Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

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.