Forces from Beyond

  “Isn’t it always?” said JC.

  “But . . . what can we do?” said Happy. “This isn’t like mice voting to bell the cat; it’s more like three ants deciding to beat up an elephant.”

  “The Voice said . . . Destroy the Flesh, and the animating force would no longer have any hold on our reality,” said JC.

  “Okay . . .” said Happy. “So doing that will kill it?”

  “Presumably,” said JC. “I’d settle for its just being gone and no longer a threat to our world.”

  “The Flesh . . .” said Melody. “The living mountain itself. I don’t think that much living matter came through the hole in reality, from the Other Place. More likely, the Flesh Undying gathered organic matter to itself, from the ocean, when it arrived, to make a living form it could inhabit. To root itself in this world and give it the power to affect things here. And only then discovered it was trapped in the Flesh. Limited by our natural laws. Which is why it’s been so desperate to escape again. If we destroy the Flesh, but there’s no hole between the worlds for the animating spirit to go back through . . . that should put an end to it! Makes sense. Sort of.”

  “I would like to drag everyone back to my earlier question,” said Happy. “How do we destroy a living mountain?”

  “We don’t,” said JC. “We separate the Flesh from its animating spirit. Drive it out, exorcise it.”

  “And that will kill it?” said Happy.

  “Presumably,” said Melody.

  “I wish you’d stop saying that,” said Happy.

  “We need to raise enough spiritual power to drive a wedge between body and soul,” said JC. “But how can we gather enough spirit to overpower the Flesh’s animating spirit?”

  They sat quietly for a while, looking at each other, hoping someone else would come up with the answer. And all the time the sonar pinged loudly and aggressively.

  “Remember how we gathered the ghosts in the Haybarn Theatre, to overcome the Faust?” JC said finally. “And the spirits in the Acropolis Hotel room? We called, and they came, to do something that mattered, that needed doing. Ready to defend and heal our world in its time of need.”

  “But this is a problem on a whole different scale!” said Melody.

  “Just means we need a much bigger gathering,” said JC. “Time to raise our game, people. We need to call together all the ghosts in the world. To save the world.”

  “All of them?” Happy said incredulously. “Ten out of ten for ambition, JC, but . . .”

  “Humanity’s unconscious,” said JC. “The world’s dreaming. Bring them all back, in one last cause. One last chance for the unquiet dead to defend the living they left behind. We call up an army of angry ghosts . . . and then throw them at the Flesh Undying.”

  “Okay,” said Happy. “That’s one hell of an idea . . . a very good idea. But how do we do that?”

  “We die,” JC said steadily. “And then we go ask them.”

  There was a long pause.

  “How did you get hold of my pills?” said Happy.

  “No, no; I get it!” said Melody. “Remember how we got those missing students’ spirits back, after their séance went wrong? We sent our souls out to contact them and bring them home. We can do that again . . . We die here, under controlled conditions, leave our bodies and make contact with the world’s dead but not departed . . . And use that accumulated power to drive the Flesh Undying out of the mountain! And then, afterwards, we return to our bodies!”

  “Oh, of course,” said Happy. “Because that worked so well last time. The students’ minds ended up in the wrong bodies! It took months to sort them out!”

  “Do you have a better idea?” said JC. “Do you have any other idea?”

  “Give me time,” said Happy. “I’m thinking . . .”

  They waited.

  “All right,” said Happy. “We put together an army of ghosts. What happens then?”

  “I don’t know,” said JC. “I don’t believe the living can know things like that. But the Voice from Outside said . . . I would know what to do when I needed to. Kim . . . ?”

  “Yes, JC,” said Kim’s quiet voice.

  “Is what I’m proposing actually possible?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it?” said Happy. “No arguments; no ifs or buts or maybes?”

  “We can do this,” said Kim. “We’re Ghost Finders; we find ghosts. I can lead you right to the edge of the Hereafter, where ghosts can hear you. We’ve done this before. Remember the low road, and the wood between the worlds?”

  “Yes,” said Happy. “I didn’t like it then, and I’m really not keen on revisiting it again until I have to. This is seriously scary, JC. If we do let ourselves die, what guarantee is there we’ll make it safely back?”

  Melody smiled at him. “You’re dying anyway, sweetie. We both know that. At least this way we can die together, and our deaths will have some meaning, some purpose.”

  “Well . . . if you put it like that,” said Happy.

  “It all makes a kind of sense,” said Kim. “A ghost, leading the living to the dead, to deliver previously prepared weapons into their proper place, against the Flesh Undying. It’s almost like the forces from Outside knew what they were doing all along.”

  “How about that,” said JC.

  “You know,” said Happy, “we could all die down here and stay dead. And no-one would ever know what we did, or how we died, or why.”

  “We don’t do this job for the glory,” said JC.

  “We don’t?” said Melody.

  “I was always in it for the money,” said JC.

  “For access to powerful chemicals!” said Happy.

  “For access to forbidden technology!” said Melody.

  “For a chance to do something that mattered,” said Kim.

  “Yes,” said JC.

  “Good enough,” said Melody.

  “I can live with that,” said Happy.

  “Let’s do it,” said JC. “Before we all lose our nerve.”

  JC opened communications with the Moonchilde, using the direct phone line. He explained the plan to Captain Katt and told him to cut off the air supply to the bathysphere. There was a long pause.

  “Let me hand you over to the scientists,” Katt said finally.

  “Are you sure about this?” said Goldsmith, almost immediately. “It all sounds very . . . metaphysical.”

  “It’ll work,” said JC.

  “Look,” said Goldsmith. “We’re getting really good information about the Flesh Undying, from the equipment. Which is what this descent was all about. You don’t need to sacrifice yourselves, in some desperate attempt to take out the Flesh Undying personally.”

  “Yes we do,” said JC.

  There was another pause, then Hamilton’s voice came over the phone. “Goldsmith’s gone for a little walk around the deck. He can’t handle this. I’m not sure I can. Have you checked your air mix recently? Are you getting enough oxygen, or too much?”

  “We know what we’re doing,” said JC.

  There was another break, then Catherine Latimer came on the line. “Talk me through this plan of yours.”

  JC spelled it out for her, doing his best to sound confident. When he’d finished, there was barely a pause before Latimer’s voice came back to him.

  “Sounds good to me. I’ll tell them to go ahead. How will we know if your plan succeeds?”

  “The living mountain will die,” said JC. “The sensors will tell you. As soon as you’re sure it’s dead and gone, start pumping air back into the bathysphere. Not before.”

  “Come back safely,” said Latimer. “If only so you can tell me all about it.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” said JC.

  He shut down the phone line. He didn’t have anything more to say; and he didn??
?t want to risk someone’s talking him out of it. The three Ghost Finders sat quietly in their chairs, waiting. Melody held Happy’s hand tightly. Because she’d promised to hold him while he was dying.

  “I don’t hear anything,” said Happy, after a while. “How will we know they’ve shut the air off?”

  “We’ll know,” said Melody.

  “I wonder what it will feel like?” said JC.

  “Supposedly, just like falling asleep,” said Melody.

  “I can do that,” said Happy. “I’ve done it before.”

  “There are worse ways to die,” said Melody. “Than with your friends.”

  “Kim,” said JC. “Please manifest. I want you here with us. I want you to be the last thing I see.”

  The ghost girl appeared before him, glowing faintly in the dim light of the sphere. She’d altered her appearance again, to how she’d looked when they first met. How she looked when she was murdered in the Underground. A pre-Raphaelite dream of a woman in her late twenties, in a long white dress, with a great mane of red hair and a sharply defined face. She had vivid green eyes and a wide smile. She looked very real.

  “I’m here, JC. I’m always here, for you.”

  “Can you tell me what it’s like, now?” JC said steadily. “Being dead?”

  “Not in any way you could understand,” said Kim. “Be patient. You’re about to find out.”

  “I met a ghost woman in that haunted inn,” said Happy. “She said being dead was awful.”

  “For some, it is,” said Kim. “What we do with our life defines our after-life.”

  JC looked at Happy, then at Melody. “Is he really dying, Mel? No hope, no last chance for a miracle?”

  “Given everything he’s taken, it’s a miracle he’s still with us,” said Melody.

  “I’ve always thought so,” said Happy.

  “If there’s one thing this job teaches us,” said JC. “It’s that death is not the end. So whatever happens, I’ll see you again.”

  But when he looked at Happy, the telepath’s eyes were already closed. His face was slack, and he was barely breathing. JC looked at Melody, and she had passed out, too. JC was suddenly aware of how laboured his breathing had become, and he looked quickly to Kim. A sudden panic rushed through him, like a drowning man who feels the waters closing over his head. He tried to get up out of his chair and found he couldn’t. He struggled for air, trying to say something to Kim. She smiled at him reassuringly. And JC stopped fighting. He looked at Kim’s face and held on to that image as the dark swept over him.

  And then he died.

  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

  The next thing JC knew, he was standing in the bathysphere, looking down at his body, sitting slumped in the chair. It seemed such a small and fragile thing. Melody and Happy and Kim were standing beside him, all of them glowing with a familiar golden light. And JC’s first thought was that he didn’t feel any different. He did wonder how all of them were able to stand inside the bathysphere; and the moment he thought that, the walls of the sphere just faded away, and they were all standing in the tree-lined avenue he remembered from the low road. The wood between the worlds. JC looked down the long corridor of trees, to where something was waiting for him. He could feel it. Like a voice calling to him, promising him all the answers to all the questions he’d ever had. It didn’t feel frightening; it felt like going home, at last. JC turned away from it. Because he still had work to do.

  The trees disappeared, and the four of them were left standing on a great open plain, under a colourless, featureless sky. The setting stretched away in every direction, forever. And all around the four Ghost Finders stood row upon row of dead men and women. Ghosts without number, all the unquiet dead who couldn’t let go, wouldn’t pass on. Because they weren’t at peace with themselves, for any number of reasons. JC called out to them, in a voice that was somehow much more than a voice, offering them one last chance for penance and redemption. One last chance to do the right thing; one last service to pay for all sins. Save themselves by saving the world. The dead listened and agreed, it was what they’d always wanted.

  In a moment, they were all standing on the bottom of the ocean floor, forcing back the darkness of the depths with the spiritual light they generated. They stood at the base of the living mountain, facing the Flesh Undying. Row upon row, rank upon rank, of the dedicated dead. The Flesh Undying knew they were there, and it was afraid. JC linked with Kim, then with Happy and Melody, as the forces from Outside had always intended. Four minds so close they touched at all points, four souls who fitted together with no joins showing. They became the focus through which the massed power of the angry dead could manifest and be unleashed. A great cry went up, an untold number of voices speaking all at once, as they lashed out at the Flesh Undying. A single, simple hammer-blow; a righteous effort of will and dedication in defence of the world they’d left behind but still loved. And the spirit from Outside was forced out of the unnatural body it had made for itself. It fought them, and it was horribly powerful, but it was nothing in the face of Humanity’s spirit. They exorcised the thing from Outside, drove it out. They saw it leave, and they heard it howl with despair as it realised it had nowhere to go. It faded away, dissipating and disappearing forever. Leaving behind just a mountain of dead flesh, already starting to decay.

  JC turned to his army of ghosts, to thank them and tell them how proud he was of them, but they were already gone. He turned to Kim and Happy and Melody; but they were gone, too. JC stood alone at the bottom of the ocean, looking at a dead mountain. He smiled briefly.

  He’d saved the world. He couldn’t have done it without the forces from Outside, but he took a quiet satisfaction in knowing they couldn’t have done it without him.

  He let go.

  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

  JC came to himself again, standing inside the bathysphere. Looking down at his dead body. Kim and Happy and Melody were also there with him—as ghosts. The three bodies sitting slumped in their armchairs were still very dead.

  “All right,” said Happy. “What’s gone wrong?”

  “I don’t understand,” said JC. “The scientists must know the Flesh Undying is dead. They should have filled the sphere with air again, by now.”

  “We’re dead,” said Happy. “We are so dead . . .”

  “The air pumps aren’t operating,” said Melody. “No new air coming in from the Moonchilde.”

  “What do we do?” said JC. “We can’t contact the scientists and tell them to get to work unless someone’s got a Ouija board handy.”

  “You have to stop being so limited in your thinking, JC,” said Kim. “We’re all ghosts now, and the dead can go anywhere. Follow me.”

  She floated up to the curving roof of the sphere and passed through it. JC looked at the others, shrugged, and went after her. Happy and Melody followed on behind, holding hands so nothing could separate them. The four glowing spirits shot up through the dark waters, blasting through fathoms in a moment, not feeling the pressure or the cold. They appeared standing on the deck of the Moonchilde, to discover Captain Katt and his crew covering Goldsmith and Hamilton with their guns. The scientists gestured desperately at the air pumps, but the crew wouldn’t let them get anywhere near the controls.

  “You have to let us do this!” yelled Goldsmith. “They’ll die down there if you don’t let us save them!”

  “That’s the idea,” said Katt. His voice was calm and steady, utterly unmoved by the scientists’ rage and horror.

  “This is murder!” said Hamilton. “Premeditated, cold-blooded murder!”

  “Best kind,” said Natasha Chang, lounging carelessly beside the Captain. “I told you, I’m in charge here. I speak for the Crowley Project, and I say: no air! Let the Ghost Finders stay dead. They’ve served their purpose, and we don’t need them any longer.” She smiled sw
eetly at Catherine Latimer, covering her with the gold-plated pistol. “Nothing to say, Boss lady?”

  “I’d like to say I’m surprised,” said Latimer. “But I’m not. I’d plead for my people’s lives if I thought it would do any good, but it wouldn’t. And anyway, I wouldn’t lower myself to the likes of you.”

  “We don’t need you any more, either,” said Chang. “So guess what! I’m going to eat your soul! Rip it right out of your head and wolf it down! I’ll bet it’s really chewy, and just full of secrets . . .”

  Latimer fixed Chang with suddenly glowing golden eyes. “No dear, I’m going to eat your soul. I learned that old trick years ago.”

  She tore Natasha Chang out of her body, and everyone on the deck of the Moonchilde flinched, as Chang’s body fell limply to the deck. Still breathing, its eyes staring unseeingly. Catherine Latimer smiled coldly about her.

  “Not the first bad thing I’ve had to stomach.”

  Captain Katt stepped in behind Latimer and shot her twice in the back of the head. The Boss died without a sound, her brittle old body falling to the deck to lie beside Chang. Katt looked down at the two bodies and nodded stiffly to Latimer.

  “I suppose I should thank you, for ridding the world of that unnatural monster. But then, you weren’t much better in the end, were you? My orders were always quiet specific—no Ghost Finders could be allowed to survive this mission, whatever the outcome. You’d seen too much, knew too much. And we don’t like owing favours to anyone. It’s the Project way.”

  JC and Kim, Happy and Melody went striding down the deck, their glowing golden light blazing brightly in the night. Captain Katt and his crew looked round, then froze where they were. Katt’s face was full of shock and horror as he saw the people he’d ordered killed coming for him. And knew at last why the dead had always walked the deck of his ship. Katt stumbled back and yelled for his crew to open fire. Many of them did, but their bullets just passed harmlessly through the advancing ghosts.

  The four Ghost Finders moved as one, full of a terrible power, and blasted the life right out of the crew. They collapsed all across the deck, their spirits crying out as they saw what was waiting for them. Goldsmith and Hamilton hid behind a tall pile of crates, their eyes squeezed shut and their hands over their ears. Not wanting to know. Captain Katt looked at the four ghosts heading relentlessly towards him and saw what they had planned for him. He put his gun to his head and pulled the trigger. His body made only a small sound as it crumpled to the deck. His ghost didn’t appear. It had always known where it was going.