Simon Green - Spirits from Beyond

Melody looked her would-be attacker over. A man dressed in black, with a dark balaclava to cover his face. Melody grabbed him by the arm, hauled him back onto his feet, and threw him around the room. She hung on to his arm with both hands, slamming him violently into the furniture and off the walls, while he made horrible noises of pain and distress.

Melody smiled a really unpleasant smile and eventually let the intruder fall to the floor. She kicked him several times, in very painful places, to make it clear she was still mad at him, then stood over her would-be attacker, breathing hard. She had to admit that she did feel better. She’d needed someone to take her frustrations out on. Melody ripped off the dark balaclava and immediately recognised the pale sweating face underneath.

It was Cootes, the local solicitor.

“How did you get in here?” said Melody.

“Sneaked back in, through the rear door,” said Cootes, in a very unsteady voice. “While all the others were hurrying to their cars. No-one noticed I wasn’t with them. I came up here before you did and hid inside your wardrobe.”

“How did you know which room I’d be in?” demanded Melody.

“I don’t know!” said Cootes, miserably. “I just knew. .”

He seemed honestly confused about that. As though he hadn’t even considered the question before. Whatever was working in the inn had messed with his mind. . Not that this in any way excused what he’d intended to do. Nasty little man. .

“Please. .” said Cootes. “I was upset because I wasn’t going to be on television. And because of what your friend said. . Please! Don’t hit me! It was a joke, a bit of fun. .”

“Yeah,” said Melody. “I’m really amused. .”

She grabbed Cootes by the arm and hauled him back up onto his feet. She dragged him over to the door, opened it, and kicked him out onto the landing. He fell sprawling on the floor and scrabbled quickly away on all fours, desperate to put some distance between him and Melody, until he realised she wasn’t coming after him. He rose painfully to his feet and glared back at her, tears of shock and pain and shame coursing down his face.

“I’ll get you for this!”

Melody raised the machine-pistol in her hand and aimed it at him. “No you won’t.”

Cootes swallowed hard, the last of the colour dropping out of his face. He nodded slowly. “I think. . I’ll be leaving now. If that’s all right with you.”

Melody nodded, and he turned and ran for it. She watched Cootes go until he disappeared down the stairs, then she grinned broadly and went back inside her room.

* * *

Happy sat alone, ignoring everything, completely uninterested in his room and its contents. He sat slumped on a stiff-backed chair, before an old-fashioned, black-lacquered writing-desk. He was looking at all the pill bottles and boxes he’d taken out of his suitcase and set out on the desk before him. He honestly hadn’t realised how many there were. All of them carefully labelled in his obsessively neat handwriting. A lifetime’s collection. . of chemical excuses. For not being good enough.

He picked them up and put them down, moving them back and forth in patterns and connections that only made sense to him. Setting them out in possible combinations, considering the effects, and the side effects. . He never used to mix his poisons, but then, he never used to do a lot of things. .

He’d actually created a lot of these pharmaceutical marvels himself, thanks to his access to the Carnacki Institute’s very private laboratories. One of the Institute’s most revered research chemists, a certain defrocked Franciscan monk, a genius with access to unstable compounds, was always ready and willing to help Happy out. If only out of curiosity, to see what Happy would do to himself. Apparently the monk saw Happy as his own personal on-going experiment. He kept saying he was going to write a paper, one of these days, on exactly how much damage the human constitution could stand.

One day, Happy hoped to discover what use the Ghost Finders had for private chemical research. No-one else in the labs would even talk to him, let alone discuss what they were doing, or what they were there for. But given that chemicals had no effect on ghosts, Happy did wonder whether the Institute might be trying to develop better field agents, or at least ones who lasted longer, through creative chemistry. If Happy had only known, he would have volunteered.

Officially, Catherine Latimer had no idea what Happy was doing, down in the very private laboratories. But Happy was pretty sure she did know, really. Or they’d never have let him in in the first place.

He picked up a couple of silver pill boxes and rattled the contents thoughtfully. He needed new combinations now, in increased concentrations, because standard pharmaceuticals didn’t do the job any more. He’d built up a quite frightening tolerance, down the years. And as a result, he’d had no choice but to start experimenting with stronger and stranger things. He’d tried mandrake root and mongoose blood, green tea and monkey glands, and even diluted doses of Dr. Jekyll’s Elixir. That last one, mostly out of curiosity. He’d quite fancied the idea of being someone else for a while. Someone who didn’t have his problems, or weaknesses; or at least someone who wouldn’t care. . Someone new who didn’t scare so easily. But the diluted dose couldn’t even affect his much-altered metabolism; and he was scared to go full Hyde.

In case he couldn’t turn back.

His eyes ranged back and forth across the endless handwritten labels, hoping something would jump out and catch his eye. His drug use had never been recreational, never been about getting off his face. It had always been about keeping the world, and especially the hidden world, outside his head. So he could hear himself think and be sure the emotions he was feeling were just his own. All he’d ever wanted was peace of mind; and after all this time and all this effort, he was no nearer attaining it.

Of course, the job, and the weird experiences, and the constant paranoia didn’t help. But he couldn’t bring himself to quit, not now he knew what the world was really like. Not now his team needed him, more than ever. And besides, where else could he hope to gain access to the kind of chemical help the Institute provided. .

He sat on his uncomfortable chair and listened to the wind and rain batter against the closed window. It sounded. . lost, and alone. Sudden gusts of night air forced their way in through cracks in the warped window frame, fluttering the flowered curtains. Happy could feel the storm raging outside, feel its growing, angry presence, like some terrible wild animal prowling around and around the inn, searching for a weak spot, for a way in. Happy felt a sudden impulse to get up and run out of the inn, rip all his clothes off, and run naked through the storm, defying the lightning to hit him. But he didn’t have the energy.

He was tired all the time now. Woke up tired, spent the day tired, and went to bed tired. Bone-deep, soul-deep, weary. He wanted to sit there in his room and do nothing. . feel nothing. . He wanted to take a pill, any pill, any number of pills, to shock himself out of this. . At least the pills woke him up, gave him a reason to go on, helped him invest himself in the world. Like it mattered. .

The pills made him feel alive, but he didn’t want to take them any more. Because he didn’t like who he was when he took them; because he wanted to be somebody Melody might take back.

Because he had a feeling she might be his last hope. His last life-line.

And because if he did give in to the pills, dived into the great chemical ocean one more time and let it close over his head, he didn’t think he’d be coming back.