They went back out onto the station platform, JC leading the way and looking cheerfully about him. He’d recovered a lot of his usual cocky bravado. Happy wasn’t sure whether he approved or not. Yes, it was good to see JC back to his old self again; but the old JC did have a distressing tendency to rush in where angels wouldn’t show up on a bet. Usually while shouting
Laurie stayed in the doorway, looking at the three Ghost Finders as much as the station.
JC strode right up to the edge of the platform and stopped, the tips of his shoes protruding over the drop, and the tracks. He bounced up and down happily, peering into every dark and concealing shadow as though he expected something to emerge and present him with a box of chocolates. He studied the weed-choked tracks, and the heavily rusted rails, before finally giving his full attention to the gaping tunnel-mouth. He studied it thoughtfully for some time. Darkness looked back at him, complete and implacable.
“This where you detected the dimensional weak point, Melody?” he said, without looking back.
“Not so much a door as where a door could appear,” said Melody. “And the more the pressure builds, the bigger that door’s going to be. And the greater the impact it will have upon our reality. You can’t force an opening between worlds without some inevitable spiritual fall-out.”
“Such as?” said Laurie from his doorway.
“Rains of frogs, spontaneously combusting cows, and the dead coming home to roost,” said Happy. “The universe doesn’t like being messed about with and has a tendency to act up cranky, in protest. Is there any way we can stop the train’s coming back, JC?”
“We don’t want to,” JC said briskly. “The train wants to come home, where it belongs. And we want that pressure relieved because it’s been building for over a century; so when the doorway finally opens, it’s all going to happen at once, in a big way. Best we can do is hope to control the situation and keep the nasty side effects contained, here within the station. That train is on its way back, finishing its long journey at last, and nothing in or out of Heaven or Hell will stop it now.”
“The train isn’t the real problem,” said Melody. “Don’t get side-tracked, JC. The real problem is the Ghost Caller. It was dangerous enough when it was first placed aboard the train; by now it could have accumulated enough power to blow a hole clean through the Space/Time continuum. If the stress of the return activates the machine, we could be talking about a mass psychic summoning. One last call for all the dead that ever were.”
“I am leaving now,” said Happy. “Try and keep up.”
“Stand still! Show a brave face, Happy,” said JC, sternly. “There are civilians present.”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Laurie. “I told you, no-one with any sense stays here once it gets dark.”
“See!” said Happy. “See!”
“We should get danger money,” said Melody.
Happy stopped and looked at her. “It would help,” he said finally.
“Hold it,” said JC. “We have company.”
They all looked around, to find the ghost of Dr. Todd had joined them out on the platform. He stood on his own, some distance away, staring unblinkingly into the dark tunnel-mouth. JC calmly strode forward to join him, looked into the tunnel opening, then right into the ghost’s face.
“Why are you here, Dr. Todd? You’ve failed to prevent the train’s return, so why are you still here?”
The ghost looked straight through him, as though he weren’t there, and said nothing at all. JC glanced back at Happy.
“Are you sure you aren’t picking up something from him? Anything at all?”
“No thoughts, no personality…it’s as though he’s so far-away, I can barely see him. Something really bad happened to Dr. T; and I don’t think it was only the head injury. I think part of it is still happening. There’s a definite connection between the ghost, the missing train, and the Ghost Caller. I can sense it, feel it; this whole setting is soaked in information. And JC…I can’t feel Dr. Todd, but I can feel something that I’m pretty sure is the Ghost Caller. It’s not simply a machine. It’s close now, closer than it has ever been, ready to break through…And I think it needs Dr. Todd to be here when it arrives. He’s not here through his own free will; the Ghost Caller holds him here.”
“Why?” said JC. “What’s the connection?”
“I don’t know!” said Happy. “I’m getting a headache trying to process all this. It’s something to do with the price Dr. Todd paid for the creation of the Ghost Caller.”
“No-one move,” Melody said quietly. “But look around you. The fog is rolling in.”
They all looked carefully up and down the platform. A shimmering grey fog had descended on both ends and was creeping slowly and remorselessly along the platform towards them. It rose out of everywhere at once, curling and coiling thickly on the still evening air, pulsing with its own eerie light. The tunnel-mouth was already lost to sight. In a few moments, the fog was already so thick that none of them could make out the opposite platform. The pulsing mists spilled along the railway tracks, covering them up in a thick grey tide, and soon the Ghost Finders and Laurie and the ghost of Dr. Todd were surrounded by a grey sea of impenetrable fog, filling the station with its own sour and bitter light.
Laurie stepped back, into the main station building, as though he felt safer inside, in the candlelight. Dr. Todd drifted back before the fog, to stand with the Ghost Finders. He still stared unblinkingly through the thick grey mists, at where he believed the tunnel-mouth to be. The fog was cold and wet and intimidating. It felt like being trapped underwater, cut off from the rest of the world, every sound eerily muffled. The foggy air smelled of smoke and coal dust and times past. It grew slowly, steadily thicker.
Happy suddenly put both hands to his head and pressed hard against his ears to keep out some terrible sound only he could hear. His face screwed up, and he stumbled away from the others. JC yelled for him to come back, but Happy couldn’t hear him. He disappeared into the curling folds of the fog, becoming a dark and indistinct shape. And then he disappeared from sight completely, as his feet took him over the edge of the platform, and he fell.
But Melody was right there behind him.
She’d followed him into the fog, and when he fell, she threw herself forward and grabbed his out-flung hand at the last moment. She slammed facedown onto the platform, driving all the breath out of her lungs with the impact; but still she held on to Happy’s hand with desperate strength.
“Don’t let go!” yelled Happy, his voice rising from the deep gap between the platforms. “I’m not sure there’s anything here, any more! The fog’s eaten it all up! There’s nothing underneath me!”
“Oh hush up, you big baby,” said Melody, between gritted teeth. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you. Haven’t you learned that yet?”
While they were busy with each other, the fog took advantage of the moment to surge forward, from both ends of the platform at once. A great grey wave swallowed up everything. JC lost sight of Melody, grimly hanging on to Happy’s hand. And when he looked back, he couldn’t see Laurie or Dr. Todd. He was cut off from everyone, standing alone in a great grey sea that was becoming steadily thicker all around as though it was walling him up.
And then Kim Sterling came walking out of the fog, heading straight for him. His lost love, his ghost girl, striding towards him, smiling. The fog fell back from her, as though intimidated by her presence, as though it couldn’t touch her. Kim came walking through the fog, and her feet on the platform didn’t make the slightest sound. She slowed to a halt before JC, and his unbelieving smile slowly widened to match hers. He took off his sunglasses, so he could meet her eyes with his, and the blazing light from his altered eyes blasted the last of the fog away, illuminating Kim like summer sunshine in a church. She stood tall and easy before him, a magnificent pre-Raphaelite beauty with long red hair, in a shimmering, long, white dress. She had a high-boned, sharply featured face, and her wide mouth was a red dream with a smile always tucked away in one corner. She looked so fine, so wonderful, so full of life…JC reached out to take her hand, and she reached out a pale hand to him…but his hand passed right through hers. Because only he was really there. The living and the dead were never meant to touch.
“Where have you been?” said JC; but Kim smiled sadly at him.
