The adventurers soon find the now dead and decayed remains of the inhabitants
of Topeka, and it's a chilling sight indeed.
Topeka is a ghost town, plain and simple, and by the looks of it has been for a bit now. Captain Trips had done a number on it and many others like it. After securing themselves a new wheelchair for Susannah to replace the one she had lost back in Lud (Susannah commented on how LIGHT the thing was compare to her old 1960s wheelchair) our heroes made a beeline OUT of Topeka through a nearby park.
See, Topeka could very well be a ghost town in the literal sense (as in being populated by a God awful amount of spooks). Remember, some of them came from Terra Prime and they do believe in ghosts and other restless dead AND since the dragon and other magical folk weren't in any discomfort....magic was about (and with that, spectral manifestation likely). All that was needed to allow a ghost to be seen (and thus interact with the mortal plane) was mortal belief.....
No, Topeka at night wasn't an option.