The Ghoul of Christmas Past

he is just greedy and thought he could get away with it. I went to him some time ago, hoping I could discuss with him the concept of moving the museum into the new theme park once we had expanded it. I needed to know what we could do together to make the museum experience better. He wouldn’t discuss it. I mean … he point blank refused to entertain the idea of discussing it, and he was cagey. So I sent him an email that infiltrated his system and cloned his hard drive. That sneaky git was selling rare first editions and other high value items to international bidders in an online auction room and then replacing them with cheap imitations. The museum visitors couldn’t tell the difference and all the displays are locked up and controlled by him. The perfect crime you might say.’
‘Not perfect enough, clearly,’ said Mary, causing him to look her way. There was a bridge coming up, one where visitors to the park could walk over and see inside the attraction. She had just seen something move up there and was very keen to stop Norton from seeing it.
Norton shot her a glare. ‘I thought I told you not to speak.’
‘Yes. Yes, you did. Sorry,’ Mary apologised. ‘It’s just that you tell this story so well. I was feeling enraptured.’
Norton thought about screaming at her so she would stop interrupting but they really only had about a minute left before the turn and then the plunge. Plus, she had just given him a great link to the biggest piece of detail yet.
‘Enraptured,’ Norton repeated her word. ‘It’s funny you should say that because I will be using the brief fame of surviving the ghoul to launch my writing career. Tell me, how many novels did Dickens write?’
Mary didn’t know the answer and could not make out what Elizabeth seated next to her was trying to say.
‘The answer you want is fifteen,’ Norton supplied. ‘Only it’s wrong.’
Around her gag, Elizabeth said, ‘Really?’ again.
Norton waggled his eyebrows. ‘He had fifteen novels published, but he wrote twenty-two. Two of his unpublished works are complete and the other five are in varying stages of completion. When I turned the screw on Professor Loughborough, he was trying to find a buyer for the completed stories. No one in the world knows they exist. Well, except for you lot, who will soon be dead, and Loughborough, who is already really rather dead. He was dumb enough to come here threatening me. Like the rest of you, he couldn’t hold his nerves and see the risk through to the glorious end.
‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Mary, ‘Reveal the unpublished works and become a hero of literature?’
Norton choked out a laugh. ‘No, you silly woman. I’m going to rewrite them for the modern day and pass them off as my own. They are quite brilliant stories. Loughborough said he stumbled across them in a vault. They had been overlooked for over a century.’ Whatever he might have wanted to say next was cut off as the boat passed under the bridge and a figure fell from it.

Final Battle. Saturday, December 24th 2309hrs
Michael arrived on the ground floor of the theme park out of breath and clinging to the bannister for support. The steel tube became a walking stick to help him along until he could get his breath back. The chance for that never came because in the silent park, the only noise was the steady thrum of machinery coming from one attraction.
The sound led him onward, his route easier to navigate now than in the basement because the passageways were clear and signposted. He hadn’t gone far when he heard what sounded like someone speaking and that led him to a sign which claimed to be for access to the pedestrian upper gallery. It pointed into a narrow corridor which sloped up.
Michael took a moment to confirm the sound of the voice was coming from the corridor, and then he heard Mary. Clear as day, it was her voice and his heart rejoiced. It also propelled him into the corridor but though he wanted to rush and leap out on whoever had her, he applied caution and took his time.
The corridor was dimly lit and wound around to the right. As he followed the curve, light appeared ahead and the man’s voice he heard first became clearer. He paused and held his breath for a second, listening to the voice. It was the same one from the alleyway: the man dressed as Charles Dickens.
This was it then. The ghoul was downstairs fighting a team of ninjas, so with luck it was now just Charles Dickens to face. All Michael had to do to win the day was defeat him, but as he peered around the edge of the corridor where it opened out onto what the signpost called the upper gallery, he saw it wasn’t just Mary to rescue.
Mary spotted him and looked away, thinking of a question to draw the mad man’s attention. He had been about to look forward in the direction of the boat’s travel. Michael didn’t think the man would spot him way up above his head, however, Michael got to see the man’s face and all the confusion melted away.
He was looking down at Ronald Norton, the first of the shareholders to be kidnapped. Michael could find out why later, but it was clear he had to beat him to save everyone else and he had the element of surprise.
Michael waited until the boat passed beneath the bridge and then went over the side.
His timing wasn’t perfect, and the blow Michael tried to land with the steel tube missed Norton’s head, cracking him on the shoulder instead. It would still be a winning blow if he followed it up with another. Unfortunately, Michael’s