Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

equipment, doing things only she understood. Happy was sulking quietly on his metal seat. So, when in doubt, keep them busy and keep them occupied, and they won’t have time to be scared. It always worked for JC. He clapped his hands sharply to get their attention. The sound hardly echoed at all.
    “Talk to me, Melody,” he said cheerfully. “Tell me things of importance and interest.”
    “Getting definite readings now, of a single great intrusion from the Past,” said Melody. “Deep Past. And I do mean really Deep Past.”
    JC looked at her thoughtfully. “The same kind of entity we encountered in the car park?”
    “I said Deep Time, and I meant it,” said Melody. “We are talking ancient, maybe even primordial. So powerful it’s like a gravity well, without the well, a spiritual maelstrom . . . only pushing out, not in. Something so powerful it distorts and transforms its whole environment merely by being here. But I’m also getting a whole bunch of more recent readings, from what are quite definitely contemporary phenomena. People and events imprinted on Time, hauntings only days or weeks old. Ghosts, JC. Lots and lots of ghosts.”
    “A new energy source, reinvigorating lesser patterns,” JC said thoughtfully. “But what kind of energy source?”
    “I hate to say it,” said Melody, turning to look directly at JC for the first time, “but I think we have to consider the possibility of an other-dimensional intrusion. That something from a higher dimension has descended into our world and made itself at home here.”
    “That’s it,” said Happy, surging to his feet. “We are now officially way out of our depth. I think I’ll bolt for the exit now. Try and keep up.”
    “Stand still, man,” said JC. “Melody, can you track this intrusion down, pinpoint its location?”
    “Let’s not,” Happy said immediately. “Really really bad idea, people.”
    “I can point you in the right direction,” said Melody. “Go and find it with my blessing, give it a good kicking, then drag it back here so I can poke it with a stick.”
    “Love to,” said JC.
    “I have fallen among mad people,” said Happy. “ Am I the only sane person here? We are not trained, equipped, or armed enough to deal with Great Beasts or Outer Monstrosities, or any of the Abominations! We are ghost finders, not god killers! Being in the same place as . . . whatever this thing is, is playing hell with my head. I can feel it, out there, waiting for us. Waiting for us to come to it, so it can do terrible things to us! Please, JC, trust me; we are not ready for this.”
    “Happy, you heard the Boss,” said JC, not unkindly. “There’s no-one else. Or at least, no-one else who can get here in time. We can’t let this spread, Happy. We have to stop it here.”
    “How?” said Happy. All the anger had gone out of him, leaving only fatigue and bitterness. “What can we do?”
    “What we always do,” said JC. “Hit hard, move fast, improvise wildly, and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat at the very last moment through superior gamesmanship and blatant cheating.”
    “Oh, that’s what we do, is it?” said Melody. “I’ve often wondered.”
    Happy turned his back on both of them, staring determinedly off into the distance. He would have liked to indulge in a sulk, but upset as he was, he still knew that JC was right. He had to do something. Because he was there. Because there wasn’t anybody else. Story of his life, such as it was.
    “Ghosts,” he said loudly. “I can sense ghosts everywhere. All kinds, too. But most of them are irrelevant. Old stone tapes, stirred up by the arrival of the Intruder. No connection to what’s really going on. There is a purpose to all this. An intelligent purpose, with a definite end in mind.”
    “It’s always the same with you,” Melody said cuttingly. “Every case we work, you always have to bring up the big picture , look for some sinister hidden intent, so you can fit it into your Grand Conspiracy of Absolutely Everything.”
    “She does have a point,” said JC.
    “The dead are at war with the living,” said Happy, spinning round to glare at JC and Melody. “Or some of them, anyway. Abhuman creatures are constantly trying to get to us, to force their way into our world from their strange outer dimensions, to eat us, or rule us, or replace us. It isn’t only me that thinks this, you know. Most of the big thinkers at the Carnacki Institute are convinced that