The Ghoul of Christmas Past

no one inside, but the danger that the ghoul was in there got a whole lot more real suddenly.
What Poison had found was a set of stone steps leading down. They were carved into the inside face of the river wall and had to have been made when the wall was first built. They were slimy in places and the leading edge had been worn away from decades of use which made them treacherous. There was no handrail for support which made the going even tougher, except for Poison and her friends who bounced down the steps two or three at a time as if they were part of a parkour route. Frank adopted a more sedate pace though whether he did that to make Michael feel better, he didn’t know and wasn’t going to ask.
‘What do you want to do, Mary?’ Michael asked his wife. She wasn’t dressed for exploring dark places.
She frowned at her husband. ‘The same thing I have wanted to do most of the day, Michael: go home. You’re planning to go down there though, aren’t you?’
He offered her a sad smile. ‘Can you wait in the car? You can put the motor on. The moment I see something we can use to alert the police, I’ll call you and let you know. You can call the police and we can get out of here.’
Mary wanted to argue but helping those in need at Christmas was the right and Christian thing to do. It was also scary as hell and cold next to the water which meant waiting in the car was a much more appealing option. ‘Just don’t be long, Michael,’ she pleaded with him. ‘I worry about you.’
He was already two steps down but ran back up so he could hug his wife and kiss her. ‘Get back to the car and stay warm. I won’t be long.’
The concrete steps were worn smooth from years of use and slippery with a mix of water and dirt. It was even darker on the steps than it was on the jetty above but after only twenty or so steps - Michael hadn’t thought to count – they levelled out to find themselves on a new platform.
Looking back up to the sky, Michael could see the old crane above them and nodded his head. Ships would have come alongside and the crane offloaded coal or whatever down into what must form a basement beneath what used to be a factory.
‘It’s too dark to go any farther, we’ll need torches,’ said Poison. ‘There’s all kinds of stuff on the ground. It looks like they just abandoned the place when it shut.’
Nodding back up to the light shining from a window above them, Michael said, ‘It doesn’t look like everyone abandoned the place.’
They pulled out their phones, lighting the low platform which revealed a silver van parked against a wall. Wondering how on Earth they got it down here, Michael then spotted an access ramp on the other side beyond the van. It cemented any doubt they were in the right place. ‘That’s good enough,’ he announced. ‘That’s the van I saw leaving Rochester High Street.’ He might not have seen the man dressed as Charles Dickens loading the van or even driving it, but the coincidence was enough to convince him. ‘We can call the police now.’
Michael bit the index finger of his glove to get it off and fished in his trouser pocket for his phone. It was down to almost no battery again, but there was enough to call Mary.
Except he had no signal. The concrete was blocking it. He swore but started toward the steps; he needed to go back up them anyway. When he noticed Frank and the ninjas were not following, he called out to them, ‘What are you doing?’
Frank replied. ‘We need to banish the ghoul, Michael. The police won’t be able to deal with it. I thank you for getting us this far, but it’s down to us to finish it now.’
‘Are you crazy? It’s just a really big man. Besides, we don’t know that the ghoul is here. He went into the river. He might have drowned.’
‘That which is already dead cannot drown,’ Frank replied.
Michael shook his head with disbelief. ‘Frank what we know is that the man who took whoever was in the alleyway is here. He was driving that van; I’m sure of it. That’s kidnap and I’m willing to bet the victim was one of the shareholders. He took Ronald Norton three days ago, tried to get Richard Glaagard earlier this afternoon, and grabbed someone else this evening. I won’t be surprised if he has the lot now, but it’s a matter for the police.’ His tone was insistent but had no effect on Frank.
‘Call the police by all means, Michael. We’ll have killed it, bound its soul, and left long before they show up. If we find any surviving humans, we will of course free them first, and if your Charles Dickens character makes an appearance, the police will find him tied up and ready for them.’ That was his final word on the matter, for before Michael could say anything else, Frank pulled on his own black hood and they all extinguished their lights. The platform was plunged into total blackness, stunning Michael for a second, and when he swung the beam of light from his own phone across the concrete, there was no sign of them.
He cursed all the way back up the steps and along the cut between the buildings to bring him back to the front of the theme park. It was there that he found Mary’s shoe.

Panic. Saturday, December 24th 2238hrs
His next few breaths came in desperate gasps as he tried to quell the wave of panic which threatened to drown him.
‘Mary!’ Michael spun around, rooted to the spot,