Like Wildwych Station, this place had not heard a passenger's footfall for aeons. Scratched walls, the tiling in the cream and oxblood of the original design. The glazing was battered, showing the brownish underbody. Some judicious squinting revealed letters that read "To the trains" in a script that, like the tiles, hadn't been used in a century. The name of the station, however, was illegible. Cables and rusty pipes ran along the rounded ceiling, coming from nowhere, going the same way. The paint peeled from the ceiling, like blistered skin.

The train hummed. Vibrated. Something zapped my bum, and I shot up from my seat. My legs did that runaway thing again. They clambered off-board, onto the station. Loud swearing behind my back told me my two partners were still with me. Ahead of us, many footsteps had stirred the dirt.

"I guess, that's where they went. The lost ghost hunters, I mean," I said.

"No need to rub it home," Candice said. "We've just joined their ranks. Any guess on where we are going?"

"The exit would be nice," Amelie said.

Which was exactly what our legs did. They found the exit, stepped into the corridor between the platforms, and headed for the escalator. It must have been a mile long at least. Step after step materialised from the ground, joined its fellows on their silent journey to a destination unknown.

That wasn't unusual on the London underground. The absence of noise, however, was. This contraption should have clacked and squeaked.

And there was something else. Where the escalator should have floated up, towards street level, this one seemed to lead to the bowels of the earth.

"Oh shit." My legs found a step and stood. Rooted to the spot, I swung around, and my gaze found Candice's, her pupils dilated, her face as white as fresh snow.

But she smiled. In the middle of all this, she smiled. I could have hugged the woman. She waggled her fingers.

"Hiya girl, Amelie is behind me, don't you worry."

Well, I did, but when I twisted my body aside, as much as my stationary legs allowed, I saw her solid figure, teeth bared, fists balled.

She nodded at me but said nothing.

What was she supposed to say?

And still the escalator slid down, down, a never-ending stairway of doom, a single rail of metal tracks lost in a grimy greyness that seemed to get less defined, the further we went. Where at the beginning there had been shredded posters, peeling paint, and rusted lamps, now there was nothing, a bit like travelling in fog.

When I opened my mouth to speak, no words came out.

And still the elevator went down.

Until it stopped from one moment to the next.

The greyness ripped like a veil, and ahead of us lay a corridor. Not a subway tunnel, not a sewage canal, a corridor, most likely in a cellar of a hospital or something, since it was painted in institutional pea green and cream. Pipes and cables, a whole load of them ran along the wall and had been slung over the ceiling.

At the end was a metal door, with glass panels, illuminated by a faint light that flickered and danced in an irregular pattern.

My back hurt.

The pack I was carrying had become impossibly heavy to bear. But that pack contained our only weapons, the little gizmos that would protect us. Our only hope at survival—

You are as good as dead. No need to bother.

The words had materialised in my head. They sounded just like my thoughts. But they weren't mine.

I rallied those thoughts. Strung words together in a brain that seemed clouded by the grey fog we had left behind on the elevator.

I'm not sure, I'm getting this, I thought. And who's talking, please?

With a soft whoomph, my backpack dropped to the ground. Amelie and Candice stepped up to me, never once looking my way. Their packs did the same nosedive as mine.

The blaster slid through my numb fingers, the clatter of its fall oddly numbed.

Theirs did the same. Plop, plop, like shots fired from a silenced gun.

Somehow, I felt very silenced as well. Something really wasn't quite right. My whole body seemed to be stuffed with cotton wool, there was a ringing, a hissing in my ears that came from nowhere.

Ozone drifted into my reluctant nostrils.

And whoever had spoken in my head still hadn't responded.

Hello?

Hello.

That sounded like a weird echo. Only it wasn't. A wraithlike figure, not more than the smoke on a dying candle, but sporting amber eyes that burned like Blake's tyger, floated from the door into the corridor. Two more pairs of bright peepers appeared next to them.

I wanted to scream a warning.

Amber eyes? Those were super ancient ghosts. Hundreds, if not thousands of years old. They shouldn't be sentient.

But they were.

At the top of the wraith in the middle, roughly where the head could be expected to be, a slit formed. It reminded me of a grinning mouth. Most likely that's what it was.

Clever girl. But that won't help you.

Where are the other ghost hunters?

It was hard to form the thoughts, they dragged themselves through the treacle that filled my head.

Had I been drugged? Where were Amelie and Candice?

Your colleagues are ready to join you in a moment. Any last wish? Might have to grant that, you know?

More treacle filled my head.

Nothing? Didn't think so. None of the others had any wishes left.

The slit did a great impersonation of a smirk.

I heaved a deep breath and pushed all my remaining strength into my voice. Somehow, this was important. I didn't know why, only that it was. I willed the words to come. I was a woman. Opposition was second nature to me. Mockery and catcalling too. Couldn't allow that sort of behaviour.

The treacle in my head receded. "What are your plans?"

Ass manure. How did you do that? The blasters floated towards the wraiths, hovered in mid-air.

"Answer her," Amelie screamed, somewhere to my left. Her voice sounded breathless as if she had just run a marathon.

"Oh well, then." The voice, high pitched and reedy, left my head and fluttered into my ear. "Since you asked. You living bastards have messed up the world so badly, it's untrue. So many people in terror, in pain. The whole planet is screaming. You didn't think you could just carry on as normal, did you?"

I wanted to respond, but whatever strength I had mustered was gone.

Ghosts pointing blasters at the busters? The hunted chasing the hunters? Something was wrong with that picture.

"Well, since you did, you fed us well. We gained strength. Nobody's leaving. Nobody's fading away, anymore. The dead are an army. And we shall conquer the planet."

The voice had gained strength, it boomed through the corridor. The panes in the metal door shook and cracks appeared.

The wraith on the left twisted and swirled. It seemed to grow, breed more wraiths, like an army of doomed candles they filled the corridor.

"May I remind you, we already have done that." The voice came from the frontmost column of wispy smoke on the left. "As of this morning, actually."

"We did, sister of mine?"

"Yes, brother of mine, we did."

"Ah. All right, then."

From somewhere among the smoke drifted a harrumph. "A fine old mess this place has become. This is not what I expected."

The smoke swirled and shifted in agreement. Many voices spoke out all at once.

"No, It's so...noisy."

"So much light and stuff."

"Yes, yes, stress and hectic everywhere."

"Not to forget the pollution."

"They've even messed up the atmosphere."

The middle spectre swung around, my blaster with it. That was my chance. I knew it. My one chance to stop them.

If only my body had cooperated.

Which it didn't.

"Calm down, everybody. We'll sort this out. We've now got enough firepower to attack the remaining ghost hunters. If that other lot hadn't dumped their stuff before they boarded the ghost train, we would have been there already. Shame, but can't be helped."

The middle ghost drifted around, the blaster once more pointed at my midriff. I was still alive. I might soil my pants if they hit me, but that was about it.

Once more, a slit appeared in lieu of a mouth. "Wrong thinking, lady. You're so far gone, you're almost one of us. We'll reclaim the world. And then we'll shift it into the fourth dimension. Okay, I've done my duty. It was nice talking to you."

The blaster hummed, the whiff of ozone became overpowering.

From the muzzle burst a greenish, slimy goo that covered my body in instant ice. My heartbeat exploded.

Darkness fell, dragging in the silence.

Only my heart still thundered on. Stumbled. Stopped.

A terrible stillness filled my chest.

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This chapter is dedicated to @ElisabethLong and her amazing ONC contribution "The Twenty-Third hour" If you're looking for an amazing voice and a fabulous journey, do check out her story.