The Ghoul of Christmas Past

same.’
They all sloped along the space between the buildings, going around the puddles they could avoid and trying not to get too wet in the ones they couldn’t. ‘Michael, I have evening shoes on,’ Mary pointed out, forcing him to go back and carry her across one that was deeper than an inch.
‘Goodness,’ he gasped under his breath as he picked her up.
Her eyes narrowed to slits as she glared at him. ‘Got something to say, Michael?’
‘No, dear. No nothing at all. I was just remarking to myself that I expected you to be heavier than that. You are as light as a feather,’ he lied.
Her eyes did not relax. If anything, they narrowed even further. ‘So you think I look heavy then?’
Accepting that he couldn’t win no matter what he said, he placed his nearest and dearest back on the ground and carried on after the smaller shadows moving ahead of him. They reached the end of the buildings which terminated just twenty feet before the river. At the back, the dockside had no protective wall; a person could walk right off the side. It was more than a century old and intended for offloading. The river was high tonight, but the drop to the water from here was still fifty feet.
A ship-to-shore crane loomed overhead looking rusty, old, and long out of use. Its shadow came from the moon since there were no lights on anywhere in their vicinity. They had to watch their step, but as they rounded the back walls, intended to keep people out of the factory many, many years ago, they saw something that shouldn’t be there.
A light in one of the back offices.
‘Do you think that just got left on?’ asked Hatchett.
Michael shook his head. ‘I think there are people in there, and they are up to no good.’
‘Then we should call the police,’ insisted Mary, reaching for her phone.
Michael placed his hand over it. ‘The light from that might draw their attention. All it would take is for someone to be looking this way, love. Anyway, there is no point calling the police yet: we don’t have anything worthwhile to tell them.’
Frank nodded. ‘He’s right. They won’t care that a light has been left on. At best they would send a squad car to the front entrance. They would get no answer and soon go elsewhere.’
‘So what now then?’ asked Mary, unhappy that they were not just going home.
Poison provided the answer. ‘Hey, guys, I think I found a way in.’

Murder. Saturday, December 24th 2220hrs
The ghoul had squeezed Richard Glaagard’s neck too hard, that was what it boiled down to. It was a simple mistake for the great brute to make but accepting his hurriedly revised plan hadn’t been perfect hardly changed the intense frustration the man in the mask now felt staring down at the body. So much preparation, so much time and effort, and the man wouldn’t get to see the truth because he was already dead.
‘Put him with the others,’ the ghoul’s master barked.
The ghoul grunted a response, the best he could manage with his malformed mouth, and began to drag the lifeless form away by one ankle. Elizabeth Cudmore watched in abject horror, unable to speak or move much because she was bound and gagged. Richard was too, not that the effort was necessary in his case.
The message from James Pendergrass had troubled her, but it hadn’t raised her suspicions. Looking back at it now, she couldn’t believe how blindly she had wandered into the trap. Now she was going to pay for her lack of precaution with her life. It all seemed so unfair. And at Christmas too.
‘Are you ready, Elizabeth?’
She shot tear-filled eyes at her captor, wanting to know why he was doing this but knowing she would not get an answer from the fifty times she had already asked. His misfortunes were not her fault. How could he blame her for them?
The man crouched next to her, touching her face with the back of his finger as if trying to smooth out a crease. ‘You want to know why, don’t you?’ He nodded to his own question. ‘You were so blind to what could have been, Elizabeth. All of you were, settling for recouping your investment instead of making a fortune alongside me. You just needed to take a risk.’ Behind his mask, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he looked up and into the distance, focusing on something no one could see. ‘There’s a saying … you probably know it. “The biggest risk is taking no risk at all.” Well that certainly proved true this time, didn’t it? You played it safe and destroyed my work. MY WORK!’ he thundered, making her cringe and flinch away. ‘Selling to a bunch of real estate parasites. They’ll tear this place down and build luxury apartments. Where is the grand vision in that? What will you have to be proud of and hand over to your children?’
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t too late. That they could go back and reinvest their money now. But her words were coming out muffled through the gag and he made it clear he had no interest in hearing whatever lies she might try to spew.
The echo of heavy footsteps in the otherwise silent building soon revealed the ghoul. Richard’s body was gone – “with the others” - Elizabeth remembered the instruction and it horrified her. Were the others the other shareholders? Were they already dead?
She couldn’t ask, but her body wracked with sobs as the huge, white-faced ghoul lifted her from the floor.


Theme Park. Saturday, December 24th 2223hrs
Before anyone could respond, they heard machine noise from inside the building. Or rather, the noise seemed to come from beneath their feet. It eliminated any chance that there was