Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

of the tunnel-mouth and into Bradleigh Halt. A ghost train, carrying dead men and women as its cargo, all of them driven mad by all that time away…The train will come back, they say, come home, to announce the end of the world, perhaps.
    “There are those who say you can still hear the train travelling at night, sounding its awful whistle as it enters the tunnel on the other side of the Fells; but no-one’s ever heard it here. You can always find someone in a pub, ready to tell you the story for the price of a pint, how they’ve heard steel wheels pounding along tracks that aren’t there any more. That old steam-whistle, like thescream of a soul newly damned to Hell…Cutting off abruptly as it enters the tunnel, going nowhere…”
    “But no-one here’s actually seen it?” said Melody, looking up from assembling her equipment.
    Laurie shrugged briefly. “Who would want to? Local feeling is, if you can see it, then it can see you. And it’s never good to attract the attention of something from the dark side.”
    “So that’s why we’re here,” said Happy. “A late-running train. How very unusual.”
    Laurie gave him a hard look. “Was a time I would have said it was only another tale, for telling on a windy night by a roaring fire. Like Black Shuck, the huge black dog that wanders the back lanes late at night, confronting people and telling them their fortunes—always bad. Or like the local mine-shaft they had to close down because miners working on a new seam heard sounds of someone else digging on the other side. Or maybe the graveyard up the road, so old they’re buried three deep in places; where it’s said the dead rise out of their graves on Midsummer’s Eve, to dance till dawn. There are always stories…and after what’s been seen and heard here, I don’t know what I believe any more.”
    He sighed heavily, turning his back on the Ghost Finders to look about him. “The Trust had such plans for this place. A fully refurbished Bradleigh Halt, after all these years. They’d made contact with other steam enthusiasts, made arrangements to have a proper steam train run through. There are still some out there, you know, running private services. My son Howard had it all set up; we were going to have regular excursions comingthrough…And now, no-one will come here. No-one dares.”
    “Don’t give up yet, Mr. Laurie,” said JC. “We’ll sort things out and put them right. That’s what we do.”
    “Mostly,” said Happy.
    “Don’t think I can’t reach you from here,” said Melody. She consulted her various pieces of equipment, arranged before her in a semi-circle, on a collapsible stand of her own design, and seemed pleased enough. Sensors and scanners, computers and monitors, and more than a few things that only made sense to her. Laurie looked it all over with a sceptical eye. Melody stared him down. “This isn’t as much as I’m used to, Mr. Laurie, but this was all I could fit into the boot of the taxi. More will follow, if necessary.”
    “All very shiny and impressive, I’m sure, miss,” said Laurie. “But I can’t guarantee you how much of it’ll work here.”
    “I don’t need to rely on your local power supply,” Melody said easily. “My babies have their own generator.”
    “There’s a sentence you won’t hear very often,” said Happy. He strode across to the Waiting Room door, pushed it wide open, and looked inside. Shadows looked back at him, quiet and unmoving. Happy sneered at them, shut the door carefully, and looked back at Laurie.
    “So what are we waiting for? What’s going to happen? Is it going to involve ectoplasm? Because if it does, I’ll put my heavy coat on. Messy stuff…”
    “It’s the small things you notice, at first,” said Laurie. “You’ll see. The doors here don’t like to stay closed. Or open. Any of them.”
    They all looked back at the main door they’d come in through, giving out onto the platform. It stood wide open, spilling bright electric light out into the evening. They all studied the door carefully for a long moment. Nothing happened. And then Happy frowned suddenly.
    “Wait a minute…I shut that door behind me when we came in. Didn’t I?”
    None of the others had an answer for him, one way or the other. Happy scowled, strode quickly over to the open door, and slammed it shut. Then he backed quickly away from it to rejoin the others, not taking his eyes off the door all the way. It didn’t move.
    “Look at