Simon Green - Ghost of a Dream

“Now you tell me,” muttered JC, rubbing at his bruised shoulder. “Do you see anything in here we can use to break down the door?”

“No. Nothing. You think maybe that’s deliberate? Because I sure as hell do. I told you this was a trap!”

“Try not to lose it just yet, Lissa,” said JC. “There are still options.” He moved to stand between her and the advancing costumes. “You can’t let this get to you. A lot’s happened since we entered this theatre, but even though some of it was seriously spooky, and even downright disturbing on occasion…there was never a time when we were in any real danger. I’m trained to notice things like that. Somebody has been doing their level best to scare us, but not once in any way that put our lives at risk.”

“I don’t think that’s true any more,” said Lissa. “Things have changed. This feels different. Dangerous.”

“Come on!” said JC. “What can a bunch of old clothes do? Pelt us with mothballs? Beat us to death with their embroidered cuffs?”

He stepped forward again, closing with the clothes, and raised one hand to whip off his sunglasses, to see if he could stop them with the glare from his altered eyes. The costumes rushed forward and threw themselves on JC, ignoring Lissa completely. As though she wasn’t important, as though she wasn’t even there. The clothes hit JC hard, driving him backwards and wrapping themselves around him in layer upon layer, squeezing tight. JC tried to fight them, but there was nothing there to fight. The clothes simply gave when he tried to hit them and stretched when he tried to rip and tear them. They dropped upon him in wave after wave, closing tighter and tighter around him, pinning his arms to his sides with inhuman strength, like so many constricting snakes.

The clothes whipped JC’s feet out from under him, and he fell backwards. He hit the floor hard, driving all the breath from his body. And once he was down, he couldn’t get up again. The clothes wrapped him up like a mummy, his legs strapped together, his arms helpless at his sides…He fought and struggled, threw all his strength against the enveloping costumes; but they were stronger than he was. Lissa fought desperately to tear the clothes off him, but even though clothing ripped and tore under her hands, she couldn’t do enough damage to tear even one piece of clothing away. The costumes ignored her, piling onto JC in layer after layer, burying him underneath them.

He thrashed around on the floor, throwing his weight this way and that, but it was becoming harder and harder to get his breath as the clothes compressed his chest. And then a single silk shirt dropped down across his face, slapping into place, moulding itself tightly across his features, filling his mouth and nostrils so he couldn’t get any air at all. One last breath was forced out of him; and he couldn’t draw another one in.

The door smashed in as Old Tom, the caretaker, came crashing into the room. Lissa yelled for him to help her, and the two of them ripped the silk shirt away from JC’s face and tore it into ribbons. JC dragged in a great breath of air, struggling against the clothes again with renewed strength. Lissa and Old Tom attacked the enveloping costumes with their bare hands, ripping and tearing at them; and the clothes collapsed and went limp. Lissa and Old Tom rocked JC back and forth as they pulled the no-longer-resisting costumes away from him, pulling them off him, layer by layer, until JC could finally find the strength and leverage to break free.

He struggled back up onto his feet, tearing at the last few clothes with an almost hysterical strength, desperate to get them off him. When they finally fell away from him and sprawled unmoving on the floor, he kicked at them viciously, breathing hard. And then he was back in control again, himself again, standing still and forcing his breathing back under control. He smiled easily at Lissa and Old Tom as they stood uncertainly before him.

“Well!” JC said brightly. “That was different. Hello again, Old Tom. Where have you been? We couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“Oh, here and there, sir,” said Old Tom, as vaguely diffident as ever. “I was talking to that scientific young lady of yours, in the lobby.”

JC waited, until it was clear he wasn’t going to get any more, then he looked thoughtfully at the distressed clothes lying on the floor. He prodded a few with the tip of his shoe, to be sure; but there was no response.

“You don’t want to go playing with the costumes, sir,” said Old Tom, reproachfully. “You’ll damage them. Clothes like that are expensive.”

“Do you know how they got here?” said JC.

“No, sir,” said Old Tom. “I’m the caretaker; I don’t do costumes. That’s a whole other department. More than my job’s worth to mess with things that are none of my concern.”

JC had already stopped listening, half-way through the old caretaker’s response. He was thinking. Why would Kim have brought him here, into a trap, to be attacked? This had to be deliberate. Wait until he was separated from Happy and Melody, then bring him to a room with no escape, where his death would be waiting.

“Why would Kim bring me here?” he said, and only realised he’d said it aloud when Lissa snorted loudly.

“What did she say to bring you here?”

“She didn’t say anything,” said JC.

“Then there’s your answer. How do you know it was really your Kim?” said Lissa. “We’ve all seen all kinds of illusions in the theatre, things and people that weren’t what they appeared to be.”

“But like you said, this was different,” said JC. “This wasn’t just scary; someone meant for me to die here.”

“Someone else is here in the theatre with us,” said Lissa. “Someone who isn’t supposed to be here.”

JC nodded brusquely to Old Tom. “Thanks for your help. Have you seen anyone else? Anyone who isn’t authorised to be here?”

“No, sir.”

JC looked at him thoughtfully. “How did you know Lissa and I were in trouble?”

“I didn’t, sir,” said Old Tom. “I was checking out the corridors, looking for you, to pass on a message. And then I heard you two crashing about in here, where no-one had any business being, and I thought I’d better take a look.”

“A message?” said Lissa. “Who from, exactly?”

“From Mr. Happy, Mr. Benjamin, and Miss Elizabeth,” said the old caretaker, a bit importantly. “They want you, and Miss Melody, to rejoin them on the old stage, as soon as possible.”

“Go back to the main stage?” said JC. “What on earth for?”

Old Tom shrugged. “They didn’t say, sir, and it wasn’t my business to ask. Will there be anything else, sir? Then I’ll be off. Lots of work still to do.”

He smiled about him vaguely and went back out into the corridor. Lissa looked at JC, who stayed where he was, frowning hard, thinking.

“Something’s not quite right,” said JC.

“Oh, I couldn’t agree more,” said Lissa. “That moustache really doesn’t suit him.”

“Why didn’t Melody ring me if she knew I was needed?” said JC. He took out his phone and checked, but there were no missed calls.

“Why didn’t Happy yell at you with his mind?” said Lissa.

“Because I put a lot of time and effort into training him not to do that except for real life-endangering emergencies,” said JC. “Still…”

“Oh, to hell with it,” said Lissa. “Let’s go see what they want. I’m sick to death of this room. Never wanted to come in here anyway.”

JC nodded slowly and started to follow Lissa out of the room and into the corridor. At the last moment, he stopped in the doorway as a thought struck him. The costumes only attacked him. Not Lissa. Not even when she was tearing at them, to save him. Odd, that…