Ghost of a Smile

Simon R. Green
ONE

It’s a sad fact that these days, there are more places that used to be factories than there are working factories. And many of these old deserted buildings, left to rot and ruin, have become bad places. Haunted by a past they can’t forget and men who can’t forgive.

There are lots of ways a building can turn bad. Something terrible happens, staining the environs with enough horror and suffering to poison the psychic wells forever, or just the long years’ accumulations of all the petty evils and moral crimes that man is heir to. People make places bad, and bad places make horror shows, to haunt the living with the sins of the dead. People do more than work in factories, and they always leave something of themselves behind.

Which is why a battered old mini-van, with rusting panels and balding tyres, came crashing to a halt in an overgrown and weed-infested car park, outside the factory building once owned and operated by Winter Industries. The van’s engine fell silent with a series of relieved coughs, and the slow, sullen quiet of evening returned. The huge old building stood open and exposed to the elements, a stark minimalist structure of steel and concrete, looking somehow lost and ill at ease now that it no longer had a function or a purpose. Broken glass in the windows, overlapping graffiti on the walls… most of it faded into incoherence, like disappearing voices from the past. The huge open doors at the front had been sealed off with yards of yellow police-incident tapes, their ragged ends whipping mournfully back and forth in the gusting wind.

From out of the clapped-out old mini-van stepped JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer.

The Ghost Finders of the Carnacki Institute.

It was late evening, heading into night. There were bloody stains on the heavy clouds in the lowering sky, while the sun hung low above the horizon, giving up on the day. There were shadows everywhere, long and deep and dark. The evening light looked stained and damaged, bruised. The gusting wind made a few half-hearted attempts to kick some leaves around the abandoned car park but couldn’t really be bothered. The factory stood still and solid, holding darkness within.

JC strode out across the car park, heading for the deserted factory like a general with a battle hymn in his heart. He was never happier than when he was throwing himself headlong into life-and-death action, with the world at stake and all to play for, best foot forward and damn the consequences. Which was why he’d had such a hard time finding partners who would put up with him. Most people had more sense. He stopped before the building and looked it over, his fists on his hips and a broad cocky grin on his face. JC loved a mystery, and a challenge, and a chance to kick the unearthly where it hurt.

JC was tall and lean, loud and confident, full of energy and far too handsome for his own good. In his late twenties, he had a rock star’s mane of long dark hair, and a rich ice-cream three-piece suit of quite startling style and elegance. He also wore the heaviest, darkest sunglasses he could find, with good reason. Simply standing there in the wide-open car park, he looked like a sheriff come to clean up Tombstone.

Melody Chambers trudged across the cracked concrete, pulling a trolley heaped high with her own very special equipment. Melody was the science geek of the team, and proud of it. She used technology as a weapon to beat the supernatural into making sense. She knew everything there was to know about fringe science and paranormal activity, and what she didn’t know she made up as she went along. She firmly believed in the iron hand in the iron glove approach, and only settled for poking ghosts with a stick when she didn’t have a better weapon to hand.

Melody was pushing the edge of her late twenties, and pretty enough in a conventional sort of way. Short and gamine thin, she wore her auburn hair in a severe bun at the back of her head, so it wouldn’t get in the way. Melody was a very practical sort, first and always. She never bothered with make-up, and wore serious, no-nonsense glasses. Her jeans, sweater, and jacket were dark, practical, and anonymous. She kept several sets in her wardrobe, all exactly the same, so she didn’t have to waste time wondering what to wear. But even standing still beside her trolley, scowling impartially at JC and the factory, she blazed with repressed nervous energy waiting to be unleashed upon some poor unfortunate spirit.

And, finally, there was Happy Jack Palmer, taking his time locking up the van and even more time slouching across the car park, to make it very clear to one and all that he didn’t want to be there. Happy had just turned thirty and was still bitter about it. He was the team telepath, borderline head-case, and dark cheerless pain in the arse. Because, as he was fond of saying, if you could see the world as clearly as he did, and all the weird and strange things we shared it with, you’d be clinically depressed, too. Happy could Gloom for England, and still take a Bronze in Dire Mutterings.

He might have been good-looking if he ever stopped scowling, and he might have been tall if he ever stopped slouching, but the odds were against it. Prematurely balding and defiantly pot-bellied, he wore a faded T-shirt with the legend Go On. Ask Me About My Day. I Dare You, over a pair of distressed jeans that clearly hadn’t been threatened with a washing machine in recent memory. He wore slip-on shoes because he couldn’t be bothered with laces, and a battered leather jacket that looked like the animal who bequeathed its skin had known a really rough time even while it was still alive. Happy was a Class Eleven Telepath, and would cheerfully have lobotomised himself with a blunt ice-pick if he’d thought for one moment it would keep the voices out of his head.

JC turned to Melody and beamed at her. “Have you got all your toys, Melody? I’m sure you could pack that trolley a little higher if you really tried.”

“Eat shit and die, Chance,” said Melody. “You couldn’t do this job without me and my equipment, and you know it.”

“And Happy, Happy, Happy!” said JC, ignoring Melody with the ease of long practice. “Have you locked up the Mystery Machine properly?”

“I wish you’d stop calling it that,” said Melody. “It wasn’t that funny when we picked the bloody thing up from the rental place, and it’s grown exponentially less funny all the way here.”

“I can think of worse things to call it,” said Happy. “It isn’t so much a mini-van as a nearly van. Only the extensive corrosion is holding the bodywork together, and the engine makes more noise than a banshee with bleeding haemorrhoids. The van’s about as much use as.. . a thing that’s no damned use at all. Oh God, I’m so tired I can’t even manage a decent metaphor. I hate long train journeys and I hate car rentals. I swear the Institute goes out of its way to choose something desperate they know will put my back out. Just once, couldn’t we have a nice stretch limo? With a chauffeur, and a built-in bar?”

“Dream on,” JC said kindly. “Such vehicles tend to attract attention.”

“It’s budget-review time, that’s what it is,” said Melody. “We’re not even allowed to travel first class on the train any more. I’m going to complain to the union.”

“We’re not in a union,” said JC, staring thoughtfully at the factory.

“I can’t believe I volunteered for this job,” said Melody.

JC produced a local tourist guide from a jacket pocket with a grand flourish and flipped it open to a relevant page. “Hush, children, and pay attention. Here is useful knowledge, for those who have the wisdom to consult it. The strikingly ugly structure before us was once the pride and joy of Winter Industries. Very successful, from the fifties on into the eighties, at which point all the wheels came off the economy, and a great many once-solid industries hit the dirt. The factory shut its doors for the very last time in 1983, and the whole work-force was made redundant. Thousands of men and women, all laid off in an afternoon. The local economy never really recovered.”

“What did they do here?” said Melody, practical as always. “What did the factory make?”

“Apparently, machine parts for other factories,” said JC. “And when the orders dried up, the jobs disappeared. Lot of that about, in the eighties.”

“Maggie bloody Thatcher,” growled Happy. “When that woman is dead, I will piss on her grave. I don’t care how long I have to queue.”

“Get to the local legends,” Melody said to JC. “You know you’re dying to get to the local legends.”

“Yeah,” said Happy. “All the weird shit that no-one believes but everyone talks about.”

“Know thine enemy,” murmured JC. He flipped through the pages. “Ah yes, here we are. Ghosts, strange animal sightings, UFOs, and Men In Black, all the usual… Ah! This is more like it. There are local legends of Big Black Dogges, going back centuries, chasing people down deserted lanes, hunting people at night. And that’s Dogges spelled the demon way, in case you wondered.”

“Big?” sad Happy. “How big?”

“Says here, twice the size of a man,” JC said cheerfully. “Always black, appearing and disappearing, and some of them have no head. Definitely not your average Rottweiler.”

Happy sniggered suddenly. “No head? How do they smell?”

“Don’t even go there,” said Melody. “Exactly how dangerous are these Dogges, JC?”

“Reading between the lines, very,” said JC. “A lot of local disappearances have been put down to the Dogges, down the years. Apparently it’s bad luck even to see one. There’s also mention of big cats, attacking sheep at night.”

“Cats and dogs? Wonderful,” said Happy. “Maybe we can set them on each other.”

“Enough talk; time for action!” said JC. He tossed the guide-book carelessly over his shoulder and strode determinedly towards the open doors to the factory. “Time to stare Evil in the face and pull its nose! Give me danger and excitement, Lord, that I might smite the ungodly and send them crying home to their mothers!”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you, JC,” said Happy, trudging sullenly after him.

“And don’t anybody feel they have to help me shift all this equipment!” said Melody, bringing up the rear with her weighed-down trolley.

“It’s good healthy exercise,” Happy said callously. “And you know you don’t like us touching your stuff.”

“That’s because you always break it!” snapped Melody. “You could break an anvil just by looking at it.”

Happy smirked. “It’s a gift.”

“I’m glad you didn’t pay for it,” said Melody.

“Children, children,” murmured JC. “If we could please all concentrate on the very dangerous and possibly horribly haunted deserted factory before us…”

Melody snorted loudly and made a point of striding ahead of JC and Happy, hauling her trolley behind her. JC let her get a fair distance ahead, so he could talk quietly with Happy.

“So,” he said brightly. “You and Melody are an item now. How’s that working out?”

“I don’t know whether we’re an item, or friends with benefits, or ships that have crashed into each other in the night,” said Happy. “We’re having lots and lots of sex, if that means anything. I used to take all kinds of useful little pills, to help make sure the only voice inside my head was mine, and to give me a more positive outlook on things, but these days I seem to be living mostly on bathtub speed and multi-vitamins, just to keep up with her. God, that woman’s got an appetite.”

“Are you still scared of her?” said JC.

“Hell yes,” said Happy.

Melody had almost reached the yellow police tapes when JC called out sharply for her to stop. She did so immediately, looking quickly about her, while JC and Happy hurried to catch up. The three of them stood together, the huge open doors of the factory holding secrets within. Looking into the gloom inside was like looking into a bottomless pit, where the dark fell away forever and ever. JC abruptly turned his back on the dark and looked back over the empty car park.

“Notice anything, oh my children?” he said. “Listen. Listen to the quiet… No birds singing, or even flying anywhere near. No insects buzzing, even in this dying dog day of summer. The air is heavy, like a storm that’s right on the edge of breaking but never does. This.. . is an unnatural quiet because Nature has withdrawn from this place. This bad place. And what do we know about bad places, my esteemed colleagues?”

“Bad places make ghosts,” said Melody. “Hauntings are as much an expression of places as people.”

“Genius loci,” said Happy. “The spirit of the place because some places are more alive than some people. Did I pass? Please tell me I didn’t, and I can go home.”

“Gold stars for everyone!” said JC. “And honey for tea. It’s quiet here because all the natural things are afraid of the factory.”

“If they’ve got the good sense to stay out of there, maybe we should, too,” said Happy. “No? I’m sure I used to have survival instincts, before I joined this team. Can’t we start a nice accidental fire and burn the whole building down?”

JC ignored Happy, launched himself at the police tapes, and broke through them with a series of ostentatious karate chops. He strode into the factory, and the others followed him. The temperature plummeted the moment they stepped out of the sunlight and into the gloom. JC shuddered briefly. Walking into the factory felt like diving into a cool dark sea. The only light fell in through the high windows, illuminating the long, dark interior with a series of bright shafts of sunlight, stabbing down from on high. JC and Happy and Melody moved slowly forward, trying to look everywhere at once, their footsteps echoing strangely hollow on the concrete floor. The trolley’s wheels creaked loudly. The huge interior of the factory seemed to swallow up the sounds immediately, making them seem small and insignificant.

The long interior stretched away before them, a massive open space, like a museum wing with no exhibits. Everything of value, everything that mattered, had been removed long ago, and the factory was an empty shell. JC looked interestedly about him. Despite the heavy gloom, he still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. Melody stopped abruptly, slamming to a halt, and Happy jumped despite himself. He glared about him while JC looked at Melody and raised a single elegant eyebrow.

“This is where the body was found,” said Melody.

They all looked down. There was a dark stain on the rough grey floor that might have been human-shaped if seriously horrid things had been done to a human body. Melody set about assembling her own specially designed workstation, supporting various usual items of scientific equipment. Some of it so up-to-date that so far no-one had even realised she’d stolen it from the Institute’s research laboratories. JC and Happy didn’t have a clue what half of it was, or what it was for, but they trusted Melody’s high tech to come up with answers to questions they wouldn’t even have considered. Melody ran through the details of the murder as she worked, confident that, as usual, she’d been the only one to pay proper attention during the original briefing.

JC always said details got in the way of seeing the Big Picture, and Happy’s attention tended to wander a lot.

“The victim,” said Melody, “was one Albert Winter, main shareholder of the very successful and influential Winter Group of companies. Interestingly, no-one seems to know what he was doing here; though given that this factory was once a part of Winter Industries, we could probably take that as a clue. If you like that sort of thing. Anyway, the rest of the Winter Group’s board were not at all happy with the results of the original police investigation. Mainly because there weren’t any. They couldn’t explain why Albert Winter had come here, or how he died, or what killed him. Except that it must have been a really nasty death. The state of the body was so bad, even hardened policemen had to run outside to puke up things they hadn’t even eaten yet. Anyway, the Winter Group made its displeasure known and put the pressure on, which eventually filtered down to us. The Carnacki Institute does so love a mystery. Particularly when there’s a chance to get in the good books of a rich and powerful company. I did mention this is a Budget Review Year, didn’t I?”

“Your cynicism wounds me,” murmured JC, kneeling down beside the large dark stain. “All that matters is that this is our first case since we were officially declared an A team, after our proud and glorious success against Fenris Tenebrae, down in Oxford Circus Tube Station. Nothing like saving the world to up your pay grade. But it is incumbent on us to do well on this very important case, or we will be busted back down to a B team so fast it will make our heads spin.”

“Or, we could all be horribly killed,” said Happy, blinking miserably about him. “By evil forces as yet undetected. Just thought I’d remind you since that part is always mysteriously overlooked in the briefings. I don’t like it here. If it were up to me, I’d say we nuke the whole place from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

“Danger comes with the job,” JC said happily. “And the territory. It’s what gives our calling its spice! I love the smell of ectoplasm in the evening!”

“You’re weird,” said Happy.

“Why don’t you boys go take a look around this dump,” said Melody. “On the grounds that you’re getting on my nerves big-time. I have to calibrate my equipment and do a whole bunch of other technical things that you wouldn’t understand even if I did explain them to you.”

JC and Happy set off in different directions, wandering across the great open expanse of concrete. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, marked here and there with overlapping footprints. Some attempt had been made to keep them away from where the body fell, but it was clear a great many people had taken a keen interest in the murder. There were cobwebs, thick and dusty, but no sign of mice or rats, not even a dropping. The air was deathly cool, without even a breath of movement, despite the many broken windows. Dust motes swirled lazily in the long shafts of sunlight, dropping down from the high windows like so many dimming spotlights. The only sounds in the great open factory were their footsteps, and the occasional electronic chirps from Melody’s station. Small sounds, quickly swallowed up and smothered by the heavy quiet. The atmosphere was tense and still, as though something was waiting to happen. As though something had been waiting to happen for some time…

JC stopped abruptly and looked thoughtfully about him. He pursed his lips, as though considering an idea he didn’t like. “Melody, who is authorised to come in here these days?”

“A couple of night-watchmen, and a local security firm that takes a quick look round, twice a week,” said Melody, her hands flying across her keyboard as her various instruments woke up and came on line. “But none of them ever actually enter the building. Apparently, it disturbs them. Disturbs them so much they have it written into their contracts that they don’t have to come inside. And how do I know this? Because I’m the only member of this team that ever bothers to do their homework.”

“You logged on to the files, on the train coming down,” said Happy. “God bless laptops for those of us who are slaves to The Man.”

“Is he saying I’m a swot?” said Melody.

“Teacher’s pet,” said JC, not unkindly. “From your extensive research, do you know if anyone has actually seen anything? Any named or identified thing?”

“Not seen, as such,” said Melody. “More heard, or sensed. Everyone says this place has a bad feeling, even if they can’t agree why. One night-watchmen said he was followed by something as he made his round outside the factory. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say by what. But he quit his job the next day and moved to another county. They get through a lot of night-watchmen. No-one stays long.”

JC frowned. “If things have got that bad, why hasn’t the Institute been called in before this?”

“Because no-one’s actually seen anything,” Melody said patiently.

“Isn’t that always how it is?” said Kim Sterling, stepping daintily out of the shadows to join JC. “It’s always hard to pin down a ghost.”

She smiled brightly on all of them, and they all smiled back, in their own ways. Kim walked a few inches above the dusty floor. She tried her best, but she still rose and fell a few inches in the air as she approached JC. Gravity has no attraction for the dead. Kim was a ghost and had a hard enough time concentrating on the important things, like looking solid and substantial when she wasn’t, without worrying about the little things. Like gravity, and consistency. She was a beautiful young woman in her late twenties, now and forever. A great mane of glorious red hair tumbled down about her shoulders, framing a high-boned, classically shaped face. Her eyes were a vivid green, her mouth a dark red dream, and she had the kind of figure that makes men’s fingers tingle. Because she was dead, her appearance was an illusion based on memory, which meant that not only did it tend to vary in the details as her attention wandered, but that she could dress in whatever fashion she chose. Today, she was a 1920s flapper, complete with cute little hat and a long string of beads round her neck. She twirled them artlessly round one finger as she stood before JC. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

JC and Kim were an item, the living and the dead. Everyone knew it wasn’t going to have a happy ending, including JC and Kim. But while love is blind, it is also always eternally hopeful.

Kim was a part of the team but couldn’t join them in direct sunlight. It dispersed her ectoplasm. So she only worked with them in the dark places of the world, stepping out of the shadows to fight the forces of darkness, all for the love of a good man. Even if sometimes she was scarier than some of the things the team faced. She beamed at JC and tried to slip her arm through his. But her ghostly arm passed right through.

“I’m sorry, JC,” said Kim. “I keep trying to intensify my presence, but no matter how hard I concentrate, I can’t become solid.”

“I keep telling you,” said JC. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here with me. That’s all that really matters.”

“Young love,” growled Happy, staying a cautious distance away. “The horror, the horror…”

“What I want to know,” Melody said to Kim, “is how you can turn up wherever we are, whenever we need you.”

“Because I’m not really here,” said Kim. “I impose my presence on the world through an effort of will. So basically, any place is every place because wherever I am is a matter of opinion. So I can be wherever I want to be. It’s very liberating, being dead. You should try it. The physical rules of the world aren’t nearly as binding or restrictive.”

“Spooky…” said Happy.

“Shut up, Happy,” said JC.

“You’re as spooky as she is these days, JC,” said Melody, slapping a particularly recalcitrant piece of tech to show she was serious. “After what happened to you on that hell train… It isn’t your eyes that changed. I really do need to sit you down and run some serious tests on you.”

“No you don’t,” said JC very firmly. “You just want an excuse to wire me up and poke me with the science stick.”

“For your own good, JC,” said Melody. “I promise; there wouldn’t be that many needles involved…”

“You stay away from me, Melody, and from Kim. We are not your lab rats-we are your colleagues. You don’t tie colleagues down and threaten them with internal probes…”

“Actually,” said Happy, “sometimes in bed, she…”

“Shut up, Happy,” said JC. “Far too much information.”

“Ectophile!” said Happy.

JC and Kim made a point of drifting away a little, so they could have some quality time together. JC left footprints in the dust. Kim didn’t. Happy glowered after them and went back to join Melody, who was giving all her attention to her equipment as it hissed and purred and blinked coloured lights in an important sort of way.

“I can’t believe they’re still together,” said Happy. “The dead and the living aren’t supposed to be together, for all kinds of really good reasons.”

“It’ll all end in tears,” Melody said vaguely, peering from one glowing display screen to another. “I mean, they can’t even touch each other. Ever.”

“There is more to love than the physical side,” said Happy.

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” said Melody.

“You worry me sometimes,” said Happy. “Actually, you worry me a lot, but… JC and Kim worry me more. It’s like watching a train crash in slow motion, and not being able to help anyone.”

“Sometimes, people have to sort things out for themselves,” said Melody. “Even if one of them isn’t people any more.”

JC and Kim walked happily along together, sticking to the factory wall. Close to each other but not touching. It was easier that way. His footsteps echoed quietly, hers didn’t, but they both pretended not to notice. Every now and again they’d walk through a falling shaft of light, and Kim would disappear for a moment.

“I am working on refining my condition,” said Kim. “It’s not easy. Being a ghost doesn’t exactly come with an instruction manual. But I’m sure it must be possible to become solid if I can concentrate in the right way. I can become real, for you.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” JC said patiently. “The living and the dead can love each other, but not as people do. That’s the way it is. I found you, and you found me, and I can live with that.”

“I can’t even get into bed to sleep beside you!” said Kim. “I don’t sleep, but I do like to lie beside you. Whether you’re awake or not. I can lie down, but if my concentration wavers, I start drifting upwards, and end up bobbing by the ceiling!”

“I don’t mind…” said JC.

“Well you should!”

They stopped and looked at each other, then they both managed a small smile.

“I’ve had sex without love,” said JC. “Love without sex is better. Sometimes frustrating, yes, but… course of true love never did run smooth.” He looked at her for a long moment. “Can you feel… anything?”

“Mostly, I feel cold,” said Kim. “Sometimes, when you’re asleep, I run my fingertips down your face, then I think I feel something… but it’s hard to be sure. I don’t have a body, only a memory of one. Mostly, I feel… distant. Like I’m hanging on to the world by my fingertips… Don’t say you’re sorry again, JC, or I’ll slap you!”

“Like to see you try,” said JC. “Look, dead or alive, we’re both still human. Man and woman. We care for each other, in a human way. We have that in common, and that’s enough. Now, let’s get back to the others. They’re talking about us, you know.”

“You can hear them?” said Kim. “I can’t hear them…”

“No,” said JC. “But if you were them, wouldn’t you be talking about us?”

They laughed, and returned to Happy and Melody, and the fully charged electronic equipment. They both fell silent as JC and Kim approached, and Happy did his best to look innocent but couldn’t pull it off. Melody didn’t even look up from calibrating her short- and long-range sensors. JC indicated to Happy that he wanted to walk and talk with him alone. Happy immediately looked worried and guilty in equal measures, his standard default position. JC laughed and led him away, so they could talk privately. Kim hovered next to Melody, pretending an interest in the high tech, some of which immediately stopped working, in protest to her very existence.

“I’m getting a really bad feeling about this place, Happy,” said JC. “And I’m not even psychic. So what are you feeling? What are you seeing and hearing with that marvellous mutant mind of yours?”

Happy scowled, looking around the deserted factory in a decidedly shifty manner. “To be honest, JC, I think opening up in here could be really dangerous. Even with all my mental shields battened down and welded shut, I can’t help picking up things. Really unpleasant things. We’re not alone in here. Something’s watching… and waiting. There’s no telling what might come jumping out of the shadows the moment I lower my shields.”

“Man up, Happy,” said JC. “Show some balls and shake them at the shadows. You’re the team telepath, the mental marvel, so get on with it. Justify your presence here, or I won’t sign off on your expenses claims.”

“Bully,” muttered Happy. “Can I at least take a few of my little helpers? My chemical companions in need?”

JC sighed. “I thought we were weaning you off those?”

Happy wouldn’t meet his gaze, fumbling in his pockets. “Most people take pills to see strange and unusual things, I take pills to keep the weird away. You’re the reason I need these things, JC, you, and the job. If you could See the things I See… or maybe you do, these days, with those amazing new eyes of yours…”

“Stick to the subject,” said JC.

“I am! The world isn’t what most people think it is,” Happy said sadly. “It’s a bigger world, and far more crowded. And if you could see what’s peering over our shoulders and tugging at our sleeves, you’d fry your neurons with powerful chemicals, too. If you want me to track down what’s in here with us, and look it in the eye, I need a little something to back me up!”

“Take your pills,” said JC. “You’re all grown-up now. You know what you need.”

Happy produced half a dozen plastic containers and rolled them back and forth in his hand, squinting at the handwritten labels. He’d moved far beyond mass-produced pharmaceuticals and worked his own mix-and-match magic to produce skull-poppers and mind-expanders of such ferocity they would have made Hunter S. Thompson weep with joy. He finally settled on some fat yellow capsules and dry-swallowed three with the ease of long practice. He straightened up abruptly, as though throwing off a heavy weight, a wide grin stretching across his face.

“Oh yes, that’s the stuff to give the boys! Nothing like self-medication to hit the spot!” He giggled suddenly. “Who’s the man? Watch me now! Side effects are for wimps! My heart’s pounding and my liver’s whimpering and my brain is running on nitrous oxide! I’m moving so quickly, I’ll pass myself in a minute. Slow slow, quick quick slow suicide perhaps, but it beats the hell out of self-harming. Now, let me See… I was right. We’re not alone in here. I’m picking up all kinds of savagery, and not only from the murder. Rage, hunger, violence… and it’s not human. Not even alive, as such. Old, very old… Something really bad happened here, JC, and I think it’s still happening.”

“That’s it?” said JC, after Happy had been quiet for a while. “I don’t know why I keep you around. Could you be any more vague? There are psychic pets on television who are more specific than you!”

“I’m quite willing to go back and wait in the van till it’s all over,” said Happy. “Oooh… I think my fingertips are floating away

…”

“Walk on,” said JC.

They made a full tour of the perimeter, sticking close to the factory walls. The shadows were growing longer, deeper and darker, as the light falling through the windows slowly faded away. The silence made the wide-open space seem even more oppressive than the encroaching night. It was growing colder, too, far more than the late evening could account for. Their breath smoked and steamed on the air before them; but only Happy could produce actual smoke rings. JC kept looking about him, convinced he could see something about to emerge from the deepening shadows, but everything remained stubbornly still and silent. They finished their tour without result, and rejoined Melody and Kim at the equipment centre.

“Did the police find any physical evidence?” JC said immediately. “Anything useful, or indicative?”

“Not a damned thing,” said Melody. “I read the official reports. They didn’t turn up a thing. Which is surprising, in this CSI day and age.”

“Tell me again about the state of the body,” said JC. “How did Albert Winter die?”

“Messily,” said Melody. “Ripped apart. Bones broken, organs torn out, skin shredded. You’d have to put a man through a wood chipper to do that kind of damage.”

“So we are assuming a supernatural death?” said Happy. “A supernatural killer? Oh dear. I can feel one of my heads coming on.”

“Could it be a werewolf?” Kim said brightly. “I used to love films about werewolves! I was up for a part in Dog Soldiers 2, before I was murdered.”

“More likely the Big Black Dogges,” said Melody. “They’re not just a local legend; you get the same kind of phenomenon reported all over the British Isles. Dogges hunting… chasing, headless Dogges.. .”

“How do they smell?” said Happy. “Terrible!”

He broke into giggles again. Melody glared at JC.

“You let him dose himself again, didn’t you!”

“He works better that way,” said JC.

He slapped Happy casually across the back of the head, and Happy stopped giggling immediately.

“Ow! That hurt!”

“Serves you right,” murmured JC. He knelt beside the murder stain again and considered it for a long moment. He gestured for Happy to kneel beside him. The telepath did so, careful to keep out of arm’s reach, and glared at the murder site in a sideways fashion.

“Stop that,” said JC, not unkindly. “Look at the blood stain, Happy. Tell me what you See.”

“Blood,” Happy said immediately. “Lots and lots of it, and a hell of a lot of spattering. If a man had done this, I’d have said there was serious passion involved. I’m picking up anger, rage, hatred, revenge… But this still looks and feels more like an animal attack to me.”

JC nodded slowly. “Any ideas as to what kind of animal?”

“Old,” Happy said immediately. “And wild. Not feral, though; there was intent and purpose behind this. And… the rush is wearing off, and I’d really like to go home now.”

“Your metabolism eats pills alive,” said JC. He looked thoughtfully about him. “Bad places make ghosts… And this is a bad place. Made bad, long before Albert Winter was killed here. So what makes this factory building a bad place? There’s no record of any work disaster, or any great loss of life, and yes, Melody, I do occasionally do my homework… The real question is why did Albert Winter die now, when this place has been worrying but basically harmless for so many years?”

“Hush!” Kim said suddenly. “Someone else is here with us. Someone living.”

“Retreat into the darkness, my children,” said JC. “Let us watch and learn.”

They quickly abandoned Melody’s workstation to hide in the deepest of shadows at the nearest wall. An old man and a young woman came hesitantly through the open doors and advanced slowly into the great open space of the factory floor. The old man held up an old-fashioned storm lantern before him, the flame’s soft yellow glow pushing back the gloom. They moved steadily forward, sticking close together, looking about them with keen interest. Neither of them seemed particularly scared or intimidated.

The old man was a stooped, fragile-looking black man, well into his seventies. He wore a battered jacket over a heavy sweater, faded jeans, and sensible shoes. His eyes were bright, and his mouth was firm, but his wrinkled face had sunk right back to the bone. His head was mostly bald, with little white tufts of hair above the ears. His stride was slow but steady, and he looked quietly determined, as though he had come to the deserted factory with some definite purpose in mind. And for all his evident age and fragility, there was something about the man that suggested he’d survived hard times and could survive more, too, if he had to.

The teenage girl at his side towered over him, big, black, and busty, with a strong face that held rather more character than was good for her. Or anybody else. She held herself with defiant pride and dignity, and wore a long, patterned robe over practical sandals. Her hair had been scraped back in tight cornrows. She walked beside the old man like a body-guard, but there was something in it of family, too. She held a mobile phone to her ear, then waved it about, trying for a signal, before swearing dispassionately and putting the phone away.

The old man stopped abruptly. The girl stopped with him and looked quickly about her. The old man held up both hands before speaking in a firm, rich, and carrying voice.

“Is there anybody here? Be not afraid, be not alarmed. We have come to talk with any who might remain here and to offer any help or aid that might be required. Please, come forward and talk with us. We are not afraid. We are friends.”

“Bloody cold in here, Gramps,” said the girl. “Cold and dark and a complete lack of comforts. Like most of the places you drag me to. Just once, couldn’t we go ghost-hunting in a first-class hotel, or a nice pub, or a decent restaurant?”

“Quiet, child! Show respect for the spirits!”

“I am not your child, I am your grand-daughter, and I’m sure this is bad for me. I’ll bet there’s mould here, and all kinds of spores, waiting to be breathed in so they can break-dance in my lungs. You’re not going to find any ghosts here, Gramps. For one thing, this place isn’t old enough.”

“Hold your peace, child,” said the old man. “You only show your ignorance. Spirits accumulate in the dark places of the world, and this has been a bad place for many years. Have I not told you the old stories…”

“Yes, Gramps. Many times. But they’re only stories. Something for old men to tell, when they’re losing at dominoes and want to distract their opponents.”

“Stories have power, child. In many ways. Trust me when I tell you, the past does not lie easily here…”

“Well,” said JC. “Never let it be said that I don’t know a cue when I hear one.”

He stepped briskly forward, and waved cheerfully to the startled old man and the girl at his side. “Hello, hello! Welcome to the dark and spooky and almost certainly haunted abandoned factory! Guided tours a speciality! Psychic phenomena guaranteed or your money back. I am JC Chance, of the Carnacki Institute for Finding Ghosts and Doing Something About Them. May I ask whom have I the honour of addressing?”

The teenage girl had actually jumped a little when he appeared, but the old man was made of sterner stuff. He stood his ground and held his lantern a little higher to spread more light. He looked suspiciously at JC, and Happy and Melody behind him. Kim remained in the shadows, being diplomatic.

“What the hell are you doing here?” said the teenage girl, moving quickly forward to put herself between her grandfather and JC.

“I’m JC,” JC said patiently. “And these are my colleagues in spiritual affairs, Happy Palmer and Melody Chambers. Don’t let them worry you, they’re supposed to look like that. It helps scare the spooks. We are here to investigate the unnatural phenomena surrounding the recent death of Albert Winter. Might I inquire what you’re doing here?”

“Don’t tell them anything, Gramps!” snapped the girl, matching Happy scowl for scowl. “We’re not obliged to tell them anything. We don’t have to justify ourselves. We’ve got as much right to be here as anyone!”

“Mind your manners, child,” said the old man, stepping past her to nod politely to JC and his team. “You were brought up to behave better than that. I am Graham Tiley, Mr. Chance. This is my grand-daughter, Susan. We are here to make contact with the spirits.”

“You’ve seen something?” said Melody. “What have you seen?”

“We haven’t seen anything!” said Susan, still glowering at one and all. “But we’re… interested. There have always been stories about this place, and Gramps lives for all that supernatural stuff, so when the murder happened, there was no keeping him out of here. We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Never said you had,” murmured JC. “Let us all put our claws away and play nicely. I think we’re all on the same side here. Mister Tiley, would I be right in thinking that you have some personal connection to this place? Something that makes it important to you? You do seem to know your way around…”

“I used to work here, long ago,” said Tiley. “Haven’t been back through those doors in twenty-five years and more. Not since the whole place was closed down, and I was laid off. Along with everyone else. Terrible day. All of us made redundant, just like that, after all the years we gave to the company. Can’t say I was ever happy here; it was hard, repetitive work, and nothing much to show for it. But, the more I look back, the more I miss it. Not the work so much as the security. All the familiar faces, and the regular routines, knowing where you were going to be and what you were going to be doing, at every given moment of the day… There’s security in that, and reassurance. I suppose you never know what you really value until someone takes it away from you.” He stopped, and looked at JC. “I don’t usually open up like that to someone I’ve only met. There’s something about you…”

“People always find it easy to talk to me,” said JC. “I’m a good listener. That had better not be sniggering I hear behind me…”

“You had other jobs, Gramps,” said Susan. “Some of them a lot better paying.”

“But they were just jobs,” said the old man. “Something to do, in the time that was left to me. Something to keep me busy till the pension kicked in. And they did mean I didn’t have to spend so much time with your grandmother. A wonderful woman, my Lily, but best appreciated in small doses… She did so love to talk. She was very good at being reasonable, in a very wearing way… Where was I? Oh yes. This was the first job I had as a teenager, and I gave this factory the best years of my life. I saw more of this place than I did of my own children.”

“They understood,” said Susan.

“Did they?” said Graham. “I’m not sure I ever did. Now my Lily’s gone, and both your parents work all the hours God sends…”

“You’ve got me, Gramps.”

“Yes,” Graham said fondly. “I’ve got you, child.”

Susan looked at JC challengingly. “Is that your high tech piled up there? I know state-of-the-art shit when I see it. You really think you can measure ghosts, weigh ghosts, pin them down, and open them up?”

“Sometimes,” said Melody.

Susan glared at her. “Who did you say you work for?”

“We’re official,” said JC. “I’d leave it at that if I were you.”

“This is our haunting!” Susan said stubbornly. “We were here first!”

“You can’t stake a claim on a spirit, child,” said Graham. “We heard things, Mr. Chance. People tell stories… and I heard more than enough to convince me there was something out here worth investigating. We might only be amateur ghost hunters, but I do have experience in this field. I am here to offer help and guidance to any lost spirits who might be… held here, for any reason. Help them realise that they’re dead, but there is a better place waiting for them. Show them the peace and the protection of the Clear White Light.”

“Amateur night,” growled Melody. “All we need.”

“Quiet at the back,” said JC. “But the rude lady does have a point, I’m afraid, Mr. Tiley. It really isn’t safe here. You should leave.”

“Young man,” Graham said sternly, “I have cleared seventeen unhappy places and left them calm and peaceful, untroubled by any unquiet spirit. I know what I’m doing. I intend to make contact with whatever troubled soul resides here. You are welcome to stay and help if you wish.”

“Help, not interfere,” said Susan. “No-one messes with my gramps, not while I’m around.”

“And what is it you intend to do?” said JC. “I’d really like to know.”

Tiley glared at him suspiciously, not entirely sure he was being taken seriously. “I have my own tried and 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?”

“Get away from her, Gramps,” whispered Susan. “Don’t talk to her. She can’t… She can’t be…”

“I’m not worthy of her,” said JC. “But believe me when I tell you, no-one is holding Kim anywhere against her wishes.”

“Like to see anybody try,” said Kim.

“How did you… die?” said Susan.

“I was murdered,” said Kim. “But JC avenged me.”

“You never believed,” Graham Tiley said to Susan, a slow smile coming to his lips. “Don’t worry; I always knew you were here to keep me company. So, a real live… real dead ghost. Right before us. What do you think of your old gramps now, eh, Susan? Not so daft in the head after all?”

“We should get out of here,” said Susan. “We shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right! It isn’t natural!”

“It’s only a ghost!” said Tiley. “A person, with the body removed. Get a grip on yourself, child, and stop embarrassing me. Talk nicely to the young lady ghost. She looks to be about your age.”

“What do you say to a ghost?” demanded Susan. “Hi, nice to meet you, how’s your ectoplasm? Give me a break, Gramps, my whole world has just been turned upside down and inside out, and the pieces have fallen all over the carpet. You talk to her. I’m going to find a corner and mumble quietly to myself.”

“Youngsters today,” said Tiley. “No stamina.” He smiled at Kim. “It is nice to meet you, young lady. Are you sure there’s nothing keeping you from passing on? I’d be happy to help…”

“The only thing keeping me here is my JC,” said Kim. “And I wouldn’t be parted from him for all the worlds that may be. I had to die to find true love, and I won’t give it up now.”

“Well, well,” said Tiley. “My first real encounter with a spirit. Not at all what I’d expected, but still, most exhilarating! Pardon me for asking, my dear, but if you’re a ghost, why can’t you speak to whatever ghosts might be haunting this place?”

“Doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid,” said Kim. “There are all kinds of ghosts, and all kinds of hauntings.”

“But you can act as a medium, help us make contact with what’s happening here?”

“I don’t see why not,” said JC. “Kim has a foot in both worlds, the living and the dead. What better medium could there be?”

“You have such wonderful ideas,” said Kim. “Let me see what I can do.”

“Hold it, hold it!” said Melody, rushing over to her equipment. “I want to record everything that happens! If only so I can clear myself of all responsibility if it all goes pear-shaped in a hurry.”

JC nodded for Happy to go keep Melody company, and the telepath moved quickly over to join her-and watch her back. Once Melody was immersed in recording something, she often became blind to more immediate dangers. And Happy also knew that JC wanted him to observe everything telepathically, from a safe distance. Just in case. Kim drifted quietly out across the open factory floor, not even bothering to walk, as she concentrated on the matter at hand. She faded away some more as she gave less thought to her manifestation and more to what JC wanted of her.

Everyone looked round sharply. Nothing obvious had changed, but the sense of presence, or someone or something watching from the darkness, was suddenly that much stronger. Tiley called Susan back to him, and they huddled together, holding each other’s hands. Melody bent over her instruments, rapt at what her sensors were picking up. Happy bit down hard on his lower lip, concentrating on his mental shields. All around the factory, the shadows were longer and deeper and darker. The quality of what light remained seemed subtly debased, stained, even bruised. Tension coiled on the air, gradually growing tighter. And JC… watched it all with an easy grin, like a ringmaster at his own private circus.

“Anything, Kim?” he said.

“Something, JC,” said the ghost. “There’s so much information in this place. Layers and levels, some recent and some old… some very old. Wait, I think I’ve made contact…”

And the machinery returned. The whole factory floor was suddenly blazing with light and packed with huge machines, all of them working, constantly moving, deafeningly loud. Parts rose and fell, other parts slammed together, and a work-force of hundreds moved around them, operating machines, darting back and forth, picking things up and conveying them away. It was terribly loud and unmistakably present, but still, somehow… distant. As though separated from this Time by some unimaginable direction. JC moved in close beside Tiley, so he could shout in his ear.

“This is the top layer of the stone tape, a recording, playing back. Past events soaked into their surroundings, emerging again in the Present. What you’re seeing is a vision, a portrayal of what used to be here. A true vision, of real events, but not real now. We can see it but not affect it.”

Graham Tiley shook his head numbly. “I remember this… I know these people! Men I worked with, men I knew… Faces I haven’t thought of in years, and old friends long dead… Am I in there, somewhere? They all look so young! I want to go to them, and talk to them, warn them of things that are going to happen…”

“But you can’t,” said JC. “Because they’re not really here. If you walked among them, they couldn’t see you… You’d be a ghost to them. An image, out of Time.”

“Some of them are going to die young,” said Tiley. “Some are going to be maimed, and killed, stupid accidents that could so easily be prevented. And I can’t help them. The Past can be cruel, sometimes.”

And then the huge machines, and all the work-force tending them, began to slowly fade away. The sound went first, the thunder of the machines growing steadily quieter, as though receding into the distance. Then the image itself grew thin and insubstantial and was gone. The top layer of the stone tape disappeared, as something else moved forward to take its place. New images began to form, out of the Past.

“It’s the next layer of the stone tape,” JC said to Graham. “The level below, from deeper in the Past. Pushing aside the more recent image to make itself known.”

“It’s rising,” said Kim. Her gaze was far away, and her voice didn’t sound entirely human. “Forcing the more recent Past aside. JC, Something’s coming…”

“Who?” said JC, quietly but firmly. “Tell me, Kim. Who is it that’s coming?”

“Living things, old things, summoned things,” said Kim, not even looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on something only she could see. “Power. Old power. Harnessed power… blood and death, set to unnatural purpose… Something very old was called up here, to do terrible things… and it’s still here!”

“Summoned?” said JC. “What was summoned up, Kim? And who summoned it? Why?”

“Retribution,” said Kim.

JC stepped forward and took off his sunglasses. Tiley and Susan both cried out as they saw why he wore them. Something had happened to JC on a previous case. Trapped on a hell train, surrounded by demons, fighting for his life and for Kim, when all seemed lost, Something had reached down from the Higher Dimensions and touched JC briefly. Giving him the strength he needed to save them both. Much of that strength was gone now, but his eyes still shone like the sun, glowing with a strange brilliance. JC saw the world very clearly now; and when he needed to, he could See a great many things that were usually hidden from the living. All the secrets and wonders of the invisible world.

It had taken him a long time to find sunglasses dark enough and heavy enough to hide his glowing eyes.

JC glanced at Graham Tiley and Susan, and they both shrank back from his illuminated gaze.

“Don’t worry,” he said easily. “Think of them as psychic searchlights.”

“Stop fannying around being pleased with yourself, and concentrate,” snapped Melody, not looking up from her display screens. “What do you See? The readings I’m getting are all over the place, and half of them don’t make a blind bit of sense. I’m getting energy spikes, electromagnetic radiation… I’m getting Time, I’m getting Deep Time… Whatever’s heading our way is rising up from the bottom of the stone tape, recordings laid down centuries before. And the power readings are right off the scale… as though something is riding on the stone tape, using it to break out of the Past and into the Present.”

“And that is never good,” said Happy. “I’d run if I thought it would do any good. Something’s definitely coming, JC, closing in on us, closing in…”

Dark shapes appeared out of nowhere, imposing their existence on reality, huge and threatening. They manifested up and down the whole length of the factory, snapping into existence in ones and twos, sticking to the shadows, keeping well away from what little light was left. Tiley held out his storm lantern, holding it high to cover himself and his grand-daughter in the soft yellow light… but the dark shapes ignored him, prowling round the exterior of the factory floor. They were slowly taking on shape and form, vicious and malevolent shapes, with teeth and claws and glowing blood-red eyes.

“Happy,” said JC, apparently entirely unconcerned by what was happening all around him, “are you by any chance picking up anything with that amazing telepathic mind of yours? Because if so, now would be a good time to share. What are these things? What are we dealing with here?”

“I’m getting hunger, and rage, and a hell of a lot of bad attitude,” said Happy, from where he was hiding behind Melody. “But you can probably tell that from looking at them. I can’t seem to fix on what they actually are; I think whoever summoned them imposed a shape and form on them. Melody, what are these things? Elementals? Animal spirits? Something from the Outer Circles?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” said Melody, her gaze flashing from one display screen to the next, her fingers stabbing at her keyboards. “The readings I’m getting are… confused, to say the least. All I can tell you is that whatever is behind these manifestations is old. Very old. Centuries old. Hell, they might even be Pre-human in origin!”

“I’m picking up human traits along with the animal,” said Happy, rubbing miserably at his head. “And not in a good way.”

“Could these be sendings, from the Great Beasts?” said JC. “The Hogge, or the Screaming Hives?”

“Okay,” said Happy. “I just did something in my trousers. I am leaving now. Try to keep up.”

“Stand still!” snapped JC. “You want them to notice you?”

“Definitely not connected to the Great Beasts,” said Melody. “No trace of the subtle energies normally associated with the Outer Abominations… Whatever’s behind those shapes is of earthly origin. And the power source, the original summoner, is quite definitely human. People began this. Whatever it is.”

“I don’t understand a single thing you people are saying,” said Graham Tiley.

“We do, so you don’t have to,” JC said breezily. “We’re professionals.”

“And I am only an amateur,” said Graham. “But this is my factory, and my world, and I know a thing or two.”

He gave Susan his lantern and strode out onto the factory floor, holding his empty hands before him. The dark shapes chasing and leaping around the factory walls seemed to slow, and take notice of him. They began to close in on him, circling. Susan looked like she wanted to go to him but couldn’t move. JC went quickly over to stand beside her and make sure she didn’t do or say anything that might draw the shapes’ attention to her. Graham Tiley stood his ground as the dark shapes moved in. He held his hands out to them and spoke in a calm, reasonable voice.

“In the name of the Clear White Light,” he said, “be at peace. Whatever you are, whoever you are, be at peace and at rest. There is nothing here to alarm you, nothing here to threaten you. We are all of us people of goodwill. We want only to help. We can help you find rest, show you the path to the better place that is waiting for all of us. Come to me. Listen to me. The Clear White Light is everywhere. You only have to open yourself to it, and it will embrace you. You don’t have to stay here. There is a better place…”

He broke off. Several of the dark shapes were very close by then. There was power in them, and a remorseless savagery. Rage, hunger, violence beat on the air. Flashes of long, curved claws and sharp, vicious teeth. Eyes that glared with pure spite and hate. And all of them closing in on him. He tried to speak the words of help and comfort, but they wouldn’t come. He could feel his old heart hammering painfully in his chest. Not now, you old fool, he thought. This would be a really stupid way to die.

JC moved swiftly forward, his bright white suit shining in the gloom, his eyes like spotlights. He put himself between Tiley and the nearest dark shapes, and as he glared about him, they all fell back, reluctant to face the light blazing from his eyes.

The shapes paused briefly, then snapped suddenly into focus as their forms finally clarified. They were all big Black Dogges, dozens of them, huge and lean and muscular, their dark bodies a good five feet and more at the shoulder. They looked like dogs but moved like wolves, with supernatural speed and grace and awful power. They padded across the open factory floor, blood-red eyes glowing fiercely, heavy claws digging deep grooves in the concrete floor. When they snarled, they showed huge mouths packed with vicious teeth. These were not creatures of the wild; they were unnatural things, from some unimaginable Past, summoned forward into the Present and shaped into the Black Dogges of legend.

“I’ve never liked dogs,” said Happy.

“It’s the old stories, come to life,” said Tiley. “Only with more teeth and claws than I’d imagined…”

“Big, pointy teeth,” said Happy. “Really big, pointy teeth. Anyone got a ball to throw?”

“No-one move,” said JC, his voice carefully calm and easy. “Everyone watch everyone else’s back.”

“The stories say, to see the Black Dogge means you’re going to die,” said Tiley.

“Not on my watch,” said JC. “Sometimes, stories are only stories. Happy, concentrate on finding out what they want. Melody, I need more information on what these things are when they’re not being Black Dogges. And Kim… You can See things that are hidden from the living. Hidden even from my eyes. Try and find the ghost of the man who was killed here and started all this, Albert Winter.”

“They’re definitely not dogs,” said Happy, sounding almost surprised. “Not even a little bit doggy. Whoever summoned them up imposed the shape of the Black Dogges on them, to better control them. I don’t know what they were before. Melody?”

“Deep Time, definitely Pre-human,” said Melody. “You wouldn’t believe the tachyon discharges I’m picking up. Whatever they are, they’re from so far in the Past, I don’t think they even exist any more. I think… they’re trapped here.”

“I’ve found the ghost of Albert Winter,” said Kim. “He just appeared, along with the Dogges. Am I to take it that the theory of death by manifesting machines has been officially overturned?”

“It’s the Dogges,” said JC. “When in doubt, always go for the killer dogs with the huge claws and jaggedy teeth. Try and bring the ghost into focus, Kim. The rest of us will keep the Dogges occupied.”

“You speak for yourself,” said Happy. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be right here, hiding under the machinery.”

“You even look like touching my stuff, and I will have your balls off with a blunt spoon,” Melody said immediately.

“I want to go home,” said Happy.

One of the Black Dogges broke suddenly from the pack and headed straight for Melody’s workstation, racing across the concrete floor. Melody produced a machine pistol from somewhere about her person and opened up on the approaching Dogge. Graham Tiley and his grand-daughter cried out, and huddled together, while JC moved quickly to stand with them. Melody swept her gun back and forth, riddling the huge Dogge with bullets, the roar of the machine pistol shockingly loud in the quiet. The Dogge didn’t even try to dodge the bullets. They passed right through him, as though his huge shape was nothing but a shadow. The bullets flew on to blast holes in the wall behind. Melody kept firing until she ran out of bullets. The Dogge loomed up before her, and jumped right over her and her workstation, landing lightly on the floor behind. It ran on, then circled quickly round, to come at Melody and Happy again. Teeth showed in its great jaws as though it were laughing; but it hadn’t made a single sound.

Melody lowered her empty gun and looked at Happy. “Down to you then, lover.”

“What can I do?” said Happy.

“Come on… You took on Fenris Tenebrae, one of the Great Beasts, down in the Underground, and laughed in his face.”

“I was very heavily medicated at the time!”

“Come on, do it for me,” said Melody. “And there will be treats later…”

“Sometimes you scare me more than the ghosts,” said Happy.

“You know you love it,” said Melody. “Heh-heh.”

They turned to face the Black Dogge, racing silently across the concrete floor towards them. Happy stepped forward and glared right into the Dogge’s crimsoneyed face. He reached out with his mind, searching for whatever bound the Dogges to this place, so he could break it… but the sheer animal ferocity he encountered swamped him. He made a sick, pained sound, thrust the animal emotions aside, and made himself stand his ground. Melody needed him to do this. He thrust out a telepathic block, the psychic equivalent of throwing a brick wall in the creature’s way. And the Black Dogge lurched to a sudden halt as it slammed right into it. Happy advanced on the Dogge, one step at a time, and the Dogge backed away, one step at a time. Happy frowned till his forehead ached, hitting the Black Dogge with one telepathic assault after another, battering it with pure brute psychic force… and the Dogge kept retreating, until finally it broke, and turned, and fled back to its pack, still circling round the factory perimeter. Happy made a rude gesture after it and turned back to Melody, trying to hide how much he was shaking.

“My hero,” said Melody.

“You have no idea how close to the wire that came,” said Happy. “It feels like my brains are leaking out my ears.”

“What makes you think you have any?” said Melody.

Happy glared at her. “Everyone’s got ears! I think I’d like to go home and lie down now, please!”

“Later, lover,” said Melody. “I’m a bit busy right now.”

The Black Dogges were still circling, still closing in relentlessly. JC turned to the old man.

“Talk to me, Mr. Tiley. Tell me the legend of the Black Dogges. The stories everyone tells. Including the not-at-all-nice bits you don’t normally admit to in front of strangers.”

“It goes back years,” Tiley said slowly. “Long before there ever was a factory here. On this place, back in the eighteenth century, there used to be an old manor house. The Winter family lived in that house and owned most of the land around. There was a quarrel, so they say, between the landed gentry Winters and a local working family, the Tileys. A quarrel, over a woman. A rape, they say, though most of the names and details are lost to us.”

“I never heard any of this,” said Susan. “You never told me any of this before, Gramps. Mum and Dad never said anything…”

“It was an old story,” said Tiley. “You didn’t need to be burdened with it. Sometimes, the past should stay in the past, so the rest of us can get on with our lives.”

“The story,” prompted JC. “The quarrel between the Winters and the Tileys. What came of it?”

“No justice then, for poor working folk,” said Graham. “No law, for poor black folks. So the head of the Tiley family at that time, he used the old knowledge to curse the Winters. He used the old forbidden words, and the Black Dogges came, to harass and hound the Winters to their deaths. Don’t ask me what kind of curse; that part of the story is long lost. Perhaps deliberately lost. The Dogges bedevilled the Winter family, and even people connected to the Winters. The Dogges followed people down lonely roads, late at night, speaking prophecy, always bad, always true. Other times, they chased men and women till they fell, then tore them apart. They came and went, and no-one could stand against them.

“They travelled the whole district, making the Winters’ life a misery, until finally the family left the house, and the area, and spread themselves across the country. The Dogges couldn’t follow, they were bound to the place of their summoning. But with no Winter left to torment, they appeared less and less, and finally vanished. The story continued, as stories do, changing down the centuries till the original details were forgotten. But we remembered. We Tileys. The manor house was torn down. The factory came much later, still owned by the Winters, from a distance.

“There were still sightings of Black Dogges, or stories of sightings, but no-one really believed in them any more. A different world, now. And then… he came back. The fool. Albert Winter. He was going to sell the land the factory stood on, but he wanted to see it for himself first. I wrote to him, telling him not to come, but of course I couldn’t say why, only that it was dangerous… So he came back. To where his old family home used to stand. And the Dogges came back.

“They woke up, they rose up, and they chased him till he died of it.”

“Oh, Gramps,” said Susan. “You should have told me.”

“I should never have brought you here, child,” said Tiley. “But I never really believed, till now… I believed in the Clear White Light.”

“You should have told me! It’s my family, too! I had a right to know!”

“I wanted to protect you! The curse should have died long ago. It shouldn’t still have a hold over the Winters, and the Tileys.”

JC moved away, to talk quietly with Kim. She was hovering a good foot above the floor, her shape so thin and insubstantial it was barely there, just a young woman made of flickering light. JC had to say her name several times before she finally turned her head to look at him.

“Kim,” said JC. “If the Dogges are still here, then the shade of Albert Winter must also still be here. Show him to me.”

Kim nodded, painfully slowly, then raised one hand and pointed. JC looked, and there was Albert Winter. Running, still running, fleeing desperately from the Black Dogges that still pursued him, and always would. Ghost Dogges chasing their ghostly victim, forever. He ran and ran, staggering and lurching, running endlessly round the perimeter of the factory, and behind came the Dogges. They pressed in close, hurting and harrying him, driving him on. Sometimes he fell, and the Dogges would savage him, tearing away chunks of ghostly flesh with ghostly jaws, leaving wounds that healed immediately, so the man could be forced to his feet to be chased again. They would chase him forever, in a hunt that would never end.

Some curses are worse than others.

Graham Tiley and his grand-daughter could see it, too, now. Tiley cried out at the sight of it and had to turn his head away. Susan hugged him to her, glaring defiantly at the Black Dogges around them.

“We have to stop this,” said JC. “The Past should stay in the Past

… Albert Winter, he’s the focal point! He’s why the Dogges manifested again. But to put him to rest, we have to stop the Dogges. Interrupt the curse. We have to save the ghost of Albert Winter!”

“I’d quite like to save us from the Dogges as well,” said Happy.

“Science can’t touch them,” said Melody. “I think the Dogges are older than Science. Or whatever these things were, before they were made into Dogges.”

JC looked at the old man. “You! Tiley! It’s your curse. Your family summoned up the Dogges, and your curse holds them here. Release Winter’s ghost from your curse, and the Dogges will be able to leave.”

“I can’t!” Tiley said miserably. His dark face was wet with tears. “I’d free him if I could, but I don’t know how! I don’t remember what words called them, no-one does any more.”

“Terrific,” said JC. “No, wait a minute… What did you say, Melody? Back before they were Dogges… They weren’t always like this! Whoever summoned them out of the Past imposed these shapes upon them! That’s the key!”

He strode right up to the nearest Black Dogge. It snarled at him, growling so low he felt it in his bones as much as heard it. Great lips pulled back to show savage teeth in powerful jaws. Claws on huge front paws dug deep into the concrete flow as the Dogge tensed, ready to spring. JC leaned forward and thrust his face right into the Dogge’s, meeting the blazing blood-red eyes with his own glowing gaze; and then he spoke sharply to the Dogge.

“Bad dog!”

It looked at him. Its jaw snapped shut, and its head came up. No-one had ever spoken to the Dogge like that before. It stared at JC, fascinated. The other Dogges stopped in their tracks to stare at JC. And the ghost of Albert Winter was finally able to stop running.

“Bad dog,” JC said firmly, holding the Black Dogge’s gaze with his own. “This is wrong! You were never meant to be like this. You are a dog, made to take the shape and form of a dog, and a dog was always meant to be man’s best friend. Some poor fool called you here and imposed this shape on you to follow the old stories; but revenge was never your true nature. You’re as cursed by this as your victims. But the man who summoned you here is long gone, and his need for revenge died with him. You don’t have to serve his anger any more. You don’t have to be like this, any more. You’re free to be… just dogs. Good dogs. Man’s best friend.”

And the Black Dogge sat down on its haunches and nodded its great head slowly. Inwardly, JC breathed a deep sigh of relief. He hadn’t been entirely sure that would work. In magic, the true naming of a thing is the true nature of that thing. And so Dogge became dog. JC gestured at Graham Tiley.

“That man there is a Tiley, descendant to the man who brought you here, and bound you in this form. He is ready to release you. Isn’t that right, Mr. Tiley?”

“Yes,” said Graham Tiley. “The past, with all its crimes and all its revenges, should stay in the past. You’re not needed here any more, so run free, noble dogs.”

The great dark shapes simply faded away, gone in a moment, gone back into the Past. The ghost of Albert Winter looked slowly about him.

“Go to him,” JC said to Tiley. “Forgive him. And then show him the way to leave, through the Clear White Light.”

“Of course,” said Tiley. “Maybe… he was the ghost I was looking for, all this time.”

The old man walked steadily over to the ghost, and they talked quietly together, then the ghost faded away and was gone.

Kim came over to join JC, appearing entirely solid and substantial again. “I do so love a happy ending, don’t you?”

“Black Dogges, haunted factories, and it all comes down to people, in the end,” said JC. “Human is, as human does. For good and bad.”