Simon Green - Spirits from Beyond

“They’re back! They’re back! Oh you beauty, JC! You did it!”

The returned men and women looked at Brook. There were quite a few more of them than he’d admitted to. They started forward, filling the landing with questions. JC grabbed Brook by the arm and held him still.

“Get them out of here,” he said crisply. “God knows how long those doors will stay open, or how long the blonde woman’s control will stay broken. As long as the guests stay here, there’s always a chance the rooms will pull them back in. . So gather them up, don’t stop to answer any questions, get them all down the stairs, then send them down the road to Bishop’s Fording. They should be safe there. Yes, I know it’s raining; yes, I know the road is flooded; and no, I don’t care! Do whatever you have to to get them moving. Now go! Go! Go!”

Brook quickly rounded up the bewildered guests, and chased them down the stairs with a mix of publican’s authority and really harsh language. Their departing feet made a muffled thunder in the enclosed stairway, and Brook drove them on from behind. He paused, half-way down the stairs, to grin and wink at JC, then he drove his guests on again until they’d all disappeared out of sight. JC allowed himself a brief, satisfied smile, then he went back into Happy’s room.

The door in the far wall was gone, with no trace left behind to show it had ever been there. Happy and Melody were standing together, staring into each other’s faces, lost in each other’s eyes. Kim shook her head and went back to join JC. She shrugged prettily.

“Soppy things,” she said kindly. “But it looks good on them. Love is the drug, I suppose. Still, if they hadn’t done it, I bet we could have. Right, JC?”

“Love conquers all,” JC said solemnly.

Happy finally looked around, to glare at JC. “You used me as bait.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” said JC. “And you did help to save a whole crowd of lost souls. So be proud! I think the two of you basically overpowered Blondie, with your love and devotion. Either that, or you disgusted her with your lust for life. Or possibly, vice versa. Either way, I am very pleased with you; but if I hear one chorus of ‘Love Is All Around,’ I will puke. There are limits.”

“It was a good plan,” Melody said, grudgingly. “But you do realise, all we did was scare her away. She will be back.”

“Counting on it,” JC said brightly. “I’m not finished with her yet. Now, while we are still in a winning mood, let us go deal with the room that eats people. I am in the mood to kick its arse or whatever it has instead of an arse. You find me something kickable, and I’ll kick it. We might not be able to save its victims; but we can at least boot it out of our world. Adrian! Adrian, where are you. . Oh. Yes. I sent him downstairs, didn’t I? Never mind, we can do this on our own. Oh yes we can.”

“Have you been at my pills, JC?” said Happy.

“He doesn’t need pills,” said Kim, proudly. “He was born weird.”

“Come along, children,” said JC.

* * *

He strode out of the room and onto the landing, then paused to glare up and down the long corridor. Rooms stretched away to either side, all of the doors closed again. All very still, like the pregnant pause before the storm. Happy and Melody squeezed through the door to join him, refusing to be separated even for a moment. Kim got fed up waiting for them and ghosted through the wall to stand beside JC. He bounced up and down on his feet, raised his voice, and addressed the empty air in a loud and challenging voice.

“Come on then, you horrible, hungry, little room, you! Where are you? Don’t be shy; show yourself! Or don’t you have the balls to face a real challenge?”

“Please don’t taunt the deadly supernatural threat,” murmured Melody. “Not when I haven’t got my proper defensive equipment to hand.”

Kim looked up and down the long corridor, frowning prettily. “It’s hiding. I can’t See anything. Happy, can you See anything?”

“More than you can possibly imagine,” said Happy indistinctly.

They all looked round in time to see Happy knock back a single fat pill, canary yellow with ice-blue stripes. He dry swallowed the bulky thing with the ease of long practice, then shook his head hard. His eyes bulged, his breathing grew steadily deeper, and he smiled broadly. He started snorting and grunting, and stamped one foot on the ground like an animal getting ready to charge.

“Oh hell,” said JC. “What’s he taken now?”

“Something he usually only takes with me in mind,” said Melody. “I’d stand well back if I were you.”

“But what does it do?” said Kim.

“Amplifies some of his more. . basic instincts,” said Melody.

“The two of you never cease to appal me,” said JC. “Really. I mean it.”

“I can See you!” Happy said loudly, his whole body orientated on the right-hand side of the landing. “Don’t think I can’t See you!”

And he charged straight down the landing, like a bull who’d spotted a way past the matador’s cloak. JC and Melody and Kim hurried after Happy, until he slammed to a sudden halt and stood quivering like a pointing dog, facing one particular room. He grunted and growled at the closed door, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Still grinning his very disturbing grin.

“This is it! I can tell. . This is the room where if you go in, you don’t get to come out again. Except, of course, this isn’t a room and never was.”

“What are you Seeing, Happy?” said JC, moving cautiously in beside him.

“Oh, I’m Seeing all kinds of things,” said Happy, staring at the closed door with wide, unblinking eyes. “JC, you wouldn’t believe some of the things I’m Seeing. Hello, can any of you hear that? It sounds like. . a baby, crying.”

JC looked at Melody, then at Kim, and turned reluctantly back to Happy. “I don’t hear anything,” he said carefully.

“Of course you don’t!” said Happy. Sweat was pouring down his face, but his eyes still didn’t blink. “You were born with mental blinkers on, like everyone else. Don’t worry; it’s not actually a baby. It’s something that’s learned to sound like a baby crying, to lure people in. But I know better. I know a lure when I hear one. .”

He went suddenly quiet, glaring at the door. JC looked at Happy, at the others, then at the door. It gave every appearance of being completely safe and ordinary, but JC still couldn’t bring himself to touch it. All the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck and his arms, in ancient, instinctual warning. It felt like the door was watching him. .

“Excuse me, everyone,” said Kim. “But what are you all looking at? I didn’t hear any baby, and I don’t see any door. You’re all staring at a perfectly unremarkable stretch of wall.”

“I told you. It’s not a room, it’s a trap!” Happy said loudly. “And since it’s a trap designed to lure in the living, you can’t see it, Kim. Being dead, as you are. The room doesn’t want you. Because you ain’t got no body, and therefore no chewy bits.”

“I think I feel left out,” said Kim. “Passed over.”

“Ghost humour,” said Happy. “Ho ho ho!”

“Calm the hell down, Happy, or I swear I will stick a nozzle up your bottom and rinse your insides out with Ritalin,” said Melody. “When this is all over, I am going to have to sit down and work out some serious checks and balances for you.”

“Fun time!” said Happy.

JC tore his gaze away from the door, walked back to the top of the stairs, and shouted down them. “Brook! Get back up here! You’re needed!”

He waited, but there was no response. JC growled under his breath and tapped one foot impatiently.