Spirits from Beyond

  “But how are we going to do that?” said Happy.

  “Don’t spoil another good theory with your voice of reason!” said JC. “I’m working on it!”

  “Maybe we should join together again, and glow at her,” said Kim, “Like we did in the bar.”

  Everyone looked at her, and they all thought many things, but no-one actually said anything.

  “Just a thought,” said Kim.

  * * *

  Brook led the way, back to the room he’d given Happy. The door was still closed, and Brook looked it over carefully before nodding that everything was all right. Kim strode forward and stared firmly at the closed door.

  “Don’t See anything. Don’t hear anything. Can’t feel a damned thing.”

  She walked right through the door, and disappeared. Everyone jumped a little. There was a short pause, then Kim ghosted back through the door and smiled brilliantly at everyone.

  “All clear! No ghosties, no ghoulies, and very definitely no long-leggity anythings. Open her up, Brookie, and let’s get this show on the road.”

  Happy stood at the back of the group as Brook opened the door, pushed it open a few inches, and stepped quickly to one side. JC slammed the door all the way open and strode into the room, turning the lights on with a quick flick of his hand. Kim swept in after him, peering about with great interest. Melody took Happy’s hand in hers, held it tightly, and led him into the room. Happy swallowed hard. If Melody hadn’t been holding on to his hand so firmly, he would have turned and bolted. Brook came in last, stopping inside the doorway.

  “Happy?” Melody said quietly. “What happened to you in here? What did that blonde bitch do to you?”

  “It wasn’t so much what she did,” said Happy. “It was what she said, what she showed me . . .”

  “What was that?” said Melody.

  “I’m not sure, now,” said Happy. “Maybe . . . the true nature of my own mortality.”

  They all looked around the room, taking their time, and the room looked back at them, seeming entirely normal. Blocky furniture, too-small bed, dull wallpaper, and unwavering electric light.

  “Just as I left it,” said Happy. “Except that the door I saw in the far wall isn’t there any more.”

  “Where was the door, exactly?” said JC.

  Happy pointed out the spot on the far wall, with a surprisingly steady hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to go any closer. Melody was still holding on to his hand, giving him what strength and support she could. Kim went right up to the far wall and studied it closely; her nose almost touching the wallpaper. She frowned and turned back to JC.

  “There’s something here, JC. Something that doesn’t belong in this room, or even this reality. This wall, this little bit of our Space and Time, has been overwritten by some force from Outside. It’s still there, in principle, waiting to be imposed on our reality again. Like this.”

  She stepped back and snapped her fingers imperiously. Suddenly, the door was back in place again. Happy cried out involuntarily but held his ground. He looked at the door for a long moment and nodded quickly.

  “Yes. That’s it. That’s the door I saw before.”

  “You said . . . there was a blood-red corridor on the other side of that door,” said JC.

  “It wasn’t a real corridor,” said Happy. “It only looked like one.”

  “What was it?” said Melody.

  “Death,” said Happy. “It was death.”

  “Maybe I should go back out onto the landing,” said Brook.

  “You stay right where you are, native guide,” said JC without looking round. He moved over to stand with Happy. “The blonde woman you saw. Was she part of the corridor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Happy. “I don’t think so . . . Connected to it, maybe. One of the faces on what’s happening here. The woman, the corridor, the storm . . . they’re all the same thing, really. This is a bad idea, JC. You really don’t want to summon her. You remember what the dark did to us, down in the bar. She was worse. Crueller.”

  “Would this woman come to you if you called?” JC said carefully.

  “I don’t know,” said Happy.

  JC looked to Kim. “What do we have that we could use to compel her?”

  “You’re not listening to me!” Happy said desperately. “This is a really bad idea! You have no idea of the kind of Power you’re dealing with here!”

  “Do you have a better idea?” said JC, quite seriously. “No? Then we go with what we have. Kim?”

  “She’s not a ghost,” Kim said thoughtfully. “She’s the human face of the rage in the storm . . . All that’s left of the human sacrifice who began all this . . . Happy, can you remember what you were doing, what you were feeling, here in this room, when the door first appeared in the wall?”

  “Yes,” said Happy. “I was sitting right there, at the writing-desk.”

  “Okay,” said JC. “Go sit there again.”

  Happy sat down at the desk, and looked at the pill boxes and bottles still set out before him. He didn’t touch any of them. Melody crouched down beside him. She put a gentle hand on his arm and patted it a few times. He didn’t look at her.

  “What were you thinking, Happy?” Melody said quietly.

  “I was thinking about dying,” said Happy, in a quiet, distant voice. “Thinking about killing myself and what a relief that would be. Not to have to carry the weight of my world on my shoulders any more.”

  “Oh, Happy,” said Melody.

  “And then the door showed up, in the far wall,” said Happy. “It opened on its own, to show me a corridor that led to death. It was trying to tempt me. When that didn’t work, the woman appeared. Except, she didn’t try to sucker me in, like the corridor. I suppose you could say, in her own way she talked me out of it. She showed me the true face of death. She saved me. Why would she do that?”

  “Perhaps because there’s enough left of the original sacrificial victim to appreciate and value life,” said Melody. “Okay; I think . . . you need to remember what you were thinking, and feeling. That could draw her back. Do you need your pills?”

  “No,” said Happy. “Not for that.”

  He sat still, his head bowed, thinking. About the things that were never far from his thoughts because the tiredness, the bone-deep, soul-deep weariness at the bottom of it all never left him. Melody crouched, close beside him. She’d taken her hand off his arm, so as not to distract him. She could see the pain in him, clear as a wound; and it hurt her almost beyond bearing to know she couldn’t help him. Of everyone in that room, she was the only one who could even guess at what this was costing Happy.

  The door in the far wall swung slowly open, folding back against the wall to reveal its blood-red corridor. Everyone in the room made some sort of noise as they took in the crimson, almost organic corridor walls, which seemed to fall away forever. To look at it was enough to disturb the thoughts and soil the spirit. It wasn’t only death; it was the end of all hope. A road you could walk out of life that promised neither Heaven nor Hell, just the end of everything.

  Happy slowly turned around on his chair and looked into the blood-red corridor. He smiled; and it was a brief, savage thing. He considered the corridor’s promise, then spat once on the floor, contemptuously. Because when the time did come to end his life, he would be responsible for it. No-one else.

  The blonde woman was suddenly there, appearing out of nowhere, strolling calmly down the blood-red corridor. As though she’d always been there, and they hadn’t noticed. She seemed to take a long time to reach the opening into Happy’s room, as if she was crossing some impossible distance, approaching from some unimaginable direction. She finally reached the doorway and stopped dead, right on the threshold. She looked into the room with cold, dead eyes and a disturbing smile. She looked around at the group gathered before her, dismissed them in a moment, and gave all her attention to Happy.

  “Some people never learn. Or else they’re suckers for punishment.
Haven’t you suffered enough, little man?”

  Melody was up on her feet in a moment, moving quickly forward to put herself bodily between Happy and the blonde woman.

  “Leave my man alone, you bitch!”

  The woman cocked her head to one side, like a bird, and considered Melody thoughtfully. “What will you do if I don’t? Shoot me with your concealed weapon? I don’t think so. I’ve been dead a long, long time . . .”

  “But that’s all you’ve got, isn’t it?” said Melody. “You have death; while Happy and I have life, and love. Show her, Happy.”

  “What?” said Happy.

  “Link with me,” said Melody. “Share your thoughts, and your pain, and everything else you have, with me. And then hit her with it, right between the eyes. Show her what she’s missing.”

  Happy grinned suddenly and rose to his feet. He took both of Melody’s hands in his and held them firmly. Their eyes met; and everyone in the room felt something move between them. Happy and Melody turned to face the blonde woman in the doorway, and Happy blasted her with everything in their hearts and in their souls, all at once. The woman fell back a step, as though she’d been hit; and then she threw back her head and let out a lost, despairing howl. Some unseen force picked her up and sent her flying backwards down the blood-red corridor, away from something she couldn’t face.

  And from out on the landing, there came the sound of doors slamming open.

  JC raced out of the room and onto the landing, and all the way up and down the corridor, people came spilling out of the open-doored rooms, looking dazed and confused, but clearly very glad to be back in a world and Time they recognised. Brook came out to join JC, saw all his lost guests come home at last, and whooped with joy, jumping up and down on the spot.

  “They’re back! They’re back! Oh you beauty, JC! You did it!”

  The returned men and women looked at Brook. There were quite a few more of them than he’d admitted to. They started forward, filling the landing with questions. JC grabbed Brook by the arm and held him still.

  “Get them out of here,” he said crisply. “God knows how long those doors will stay open, or how long the blonde woman’s control will stay broken. As long as the guests stay here, there’s always a chance the rooms will pull them back in . . . So gather them up, don’t stop to answer any questions, get them all down the stairs, then send them down the road to Bishop’s Fording. They should be safe there. Yes, I know it’s raining; yes, I know the road is flooded; and no, I don’t care! Do whatever you have to to get them moving. Now go! Go! Go!”

  Brook quickly rounded up the bewildered guests, and chased them down the stairs with a mix of publican’s authority and really harsh language. Their departing feet made a muffled thunder in the enclosed stairway, and Brook drove them on from behind. He paused, half-way down the stairs, to grin and wink at JC, then he drove his guests on again until they’d all disappeared out of sight. JC allowed himself a brief, satisfied smile, then he went back into Happy’s room.

  The door in the far wall was gone, with no trace left behind to show it had ever been there. Happy and Melody were standing together, staring into each other’s faces, lost in each other’s eyes. Kim shook her head and went back to join JC. She shrugged prettily.

  “Soppy things,” she said kindly. “But it looks good on them. Love is the drug, I suppose. Still, if they hadn’t done it, I bet we could have. Right, JC?”

  “Love conquers all,” JC said solemnly.

  Happy finally looked around, to glare at JC. “You used me as bait.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” said JC. “And you did help to save a whole crowd of lost souls. So be proud! I think the two of you basically overpowered Blondie, with your love and devotion. Either that, or you disgusted her with your lust for life. Or possibly, vice versa. Either way, I am very pleased with you; but if I hear one chorus of ‘Love Is All Around,’ I will puke. There are limits.”

  “It was a good plan,” Melody said, grudgingly. “But you do realise, all we did was scare her away. She will be back.”

  “Counting on it,” JC said brightly. “I’m not finished with her yet. Now, while we are still in a winning mood, let us go deal with the room that eats people. I am in the mood to kick its arse or whatever it has instead of an arse. You find me something kickable, and I’ll kick it. We might not be able to save its victims; but we can at least boot it out of our world. Adrian! Adrian, where are you . . . Oh. Yes. I sent him downstairs, didn’t I? Never mind, we can do this on our own. Oh yes we can.”

  “Have you been at my pills, JC?” said Happy.

  “He doesn’t need pills,” said Kim, proudly. “He was born weird.”

  “Come along, children,” said JC.

  * * *

  He strode out of the room and onto the landing, then paused to glare up and down the long corridor. Rooms stretched away to either side, all of the doors closed again. All very still, like the pregnant pause before the storm. Happy and Melody squeezed through the door to join him, refusing to be separated even for a moment. Kim got fed up waiting for them and ghosted through the wall to stand beside JC. He bounced up and down on his feet, raised his voice, and addressed the empty air in a loud and challenging voice.

  “Come on then, you horrible, hungry, little room, you! Where are you? Don’t be shy; show yourself! Or don’t you have the balls to face a real challenge?”

  “Please don’t taunt the deadly supernatural threat,” murmured Melody. “Not when I haven’t got my proper defensive equipment to hand.”

  Kim looked up and down the long corridor, frowning prettily. “It’s hiding. I can’t See anything. Happy, can you See anything?”

  “More than you can possibly imagine,” said Happy indistinctly.

  They all looked round in time to see Happy knock back a single fat pill, canary yellow with ice-blue stripes. He dry swallowed the bulky thing with the ease of long practice, then shook his head hard. His eyes bulged, his breathing grew steadily deeper, and he smiled broadly. He started snorting and grunting, and stamped one foot on the ground like an animal getting ready to charge.

  “Oh hell,” said JC. “What’s he taken now?”

  “Something he usually only takes with me in mind,” said Melody. “I’d stand well back if I were you.”

  “But what does it do?” said Kim.

  “Amplifies some of his more . . . basic instincts,” said Melody.

  “The two of you never cease to appal me,” said JC. “Really. I mean it.”

  “I can See you!” Happy said loudly, his whole body orientated on the right-hand side of the landing. “Don’t think I can’t See you!”

  And he charged straight down the landing, like a bull who’d spotted a way past the matador’s cloak. JC and Melody and Kim hurried after Happy, until he slammed to a sudden halt and stood quivering like a pointing dog, facing one particular room. He grunted and growled at the closed door, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Still grinning his very disturbing grin.

  “This is it! I can tell . . . This is the room where if you go in, you don’t get to come out again. Except, of course, this isn’t a room and never was.”

  “What are you Seeing, Happy?” said JC, moving cautiously in beside him.

  “Oh, I’m Seeing all kinds of things,” said Happy, staring at the closed door with wide, unblinking eyes. “JC, you wouldn’t believe some of the things I’m Seeing. Hello, can any of you hear that? It sounds like . . . a baby, crying.”

  JC looked at Melody, then at Kim, and turned reluctantly back to Happy. “I don’t hear anything,” he said carefully.

  “Of course you don’t!” said Happy. Sweat was pouring down his face, but his eyes still didn’t blink. “You were born with mental blinkers on, like everyone else. Don’t worry; it’s not actually a baby. It’s something that’s learned to sound like a baby crying, to lure people in. But I know better. I know a lure when I hear one . . .”

  He went suddenly quiet, glaring at the
door. JC looked at Happy, at the others, then at the door. It gave every appearance of being completely safe and ordinary, but JC still couldn’t bring himself to touch it. All the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck and his arms, in ancient, instinctual warning. It felt like the door was watching him . . .

  “Excuse me, everyone,” said Kim. “But what are you all looking at? I didn’t hear any baby, and I don’t see any door. You’re all staring at a perfectly unremarkable stretch of wall.”

  “I told you. It’s not a room, it’s a trap!” Happy said loudly. “And since it’s a trap designed to lure in the living, you can’t see it, Kim. Being dead, as you are. The room doesn’t want you. Because you ain’t got no body, and therefore no chewy bits.”

  “I think I feel left out,” said Kim. “Passed over.”

  “Ghost humour,” said Happy. “Ho ho ho!”

  “Calm the hell down, Happy, or I swear I will stick a nozzle up your bottom and rinse your insides out with Ritalin,” said Melody. “When this is all over, I am going to have to sit down and work out some serious checks and balances for you.”

  “Fun time!” said Happy.

  JC tore his gaze away from the door, walked back to the top of the stairs, and shouted down them. “Brook! Get back up here! You’re needed!”

  He waited, but there was no response. JC growled under his breath and tapped one foot impatiently.

  “I could ghost through this section of wall,” Kim said helpfully. “Or stick my head through and take a quick peek at what’s in there . . .”

  “Really wouldn’t do that,” Happy said immediately. “Really bad idea, ghost girl.”

  “But you said it isn’t interested in me,” said Kim.

  “Not to eat,” said Happy. “Doesn’t mean it couldn’t do something very nasty to your ectoplasm. I suppose there must be something Out There, that eats ectoplasm . . . There are all kinds of predators, after all. Hate to think what they’d excrete, though . . .”