Who Let The Ghosts Out?

Chapter 3 - Going Down

Candice was waiting in an open entrance at the end of the corridor, tapping her foot. She had turned on the overhead lights; white, bright, and cold they would spook even the most daring spectre.

"So, what's up, girl?" Amelie's no-nonsense tromp reverberated in the hallway as she joined the slim figure by the door. She stopped and peeked past Candice's shoulder. "Can't see anything."

"Well, duh. It's dark outside. Haven't figured yet out how to switch on the lights in the backyard."

"And why would you feel the urge to do so? We're talking freestyle ghosts. They don't hang out in boring back alleys."

A good point. I ran my scanner over the walls, the floor. It bleeped and spiked. Yup, the signature was there, running along the ratty linoleum that had seen better days, all the way to the door and beyond.

"Let me guess," I said. "The signature peters out in a rubbish bin or something."

"Nope," Candice said. "See for yourself. You need to switch spectrum modes though, otherwise you won't notice."

I switched modes. Squeezed past Amelie and saw for myself the slimy green snake's trail, steaming in a black void: the ghost's signature smeared across the small screen.

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" I said. I pointed my Maglite into the yard, shifted it from left to right, from the discarded pallets along the wooden fence to the bins and back again. Then, the glaring halo came to rest on the fence.

"I wonder what's next door."

"All-Seasons Landscape Gardening," said Candice. "They're not paying us."

"Borgia is. He wants the haunting to stop. If we know where these translucent blighters hail from, we can work out how much extra to charge."

"Girl, we haven't got the right equipment," Amelie said.

"Yes, we do. I brought the new portable units."

"No way," she said. "They weigh a ton."

I couldn't help the grin. "I brought your trainers as well."

Her pencilled brows arched. "Oh, lookie here, somebody came prepared."

"I expected something like this. It's been happening a lot recently. If you two read the Union bulletins once in a while..."

Candice sighed. "You're a smartass, Sandra, you know that?"

"Of course. Emphasis on smart. That's why I made partner, remember? You needed a geek, and there I was."

"Geek off, smartypants." Candice's laughing eyes belied her words. She swung around and marched back down the hallway.

I stuck my head back in. "Ey, and pack the four-dimensional scanner away, will you? It cost a bomb."

"Yes, massa." She disappeared into Borgia's delicious workroom.

Amelie had found the switch that turned on the lights in the backyard. Not that this changed much. One dingy yard, filled with rubbish, boxed in on all sides by concrete walls. One wooden fence straight ahead. As wooden fences came, this was nothing out of the ordinary. Midges danced through the yard. They had fallen into instant love with the orange light seeping from the lamps and bobbed around with insect glee. The night was chilled by the onset of autumn, but midges would probably live through a blizzard.

"What is going on? I mean, seriously. This isn't normal ghost behaviour."

I shrugged. "Seriously? Search me. Perhaps, they have all decided to go on a grand tour."