Ghost Club 1

by Deborah Abela

  Dylan’s scream hurtled down the corridor like a feral cat’s. Angeline and Edgar turned to see him dangling from the doorhandle.

  ‘Oh dear,’ was all Endora could manage.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Gloom asked and hobbled after the others.

  Angeline got there first. ‘Had enough of us already?’

  Dylan could only wheeze in response – and look terrified.

  ‘Just hold on,’ Edgar said. ‘We’ll do the rest.’

  Gloom grabbed a large mace from a rack of weapons on the wall behind them. He gripped the wooden handle and began rotating the spiked metal ball around his head.

  Dylan’s eyes were ablaze with fear.

  ‘Don’t worry, Master Dylan,’ Gloom puffed. ‘I’ve handled one of these many times. Hold on tight.’

  Dylan increased his grip. His muscles ached, the last of his breath squeezed from his lungs, and his brief and not very interesting life flashed before his eyes.

  Gloom gave out one loud groan before hurling the mace and sinking its spikes into the door. Vibrations coursed through Dylan’s body, threatening to shake him loose from the handle. His head emptied of all thoughts, except for one: he was going to die.

  Gloom slowly pulled the mace towards him, bringing the door with it. Edgar grabbed Dylan around the waist, while Angeline hoisted his legs up. In a matter of moments, they’d laid him out on the floor.

  Endora stood back, clapping her gloved hands. ‘Well done, team.’

  Dylan gasped for breath and pointed to his pocket. Angeline reached inside and pulled out a lolly, a hanky and, finally, a folded paper bag.

  Dylan grabbed the bag, held it around his mouth and started breathing into it.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Angeline.

  ‘Hyperventilation,’ Edgar said. ‘When someone breathes too quickly and deeply, it decreases the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood. Breathing into a bag means he can take in the carbon dioxide he exhaled and stop himself from fainting.’

  Dylan found enough breath to stutter. ‘Who . . . builds . . . a door . . . that goes . . . nowhere?’

  ‘Technically,’ Edgar answered, ‘it doesn’t go nowhere, it goes . . .’

  ‘Into midair! I know. With a great black moat below it!’ Dylan spluttered and breathed into the bag again.

  ‘Yes, that can be pesky,’ Endora agreed.

  ‘Pesky?’ Dylan cried. ‘How about life-ending?’

  ‘You must try to stay calm,’ Edgar suggested. ‘If someone suffers from hyperventilation it’s best to avoid stressful situations.’

  ‘Like falling out of a mansion from the third floor?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Edgar nodded seriously.

  ‘Who would build a house like this?’

  ‘Emmeline Crump,’ Endora explained. ‘The generous benefactor of this building. She claimed to have been haunted by the spirit of an old man who was quite the grumpy thing. He appeared to her several times, threatening to make her life a misery if she didn’t keep making additions to the house – stairs, balconies, steeples. She had many rooms built, even rooms tucked into rooms. Small passages that go nowhere and doors that open onto other doors, walls and –’

  ‘Open moats,’ Dylan finished.

  ‘Yes,’ Endora winced, ‘sometimes open moats, which means it may be wise not to be too curious or venture too far afield before you know the mansion better.’

  Gloom leant in close, taking on his serious storyteller’s tone, a macabre smile sneaking into his lips. ‘They say many people have become lost in hidden rooms, trapped in dungeons they’d fallen into or perished by –’

  ‘I think I’m okay to get up now.’ Dylan scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Well, that’s my job done,’ Gloom said. ‘Delivered my charges safe and sound. Now it’s over to you, Endora.’

  Gloom shuffled away, his hand resting on his bad leg, whistling as if he was off to pick daisies.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Endora enthused, ‘I have so much to show you. Follow me.’ With a crisp step, she led the way down the hall.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Angeline asked Dylan.

  ‘I seem to be getting that question a lot today.’

  ‘Everyone has bad days,’ Angeline said, ‘but you’ll see – it’ll all look up from here.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’ He looked over his shoulder to see Gloom standing at the top of the stairs, looking back, as if he’d been waiting for Dylan to turn around. The old man gave him a single wave and disappeared down the stairs.

  Dylan lowered his voice. ‘Was there ever a boy locked in a room and guarded by a cheetah?’

  Angeline laughed. ‘Did you knock your head when you fell out the door?’

  Dylan looked crestfallen. ‘No. Gloom told me.’

  ‘He has an incredible imagination,’ Edgar said. ‘He can make up a story about anything.’

  ‘He made it up?’

  ‘It’s a hobby of his,’ Edgar said. ‘You can’t hold back the poet in him.’

  ‘And you don’t find that . . . creepy?’

  ‘Gloom?’ Angeline looked at her brother and shook her head. ‘He hasn’t got a creepy bone in his body.’

  ‘Do any of his stories or poems have happy endings?’

  Angeline opened her mouth. ‘Of course they . . .’ Then closed it. ‘No, I don’t think they do.’

  ‘And you don’t think that’s creepy?’

  She shrugged. ‘I hadn’t thought about it before.’

  ‘And he carries an axe,’ Dylan protested.

  ‘He’s the club’s groundsman,’ Edgar said. ‘He needs his axe for chopping firewood and removing stray tree branches.’

  ‘He keeps a tarantula in his pocket.’

  Angeline smiled. ‘You met Gertrude. Isn’t she cute?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Woohoo!’ Endora was standing at the Depository door. ‘Ready for the guided tour?’

  ‘Your new life is about to begin,’ Edgar said.

  Dylan hung back a few steps and mumbled, ‘What if I was happy with the old one?’

  Walking beneath the heavy wooden doorframe, Dylan smelt something familiar, like being inside a musty old book, and, for the first time since he’d entered the Ghost Club, he felt strangely at home.

  ‘Welcome to the Depository,’ Endora held her gloved hands out wide, ‘the research heart of the Ghost Club. Now that we can properly meet, I am Endora Spright, head of the Depository, and it is very fine to meet you, Master Dylan.’

  Dylan held out his hand, but Endora flung her arms behind her and stepped back.

  ‘Sorry.’ Dylan looked at his cake-splattered hands and suit. ‘There was a small incident with a few dozen cupcakes downstairs.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not the cupcakes exactly,’ Endora said. ‘I have a small problem with . . .’ She looked as if she could hardly say the word.

  ‘Germs,’ Edgar whispered.

  Endora squinted and nodded her head vigorously. ‘It’s nothing personal, you see, it’s just that I . . . I . . .’

  ‘She doesn’t like to be touched,’ Angeline helped out, ‘or she may catch your germs.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dylan wiped his hands against his suit.

  ‘Angeline doesn’t mean your germs,’ Edgar clarified. ‘Anyone’s germs.’

  ‘Yes,’ Endora said, ‘which can make life a little tricky, but we seem to manage okay.’ She gave a nervous giggle. ‘But you didn’t come to hear about me or the amount of germs that fester just about everywhere we . . .’ She took a deep, calming breath and smiled. ‘You came to be shown around, and this is the perfect place to start: the library where we keep all our field reports and evidence of ghostly activity.’

  All around them were shelves of neatly aligned b
ooks straddled by long wooden ladders reaching all the way to the ceiling. There was a lounge suite circling a coffee table, a large stately desk with several computers and a long table dotted with rounded green lamps. On the desk were wooden boxes containing pens, rulers and silicon-tipped tongs of various sizes for turning the delicate pages of old books. All were lined up in precise rows. Endora straightened one of the chairs so that it lined up perfectly with the others.

  Everything, in fact, was perfect.

  ‘Every documented paranormal case known to the Ghost Club is stored here. The files outline the kind of spiritual disturbance that occurred, who the investigators were, what actions they took and the equipment and methods they used to deal with the situation.’ She looked around and drew in a deep, contented breath. ‘We’re standing among stories dating back hundreds of years. We can learn so much by what has come before.’

  A small grey cat snuck into the room and studied Dylan. She curled into a ball on the lounge and kept one eye firmly fixed on his every move.

  ‘Part of your duty as a Ghost Club member is to make yourself familiar with those stories. All of them have been converted to e-documents and saved on our database, so you’ll be able to read them at your convenience. And since you’re a big fan of Gloom’s stories, you’ll love some of the tales we have here.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ This was hard to believe as Dylan looked more like a boy about to be very sick.

  Endora pointed to the lower sections of the shelves, which housed wide, thin drawers. ‘In here we keep older maps that pinpoint known haunting sites all over the world, as well as records that are useful for tracking down the history of haunted sites. We have microfilm with copies of newspapers dating back to the beginning of the printing press, and a highly advanced computer with the latest 3-D imaging software and direct links to institutions such as the Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages, ASIO and Federal Police headquarters.’

  ‘You have the police and government spies helping you out?’ Dylan turned his back on the staring cat.

  ‘They’re big supporters of our work, mostly because it means any reports of paranormal activity can be passed directly to us. They’ve got enough in the “real” world to worry about without having to deal with the afterworld as well. In return, they tell us about the criminal history of a location or person – living or dead – and we can use this to work out why the haunting is occurring.’

  ‘Endora knows all of the most haunted places in the world,’ Angeline admired.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m familiar with all of them,’ Endora said, blushing, ‘but I do confess a fascination with sites of spectral activity.’

  ‘Like Dracula’s castle in Transylvania,’ Edgar said, ‘referred to by the locals as “The Fortress of Fear”.’

  ‘And the Tower of London,’ Angeline said, ‘with its nine-hundred-year history of gruesomeness. Even dogs are too afraid to go near Salt Tower, where royalty were held before their execution.’

  ‘And Hampton Court, once the home of Henry VIII and haunted by a range of ghosts.’

  Angeline pursed her lips. ‘Most of whom seem to be his ex-wives.’

  ‘When a suspected haunting is reported,’ Endora continued, ‘Ghost Club members like yourselves are sent out into the field while I investigate the history of the site and hopefully come up with information that helps work out why there is a haunting and how to stop it.’

  She spun around and opened a set of doors at the end of the Depository. ‘And now for something very special.’ Inside a small, windowless room, soft lights illuminated shelves and glass cabinets filled with old scientific equipment.

  ‘Here we have the museum,’ Endora whispered. ‘In the early days of the club, investigators used all sorts of equipment to capture and record supernatural activity.’ She pointed to a large black box with a rotating metal cylinder on top. From the centre of the cylinder protruded a coiled cable ending in a funnel. ‘This is a dictaphone from the 1930s, and this box with lenses is an early camera called a box brownie. Here we have a cinematic projector and this,’ she pointed to a glass tube held above a wooden block by a metal bracket, ‘is an early version of an X-ray. Of course, there were also early infrared and ultraviolet lights, microscopes and goggles, but this,’ she changed glasses and stood before a dimly lit cabinet, ‘is our most famous possession.’

  Inside was a box-like device with a handle at the side, a series of tubes and cords on top with a large horn attached at the back.

  ‘What is it?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘Thomas Edison’s Ghost Machine.’

  ‘The same Thomas Edison who invented the electric light bulb?’

  ‘Strictly speaking,’ Edgar said, ‘he didn’t invent the light bulb. Loads of other inventors were working on it, but he perfected it so it could be used in people’s homes. He had over a thousand patents for his inventions, including the phonograph.’

  ‘He was quite the celebrity in his time,’ Endora said. ‘People hung off his every word as if he was a genius – which, in my humble opinion, he was.’

  ‘So what’s a Ghost Machine?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘Just as phonographs recorded people’s voices, Edison wanted to create a machine that would record the voices of people who had died. It is believed he was working on it right up until his own death.’

  ‘Trouble is,’ Angeline said, ‘when he died, people searched everywhere, but no machine or plans were found.’

  ‘Until,’ Endora enthused, ‘Grandmaster Fleischmann led a team who managed to uncover those previously lost plans, and we were able to piece together what it may have looked like. And here it is!’

  ‘Ahhh!’ Dylan screamed as a dead weight landed on his head. ‘What is it? Get it off!’

  ‘Zelda!’ Endora shooed the cat away. ‘What have I told you about scaring people like that?’

  Zelda purred and circled Endora’s legs.

  ‘Oh no. This is going to be bad.’ Dylan reached into his pocket and took out a hanky. ‘I’m allergic to cats. Any minute now I’m going to be one big sneeze machine.’

  ‘Not with this one you won’t be,’ Angeline smiled. ‘She’s a ghost.’

  ‘She’s a ghost cat?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘It’s cleaner than living with a real one,’ Endora said. ‘No messy hairs or germs, plus I’m allergic too.’

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘Over the last few years, ghostly activity has been increasing. I was working so hard and spending so much time here that I thought I might as well move in.’ She opened another door off the Depository, revealing a small apartment with a bed, kitchenette, bathroom and a large window plastered over with black paper.

  But Dylan didn’t notice the room so much as what Endora had said before opening the door. ‘Ghostly activity has been increasing?’

  ‘We’re busier than we’ve ever been.’

  A quiet beeping came from Endora’s pocket. She took out a Tracker, removed her glove and pressed a finger to the screen. The device lit up with a message. ‘Another ghost call. I’m afraid I’m going to have to get to work.’ Endora smiled at the screen, looking as though she’d been given an early Christmas present. ‘Looks like this one’s a doozy. Multiple sightings witnessed by several guests at a lakeside hotel.’ She motioned towards the door. ‘Which means this is probably a very good time to direct you to the Spectorium.’ She led them back into the library.

  ‘It was lovely to meet you, Master Dylan.’ The glasses around her neck clinked together as she gave a small bow. ‘I’ll look forward to our first ghost-catching together.’

  Her smile was so warm that Dylan almost forgot his earlier fears. ‘Thank you, Endora.’

  ‘Now I better attend to that message.’ She led them into the dim light of the hall, waved goodbye and closed the door.

  ‘I don’t me
an to be rude,’ Dylan began, ‘but why would someone want to live here? It’s miles from anywhere and a bit . . . well, gloomy.’

  They walked past a flight of stairs that ended at the roof. ‘As well as germophobic,’ Edgar explained, ‘she’s agoraphobic.’

  ‘She has a fear of open spaces?’

  ‘That’s not quite the exact definition. It’s more a feeling of overwhelming anxiety about being in situations where you feel escape would be difficult.’

  ‘She never leaves here and doesn’t even like looking outside,’ Angeline said.

  Dylan’s eyes widened. ‘There were no windows in the Depository.’

  ‘She had them all covered up.’

  Dylan tried to get it straight. ‘So she’s happy dealing with ghosts, but scared of the outside world.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Angeline’s voice quietened. ‘Sometimes it’s easier that way.’

  ‘Ghosts are her fascination,’ Edgar said, ‘but everything about the real world scares her.’

  Angeline nodded. ‘Especially postmen.’

  ‘Postmen?’

  ‘When she was a teenager at boarding school, her parents and younger sister went on holiday to Trinidad and Tobago. But they just . . . disappeared. The news was hand delivered in a letter, and she’s been afraid of postmen ever since.’

  ‘Any mail she gets has to be opened by someone else – usually Myra.’

  Dylan tripped over the foot of a crouching marble tiger. ‘No one’s really big on lights here, are they?’

  ‘You get used to it after a while,’ Edgar said. ‘We’re keen not to scare away any potential paranormal activity.’

  ‘Generally, ghosts don’t like the light,’ Angeline added.

  ‘There are other ghosts here, besides Zelda?’ Dylan looked around.