Spirits from Beyond

  JC smiled and nodded, and the crowd made pleased noises; but JC knew better. He’d heard these stories before, or stories very like them. They were traditional ghost stories, of the kind told in pubs and local gatherings the world over. The names and the details changed, but the stories stayed the same. Which suggested that possibly the King’s Arms wasn’t actually haunted at all. By anything other than old stories, handed down from generation to generation. He leaned over to talk quietly with Brook.

  “Did you see this Johnny Lee yourself, by any chance?”

  “Long before my time,” said Brook. “And I have to say, if all the people who said they were there were actually there, the bar would have been packed from wall to wall and bursting at the seams.”

  “I have a story,” said Cootes, his voice loud and defiant. “The story goes that this young woman was travelling late at night and had to stop unexpectedly because the weather was so bad. Much like tonight. Luckily, there was an inn nearby, off the beaten track. Even more luckily, they had one room left vacant. The young lady didn’t know the inn and thought it a rather rough-and-ready place, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. So she allowed the innkeeper to show her to her room. Once inside, she made a point of locking and bolting her door and even jamming a chair up against it. And that was when a voice behind her said, ‘Well, no-one’s going to disturb us now, are they?’”

  There was general laughter. Cootes smiled happily about him. It was clearly as much a shaggy-dog tale as a ghost story, and no-one in the bar took it seriously. But JC saw something in Brook’s face, briefly, that made him think there might be something to this particular story, after all. He stood up, to draw everyone’s attention back to him.

  “Tell me,” he said to the crowd. “Have there ever been any great tragedies here? Not in the pub but in the town, or even the general area? Any really bad accidents, or fires, any mass deaths? Anything like that?”

  He hadn’t even finished his question before everyone started shaking their heads. Brook leaned forward, resting his forearms on the bar-counter.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all like that. I did some digging in the local library; and Bishop’s Fording has been a quiet and peaceful place for generations.”

  “Then why are there so many ghost stories associated with this inn?” said Melody.

  Again, a great many heads were shaking. Brook shrugged, almost helplessly.

  “Have you ever considered having the inn exorcised?” JC said to Brook.

  “It’s been tried!” said Brook. “Three times in the last forty years, to my certain knowledge. Every time the town gets a new priest, and they hear the stories, they can’t wait to take on the infamous King’s Arms. Things go quiet for a while, then they start up again. I think . . . it’s because what’s here, whatever it is that’s here, is older than the Church.”

  The crowd had nothing to say about that. Judging by their faces, it wasn’t anything they wanted to talk about.

  “Whatever’s here,” said Cootes, looking challengingly at the three Ghost Finders, “it’s best not to upset it.”

  “Hell with that!” JC said immediately. He glared around the bar and raised a dramatic voice. “To whomever or whatever troubles this place, hear my words! Be advised! This place, and these people, are under my protection and that of the Carnacki Institute! Behave yourself or else.”

  He looked around him, but there was no response. Everyone in the crowd was very still. They looked tense, braced for . . . something. But nothing happened. They could all hear the wind outside and the rain dashing against the windows; but that was all. JC sat down again and gave the crowd his best reassuring grin.

  “You have to stand up for yourself. Ghosts should know their place. You’ve told me the old traditional stories. Now tell me things you’ve seen and heard for yourselves. Don’t be afraid. I’m here to listen, and to help.”

  “Sometimes,” said Jasmine, quietly, “sometimes, at night, if you’re the last to leave here . . . You look back, and the pub isn’t as it should be. There are lights on, in the upper rooms, where nobody goes. And you can see shadows, human shapes, standing before the lit windows, looking out. Or moving slowly back and forth, like people coming and going. Except they’re not people.”

  “I never turn the upstairs lights on,” said Brook. “Never anyone staying there . . .”

  “I know,” said Jasmine, helplessly. She looked at her hands, clasped tightly together in her lap. She looked like she wanted to cry.

  “Sometimes,” said the old farmer Troughton, “there’s a large oak tree standing in the field outside. Only mostly there isn’t.”

  “And sometimes,” said Brook, “when I’m in here on my own, I can feel someone following me around. Standing behind me. I never see or hear anything, but I know. Sometimes I hear footsteps upstairs, but when I go up and look, there’s never anyone there. And I try not to look in any of the bar’s mirrors because sometimes when I look I see someone standing behind me, in the reflection.”

  The crowd was looking very unhappy now. Shifting in their seats, looking at each other for support and comfort. It was one thing to tell stories out of the past; no-one wanted to contemplate their moving into the present.

  “Well, Brook,” JC said loudly, “I hope you won’t be putting any of us in the room where the servant maid hanged herself.”

  And it all went very quiet. The crowd looked at each other. Finally, Troughton cleared his throat.

  “You’re not thinking of actually staying the night here, in the King’s Arms? Are you? No-one ever stays the night here.”

  “Why not?” said Happy.

  “Because the charges here are terrible!” said Cootes.

  There was an outburst of laughter at that; but the mood had changed. People were shifting uncomfortably and glancing at their watches, looking around for their coats and belongings. And then Jasmine jumped to her feet and pointed at a window with a quivering hand. Her face was shocked white, her eyes stretched wide. Everyone looked at her.

  “What’s the matter with you, girl?” said Troughton.

  “There was a face!” Jasmine said shrilly. “At the window!”

  Everyone was on their feet at once, looking where she pointed; but there was no face to be seen at any of the windows, only the dark of the night, and rain running down the leaded glass. But the damage had been done. There was an awful lot of ostentatiously looking at watches, and saying Is that the time? I really must be going. People hurried to pull on their coats and headed for the door. Got to be going before the storm gets too bad. Or the road gets flooded. Have to make an early start in the morning . . . JC raised his voice, trying to reach them, to calm them down, but they were already pushing and shoving at each other as they ran for the door, streaming past JC and Happy and Melody as though they weren’t even there. The bar emptied in a few moments, the last few actually fighting each other in their need to get through the only exit. And then the main bar was empty, apart from the three Ghost Finders, and Brook, behind his counter.

  “And still drinking time left on the clock,” said Brook, shrugging resignedly. “You’ve lost me some profits there. But I have to say, I’m surprised they stayed this long. Given that it’s dark out.”

  JC looked at him steadily. “Why did you call for us, Adrian? What’s really going on here?”

  “I used to work for the Carnacki Institute before I retired,” said Brook. “Though never as a field agent, like you. No, me and my crew, we would turn up long after you were gone, to clean up. Remove the bodies, clear up the mess you left behind, and do whatever was necessary, or practical, to remove the psychic stains from the environment. Not glamorous work, perhaps, but necessary. We all did our best, to prevent nightmares. Anyway, I put in my years, stuck it out as long as I could, then I took early retirement. I’d had enough. I came back here, to my old home-town, and bought this pub. Something to keep me busy, in my twilight years. A chance for a little peace and quiet, at last.

  “I s
hould have known better.

  “I knew all the old stories, you see. I knew all about the ghosts and the strange happenings. Heard them from my old dad, who heard them from his dad, and so on . . . So many stories, and all with the same point if you took the trouble to listen. That the King’s Arms was an unquiet place and always has been. But I thought they were stories, something to give the inn character and pull in the tourists. Tourists love a good ghost story. Money in the bank, as they say. And at first, everything was fine . . .

  “But, slowly at first, then more and more, I started to see things. Hear things. Experience things . . . Things I knew from my time in the Institute were well out of the ordinary. And well out of my league. Worse still, my customers started to see them, too.”

  “What sort of things are we talking about, Adrian?” JC said carefully.

  “Not traditional ghosts, like in the stories,” said Brook. “Nasty things. Unquiet spirits. Dangerous presences. So I called up my old contacts at the Institute and told them I needed a field team here, to investigate. And a damned good one! I’ve never seen anything like this, Mr. Chance . . . You’ve got to Do Something! Put the ghosts to rest or drive them out, or . . . something!”

  “So you can get your customers back?” said Melody.

  “Because,” said Brook, “Something bad is coming. I can feel it.”

  JC looked at Happy, who nodded slowly. “He might be right, JC. This inn gave me the creeps from out in the car park. Inside, it’s like standing in a slaughter-house, listening to the man with the hammer creeping up on you.”

  He looked slowly around the empty bar. JC could see in Happy’s face that he was Seeing something. He moved in close beside the telepath.

  “What is it, Happy?” he murmured. “What do you See? The face of the monster?”

  “It’s not a presence,” said Happy, frowning. “Not as such. I’m not picking up any individual ghosts, or poltergeist activity, no real feeling of supernatural manifestations at all . . . but this whole place feels bad. Not only the bar, the whole damned building. Steeped and soaked in psychic nastiness, going back . . . centuries. Embedded in the stone and brick and wood. Like Chimera House, only worse. Much worse. Something spectacularly bad happened here, long and long ago. And I think it’s still happening. Calling the dead to it like moths to a flame.”

  “There was nothing like that in the briefing files,” said Melody. “But they were . . . pretty basic. Maybe I should get my kit out of my suitcase. See if I can turn up some solid evidence . . .”

  Happy was so disturbed he didn’t respond to her open dig at all. He was scowling now, turning his head back and forth in a troubled sort of way.

  “Something’s here, JC. I mean right here, in the bar, with us. Watching. Listening. Making its plans against us.”

  “Where?” said JC, looking quickly about him.

  “Everywhere,” Happy said sadly.

  “You’re not really going to wait till tomorrow, to make a start, are you?” said Brook, anxiously.

  “Not after what our marvellous mutant telepath just said, no,” said JC. “But I do think we could all use a break before we get stuck in. A few minutes alone, to get our heads together, get our second psychic wind . . . Do you have rooms prepared for us?”

  “Of course, of course,” said Brook. “I dusted and aired them out as soon as I knew for sure you were coming. No-one’s stayed in them for years, you understand. I never even go up there at night, these days. I have a room, in town . . . But I’ll stay here as long as you’re here. So let me show you to your rooms, so you can . . . freshen up, and settle in.”

  “Yes,” said JC. “And then we’ll come back down, and you can fill us in on all the details you’re holding back from us.”

  Happy turned his head abruptly to look at Brook. “You didn’t just happen to come back to your old home-town, to retire. You didn’t just happen to buy this pub. Something important to you happened here. You have unfinished business, with the King’s Arms . . .”

  “Get out of my head!” said Brook.

  “I don’t need to read your thoughts,” said Happy. “Simple deduction. Nice of you to confirm it, though. What did bring you back here, after all these years?”

  “Like you said,” muttered Brook, looking away. “Something bad happened here. And it’s still happening.”

  He walked over to the back of the main bar and opened a concealed door, uncovering a narrow staircase. “Your rooms are this way.”

  JC took Happy by the arm and got him moving. They all gathered up their suitcases and followed Brook up a set of thinly carpeted wooden steps. The wallpapered walls were so close on both sides there was only room to go up single file. The lights were all off, upstairs. Brook stopped at the top and switched on the landing lights. He looked quickly about him, as though expecting something to happen; but nothing did. He seemed as much disappointed as relieved. He stepped quickly back, out of the way, to allow the others to join him on the landing. More dully wallpapered walls, distinctly old-fashioned, and more very thin carpeting. And rather more shadows than JC was comfortable with. Brook pointed out their three rooms, close to the top of the stairs. He slapped three large metal keys into JC’s hand, then hurried back down the stairs to the relative safety of the main bar.

  JC looked at the three keys on his palm. Large, heavy, old-fashioned things. Melody hauled her heavy suitcase up the last few steps and bent over it, breathing hard. While she was preoccupied, JC looked at Happy.

  “Your face is flushed, and you’re sweating. Have you taken something?”

  “Not everything about me is down to the pills,” said Happy. “I don’t always need them.”

  “Why do you need them now?” said JC. “What started you off again?”

  “You want the straight answer?” said Happy. “Because I ran out of reasons not to.”

  JC wanted to say more, but there was a cold finality in Happy’s voice that stopped him. So he moved over to join Melody.

  “You have to talk to Happy,” he said quietly. “He’s in a bad way. He’ll listen to you, where he won’t listen to me.”

  “He got himself into this situation; he can get himself out,” said Melody.

  “Harsh, Mel,” said JC. “It’s not that simple, and you know it.”

  “Of course I know it!” said Melody. She looked right at him for the first time; and she looked horribly tired and worn-out. “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, JC. He doesn’t need you, or me, or the job. He needs his pills. I thought I could change that, give him something else he could depend on. But I couldn’t. He’s on his own now. Because that’s the way he wants it.”

  “But why does he want that?” said JC.

  “I don’t know!” said Melody.

  She stuck out her hand for the key to her room. JC gave her the key to Number Seven, and she stomped over to the door, dragging her suitcase along behind, rucking up the thin carpet. She unlocked the door, went inside, and slammed the door shut behind her. JC turned back to Happy, who suddenly threw his arms around JC and held him tight. JC held on to him, not knowing what else to do.

  “I’m lost, JC,” said Happy, his face pressed into JC’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to do! It’s like I’m drowning, and I’m going down for the third time . . .”

  He let go of JC abruptly and stood back. He held out a hand for his key, and JC gave him the key to Number Eight. Next door to Melody. Happy took his suitcase, unlocked the door, and went inside, shutting the door quietly behind him. JC looked at Happy’s closed door, then at Melody’s. The only thing he knew for sure was that you should never reveal your weaknesses, out in the field. Because the opposition will always take advantage . . . He walked over to his room, Number Nine, then turned abruptly to look back down the length of the landing. All the other doors were closed, everything was perfectly still. Outside, he could hear the wind rising and the rain battering against the single window at the far end.

  A bad night
to be outside. Or, probably, inside.

  FIVE

  ENCOUNTERS IN EMPTY ROOMS

  JC sat listlessly on the only chair in his room and looked about him, for want of anything else to do. It wasn’t much of a room. Dusty, airless, the bed-clothes probably only put on the bed that very day, after Brook was sure they were coming. JC didn’t need to be told no-one had used this room in ages. Any sane person would have taken one look around and moved out immediately.

  It was a typical country-pub room—barely big enough to hold the bed and some very basic furniture. The bed itself was a single, deliberately undersized to make the room look bigger. JC didn’t expect to be spending any time actually sleeping in the bed, which was just as well. He was pretty sure his feet would stick out the end. A battered, old-fashioned wardrobe stood to one side, its unpolished wood covered with scrapes and scratches; and an equally uncared for chest of drawers stood on the other side of the bed. No television, not even a radio. A door at the rear led off to a frankly tiny bathroom. A low ceiling, deeply dull wallpaper; and not even a carpet to cover the bare floor-boards. The pale yellow light from the single bulb seemed flat, lifeless, even oppressive. At least the shadows were staying still. The wind rattled the only window in its frame, while rain spattered against the glass. It sounded cold, and desolate. JC felt like he was a long way from anywhere.

  He looked at his suitcase, standing alone and unopened on the bed. The suitcase he always kept packed and ready in his apartment, for those occasions when he had to leave in a hurry, on the Boss’s word, for some mission that wouldn’t wait. He didn’t need to open his suitcase and look inside to know what was in there. The contents never changed. Only the essentials; and a few nasty tricks that the Institute didn’t need to know about. Because he wasn’t supposed to have them. There was a lot to be said for planning and preparation; but JC had always been a firm believer in cheating. Your opponent can guard against plans and have contingencies in place for what you’ve prepared; but they’re always baffled and helpless in the face of blatant cheating.