Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

this,” said JC, immediately all business again. “Helping the restless dead find peace is all part of our job description. But the only way to free these poor souls is to smash or destroy the Ghost Caller. Then they can pass on to their proper places, in the Hereafter.”
    “Hereafter?” said Laurie. “You mean, Heaven and Hell?”
    “Don’t look at me,” said Happy. “Way above my pay grade. We have enough trouble coping with the Here and Now.”
    “I’m an agnostic,” said Melody. “Mostly in self-defence.”
    “What matters is sending these lost souls on,” JC said firmly. “So they can be made whole and sane again.”
    “I’m more concerned with what happens if the passengers get out of these carriages,” said Happy. “Those windows don’t look particularly strong, or secure.”
    “If they get out?” said JC. “Nothing good, I should imagine. They have enough sense left to know a great wrong has been done them and enough anger to want revenge…”
    “You know,” said Melody, “this would be a really good time for you to produce one of those really powerful and utterly forbidden weapons that you carry about your person, the ones that you’re not supposed to have.”
    “The Boss made me give them all up, after the last case,” said JC. “In fact, she was most insistent about it. Had me strip-searched, and everything. And you really don’t want to know what the ‘and everything’ involved.”
    “She took
all your weapons
?” said Happy. “And you’re only telling us now?”
    “She’s been keeping a very close eye on me,” said JC. “I’ve had to be very careful. I need the Carnacki Institute’s resources to help me search for Kim.”
    “Look, do you have any nasty weapons about you or not?” said Melody.
    “Not as such,” said JC.
    “I want to go home,” said Happy loudly.
    “Excuse me,” Laurie said firmly. “But I have to ask…is this a real train or a ghost train? I mean, is it really, physically, here?”
    “Good question, Mr. Laurie,” said JC. “To which the official answer is, damned if I know. It certainly seemssolid enough…Best to treat it as though it’s real, right up to the point where we decide it’s more useful to treat it as though it isn’t. We are nothing if not flexible in this business, in the face of utter horror.”
    “We have to find the machine,” Melody said stubbornly. “The Ghost Caller. We have to shut it down.”
    “Dear Melody, practical as ever!” JC said cheerfully. “I love it when a plan comes together, and all the options narrow to a point where decisions become inevitable. And, given that the light blazing out of the rear carriage is so much stranger and soul-numbingly disturbing than all the others, I think we can safely assume that
that
…is the machine, in the baggage-car. Mr. Laurie, please stay right where you are, so we don’t have to worry about you. Team Ghost Finders, follow me.”
    “I’m quite happy to stay with Mr. Laurie,” said Happy.
    “What?” said JC. “And miss all the fun?”
    “Fun is overrated.”
    “You stand a much better chance of surviving if you stick with me,” said JC.
    “Right with you, boss,” said Happy, miserably.
    “Go, team!” said Melody.

    The three of them stuck close together as they moved slowly and cautiously down the platform, maintaining what they hoped was a safe distance from the carriages. Strange phosphorescent lights rose and fell behind the windows as though disturbed by unknown tides. The possessed dead passengers pressed up close against the bulging glass of the windows, crawling over and around eachother like so many insane insects. The Ghost Finders did their best not to look at them. Some horrors are harder to bear than others. It wasn’t the passengers’ fault, what had happened to them, what had been done to them; but that didn’t make it any easier to look at. A mad soul is so much harder to consider than a mad mind. Because where sanity runs out, the Outside moves in.
    It made sense to have stuck the Ghost Caller in the baggage-car, at the end of the train, as far-away from the passengers as possible; but in the end it hadn’t made any difference. JC insisted that they all walk the length of the train at a steady pace because it would have been only too easy to lose control and break into a run; and they couldn’t afford to lose control here, in these conditions, not even in the smallest of ways. The light blasting out of the