Forces from Beyond (5 page)

“You’re back!” said Melody. “I can feel it. You burned up all your pills helping me; but you’re still stable.”

“Yes,” said Happy. “In saving you, it seems I’ve saved myself. How about that? Your sanity jump-started mine. It won’t last, of course. There’s no miracle cure for what I’ve done to myself. But at least I can be me again, for a while.”

“You’re still dying,” said Melody.

“Everyone needs something to look forward to,” said Happy.

“You can’t die,” said JC. “I can’t lose you. You’re my team. You’re all I’ve got.”

“You’ve got me,” said Kim.

He looked at her with calm, unflinching despair. “I gave up my life to do this job; and what has it got me? What good is it, to be a Ghost Finder solving other people’s problems, if I can’t solve my own? If I can’t help you? If I can’t save the one woman who means more to me than anything else. Please don’t go, Kim. You’re all that keeps me going.”

“You’re all that keeps me . . . me,” said Kim. “When I had to leave you for a time, on the Boss’s orders, it almost destroyed me. Being a ghost is like enduring endless sensory deprivation. You’re all that keeps me focused. Away from you I became vague, uncertain. You’re my anchor, JC, my reason for being. You’re the only thing that holds me to this world. But . . . you can’t move on as long as I’m still here, holding you back. So because I love you, I have to give you up . . .”

She was already starting to fade.

“No!” said JC. “Don’t go, Kim! Don’t you dare give up on us!”

“If you love them, let them go,” said Kim. Her voice sounded far away. “You deserve better than this, JC.”

“Please . . . Kim . . .”

“I’m scared to stay,” said the ghost girl. “And scared to go . . .”

“You don’t have to be frightened,” JC said steadily. “And you don’t have to go alone. If you’re going, I’m going with you. I’d rather die than live on without you.”

And, just like that, Kim snapped back into sharp focus again; smiling tremulously at him.

“There is still hope,” said JC. “We give each other hope. That’s what love is.”

All four of them stopped and looked around the room. Something had changed. They could feel it.

“Okay . . .” said Melody. “Let me be the first to say,
What the hell was that?
What just happened here?”

“I feel like I’ve just been through a spiritual purge,” said Happy. “I feel good. I feel good about myself. I’m not used to that.”

“It feels like someone cut me open and let all the poison out,” said JC.

“Not someone,” said Kim. “The room. The room did it . . .”

The door to Room 418 swung slowly open on its own; and beyond it lay a perfectly ordinary corridor. The room . . . felt like just a room. Nothing more.

“Whatever just hit us, I think it’s over,” said JC. “The room is finished with us. But you know what . . . I’m not finished with this room.”

“Normally, I would be the first to say, let us get the hell out of here while the getting’s still good,” said Happy. “But I have to admit I’m curious. It feels like we all just passed some kind of test.”

“A haunted room as personal therapy?” said Melody. “Weird . . .”

“Something made this room a Bad Place, originally,” said Happy. “But it doesn’t feel like the work of any individual person. So what’s powering this phenomenon? There was a definite sense of direction, of purpose, to everything we were put through.”

“Don’t say purpose,” said Melody. “Say rather programming. This room now exists to perform a specific task . . .”

“I don’t think this is a Bad Place,” said JC. “I think . . . it’s a testing ground.”

He walked around the room, looking at everything, his nerve endings almost painfully raw and receptive after everything he’d been through.

“Think of all the people who’ve stayed here, down the years,” he said finally. “So many people, in this room, passing long, dark nights of the soul . . . Lying awake in the early hours of the morning, asking themselves the kind of questions that people only ask themselves in the long reaches of the night. All the things we don’t dare think about in daylight but can’t hide from in the dark.
Is this it? Is this all there is? Is this what my life has come to? What happened to the life I was going to live? What happened to the person I planned on being? When did I lose all my ideals, give up on my dreams?

“And somehow . . . all that soul-searching and personal despair rubbed off on the room.”

“Imprinted it,” said Melody. “Soaked into the surroundings and programmed Room 418 to search for the truth in all of us. No wonder so many people died, or went mad, or hurt themselves . . .”

“Why didn’t it affect everyone the same way?” said Happy.

“Not everyone can be honest with themselves,” said JC.

“But then . . . why aren’t all hotel rooms like this?” said Kim. “People must ask questions like that in every hotel room. What’s so special about this one?”

“Something about the location, perhaps?” said JC. “Or perhaps some psychically gifted traveller passed through, and supercharged the room . . . Who knows? The result is a room that tests everyone who stays here. Tests to destruction, if necessary. Forces people to confront their own personal demons . . . who sometimes turn on their owner. I suppose we never hear about the ones who pass the test—just the ones who fail dramatically.”

“Did we pass?” said Melody.

“Hard to tell, with us,” said Happy. “But I think so. We’re all still here and as sane as we ever were.”

“We can’t leave the room like this,” said JC. “It’s like an unexploded bomb, waiting to go off over and over again. It plays too roughly with people and breaks too many of them. We have to defuse this room.”

“How the hell are we supposed to do that?” said Happy.

“I’m open to suggestions,” said JC.

“I could bring my equipment up here, hit the room with a small, localised EMP,” said Melody. “That might be enough to wipe the slate clean.”

“Bit too scientific and real-world, for a spiritual experience,” said Kim. “Didn’t you once have an exorcist grenade, JC?”

“The energies that have accumulated in this room have become so powerful, they’re probably resistant to open attack,” said JC. “No; we need something less direct. Lateral thinking caps on, everyone.”

He walked around the room, looking at everything, thinking hard. The others looked at him, then at each other, and shrugged pretty much simultaneously.

“This room is haunted,” JC said firmly. “By all the lost hopes and broken dreams of everyone who ever stayed here.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” said Happy. “Call them all up and give them a big comforting hug?”

JC turned abruptly to look at him, then smiled slowly. “Well, if you put it that way . . .”

“Why do I give him ideas?” said Happy.

“We can’t bring back all the people who stayed in this room,” said Kim. “The living and the dead . . .”

“But we might be able to call forth the genius loci, the spirit of this place,” said JC. “What all the previous guests left behind, that’s still powering the testing ground. A . . . representation, of all those people. And then we comfort them.”

“So the manager was right,” said Melody. “This is an exorcism, after all. Do we need to bring in a priest? I hate that. They’re always so smug about it . . .”

“No,” said JC. “This isn’t about good and evil, Heaven and Hell. Just people. We know how to deal with people. Come on. We’ve melded our minds together before, to help others. And isn’t that why we got into this job in the first place? To help people?”

“Speak for yourself,” said Melody. “I got into it for access to technology I couldn’t find anywhere else.”

“I got into it for access to arcane and unnatural chemicals,” said Happy.

“And I got into it for the glory,” said JC. “But that’s not how it is now, is it?”

“Not always,” said Melody.

“Go team,” said Happy.

“Let’s do it,” said Kim.

She stepped forward, slipping effortlessly inside JC, her ghostly form superimposing itself on his body and disappearing inside it as they joined together. The golden glow from JC’s eyes sprang up all around his body, like an all-over halo. A sane, healthy light, it pushed back the flat, ugly illumination of the room. JC reached out to Happy and Melody, and they each took one of his hands. The golden light leapt out to surround them, too. Four good friends; a team joined together on every level there was.

They all concentrated on the same shared thought; and the golden light blasted out from them to fill the whole room. Slowly, a presence stirred. Room 418 was waking up from a long, deep sleep. Another figure was suddenly standing in the room, a basic human shape with no details, no identity . . . It walked slowly forward, and the group opened up to accept and encompass it.

You’re not alone,
they said.
Someone knows, and understands. Someone gives a damn. And isn’t that all any of us really needs to hear?

Comforted at last, the figure faded away slowly.

The Ghost Finders let go of each other and stepped back. The golden light snapped off. Melody and Happy were still holding hands. Kim stepped out of JC.

“Damn,” said Happy. “What were we mainlining there? It felt like . . . raw spiritual power. There isn’t a pill in the world that could match that.”

“Are you ready to swear off the mother’s little helpers now?” said JC.

“No,” said Happy. “Sorry, JC. I’m still going to need a chemical crutch to lean on. For what little time I’ve got left.”

JC nodded. He’d been doing this job long enough to know some problems don’t have answers. Or at least not one you can easily live with.

“Feel the difference in the room,” he said. “Like the calm after a storm has passed. It’s over. It’s gone.”

“I am really not comfortable with all this touchie-feelie hippy crap,” said Happy. “You’ll be wanting me to hug some trees next.”

“I think I preferred it when you weren’t talking,” said JC. “So much more peaceful.”

Happy looked at Melody and grinned. “Go on. You know you want to say it.”

Melody struck a pose. “This room . . . is clean.”

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SOME ANTS AND ONE HELL OF AN ELEPHANT

It’s always hardest on the team after the mission is over. When the danger is past, the adrenaline has stopped pumping, and all the nervous energy has packed its bags and gone home. Going down to the lobby in the elevator, the three Ghost Finders stood slumped together. Heads bowed, staring at nothing, too tired even to make small-talk about how good it felt to be alive. It did feel good, to have another successful mission under their belt, but mostly they were thinking about how much better it would feel to get the hell away from the job and take a nice little vacation. No ghosts, no horrors, no weird shit; just peace and quiet and the comfort of normal things. A secure place to get their heads down, where they wouldn’t have to worry about closing their eyes. When every mission is a matter of life and death and sometimes worse . . . it does wear you down.

The elevator doors finally opened, and JC gathered up enough strength to lead his team out into the hotel lobby. The manager hurried forward, his face equal parts hope, concern, and desperation. JC gave him a brief smile and a thumbs-up; and Garth almost collapsed with relief.

“It’s over now?” he said. “Really over?”

“Down and dusted,” said JC. “Four-eighteen is just another room, now.”

The manager actually performed a little jig of happiness, right there in front of them, beaming so widely it was a wonder his face didn’t crack in half. Behind the desk at Reception, Garth’s wife didn’t look like she believed it, and perhaps never would, entirely. Which was understandable. Hauntings leave their mark, on all kinds of levels. The manager made a point of shaking all the Ghost Finders’ hands, in turn; and it was a sign of how exhausted Melody was that she let him.

“You’re all welcome to stay at my hotel, anytime!” Garth said happily. “Any room, on the house!”

JC hadn’t been that impressed by the state of Room 418, even after it had been cleansed, but he smiled and nodded politely. Never know when you might need some goodwill or a bolt-hole to hide out in. Happy pulled a face and started to say something; but Melody dug an elbow into his ribs before he could spoil the mood. JC looked at the manager thoughtfully; the man did seem rather more pleased than he would have expected.

“So,” he said. “What are your plans for the future?”

“Well,” said Garth, still smiling broadly, “now I know the room is safe, I can advertise it as previously haunted! Oh yes; there is a real market for such things these days. Ghost enthusiasts from all over the world will want to come here, to spend the night in a room that was quite definitely haunted! People will pay really good money, just for the experience. I’ve been looking it up online . . . A once-in-a-lifetime thrill you can sell over and over again . . . I’m going to be rich!”

JC felt like saying a great many things but didn’t. He just smiled and nodded, while the manager rushed off to impart the good news to his wife. Melody reacquired her trolley full of equipment and made a point of checking it was all still there. Happy peered blankly around the lobby as though he’d never seen it before. And possibly he hadn’t, given the state he was in when he arrived. JC looked around quietly, but there was no sign of Kim anywhere. She had said she’d take the short cut down, then vanished. JC never knew what to say when she said things like that, so he hadn’t said anything. She’d turn up. She always did.

He’d only just started for the door when his cell phone suddenly played the theme from
Ghostbusters
. JC stopped, actually startled, then took his phone out and looked at it. Melody moved in beside him.

“I thought you always kept that turned off when we’re out in the field?”

“I do,” said JC, still staring at his phone as though he half expected it to bite him. “When I’m out, I’m out, and I don’t want to be bothered. I only keep it with me for emergencies. And I am now torn between thinking
This had better be a real emergency
and being concerned that it is.”

He checked caller ID and winced. Catherine Latimer was calling: the revered and much feared Boss of the Carnacki Institute. She didn’t usually contact him in the field; she knew better. Happy leaned in on JC’s other side and glowered at the phone.

“Take my advice and throw the damn thing away,” he said. “Hurl it to the floor, stamp on it, and piss on the pieces. You must know this isn’t going to be anything good.”

“Of course it isn’t,” said JC. “That’s why I have to take the call.”

He put the phone to his ear. “I didn’t know you could turn my phone on from the other end,” he said, accusingly.

“Lot of things you don’t know about me,” Latimer said briskly. “Which is as it should be, given that I’m in charge, and you’re not. I need you and your team to take on another case, immediately; at the new Brighton Conference Centre. It’s not far. This case is ranked extremely urgent, and you’re the nearest A team.”

“Of course we are,” said JC. “That’s why you sent us down here in the first place, isn’t it? To deal with this nothing job! Which, by the way, I am here to tell you turned out to be in no way at all routine. You wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through. But you only sent us here so we’d be on hand for this other mission!”

“Got it in one,” said Latimer.

Melody studied JC’s face. “Is it really that bad?”

“It’s another case,” said JC. “Important and urgent, right here in Brighton. Smell the joy.”

“She can’t expect us to go back to work straightaway!” said Melody, so outraged she didn’t even try to lower her voice. “We’re entitled to downtime between missions! It says so in our contracts.”

“We don’t have contracts, as such,” said JC. “I’ve been told there is one, but I’ve never been allowed to see it. I was assured the conditions are very fair. Which is nice. Have you seen yours?”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Melody, scowling fiercely, both fists planted on her hips. “We can’t do this, JC. Really, we’re not up to it. Happy definitely isn’t.”

“Actually, I am,” said Happy, blinking mildly. “For now.”

Melody looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“I want to keep busy,” said Happy. “Make the most of my life, while I still can. And I think . . . that would be better for you, too.”

“You’re still fragile,” said Melody, looking steadily into Happy’s eyes. “The strain of another case could damage your mind. I won’t risk that. JC, tell the Boss she can go straight to Hell. I’m not scared of her.”

“Yes you are,” said JC. “All sane people are. Now please keep the noise levels down while I talk some more to our greatly beloved Boss, who is still on the other end and no doubt listening to every word we say.”

“I don’t care!” Melody shouted at JC’s phone. “Screw you, Catherine bloody Latimer!”

“Are you still there, Boss?” JC said politely into the phone. “You are! Pity . . . Don’t worry about Melody, she’ll come around. Well, she won’t, but I’ll talk her into faking it. You have rather taken advantage of us, Boss.”

“That’s what you’re for,” said Latimer.

“What is so special and important and horribly urgent about this new case?” said JC. “What’s the problem?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here,” said Latimer.

“Hold everything,” said JC. “You’re here? In Brighton?” He looked at Melody and Happy. “The Boss is here.”

“But . . . she never leaves her office,” said Melody.

“Not usually,” said JC. He gave the phone his full attention again. “Why have you left your office, Boss?”

“I’ll tell you when you join me at the Conference Centre,” said Latimer. “Some secure channels aren’t as secure as they used to be. Now get moving!”

JC shut his phone down and put it away. “Some days you just shouldn’t get out of bed.”

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They took a taxi to the new Brighton Conference Centre. JC and Happy and Melody squeezed into the back seat, along with the dozen or so pieces of jagged-edged high tech that Melody hadn’t been able to cram into the taxi’s boot with the rest. Kim appeared just as the taxi pulled away and flew happily beside it, moving unseen by everyone except the Ghost Finders. She sailed serenely along, sitting cross-legged in mid air, easily keeping up with the taxi as it bullied its way through the slow-moving traffic. Kim was now wearing a female aviator’s outfit from the 1920s, complete with goggles. Her long red hair streamed behind her in the wind even though the wind couldn’t actually touch it. Kim liked to get the details right. It helped her pretend she was still real. Happy looked at JC.

“If she can make her ectoplasm look like absolutely anything, do you ever make her dress up in . . . special things? Just for you?”

JC stared him down. “You’ll never know.”

Happy shrugged easily. “Just curious. You wouldn’t believe what Melody sometimes likes me to wear . . .”

“Don’t believe a word he says,” Melody said immediately. “He’s on drugs.”

It was night now. Bright festive lights flared in the dark as the taxi made its way through a tourist city open for business. People were out on the prowl everywhere, loudly enjoying themselves. It was summer, and the living was easy. For a week, or two. Men and women, young and old, all of them in hot pursuit of a good time. Enjoying today, so they wouldn’t have to think about tomorrow. Gaudy neon advertised bars and clubs and restaurants. Indian and Italian and Harry Ramsden’s Fish Suppers. Smiling faces lined the streets, out and about in the night. Melody studied them through the side window.

“Look at them. Contented little sheep, with no idea of how many wolves there really are, hiding in the shadows.”

“That’s part of our job,” said JC. “To save them from ever having to know. It’s a kindness.”

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The taxi finally drew up before Brighton’s newest Conference Centre. It had started out as a Regency hotel, but time and hard use had worn away the polish. Extensive refurbishment had put a new face on the building, to make it look like a modern meeting place for modern business people, and anyone else the Centre thought it could make money out of. But the building still had the air of an old, good-time girl, well past her prime. The taxi had barely stopped moving before Happy and Melody had thrown open both doors and bolted, leaving JC to pay the bill. He sighed heavily, paid the driver, and made sure he got a receipt. The Institute had become very strict over approving expenses, just recently.

JC glared at Happy and Melody, who were pretending to be very busy hauling Melody’s equipment out of the boot and stacking it on her motorised trolley again. JC looked the Conference Centre over. It all seemed quiet enough, with no-one going in or out of the main entrance. After a while, Happy and Melody moved in beside JC.

“I have a bad feeling about this place,” said Happy.

“You always do,” said Melody.

“Anything in particular?” asked JC.

“I am not a fortune cookie,” said Happy, with a certain dignity. “But if I were, I think I would be saying . . .
Warning! You are about to meet an old friend.
”

“Why are you warning us?” said Melody. “If it’s a friend?”

“
Friend
might not be the exact word,” said Happy. “Maybe
ally
 . . . Fascinating, isn’t it?” He bounced up and down on his heels, smiling unpleasantly in anticipation.

“You seem very . . . up,” said JC.

“Oh I am!” said Happy. “Really. You have no idea. Enjoy it while it lasts; I am . . .”

Kim had disappeared again.

They went inside. JC led the way, striding across the wide-open lobby while trying hard to look official and professional and more than a little intimidating. Everything seemed suitably ornate and expensive, with comfortable furnishings and modern art on display, a marble floor and dark-stained wood panelling; but what stopped all three Ghost Finders dead in their tracks was a massive sign hanging over the Reception desk, saying,
The Brighton Conference Centre welcomes the Ghost Finders of the Carnacki Institute to their annual convention!

Melody was the first to get her breath back.

“You have got to be freaking kidding!”

“Have we wandered into another reality, and I didn’t notice?” said Happy. “I hate it when that happens.”

“Relax,” said JC. “I know what this is. It’s the public face of the Institute, the tip of the iceberg we occasionally allow the general public to see . . . so they won’t think to look for anything else. Officially, the Carnacki Institute is nothing more than a privately funded think tank, sceptical debunkers, and all that. The kind that puts out regular reports in obscure scientific journals no-one actually reads. We had our own television show for a while, on one of the minor channels. But since it was more concerned with collecting evidence of the paranormal and testing it rather than holding the hands of hysterical celebrities, it only lasted the one season. Got really good reviews in the
Fortean Times
.”

“We had our own TV show?” said Happy. He shook his head. “No-one tells me anything.”

JC and Melody exchanged a look.

“I did tell you, sweetie,” said Melody. “We watched several episodes together. You just don’t remember.”

“Ah,” said Happy. “Can’t have been a very memorable show, then. Joke! Come on; if we can’t laugh about this shit, we might as well give up.”

His face was clear and open, his eyes calm and sane. But JC and Melody could still see the strain.

“I have a question,” said Melody. She gestured at the sign. “If we’re so very welcome, where is everyone?”

They looked around the wide-open lobby. It was completely deserted—no staff, no guests, not a murmur of sound. As though everyone had just . . . stepped out, for a moment. Not at all what one would expect from a Conference Centre at the height of the Season, and the busiest part of the evening. The Ghost Finders moved a little closer together, anticipating enemy action.

“The Boss is here,” said JC, after a while. “Maybe she frightened everyone else off. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be. Happy, are you picking up anything with your marvellous mutant mind?”