Terror Towers

Mrs Kellaway licked the blood off her paws best she could, there hadn't been much meat on the two burglars. Gnawing on bone was satisfying, but she had things to do. She'd best check on Mr Shiraz and get started on the clean-up so she dragged the bodies into Mr Bland's coffin, he wouldn't mind, and the coffin was only for show, he was just as happy in a normal bed with the shutters closed to keep out sunlight.

Mrs Kellaway changed back into human form, it took a while. She was getting a bit creaky in her old age - there was a lot of grunting involved.

'Are you decent, Mrs Kellaway?' Called Mr Bland from behind the door. 'I've got your bathrobe if you'd like it.'

Mrs Kellaway turned the key and opened the door enough to shoot out a graceful arm for the robe, like a starlet during costume change. The clothes she'd removed lay neatly folded on a seat of the two-passenger car that carried the excited punters around the Terror Tower ride on Scarborough front. Best to remove one's clothes before she changed into werewolf form, otherwise everything would smell of wet dog and as a Home Economics teacher in the 1970s, she knew that bloodstains took a lot of soaking and scrubbing.

Once attired in a fluffy yellow bathrobe, Mrs Kellaway opened the door to find her flatmates. Captain Tom, who had only recently joined the ranks, Sethyradha, a Mummy who'd died over three thousand years ago, and Mr Bland, a vampire, who wasn't sure if he counted as alive or not. Mrs Kellaway was sure she was the most alive, except for the mermaids, not that it was a competition. She'd been bitten by a werewolf in 1978, so she wasn't sure if it was her own good genes or her new wolf genes that contributed to her not looking a day over thirty. Mr Bland had been bitten by Dracula himself, in Whitby, the next town along the coast from Scarborough, when he'd been working as a bookkeeper at the Inn when Dracula tracked Mina Harker there. Mr Bland was customarily staying up late pouring over accounts, but with vampires roaming around, it had been the death of him.

'Bad news,' said the captain, when Mrs Kellaway emerged in her bathrobe, her hair sticking out at odd angles, matted with blood, ‘They got poor Mr Shiraz as he was cashing up, he caught a blow to the head, but I think he must have had a heart attack. I saw him a few seconds before he went into the light, he wished us all jolly good luck in the future and said it had been his utmost pleasure to work with us all.'

They held a respectful silence for the passing of Mr Shiraz, the keeper of Terror Towers, the ghost train of the Scarborough coast, and sanctuary to the dead, the cursed, and the unhuman alike.

'We'd better clean up, and make an anonymous call to the police.' said Sethyradha, breaking the silence. 'Loads of bleach - it's impossible to tell bleach from blood if forensics come.' Although she was the oldest of, well, anyone on earth, she'd been murdered by her younger brother who wanted her throne at the age of 26. She'd skipped three thousand years of trends but was on point in 2020. If it wasn't for her bandages, she would fit in perfectly well with other twenty-somethings.

Mrs Kellaway nodded, 'I'll get my pinny on. Mr Bland, Captain Tom, could you take the remains out to sea, and the mermaids can make sure they don't wash up.'

The Help Wanted sign appeared in the window of the ticket booth two days later. 'Kids these days,' Mrs Kellaway started, 'one cheeky little fellow asked for a pay rise straight away, no questions about the job, and functionally illiterate looking at what passed as his C.V.' She shook her head. 'There's one lass, I liked the look of, made an enquiry today, got a good head on her, she's worked as a cleaner in an old folk's home, but she wants something that she can do in the evenings and weekends, so she can fit it around her University lectures. It's hard to tell what she'd think of us, though. She liked the ride when she was a kiddie, she used to come here on the weekends with her dad, she says, so she has happy memories of this place. Her father passed away, bless her, so I don't want to ruin those nice memories for her.'

'I've got this!' said Mr Bland. 'If she isn’t… amenable, I'll hypnotise her, take her to the bus stop, and she'll forget the whole thing and go home.’’

'Good, let's take her for ice cream and she can meet the freaks!' Sethyradha was excited at the prospect of having a new friend.

The captain's memories of his life had started to fade, like a childhood holiday, he couldn't remember now why he hadn't walked into the light, but he was quite content with his new job of haunting the ghost train, until he saw Rachel approaching. Now his memory of her was as clear as day. It had been six years since he'd seen her, she'd been in her school uniform begging him not to leave for another tour of duty. As a twelve-year-old, she'd begged to go with him. This girl was tall, she had highlights in her long hair, silver nails and lipstick, but there she was, his Rachel ordering a mint choccy chip ice cream and chatting happily to Sethyradha about what was good on Netflix.

Rachel turned around holding her ice cream and squinted at the captain. As she looked harder, her smile dropped into an O of surprise. She could see him, usually only people who were expecting to see a ghost could, or else they'd walk right through him.

'Rachel, sweetheart?'

'Dad?'

He nodded. She put her hand out to touch him, but her hand just went through air. 'Let's take our ice cream to our old spot, honey, I've got a lot to tell you about your new job!