Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

of the winter that never ends. It’s threatening us, demanding our worship.”
    Suddenly, it was there with them. A vast, endless Presence hammering on the night, manifest but not material, enforcing its awful Presence on the world through an act of sheer malicious will. The monster in the dark that all children know and fear because they are so much closer to the primitive. An ancient Presence, powerful and pitiless, demanding worship and sacrifice, blood and horror. Out of the Past, out of Time, come to drag Humanity down to its own level again.
    Happy fell to his knees, both hands pressed to his head. He was crying raggedly, his face distorted by strange passions as he fought to maintain his psychic shields and keep out the primordial demands beating against his thoughts. Melody stood close by him, swinging her machine-pistol back and forth, desperate for something definite she could fight. And JC . . . stood thoughtfully, frowning a little, as though considering some difficult but distasteful problem.
    “It wants a sacrifice!” Happy cried out miserably. “A human sacrifice!”
    “No,” said JC. “We don’t do that any more.”
    “If we don’t give it what it wants, it’ll take us!” said Happy. “And after us, it’ll move on to the city!”
    “Well,” said JC, his voice carefully calm and composed, “we can’t have that, can we? Consider the haunting, my friends; every manifestation has its heart, its focus, its specific link to Present Time. And in this case . . . that focus, that last link in the chain of events, has to be the poor little old lady who was killed during the opening ceremony. Find her for me, Happy.”
    “Are you crazy?” Happy glared at him through teary eyes. “I don’t dare drop my shields! It’ll eat me alive, I can’t . . .”
    JC looked at him, and Happy’s babbling cut off immediately. JC could do that. One moment he was talking quite calmly and reasonably, and the next he was looking at you with eyes dark as the night and twice as cold. JC tried hard to be a good man, but you only had to look into his eyes at moments like that to know he had the potential to be something else entirely. Happy swallowed hard, sniffed back his tears, and concentrated.
    “She’s still here. Faint but definite trace. Lost, alone, walking up and down in the night, trying to find her way home.”
    “Bring her here,” said JC. “Bring her to me.”
    Without looking down, Melody placed a comforting hand on Happy’s shoulder. He stopped shaking and glared out into the dark as he concentrated.
    The Presence was thundering in all their heads, a great demanding wordless Voice, but Happy fought through it to reach a much smaller presence, the tiniest motes of light, drifting through the dark. He called to it, and the light hesitated, then changed direction. She came walking slowly out of the dark, into the circle of light, a little old lady in a battered old coat, walking stiffly but steadily, her wrinkled face calm but puzzled. She stopped abruptly, her eyes slowly focusing on the three ghost finders. JC stepped forward.
    “Hello,” he said, his voice surprisingly kind. “Can you tell me your name?”
    The ghost looked surprised for a moment, as though being asked to remember something that really wasn’t important any more. “Muriel,” she said finally. Her voice sounded perfectly normal. “Muriel Foster. Yes. I don’t . . . I don’t quite remember how I got here. My memory isn’t what it was . . . Don’t get old, young man. No-one ever tells you how much hard work it is, being old.”
    “Muriel . . .”
    “I shouldn’t be here, should I? There’s somewhere else I ought to be. I feel . . . like I’ve been dreaming, and now it’s time to wake up.”
    “That’s right, Muriel,” said JC. “It’s time for you to go on. To the place appointed for you, where there is no old age, and all old things are made new again.”
    “Yes,” said Muriel. “I’d like that.”
    “Can you hear the thunder all around us?”
    “Of course; I’m not deaf, you know.”
    “All you have to do is walk towards the thunder,” said JC. “Just . . . keep walking. And all of this will be over.”
    Muriel looked at him sharply. “There’s something you’re not telling me. I may be old, young man, but I’m not stupid. Tell me this; this thing you want me to do . . . Is it necessary? Does it matter?”
    “Yes,” said JC. “It will save a great many lives.”
    “Good,” said Muriel,