She dug deeper into her satchel and smiled as she revealed a canvas bag with a funnel on the end of a coiled tube. ‘This is a Spectrovac. It works like a vacuum cleaner but sucks up ghosts instead of dust.’ She stood up and demonstrated. ‘You slip the strap around your neck and shoulder, like this, so the bag is nestled against your body. Grab hold of the funnel with both hands, direct it at the ghost, press the button on the powerpack and hold on tight. Some ghosts can be quite feisty and will do everything they can not to get sucked up, so it may take all your strength but it’s very effective.’
Dylan felt the material of the Spectrovac. ‘How can a ghost be kept in a bag?’
‘In the lining is a thin layer of energy particles,’ Edgar explained. ‘When you turn the Spectrovac on, they vibrate at such a high frequency to create a barrier between this world and the next – ghosts can’t pass through.’
‘What do you do once they’re inside?’
‘We return to the Spectorium and Grandma Rose analyses the contents.’
‘So how do you know whether to use the Atomiser or the Spectrovac?’
‘The Atomiser,’ Edgar began, ‘is more for your spectral visitors who –’
‘. . . can be a pain to reason with,’ Angeline interjected, raising an eyebrow.
‘But the Spectrovac is more for your ghosts and apparitions who you believe may have something to tell you but are being a little reluctant to cooperate.’
‘What else do we have?’ Angeline stared into her satchel. ‘There’s a retractable telescopic mirror that enables you to see around corners, a miniature periscope, Ghost Soap –’
‘Ghost Soap?’
‘Dealing with the afterlife can be a pretty messy business.’
‘Messy how?’
‘Slime, custard, ectoplasm, but this is mostly for ectoplasm, which can be really hard to clean off. Oh, and of course, you have your ghost coat and boots!’ Angeline said. ‘They can absorb the impact of an attack, are fire-resistant and are specially lined for when the temperature drops.’
‘It can get very cold,’ Edgar said.
‘They’re both reinforced with a shock-absorbing lining for when you have a fall or tumble or your ghost gets a bit nasty.’
‘Nasty?’ Dylan turned ashen and pulled his coat tighter.
‘Some ghosts like to throw things around.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Suits of armour, pottery – anything they can get their hands on, really – but when they do, your coat and boots will help keep you safe,’ Angeline said, but Dylan didn’t seem convinced. ‘Just think of them as pesky pets.’
‘If I had a pesky pet I could put it in the backyard.’
‘All right, a pesky pet who can walk through walls.’
‘And run up and down corridors with chains and cracking whips.’ Dylan slumped.
The cat suddenly looked up. Her ears pricked, her fur raised, and her tail whisked in agitation. She let out a low, rumbling growl before she leapt from Edgar’s arms and sprinted through the stable door.
Angeline and Edgar adjusted their goggles over their eyes and scanned the area. Dylan followed their lead. ‘Anything?’ He barely breathed.
‘No.’ Angeline frowned.
‘So maybe it was a false alarm?’
Edgar shook his head. ‘Not the way that cat reacted. Let’s check outside.’
In the yard, a staggering cold gripped the night air.
‘Nothing.’ Angeline’s breath puffed around her in a white mist. ‘I can’t see any spectral activity through the goggles or on my Tracker.’
‘Maybe it was a false alarm,’ Dylan said.
‘I don’t think so.’ Edgar flicked on his torch. On the side of the stable, in dripping red letters, were the words:
Dylan stared at the words, only just able to wring a few frightened breaths from his lungs. ‘They’ve left us a message . . .’ He gulped. ‘In blood?’
Edgar lifted his goggles and followed the drips across the ground to a discarded paint tin. ‘Red paint, actually.’
Dylan calmed a little. ‘So it wasn’t a ghost?’
Edgar stepped up to the stable wall and inspected the writing closely with his Tracker. ‘It was a ghost.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘There are spectral traces.’ Through the Tracker, the letters lit up around the edges with red.
Angeline smiled a broad, game-on kind of smile. ‘Looks like we have ourselves a ghost.’
‘Can ghosts paint?’
‘They can do anything depending on how strong their energy core is,’ Edgar said, oblivious to the fact that Dylan was beginning to hyperventilate again.
‘Have they gone?’ Dylan whispered.
‘They’re not here anymore.’ Edgar searched the area with his Tracker held before him.
‘So we can go home.’ Dylan’s panting slowed.
‘For now, that’s all we can do, but it’s a good start.’ Edgar slipped his Tracker into his satchel and made his way to the stables. ‘I’ll pack up the video.’
‘Griswold was right, though.’ Angeline said. ‘This castle is definitely haunted by real ghosts, not just cinematic ones, and it looks like they don’t want us around.’
‘Isn’t it best that we do what they want and stay away?’ Dylan asked.
‘Are you kidding?’ Angeline said. ‘It makes it all the more fun!’
There was a small silence before Dylan asked quietly, ‘How do you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Be so brave when you don’t know what it is you’re even facing?’
‘It’s not bravery.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re just doing our job.’
Dylan dug his hands into his pockets. ‘My grandfather has such high hopes for me. I don’t want to let him down.’
‘You can’t do this for your grandfather,’ Angeline said, ‘you have to do it for yourself.’
‘If I was doing it for myself, I’d be home in bed reading anything but ghost stories.’
‘Grandma Rose says it’s good for us to face our fears.’
‘Because it’s good to let the world know what cowards some of us really are?’ Dylan asked.
‘No.’ Angeline laughed. ‘Because sometimes what we’re most scared of isn’t that scary at all.’
‘You know the hardest thing about being the newest ghost catcher?’
‘Not being called out to as many jobs as you’d like?’ Angeline asked.
Dylan shook his head. ‘No, it’s that everyone believes I’m going to be great at it.’
‘But you will be!’
‘See what I mean?’ His head fell forward. ‘How come you’re all so convinced when I’m not so sure?’
‘You just need a little practice. If Grandmaster Fleischmann believes in you, that’s good enough for me. Not only was he a great ghost catcher, he also has a knack for spotting other naturals. I bet he must have told you lots of stories about his days catching.’
‘He tried to but I tended to get short of breath and light-headed whenever he started.’
‘So you really don’t know much at all?’ Angeline asked. Dylan shook his head. ‘Don’t worry – we’ll have you so trained up you’re not only going to be good at this, you’re going to love it.’
Dylan slumped. ‘What if I don’t agree?’
‘Ah, but you have no choice, you see, once I set my mind to something, you can guarantee it’s going to happen. In fact –’ She stopped and reached into her pocket.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Tracker’s vibrating.’ She held the device out and scanned the area around them. ‘There’s activity.’ She looked down the path, which was swallowed by a mire of creeping fog. ‘It’s coming from there –’ a gro
wing reddish blob glowed in the middle of her screen. ‘And it’s getting closer.’
Edgar rushed out of the stables. ‘You felt it too?’
Angeline nodded. ‘What do you think it is?’
‘Not sure yet, but it’s big.’ Edgar took the camera from his satchel, set it up on the tripod and began recording.
‘Big?’ Dylan breathed. ‘How big?’
The ground began to vibrate with a thudding rhythm. The reddish glow became brighter and larger on Angeline’s Tracker. ‘Not sure yet.’ She smiled. ‘But we’re about to find out.’
The thumping became louder and was now accompanied by the rattle of metal and crunching gravel.
‘You are so lucky,’ Angeline said.
‘Lucky?’ Dylan cried. ‘How is this lucky?’
‘Most ghosts make you wait hours or sometimes days to show themselves, but you’re about to see one within the first hour.’
The sound of horse hooves pounded the earth, and from the foggy blanket of night the intruder materialised. First, there was the snout of a large stallion, followed by his strong, galloping body. On his back, standing tall in the stirrups, was a horseman, his cloak flying behind him, one arm clutching the reins and the other cracking a whip in the air.
And he had no head.
‘A headless horseman.’ Angeline’s voice was filled with awe.
‘Who’s coming straight for us!’ Dylan shouted. He grabbed Angeline and wrenched her out of the horseman’s path. They slammed to the ground and rolled into a nearby bush.
Edgar, however, stayed where he was and held the camera steady, recording every moment.
‘Edgar!’ Dylan screamed as the headless horseman stampeded towards his new friend.
The stallion whinnied, the horseman cracked his whip and let out a bone-chilling laugh, speeding ever closer. Dylan looked away, unable to watch.
The horse and rider ploughed forward. Dylan blocked his ears, refusing to hear the last moments of Edgar’s young life. He waited for the imminent screams and horrible tragedy that was about to strike them all – when the galloping and rattling died away. He took his hands from his ears and slowly opened his eyes to see a perfectly healthy and untrodden Edgar standing in the middle of the path.
‘He really does have a problem with us being here.’ Edgar switched off the camera.
Dylan rubbed his head where he’d knocked it on the base of a small tree. ‘What just happened? Why didn’t you move?’
‘The spectral reading wasn’t strong, so I knew the manifestation lacked the necessary mass to be any real obstacle.’
Angeline lifted herself from the damp ground. ‘And that means we would have been safe.’
‘But all that noise?’
‘They can sometimes do that.’ Angeline wiped clumps of mud from her face and hands. ‘The fuss and racket they make can be huge, but if the reading is faint, you know they can’t do you any harm.’
‘So . . . he . . .’ Dylan struggled to understand.
‘Passed straight through me,’ Edgar finished.
‘Sorry about pulling you into the bushes,’ Dylan turned to Angeline.
‘That’s okay.’ She looked down at her muddy coat. ‘I told you being a ghost catcher can get messy. This is nothing compared to what’s happened to me on other call-outs. The main thing is, we now have much more evidence of who our ghostly friend is.’
She pressed the speed dial to the Ghost Club. Myra’s steely, joyless voice answered. ‘The Ghost Club, specialists in the prevention and eradication of supernatural disturbances, Myra Gray speaking.’
‘Hi, Myra, it’s Angeline. We need a pick-up from Castle Koszmar.’
*
It was just before dawn when they reached home. Angeline tried a few times to engage Myra in conversation but failed, so most of the trip was spent in a deep, sleepy silence. Myra first dropped Dylan home, then Edgar and Angeline, who waved, quietly opened the front gate and crept up the steps. Angeline slipped her house key into the lock and closed the door behind them – all without making a sound.
In fact, almost the only sound that could be heard on this quiet, dark street was the faint whirring of a camera, which had been pointing straight at them, carefully recording their every move.
The footsteps of two very shiny and sensible shoes clipped their way up the ramp and through the automatic glass doors of Gravesend Police Station. They continued right up to the reception desk, where an officer was slowly pounding two fingers onto the keyboard of his computer. The owner of the shiny shoes snapped a hand onto a small, silver desk bell.
‘I wish to report a crime.’
The officer didn’t look up.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He jabbed two more fingers at the keyboard. ‘I’ll be with you in just –’
‘I wish to report it now.’
The officer clenched his hands before plastering a broad, helpful smile on his face and taking a notepad out of his pocket. ‘Certainly, ma’am, and what crime would you like to report?’
‘My name is Mrs Snitch, and I wish to report the abuse of minors.’
The officer’s smile drooped and he held his pen frozen in the air. ‘You mean, children?’
‘Yes, I mean children – small people, innocent cherubs in need of our protection. Who else would I mean?’
‘Yes, of course.’ The officer scrambled to open the door beside the desk that allowed entry into the station interior. He directed Mrs Snitch to an office and called for another policeman to join them. He closed the door and they sat around a table. ‘I’m Constable Watson and this is Constable Doyle.’
Both had their notepads at the ready.
‘Could you please repeat for my colleague what you told me before?’
‘I wish to report the abuse of minors.’ The woman held her handbag tightly to her chest.
The two officers exchanged a serious look.
‘Tell us everything you know.’ Constable Watson had already begun writing.
‘I believe the two children who live next door to me are being mistreated by their parents.’
‘And what leads you to believe that?’ Constable Doyle asked.
‘They don’t go to bed until very late and sometimes don’t get home until the early hours of the morning.’
The officer paused. ‘Yes, but Mrs Snitch, sometimes teenagers can be –’
‘These children are eleven years old.’
‘Ah, I see.’ Constable Doyle’s face clouded over. ‘Please continue.’
‘I’ve seen them come home at 5 am, covered in all manner of filth, like they’ve been digging holes – maybe even graves!’
‘Graves?’ Constable Watson asked.
‘Perhaps. What else would they be digging in the middle of the night?’
‘Well, they could be –’
‘And I’ve seen them with bruises, cuts and, one time, even a broken arm.’
‘Yes, but children can be very clumsy if –’
She leant forward. ‘I’ve seen them levitating.’
The policemen looked at each other.
‘Levitating, ma’am?’ Constable Doyle frowned.
‘Yes. Levitating.’
The two officers lowered their notepads.
‘Are you feeling okay tonight, ma’am?’ Constable Watson asked.
‘Perfectly fine.’
‘Not feeling dizzy or out of sorts?’ Constable Doyle asked.
‘What I’m telling you is true,’ she snipped.
‘Have you been getting enough sleep?’ Constable Watson asked. ‘Sometimes tired minds can play tricks on us.’
‘How can I sleep when I’m living next door to potential criminals?’
‘Meditation is often good,’ Constable Doyle repli
ed, nodding.
‘You do look a little overwrought,’ Constable Watson added.
Mrs Snitch’s voice rose to shrieking. ‘Wouldn’t you feel a little overwrought if you saw levitating children and your nights were racked with the worry of them being maltreated?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re really very busy, if that’s all –’
‘No, that’s not all.’ She pulled a purse from her handbag. She opened the clasp and retrieved a chip. ‘For the last few months, I have been gathering recorded evidence of everything I have just told you.’
Constable Doyle frowned. ‘Actually, Mrs Snitch, it is illegal to film anyone without their permission and you could be in serious –’
‘When there is the possibility of terrible crimes being committed? When the safety of those children and the citizens of this town are at stake?’
Constable Watson wiped a hand down his tired face and sighed. ‘Okay. Let’s have a look at that chip.’
‘Go, Edgar, faster! They’re just behind you!’
Angeline watched as her brother ran. He was fast and had a good lead but his pursuers were closing in and gaining on his every step. At first there were two, then a third. Edgar dodged and weaved, sidestepping their attempts to catch him. Then, with one strong kick, his boot struck the ball, sending it soaring over the goalie’s outstretched hands and into the back of the net.
Angeline threw her arms in the air and cheered. Her mum and dad hugged each other, and Grandma Rose put her fingers between her teeth and let out a loud whistle.
‘That’s my boy!’ yelled Arthur.
Edgar had been wrestled to the soggy ground by his soccer team, who were taking turns slapping him on the back and ruffling his hair. The referee blew the whistle to try and restore order and restart play.
‘Go, Edgar!’ Angeline was still cheering and jumping up and down when she heard a voice beside her.
‘That was a good goal.’
She stopped jumping to see a boy with rich green eyes and longish, golden-brown hair.
Ghost Club 1 Page 8
