around them, Tiley waving his lantern with a shaking hand; but there was nothing to see anywhere.
“I know this noise!” said Tiley, leaning in close and shouting to be heard over the din. “Though I haven’t heard it in years. This is what it sounded like on the factory floor, when all the machines were working at once. It made me deaf for a week when I first started! No ear protectors in my day… But they pulled all the machines out of here when they shut the place down!”
The sound stopped abruptly, and Tiley shouted his last few words into an echoing silence. The air was still, the building was steady, and the floor was calm and certain again, as though nothing had happened. But there was still something… in the dark, out beyond the light.
“Can you feel that?” said Happy, stepping forward reluctantly. “There’s a definite presence here…”
“Of course there is!” snapped Tiley. “And you and your young friends have upset it, with your modern scientific attitudes! You people need to get out of here. You’re making things worse. Leave me to get on with my work.”
“We can’t do that,” said JC.
“Why not?” said Susan. “Who are you, really? And don’t give me that professionals bullshit. Who wears sunglasses at night, in a deserted building? You’re not from any of the official ghost-hunting groups, like FOG and PIS.”
“Fog and what?” said Happy.
“Friends of Ghosts, and Paranormal Investigation Society,” said Tiley. He stabbed an accusing finger at JC. “You’re journalists, aren’t you? Bloody tabloids!”
“No,” said JC. “We’re really not interested in publicity. The horror of ghosts, for most people, is that they’re beyond all the usual methods of control. People feel helpless before them, terrified by the unknown, not knowing how to cope. But we are from the Carnacki Institute, and we know what to do with ghosts.”
“Like what?” said Tiley.
“Whatever’s necessary,” said JC.
Again, there was something in his voice that seemed to reach the old man and calm him down. JC gave him his full attention.
“What was it like, Mr. Tiley, working here, back in the day? Was it a bad place, back then?”
“Not really,” said Tiley. “Hard work, but steady. Regular work that you could rely on, year in and year out. And that meant a lot, back when I was a young man. I spent most of my working life here, man and boy.”
“I don’t know how you can be sentimental about it, Gramps,” said Susan.
“It was work you could depend on,” Tiley repeated. “And we were all grateful. Nothing much to show for it, mind. We just made parts, for other machines. We never made anything complete.”
“Ah, interesting,” said JC. “No sense of closure. Could be significant.”
He walked slowly out across the great expanse of open space, head cocked to one side, as though listening. “Huge machines, heavy machinery, working endlessly, doing the same things over and over, tended by people doing the same things, over and over. For decades.. . A ritual, impressing itself on Time and Space, digging psychic grooves into the surroundings…”
“Hold on,” said Melody. “Are you suggesting that this place is haunted by the ghosts of heavy machinery?”
“Think about it,” said Happy. “If a man were to walk through the space where the machines manifested… they’d tear him apart.” And then he stopped and shook his head slowly.
“No. Sorry, JC, but very definitely no. I told you, I sensed emotions-raw and harsh and wild.”
“You’re all talking nonsense,” Tiley said firmly. “Ghosts are the restless spirits of departed people. That’s it. I’ve read all the books, and I believe what’s needed here is a lay exorcism.”
“Not a bad idea,” said JC, walking back to join the others. “But first, I think we should hold a seance. Summon up all the players, so to speak, so we can get a good look at them. Get some idea of what this is all about. I’ll say it again. Albert Winter didn’t just die here. There was more to it than that. There was purpose, and intent, to his death.”
“We don’t have a medium,” said Tiley, concentrating on the one thing that made sense to him.
“Actually we do,” said JC. “A medium is a link between the worlds of the living and the dead. And there is one member of my little team who fits the bill perfectly. Kim, dear, come forward and make yourself known, would you?”
Kim came floating out of the shadows, smiling brightly, only hovering an inch or so above the dusty floor. She allowed herself to become semi-transparent, to make it clear what she was. Graham Tiley and his grand-daughter stared at her with open mouths. Susan actually fell back a step, and Tiley had to grab her to steady her. They huddled close together, for mutual support. Kim stopped a tactful distance away and gave them both her most charming smile.
“Hi,” she said. “My name is Kim, and I’m a ghost. Please. Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite. I’m part of the team.”
Of the two, Graham Tiley seemed the most affected. He breathed heavily, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Kim. He looked like he would have turned and run if Susan hadn’t been holding on to him. He finally closed his mouth with a snap, swallowed hard, and nodded slowly to Kim.
“Dear God… All these years, looking for ghosts and spirits, for some actual sign that the soul survives… but I never saw anything. Not even sure I really believed, deep down… But here you are. I was right all along. You’re a ghost. I can tell, I can feel it… Oh my dear, are you trapped here? Is something holding you to this world?”
“Yes,” Kim said happily. “JC, my love, my very dear. Isn’t he wonderful?”
