Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) (14 page)

It hasn’t happened yet, said the familiar voice inside his head. But it will. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

“You’re Melody from the future?” said Happy. “No . . . No! I won’t let this happen to you! I won’t! How long, before . . .”

Tomorrow. It all happens tomorrow.

And then the awful thing was gone. The air before him was open and empty, with nothing remaining to show there had ever been anything there. Except that Happy’s heart was hammering painfully fast; and his face was covered with a cold sweat. He swallowed hard and breathed slowly and deeply, trying to calm himself. He crouched, picked up the cardboard box, and started down the stairs. Wondering what, if anything, he should say to Melody. And also thinking;
What did you see in the car park, JC? Why do you have a bloody handprint on your jacket? What’s going to happen—to all of us?

He carried on down the stairs, one step at a time, hugging the box to his chest.

That’s not going to happen to you, Mel. I’ll die before I let that happen. I promised you, and I promised myself; I will stand between you and all evil. Even if I have to take every pill I have on me.

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SOMETIMES THE SKY REALLY IS FALLING

When Happy went back into the reception area, he was relieved to find Melody right where she belonged, working away at her semi-circular array of watchful machines. He stood inside the rear door for a while and watched her while his heart and breathing slowly returned to normal. She was currently busy cursing out one of her computers because it wasn’t giving her the answers she wanted. Machines disappointed Melody at their peril. Happy glanced over at the reception desk and wasn’t all that surprised to see that Sally wasn’t there. He started across the room towards Melody and she addressed him immediately, without even looking up.

“You took your time, Happy. What were you doing up there? Collecting autographs? And before you ask, Sally’s outside, taking another break.”

“How could you be so sure it was me?” said Happy.

“I know your walk. I know everything about you, telepathy boy; and don’t you ever forget it.”

Happy smiled. He liked that. He liked being such a familiar part of Melody’s life that she could immediately recognise even the smallest thing about him. But his smile quickly vanished as the image of the awful thing he’d seen at the top of the stairs refused to leave his mind. The terrible thing that was going to happen unless he could prevent it. He stopped walking and shuddered suddenly. Melody looked up to see why he’d stopped and caught the expression on his face. Love and horror; misery and desperation. It took her a moment to realise that he was looking that way because he was looking at her.

“What happened?” she said. “Something’s happened. It’s no good trying to hide it from me; you know I’ll get it out of you. I always do. You can’t hide anything from me.”

“I can,” said Happy. “When it’s to protect you. This is a bad place, Mel. Dangerous. We should drop everything and get the hell out of here. While we still can.”

“Well, we can’t, can we?” said Melody, not even trying to hide the puzzlement in her voice. “What’s got into you? We have a job to do here. We can’t run out on these people until we’ve figured out how to clean up this mess.”

“Is the job really that important?” said Happy, walking slowly towards her. “More important than us?”

“Mostly, yes,” said Melody. “We knew that when we signed up. We gave our lives, and maybe our deaths, to the Institute because we believed it was a job worth doing.”

“Really?” said Happy. “I joined up to get my hands on medications I couldn’t hope to find anywhere else. And I’m pretty sure you told me, you only joined because the Institute had the very best toys.”

“That was then,” said Melody. “This is now. Things change, in time.”

She caught the way his face twisted painfully at her words; and a sudden chill ran down her spine. For the first time, she realised that when he’d said the place was dangerous, he meant dangerous to them.

“What happened to you upstairs, Happy? Did you see something?”

Happy looked away. He couldn’t say anything without blurting out everything. He had to be strong, for her. He couldn’t escape the feeling that by putting his experience into words, he would be making it real, and fixed, immutable. And, anyway, how do you tell the woman you love that you’ve seen her dead, and worse than dead? Melody started to move out from behind her machines, leaving them for him; and then they both looked round sharply as JC came striding confidently into the reception area, and the moment was broken. Melody moved back behind her machines again.

“Talk to Happy, JC!” she said loudly. “He’s hiding something from me!”

“Good for you, Happy,” JC said briskly. “Keeping secrets from each other is all part of maintaining a successful relationship.”

Happy realised he was still holding on to the cardboard box full of voice recordings and that it was growing increasingly heavy. He marched forward and slammed the box down, right in front of Melody’s array. When in doubt, you could always distract Melody by giving her something new to play with. He straightened up, pressed both hands into the small of his back, and stretched slowly and dramatically.

“The voice recordings you ordered,” he said. “Hours and hours of the things. I swear, humping them down the stairs has done serious damage to my spine. Can I get a nice back rub?”

Melody ignored him, hurrying out from behind her array to crouch beside the cardboard box and rummage through its contents.

“I see Sally’s wandered off again . . .” said JC.

“She really doesn’t like it in here,” said Melody, not looking up from the box. “And I’m starting to agree with her. The atmosphere in this room is . . . unhealthy.”

JC looked at her thoughtfully. “Could you be more specific?”

“Not yet,” said Melody. “My machines are still working on it. But you don’t need to be psychic to know when you’ve been dropped into shark-infested waters. Spiritually speaking.”

“Hold everything!” said Happy. “I am team telepath; it’s my job to say things like that!”

“Then get on with it,” Melody said ruthlessly. “What is it that’s got you so rattled? What’s it like, upstairs?”

“Nothing obviously out of the ordinary,” said JC, after it became clear Happy wasn’t going to answer. “If it wasn’t for the voices, and the way everyone here is acting so damned twitchy, I’d say this was an extreme case of Sick Building Syndrome.”

“That would explain why Sally has to keep walking out,” said Melody. “I could have made her stay here till you got back, so you could question her; but I didn’t have the heart. Would have felt like kicking a puppy. Underneath all those piercings and the scary make-up, she’s not nearly as grown-up as she likes to make out. And it’s not like there’s much work for her to do here. No-one’s rung in on any of those phones in ages.”

“Really?” said JC. He strode over to the reception desk, picked up the nearest phone, and listened for a while to make sure it was still connected.

“Anything?” said Happy.

“I can hear the sea,” said JC. He put the phone down and looked back at Melody. “So what have you been up to while Happy and I were gadding about upstairs, making friends and influencing people?”

“Keeping busy,” she said, then looked carefully at JC. “You didn’t see anything, upstairs? Either of you?”

“An old hippie, a man desperate to leave, and a very scary woman heading straight for the top,” said JC. “Have your machines turned up anything useful yet?”

Melody gave up on the voice recordings, straightened up, and marched back behind her array of instruments. She ran her gaze quickly over the various readouts and displays.

“I’m mostly getting all sorts of ordinary,” she said grimly. “Nothing out of place, no unnatural phenomena or weird occurrences, down here or upstairs. Normal and everyday, right across the boards. But I don’t think I trust these readings. It’s like they’re too normal, too ordinary. Almost text-book conditions. And you never get that, out in the real world. It’s as though Something is interfering with my instruments, trying to hide the true state of affairs from me. Suppressing the evidence and distorting the data. Which I would have said was impossible before this . . .”

“Are we talking about the same Something that’s shutting down Happy’s E.S.P.?” said JC.

“Probably,” said Melody.

“I am still here, you know!” Happy said loudly.

“Only just,” said Melody.

“Would you care to make an educated guess as to what this Something might be?” said JC.

“Something very powerful,” said Melody. She scowled at her monitor screens as though they’d let her down. “We’d have to be talking about a really Big Bad, and nasty with it. Powerful enough to hide every trace of its presence and true nature from us.”

“If it’s that powerful . . .” said Happy, “why does it need to hide from us?”

“Good question,” said JC. “Melody?”

“I could elaborate further, but I’m already seriously worried,” said Melody. “If we can’t trust Happy’s E.S.P., or my machines, or even our own senses . . . There’s only one thing it can be. This isn’t any standard haunting, or any of the expected phenomena. We’re dealing with a Beast.”

“Oh bloody hell,” said Happy. “Not another one.”

Melody was still looking steadily at JC. “Are you sure the Boss thought this was only another case? She didn’t say anything to you?”

“No,” said JC. “Not a damned thing. I am starting to wonder, though . . . She did say she didn’t trust the people around her any more.”

“So there is the possibility that she’s being played, as well as us?” said Melody. “That all of this is bait to lure us into a trap?”

“Does feel that way, doesn’t it?” said JC.

“I want to go home,” said Happy. “Seriously. Right now.”

“Life was so much simpler when you were merely paranoid,” said Melody. “I could cope with that. Now it really does feel like the whole universe is out to get us.”

“I should feel vindicated, or even triumphant,” said Happy. “Oddly, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as I thought it would.”

“Let’s concentrate on the job, people!” JC said sharply. “It’s a bit early to be panicking when we’re not even sure what’s going on yet.”

“It’s never too early to panic!” said Happy.

“You’re taking too many pills, Happy,” JC said coldly. “Or not enough.” He turned to Melody and gave her his full attention. “What can you tell me, Mel? There must be something . . .”

“I’m monitoring Radio Free Albion’s output,” said Melody. “And so far, all their transmissions seem normal enough. Not a single intruding voice. Here; listen.”

She turned on the speakers built into her array, so they could all hear what the radio station was putting out. Captain Sunshine was wrapping up his show, his voice calm and professional and unhurried. He wished his audience love and peace, reminded them that flower power was still groovy, then handed over to Tom Foreman.

Tom introduced himself and launched straight into the Traffic News Update. Compared to the experienced Captain Sunshine, he sounded like an amateur. It quickly became clear he was simply reading from a prepared script, with no attempt to sound spontaneous or witty, or engage with his audience at all. He put no effort into it. None of the Traffic News sounded in the least interesting, let alone urgent. He finally ran out of things to say, introduced Felicity Legrand making a trailer for her show, and got off the air with almost indecent speed.

Probably because he could tell he didn’t belong there.

Felicity’s voice was a pleasant relief: warm and soothing and almost confidential, as though she were talking directly to every individual member of her listening audience. She sounded friendly and inviting, a completely different personality to the woman JC and Happy had met in the upstairs lounge.

“Stay tuned, everyone, for a very special show!” said the dulcet tones of the on-air Felicity. “I have some really exciting guests lined up for the interview segment of my show, and you’re not going to want to miss a single moment. Joining us shortly will be three of those famous, fabulous, ghost-busting types: JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer! Of the internationally renowned and only slightly secretive Carnacki Institute! Ghosts R Us; and all that. They’ve promised to shed a new and hopefully revealing light on the strange things that have been plaguing us here at Radio Free Albion; and you can be sure I’ll be asking them all kinds of probing and pointed questions.

“And I’m sure they’ll be only too happy to answer any questions you have! So put on your thinking caps, ring the regular number, and be ready to press them hard for the answers that satisfy! We’ll be taking your calls, sharing your opinions, and talking about the things that concern you . . . And we won’t give up till we’ve got some answers! I know you have some fascinating questions to put to our three Ghost Finders, so stand by your phones! Now back to Tom for the Weather.”

“She’s setting us up to take a fall,” said JC. “Embarrass us with awkward questions she doesn’t believe we can answer.”

“How much can we say?” said Melody. “I mean, the truth is out of the question. Isn’t it?”

“Unless we want to start a mass panic, I would think so,” said JC.

“I did not sign up to do public relations,” said Melody.

“Don’t want to go on her programme,” Happy said sulkily. “I thought we’d agreed I don’t have to do interviews?”

“It’ll be fun!” said JC.

“No it won’t,” said Happy.

“All right, it’ll be interesting,” said JC. “You have to be there, Happy, now she’s named you. Or she’ll say we’re trying to hide something.”

“We are!” said Happy.

“Yes, but we don’t want everyone else to know that,” JC said patiently. “It’s bad enough that Felicity is throwing the name of the Carnacki Institute around so casually; we can’t have people taking too much of an interest in us. So we go on her show, spout a whole bunch of boring platitudes, speak a lot without actually saying much, and shut Miss Clever Mouth down. We don’t need the publicity.”

“Better let me and JC do most of the talking, Happy,” said Melody.

“Suits me,” said Happy.

Melody cut Felicity Legrand off in mid sentence, and a peaceful quiet settled over the reception area. She came back out to study the cardboard box again. JC had a look in the box, too, to keep her company. It did seem very full.