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the wrong business,” JC said cheerfully. “Now quiet down and be a brave little ghost finder, and there shall be Jaffa Cakes for tea. Go on, Mr. Laurie, I’m still listening. What else has happened?”
    “Isn’t what I’ve told you enough?” said Laurie.
    “Information is ammunition,” JC said solemnly. “Which we can use to kick the arse of our paranormal enemy. Ghosts deal in uncertainty. Things we see out of the corners of our eyes, come and gone in a moment, are always going to be more frightening than some blurry shape in a doorway, not even solid enough to rattle its chains.”
    “Most of what I’m telling you is only stories,” said Laurie. “Things the volunteers talked about, among themselves. Some did say they’d seen, or at least glimpsed, a figure. Never up close, and none of them saw it clearly, but they were all very sure they’d seen something. And some of them said it wasn’t human. As such.”
    “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said JC. “You ever see this figure yourself?”
    “I might have glimpsed it, from time to time,” Laurie said reluctantly. “An old-fashioned type, tall and thin, dressed like a gentleman from my grandfather’s time.”
    “And you never thought to mention this before?” said Melody, sharply.
    “You stick around this place long enough, and your senses will start playing tricks on you, too,” said Laurie. “But if I did see what I thought I saw…there was something wrong with its head. Like maybe…part of the head was missing.”
    JC considered this. “Does this…disfigured figure fit in with any of the local legends?”
    “No,” Laurie said firmly. “This is something new. Something else. Even if it does have its roots in the past.”
    They all suddenly stopped where they were and shivered violently. The temperature in the room had plummeted in a moment. Their breaths steamed heavily on the still air, and they all hugged themselves against the sudden, bitter cold. Great whorls of hoarfrost spread slowly across the walls, like massive fingerprints. Frost and even solid ice formed on Melody’s instrument panels and monitor screens. She frantically wiped it away with her sleeves, but it came back again. The room was so cold now, it burned exposed faces and hands and seared the lungs that breathed it in. Of them all, Laurie seemed the least affected. Probably because he was northern, one of those hardened souls who claim not to feel the cold and only put a vest on when there’s an actual blizzard outside. Melody fired up the heating elements in her support system, scraping the frost off her sensor screens with her fingers, so she could make out the new readings.
    “I am seeing serious cold, JC!” she said, forcing the words out between chattering teeth. “And I’m talkingdeep cold here, unnatural cold! But according to my sensors, only in this room!”
    “Now this is what I call a cold spot!” said JC, beating his hands together, then rubbing them briskly. “This is more like it! Traditional ghost sign; something is draining energy out of the immediate surroundings to fuel an imminent manifestation. Take up your positions, people; we have a ghost heading this way.”
    “Yes,” said Laurie. “It’s here…”
    JC beckoned Happy forward, and the two of them stood back-to-back, looking quickly about them. Melody ignored the room completely, giving all her attention to what her sensor readouts were telling her. Laurie stood alone, looking out the open main door at the platform beyond. All around, shadows were moving slowly, subtly, creeping forward, pushing back the light. The room was full of a sense of movement, of things that came and went, gone the moment you looked at them directly. And there was a growing sense of
presence
, an overwhelming feeling that they were no longer the only ones in the room. That something new was approaching from an unknown direction, to join them.
    “Told you,” said Laurie. He was the only one not looking