Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

A small cog in a small wheel in a small company that no-one else gave a damn about. But he woke up that morning with murder on his mind, and he couldn’t seem to shift it. He wanted to kill a beautiful woman . . . like all the ones who’d laughed at him, or spurned him, or worse still, ignored him. He wanted to hurt one of them the way they had hurt him. To strike back, just once, and let them feel the pain.
    So he took a big knife from his tiny kitchen in his shabby little flat and went out into the great big world, humming cheerfully. He descended into the Underground, and travelled up and down the lines, switching from platform to platform until finally . . . he saw her. And knew immediately that she was the one. He’d thought it would be a hard thing, a difficult thing, to actually kill another human being; but when the time came, he walked up behind her, stabbed her once in the back, and walked away. No-one saw or suspected him. Why should they? He was far too small and unimportant to be noticed. He went back to his flat, still humming cheerfully, made himself a meal-for-one in his little microwave, watched television, and went to bed.
    To dream of how it felt when the blade went in, and he twisted it, before withdrawing. He didn’t enjoy it. It felt like someone else’s dream.
    But this morning, a new feeling had driven him from his bed. The feeling that something had gone wrong. The morning news said that Oxford Circus Tube Station had been shut down, and serious news presenters said the word murder in their serious voices. And suddenly Billy knew he had to go back, that he had to go back down into the Underground and make sure there was no evidence left to link him to the crime. He couldn’t have anyone finding out what he’d done. That would be awful.
    Sneaking back in had proved surprisingly easy. On any other day the massed forces of uniformed police and security guards would have intimidated him into a frozen panic; but not that day. He walked right past them, and they never saw him. Partly because he was, after all, a small and insignificant person, but also because Someone was looking out for him. He could feel it. Someone big and powerful was protecting him.
    He walked right past them, right under their noses, and they couldn’t see him.
    But once he was down in the tunnels, moving in scurrying little runs through the fiercely bright light, from shadow to shadow and hiding-place to hiding-place, things happened that destroyed what little confidence he had. Bad things. Billy saw bad things. He saw ghosts and monsters and horrible, impossible things, nightmares broken loose and running wild in the world; and he ran and ran until finally he saw the worst thing of all. The ghost of the beautiful woman he’d killed the day before. She looked just as beautiful, dressed in white like an angel, her hair the same colour as the blood that had spilled down her back when he pulled out the knife.
    He crouched, in the deepest and darkest of the shadows, watching her with wide, confused eyes, scared out of his mind. He didn’t feel guilty, and he didn’t feel sorry; he knew now he’d only done what he’d done in the service of his Protector. But he was terrified that these big and important people, with their big and important voices, would tell the authorities what he’d done, then everyone would know. He’d be caught and punished and locked up in a cage, forever and ever. Billy had gone through most of his life afraid of being punished.
    First, he spied on JC and his team, then he spied on Natasha and Erik, trying to figure out who they all were and what they were doing. Trying to figure out what he should do. He saw them do amazing and awful things, then he saw them fight each other, and he saw them working together. None of it made any sense to Billy. The ghost was there, too, acting like she was still alive; and once she turned her head and looked right at Billy. He shot off immediately, running and running and not looking back, and when he finally stopped to glance fearfully around him, he was on a platform he didn’t recognise.
    He moved slowly, diffidently, down the platform. He was meant to be there. He could feel it. His unseen Protector had brought him there, for some important purpose. A train pulled into the station, moving smoothly and silently—a dream of train, come just for him. Billy made ooh and aah noises. The train was painted in bright colours, from end to end, all the fresh and