“I didn’t like that at all!” she said loudly. “I thought ghosts would be…thrilling. Exciting! But that was nasty. Horrid.”
Elizabeth moved over quickly to put an arm across Lissa’s shoulders and comfort her. “It’s all right, dear. We understand.”
“Do you want us to call you a taxi?” said Benjamin. “You could always go back to your hotel and wait there, till this is all over. We have to be here; but you shouldn’t have to put up with this.”
Lissa’s chin came up. She straightened her back and shrugged off Elizabeth’s arm, almost rudely. “No. I’m not going. Nothing’s scaring me off.”
Benjamin gave her his professional smile. “Brave girl.”
Happy moved in close beside JC. “Look at the stage,” he said quietly. “There’s a layer of dust. See? If you look behind us, you can see all our footsteps, crossing the stage from the wings to here. But there are no footsteps in the dust before us, not a mark anywhere between us and the far wings. Which leads me to believe that there never was anything here. No physical presence, at all. Just the sound of footsteps…”
“Could be an echo out of Time,” said Melody. “Sounds from the Past. Stone tape memory, past events impressed on the surroundings, playing back in the Present.”
“Why are we still calling it a stone tape?” Happy said suddenly. “Shouldn’t we be calling it a stone CD, these days? Or even a stone download…”
“Concentrate, Happy,” murmured JC. “That was no echo. Those sounds had a deliberate aim in mind. A purpose…”
“How very theatrical,” said Melody; and then they all looked at each other for a long moment.
JC looked across the stage at Benjamin and Elizabeth. “Is this the kind of…event you were expecting?”
“Well, sort of,” said Benjamin. “You have to understand; we never experienced anything first-hand.”
“And I have to say,” said Elizabeth, slowly, “that the whole thing seemed to me more menacing than scary. Almost…a threat. We should never have come back here, Benjamin.”
“We had to,” said Benjamin. “We owed it to the play.”
And then they all froze in place again as they heard something moving about, under the stage. They all looked down, listening hard, concentrating. Some distance underneath the stage, somebody was walking back and forth, loudly whistling a merry tune. JC stamped hard on the stage; but the whistling didn’t stop, or even interrupt itself for a moment. JC looked sharply at the actors and Old Tom.
“Is there supposed to be anyone else in the building?”
“No, sir,” said Old Tom. “No-one. I’d have been told.”
“No-one whistles in the theatre!” Elizabeth said sharply. “It’s bad luck!”
“Anyone recognise the tune?” said Happy. There was a general shaking of heads.
JC looked at Old Tom. “What’s down there, under this stage? Is there any way to reach it?”
“Of course, sir,” said Old Tom. “That’s the understage area, easy to get to. There’s a way to everywhere, and I know them all. Follow me, ladies and gents!”
The way down turned out to be an old iron stairway that spiralled around as it descended into the gloom of the understage area. The stairway didn’t feel properly attached or supported, worn loose through many years of hard use; and it swayed dangerously and made loud, complaining noises as Old Tom led the way down, one careful step at a time. Though whether his pace was due to the infirmities of old age or sensible caution, JC couldn’t tell. He stuck right behind Old Tom, peering down into the gloomy depths in search of the phantom whistler. Happy came next though he didn’t want to. Melody had to drive him down ahead of her, with fierce encouragement and appalling language that the actors pretended not to hear as they brought up the rear.
The whistled tune cut off abruptly the moment Old Tom and JC emerged from the bottom of the stairway. The understage area was completely empty. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, not even the faintest echo. The light from a single hanging naked light bulb spread a grubby yellow glare across a wide-open space much bigger than the stage above. Everyone relaxed. With no phantom whistler, no footsteps, and nothing in any way unnatural, the open area seemed safe enough. Benjamin made a point of smiling easily around him.
“Well, this place brings back memories! Remember when we were playing the leads in the Restoration comedy, She Stoops to Conquer?”
“Oh God, it’s another anecdote,” muttered Happy. “I think I’d rather have a ghost…”
“Of course I remember!” said Elizabeth, seizing the moment to lighten the mood. “We had a real pit band, you see, in the open area before the stage, to play real Georgian music; but at the end of the play, they had to leave the pit and come up onto the stage to accompany the final banquet scene. At the end of which, I would walk forward, the curtains would close behind me, and I would deliver the long closing speech straight to the audience. This was to give the other actors time to race off stage and change into their final costumes for the final walkdown. But it also meant the pit-band had to hurry down here, via that awful old stairway, charge across the understage area, and re-emerge in the pit in time to play music for the walkdown. Well, to begin with, all went well. But by the end of the run, I was belting through the lines so we could all get off stage and get to the bar that much earlier; which meant the poor pit band had to run like fun to get to the pit in time. Many the night I heard muffled curses drifting up from down here, yelling to me to slow down…”
Everyone managed some kind of smile if not actually a laugh.
“Scratch an old actor, find an anecdote,” said Lissa, and Elizabeth glared at her.
“Did anything ever…happen down here?” said JC. “Anything significant?”
Benjamin and Elizabeth looked at each other. “No,” said Elizabeth.
“Nothing,” said Benjamin.
And then they both looked at JC, as though defying him to contradict them. Which, thought JC, was interesting…
A great roar of angry sound blasted through the whole understage area, filling the place from end to end. Huge, deafening, overpowering; a fierce and vicious sound, like the outrage of an angry god. As though something had given rage and fury a voice and let it loose. Everyone put their hands to their ears and squeezed their eyes shut, whether they wanted to or not. It was an instinctive, protective thing; and it didn’t help at all. The roar went on and on, beating at them like some living creature but continuing on long past the point where any living thing could have sustained it. The sheer anger and malice in the terrible sound was almost palpable.
Benjamin held Elizabeth tightly in his arms, cradling her head to his chest. “Leave her alone!” he shouted into the face of the roar. “Leave her alone, you bastard!”
JC yelled at everyone, straining to be heard above the appalling sound. “Stick together! Don’t let it separate us!”
He forced his eyes open, a bit at a time, but even with his augmented vision he still couldn’t see anyone, or anything. There was only the sound and the rage within it.
And then it stopped. No falling away, no quietening down; it simply broke off abruptly, without even leaving an echo behind it. For a long moment, everyone stood where they were, opening their eyes and lowering their hands from their heads, all of them suddenly limp with relief. The end of the sound was like the ending of a physical assault. It had beaten and battered them like some unseen bully; and now it felt good, so good, that it was over. One by one, they all started to relax and look around them. Benjamin and Elizabeth let go of each other and stepped back to look each other over, make sure everything was all right. So did Happy and Melody.
They were all of them shaken, amateur and professional alike, by the sheer fury in the sound. And, it seemed to JC, a very human fury. He strode back and forth across the wide-open area, glaring into shadowy nooks and crannies, finding nothing. He didn’t like being caught by surprise. He looked back at the others, and was surprised to see Lissa standing on her own, c
alm and quiet and apparently entirely unaffected by what she’d been through. She didn’t look scared, or shaken; she stared straight ahead of her, her face calm and quiet and completely empty. As though she couldn’t be bothered if there wasn’t an audience…JC stopped and considered her thoughtfully. Shock, perhaps? He started towards her, then Benjamin suddenly spoke up.
“Hold it; where’s Old Tom?”
Everyone stopped where they were and looked quickly about them; but there was no trace of the old caretaker anywhere. They all called his name; but there was no response. And even with the single light bulb and the many concealing shadows, there was nowhere in the understage area where he could have hidden himself.
“Where could he have gone?” said Elizabeth. “There’s no way he could have gone back up that creaky iron stairway without us noticing.”
“Is there any other exit?” said JC.
“Not that I know of,” said Benjamin, looking vaguely about him.
“Maybe something…reached out, and took him,” said Lissa.
Her voice was very small. Almost lost. For a moment everyone stood still, then Benjamin snorted loudly.
“Just because we don’t know of any other exit doesn’t mean there isn’t one! Come on, you all heard the man—There’s a way to everywhere, and I know all of them. I don’t believe he ever was a caretaker; he’s a journalist who’s done some research. That moustache never did look real to me.”
“He could be back up on the stage,” said Lissa. “Where it’s light…”
JC led the way back to the iron stairway.
Back on the open stage again, they all called repeatedly for Old Tom; but there was still no reply. The brightly lit stage was something of a relief, even a comfort, after the claustrophobic gloom of the understage area. It might not actually be any safer on the stage; but at least here they could all see nothing coming towards them.
“He’s got to be around here somewhere,” said Benjamin, with more hope than certainty. “He can’t have come to any harm. We’d have heard.”
“It’s just struck me!” said Elizabeth. “No-one’s been hurt, have they? I mean, yes, of course, it’s all been very scary…but it’s all threats and menaces. Nothing that could actually do us harm.”
“Then where’s Old Tom?” said Lissa. “What happened to him?”
The stage lights flared up suddenly, blazing into blue-white incandescence, then went out, all at once. Darkness fell across the stage, and everyone huddled together. Individual lights blazed up, here and there, sudden flares and flashes…and then the bulbs began to explode, one after another. Everyone on stage flinched away from flying slivers of glass, but none of it came close enough to hurt anyone. A heavy, ponderous gloom filled the stage, only held back by brief surges from individual lights. JC grabbed Happy by the shoulder, and he shrieked loudly. JC shook him hard till he stopped.
“What’s happening here, Happy? Talk to me! What’s behind all this?”
“I don’t know!” said Happy. “I’m not picking up anything! And since I sure as hell bloody well should be picking up something, someone or something must be deliberately blocking me. Which isn’t easily done…” Happy took a deep breath to calm himself, thinking it through. “It’s all tricks, JC! Shock and awe, smoke and mirrors, all of it designed to distract us, draw our attention away from what really matters. But don’t ask me what this is all about…I can’t sense a damned thing. It’s like being deaf and blind and wrapped in poisoned cotton wool, all at once.”
“You are seriously underperforming on this case, Happy,” said JC. He looked at Melody, who immediately shook her head.
“No use looking at me. You know I can’t tell a damned thing without my instruments. I should never have left them behind. You’re the leader! You do something!”
“There’s nothing to do,” said JC. “Happy’s right, for once. This is all ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ Carefully orchestrated bits of theatrical business. Someone’s putting on a show.”
Suddenly, all the house lights came up. Steady, dependable light filled the whole of the vast auditorium and spilled out across the stage, pushing back the darkness. JC looked quickly back and forth across the rows of raked seating, but every seat in the house was empty. The normal, everyday electric light was peaceful and reassuring, and everyone began to relax again. JC looked at Benjamin and Elizabeth.
“Could someone be overseeing all this business with the lights from the lighting control room?”
“I don’t see how,” said Elizabeth. “It hasn’t been wired up properly yet. And even if Old Tom isn’t who he claimed to be, and he was only here to mess with us, he couldn’t have got all the way to the lighting booth in time.”
“Unless he isn’t working on his own,” said Lissa.
JC turned to Happy. “Are you sure you’re not getting anything?”
Happy looked past JC, swallowed hard, and said, “Uh, JC, I am quite definitely seeing something now.”
JC turned around quickly, to follow his gaze, and everyone else looked, too. A horribly emaciated figure, dressed only in rags and tatters and dark splashes of dried blood, was lying full length on the stage by the far wings, facedown, pulling itself laboriously forward by digging its broken fingers into the wood of the stage. The figure crawled slowly forward, in sudden, painful lurches, leaving a long, heavy trail of blood behind it. The head came up slowly, to reveal a ravaged face: a mask of blood with one dark, empty eye socket and a single eyeball hanging down onto the cheekbone from the other. The mouth was gone, the lips torn raggedly away, to reveal blood-stained teeth bared in an endless, horrid grin. The figure hauled itself along, every movement a slow, agonised effort, full of desperate determination. The sound of broken fingertips scratching and scraping across the wooden stage filled the horrified hush on the stage.
Benjamin and Elizabeth clung tightly together, all the colour fallen out of their faces. They didn’t want to look at the awful figure, but they couldn’t bring themselves to look away. JC snapped his fingers at them several times, to get their attention.
“Has either of you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Of course not!” said Benjamin.
“We would have said!” said Elizabeth. “What is that thing?”
Happy and Melody stood close together, studying the slowly crawling figure with professional interest. They might not like the look of it, but they’d seen a lot worse, in their time. JC looked across at Lissa. She was standing very still, staring, wide-eyed; but once again, not nearly as scared as JC would have expected. Most civilians, with no experience of ghosts and monsters, would have screamed or run or even fainted dead away. Lissa looked…as though she’d been expecting this. Or something like it. But that could wait. First things first. JC turned back to Happy.
“Is it real?” JC said urgently. “Is that thing really there? Physically present?”
“Not physically present, as such,” Happy said immediately. “And it’s definitely not what’s left of Old Tom, if that’s what you were about to ask. I’m finally getting something…but don’t ask me what. There’s a strong sense of presence, but…whether we’re looking at a ghost, or a manifestation, or a stone tape memory…is beyond me. I can’t see! There’s so much power here, JC…It’s swamping the aether and saturating all the psychic channels!”
“You made that bit up!” said Melody.
“There’s so much power, I can’t tell what’s what!” Happy said stubbornly. “It’s like staring into the sun, with different radios blasting into each ear…This whole building is soaked in some kind of overwhelming presence. A real genius loci…”
JC glared at Happy for a long moment, then turned away to give the crawling figure his full attention. It had dragged itself half-way across the stage, shaking and shuddering with effort, heading straight for them.
“All right, Happy,” said JC. “Go and talk to it.”
“What? You go and talk to it!” Happy said immediately. “Wh
atever that is, it doesn’t look like it’s got anything to say that I would want to hear.”
“For once, I am in complete agreement with Happy,” said Melody. “I may be a big brave Ghost Finder, but that thing is officially creeping the hell out of me.”
“Damn right,” said Happy. “You couldn’t drive me an inch closer to that thing with a whip and a chair and an electric cattle prod.”
“Stay here,” said JC.
“You got it, boss,” said Melody.
JC slowly walked forward and took up a position right in front of the crawling figure, blocking its way. It stopped, and slowly raised its bloody face to JC. The dangling eyeball rolled slowly back and forth across the crimson cheekbone. JC knelt before the figure, lowering his face so that it was on a level with the thing before him.
“Can I do anything to help?” he said. “Who are you? What do you need? Who did this to you?”
On the last question, the figure raised one hand and pointed a single finger past JC, at Benjamin and Elizabeth. Blood dripped thickly from the pointing, accusing finger. Everyone turned to look at Benjamin and Elizabeth; and when they looked back again, the crawling figure was gone. And so was the long, bloody trail it had left behind it. There wasn’t a single trace remaining to show that the awful thing had ever been there. Lissa giggled suddenly, and perhaps a bit hysterically.
“My agent is so going to hear about this…”
Elizabeth looked hard at her, and Lissa turned her back on Elizabeth. JC joined Benjamin and Elizabeth.
“Did that figure mean anything to you?” he said.
“No,” said Benjamin. “Nothing.”
“Then why did it point to you two?” Lissa said loudly, having moved some distance away. “Why did it point only at you? What do you know that you’re not telling the rest of us? You’re the ones who’ve got a history with this theatre! What did you do here, twenty years ago?”