Forces from Beyond

  “Hi, JC! How’s my sweetie? Miss me? I’ve been having a quick look around the other rooms on this floor. You wouldn’t believe what that sweet old couple in 402 are getting up to. But . . . I haven’t seen a ghost anywhere.”

  “Odd,” said JC. “You’d expect there to be a few. Just bog-standard local spirits, same as in any hotel.”

  “It could be that whatever’s in here is so powerful, it actually suppresses everything else,” said Melody. “I need to go back down and fetch my equipment, so I can run proper scans on the environment.”

  “Not just yet,” said JC. “Let’s get a feel for the place first.”

  “It feels depressing,” said Happy.

  “Yes . . .” Melody nodded slowly. “I’m getting something. Dark, brooding . . .”

  “Lonely,” said Kim.

  “Are you picking up anything useful yet, Happy?” said JC. He was concerned about how long Happy’s current frame of mind would last but didn’t like to say anything.

  “Nothing specific . . .” said Happy. “Just . . . really dark feelings. The whole room is saturated with them.” He looked slowly around him. He seemed calm and centred, but his face was an unhealthy colour, with sweat still running down and dripping off his chin. As though the pills he’d taken had lit a fire inside him, and not in a good way. “I thought at first I was just picking up old emotional echoes . . . but it feels more like whatever happened here is still happening. I’m talking real long, dark night of the soul stuff. Deep angst and melancholy; despair on an industrial scale. Nasty! But, I have to say, not linked to any particular person, living or dead.”

  “Given the sheer number of people who died in this room, we should be seeing some ghosts,” said JC. “Even if they’re just intense emotions imprinted on the surroundings.”

  “I don’t like it here,” said Kim, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, I’m dead, and this room is still spooking the crap out of me.”

  “Could be an extreme case of Sick Building Syndrome,” said Melody.

  “No,” Kim said immediately. “It’s more than that.”

  “Okay, this is getting seriously weird,” said Happy. “And I know from weird. I’m getting abstract, almost conceptual psychic pressure. A spiritual undertow, dragging us down.”

  “Haunted Building Syndrome?” said Melody.

  They were all standing close together now, as though they’d been driven into a defensive circle by unseen forces. JC looked quickly back and forth, his skin crawling. It felt like something was sneaking up on him, from every direction at once. As though the walls were closing in, and the ceiling and floor might slam together at any moment. There was a threat in the room, close and real, but he couldn’t seem to pin it down. Part of him wanted to just get the hell out while he still could. Because something was coming straight at him, like a runaway ghost train. To run him down and grind him under its wheels. JC held his head high, and snarled around him. Ghost Finders don’t run; they make everything else run.

  Kim glanced at a mirror on the wall beside her and made a sudden noise. JC’s head snapped around.

  “What?” he said.

  “I always forget I can’t see myself in a mirror,” said Kim. “Ghosts don’t have a reflection because we’re not really here. It’s been so long since I could see my face that I’m beginning to forget what I look like.”

  JC smiled at her. “You look great.”

  But Kim turned her head away, refusing to be comforted.

  “So!” said JC, determined to lighten the mood. “Did I ever tell you I once stayed in a hotel room where there was this long, jagged crack in the ceiling, right over my bed? Every night I had to pull the bed out into the middle of the room because I couldn’t sleep with the crack hanging over me. And every morning I had to push the bed back into place again, so the chambermaid wouldn’t think I was chicken!”

  He looked around; but the story didn’t get a response from anyone. JC sighed and nodded to Kim.

  “All right, girl, you’re up. Give us one of your theatrical anecdotes, about the appalling digs you’ve stayed in. I want this atmosphere broken.”

  Kim smiled gamely. “Okay . . . I remember touring a play, and the producers booked us into this really low-rent hotel in Birmingham’s Chinatown. I didn’t even know Birmingham had a Chinatown . . . My room was a fire exit. Really! A big sign on the outside of my door said Fire Exit, along with a hammer attached to the door by a length of chain. The idea was that in the event of a fire, you ran to my door, smashed in the lock with the hammer, then ran through my room to get to the actual fire exit. I never told anyone, but every night before I went to sleep I jammed a chair up against that door. No-one was getting into my room without my knowing about it . . .”

  She looked hopefully around, but there was no response to her story, either. JC looked like he wanted to smile but couldn’t remember how.

  “Tough crowd,” said Kim.

  “Tough room,” said Happy.

  “I can’t do anything without my equipment,” said Melody. “I can’t even tell you how much of this atmosphere is real and how much is just in our heads.”

  “All right,” said JC. “Go get your precious toys and hit this room with the science stick until it tells us everything we need to know.”

  Melody hesitated, not wanting to leave Happy, but he shot her a reassuring smile.

  “Go,” he said. “I’ll still be here when you get back.”

  “Will you be all right?” said Melody.

  “Hard to tell,” said Happy. “But I’ve got JC and Kim. All jolly companions together. Go.”

  Melody headed for the door, then stopped abruptly. Without taking her eyes off it, she said, “JC, did you shut this door?”

  They all turned to look. The door to Room 418 was very definitely closed.

  “I never touched that door,” said JC.

  “Me neither,” said Happy.

  “And I can’t,” said Kim.

  “A door that closes on its own, when no-one is looking,” said JC. “Now that’s more what I expect from a haunted room.”

  He strode past Melody, took a firm hold on the door-handle, and yanked the door open. It didn’t resist him, but when JC looked through the open doorway, there was no sign of the corridor outside. Instead, he was looking into Room 418. With Melody and Happy and Kim facing him. JC turned slowly, to look over his shoulder; and they were all standing behind him. In Room 418. He braced himself, and strode through the open door. Only to find himself walking back into Room 418, towards Melody and Happy and Kim. There was no sense of being turned around. It all felt perfectly normal until he thought about it, then his head hurt. JC walked back and forth through the open doorway several times, and still couldn’t feel anything.

  “Will you please stop doing that!” said Melody. “You are seriously messing with my head.”

  “I like it!” said Happy.

  “You would,” said Melody. “How the hell are we going to get out of here?”

  “Could be an illusion,” said JC.

  “No,” said Kim. “Because I’m seeing it, too, and you can’t fool ghost eyes. That . . . is real, in its own twisted way.”

  “Okay,” said Happy. “Not panicking even a little bit here.”

  “Nobody is to panic,” said JC. “We aren’t necessarily trapped.”

  He went over to the window, only to stop and consider it thoughtfully. The curtains were closed. JC was sure they’d been open when he entered the room. He took a firm hold on the curtains, yanked them apart, and looked out. And then made a low sound of pain, in spite of himself. There was no view; instead, the window held a complete absence of everything. A terrifying blankness that hurt the eyes, hurt the mind, just to look at. JC averted his gaze. Look at nothing for too long, and the human mind starts to unravel. He carefully pulled the curtains together again and didn’
t look back until he was sure the window was completely covered. He turned his back on the window and looked at the others.

  “All right, it appears we might be trapped in here after all. Any suggestions that don’t involve loud noises of distress and involuntary bowel movements?”

  Kim tried to disappear and found she couldn’t. She frowned prettily, concentrating, and headed determinedly for the nearest wall, to walk through it. Only to find she couldn’t do that, either. She didn’t actually bump off the wall; she just couldn’t seem to get anywhere near it. She looked back at JC.

  “Something very odd is happening here. I mean, I’m not in any way material, but I’m still being affected by whatever’s in this room.”

  “It’s all in the mind,” said Happy.

  “What is?” said JC.

  “This room . . .” said Happy. “We won’t be allowed to leave until the room is finished with us. Finished its business . . .”

  “What business?” said JC, just a bit harshly.

  “Life and death,” said Happy. “The soul in balance. Truth will out . . .”

  JC looked at Melody. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

  “I’m just telling you what I’m picking up,” Happy said patiently. “What the room is saying to me. Or rather, whatever it is that’s in this room with us.”

  JC grabbed up the telephone on the bedside table, but there was no dial tone.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Not even the sea?” said Happy.

  JC frowned and pressed the phone to his ear. “Wait a minute . . . I just heard someone crying. Hello? Is anyone there? Can we help you? What’s wrong?”

  The crying stopped. JC put the phone down. “We’re on our own . . .”

  “If only that were true,” said Happy.

  “Really not helping, Happy,” said Melody.

  She got out her cell phone, but it was just as dead. Melody glared at the phone before putting it away, as though it had let her down. She looked at JC.

  “I suppose screaming for help is out of the question?”

  “Please,” said JC. “I have my pride.”

  “What makes you think anyone would be allowed to hear us?” said Happy.

  “Okay!” said Kim. “You are seriously creeping me out now. And I’m dead! I’m supposed to be above such things.”

  “The room can’t hold us here for long,” said JC. “The manager is bound to come up, to check why we haven’t reported back. We just have to . . . outwait the room.”

  “And if we can’t?” said Happy.

  “Then we use your head as a battering ram to break down the door!” said JC. “It’s not as if there’s anything left in there to damage.”

  “I’ve got a few explosive devices about me, somewhere,” Melody said demurely.

  Happy smiled. “Never knew you when you didn’t, dear.”

  “I think we’ll save the scorched-earth policy for a last resort,” said JC. “We came here to help the manager, not destroy his livelihood. We need to be more . . . receptive. Work out what this is, what it wants.”

  “Or needs,” said Happy. “I am getting a strong feeling this has all happened before. We’re not the first to be held in this room. I am getting a definite sense of history repeating.”

  “Ghosts are history,” said JC. “The Past refusing to go away, imposing itself on the Present.”

  “Then where is the ghost?” said Kim. “Why isn’t it showing itself, making itself known? Why doesn’t it just tell us what it wants?”

  “I don’t think it’s that kind of haunting,” said Happy.

  “I should have hauled my equipment up the stairs,” said Melody. “I’d have had this ghost pinned to a wall by now, interrogating it to within an inch of its death.”

  She stopped because Happy was shaking his head slowly.

  “Ghosts are mostly what remains of people,” said Happy. “Tortured individuals, with unfinished business. This . . . is nothing like that.”

  “Come on, Happy,” said JC. “Give me something I can use. What kind of haunting is this?”

  “The dangerous kind,” said Happy. “We could die here. Many have.”

  “Then where are their ghosts?” said Kim.

  The four Ghost Finders came together in the middle of the room, standing shoulder to shoulder, staring quickly about them. Ready for any attack. But the light remained steady, there were no deep dark menacing shadows anywhere at all, and nothing came out of the woodwork. The room looked entirely empty even though they could all tell it wasn’t. JC’s hands clenched into fists. He hated not knowing what was going on, not knowing who or what to strike out at.

  “Hold it,” said Happy. His eyes were huge, unblinking, almost fey. “The spiritual weather in this room just changed.”

  “What?” said Melody. “What does that even mean?”

  “Something is heading our way,” said Happy. “Closing in on us.”

  “Where’s it coming from?” said JC.

  “It’s already here. It’s always been here. It’s just coming into focus. Concentrating on us.”

  “Who is it?” said Kim.

  “It’s not a who,” said Happy.

  They could all feel a growing force in the room, like an approaching storm pressing in from every direction at once. And then they all cried out and rocked on their feet, as harsh emotions sleeted through their minds, unsettling their thoughts in favour of disturbed instincts. They backed quickly away from each other, glaring suspiciously from side to side, at each of their fellow team-mates in turn. Just like that, they knew they couldn’t trust anyone. A terrible psychic pressure built up in all of them, a need to speak out. To say things that had been left unsaid for far too long. A desperate need to say awful, truthful, unforgiveable things to each other. Secret things, which once brought out into the light could never be unsaid or taken back. Kim looked abruptly at JC.

  “I have to leave you,” she said, unreal tears forming in her unreal eyes. “I have to go because that’s the only way you can have a normal life. I love you, JC, so I have to give you up. You deserve a real life, a real love, with a woman who has a future.”

  “I don’t want anyone else,” said JC. “I only want you. Don’t you want me?”

  “You know I do!” said Kim. “But I can’t touch you!”

  “You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” said JC. “Please. Don’t go.”

  “I have to,” said Kim. “I want you to be happy; and you can’t . . . until you’ve forgotten me and moved on.”

  “Kim . . . No . . .”

  “I want to hold you. I want to be held. This, what we have, it’s isn’t love, not really. At least you can still touch the world you walk through! At least you can still touch yourself . . . I don’t even have that. I’m not real, JC . . . I’m just something that remembers being human and misses it so much . . .”

  She sobbed wildly and lurched forward to beat on his chest with her small fists. Her ghostly hands sank into JC and out again, appearing and disappearing. He didn’t even feel a chill. He started to reach out to her, to put his arms around her, and then stopped. He just couldn’t pretend any longer. Kim snatched her hands away from him and hugged herself tightly.

  “Let me go,” she said. “Let me die. Better for me, better for you . . .”

  “I haven’t felt this lucid in a long time,” Happy said suddenly. “Everything’s so clear . . . I didn’t know how far I’d fallen till you woke me up again. Kim’s right, Mel. Half a life . . . is no life. I don’t want to go back to the way I was, but I will the moment my system burns through the chemicals. Don’t keep me around just because you’re used to me. Find me a pill to put an end to this.”

  “I won’t give up on you,” said Melody. “I won’t give up hope.”

  “There is no hope,” said Happy. “No
way back. I’m tired, Mel, so tired . . . worn down and burned-out. And the worst part of it is knowing I did this to myself.”

  “Happy, you have to hold on,” said Melody. “I know how hard this must be for you . . .”

  “No you don’t!” Happy fixed her with his huge-pupiled, unblinking stare. “You have no idea what it’s like inside my head. You never did. I’m just one voice, drowned out by all the other voices that keep intruding. Only the pills give me any peace, and they’re killing me by inches.”

  “Then I’ll make myself understand,” said Melody. She held up one hand, and showed him the silver pill box.

  “No,” said Happy. “Don’t . . . Mel, you couldn’t cope.”

  “I can handle anything you can,” said Melody.

  She selected three fat pills, and swallowed them down, grimacing at the effort. The others watched, but none of them moved to stop her.

  “That is a really bad idea,” said JC.

  “I know what I’m doing,” said Melody.

  “Really don’t think so,” said JC.

  He broke off as something new emerged in Melody’s face. She looked startled, then shocked, then terrified. She was seeing the world through Happy’s eyes, through Happy’s chemical consciousness; and it was destroying her. JC started forward, but Happy got to her first. He stood before Melody and took both her trembling hands in his. She didn’t even know he was there.

  Chemicals rushed through her mind like a storm of razor blades; slicing up her thoughts and sweeping them away. Melody had always prided herself on her methodical, scientific thinking, but that wasn’t enough to cope with the bigger, stranger, more-than-human world she’d been plunged into. She could see Space and Time and other dimensions she didn’t even have concepts for—the living and the dead and so many other things that were both and neither, all of them screaming . . . as she experienced first-hand all the horror and despair Happy lived with every day. As he died a little more, every day. The only thing that kept him sane, kept him going, was an almost inhuman act of iron will and self-control. And now he was losing even that, day by day and pill by pill. Happy was going under for the third time, feeling the water fill his throat inch by inch.