Simon Green - Ghost of a Dream

A tall, stoop-shouldered creature, dressed in all the finery of the late nineteenth century, wrapped in a night-black opera cloak. Half his face was hidden behind a grubby, blood-stained mask. The features that could be seen were a sickly yellow colour, as though disfigured by a skin disease. And the eyes…were exactly like the Faust’s. Dark eyes, shark eyes. The creature’s filthy gloved hands dripped fresh blood, which smoked and stained the lobby floor. The Phantom of the Haybarn—a corrupted dream, a living nightmare. He stank of filth and blood and rotting meat.

“What a pretty thing you are,” said the Faust. “My very own Phantom, for this tawdry little theatre. Go forth, my child, my own. Be bad. Be scary. Tear this place apart and everyone in it.”

The Phantom lurched forward, heading for Melody. He looked human enough, but he didn’t move like a man. He swayed and lurched, as though something inside him was broken. He laughed breathlessly, and as he reached out to Melody, she could see that splintered claws had burst through the end of his gloves. He wanted to do things to her. Horrible things. And Melody knew he would take a long time with her before he finally let her die. She was also pretty sure the machine-pistol wouldn’t stop him.

So she did the sensible thing. She strode right up to the Phantom, kicked him so hard in the balls she lifted him right off the ground, ran past him, and fled through the swing doors, into the warren of theatre corridors beyond. She smiled as she heard choked, agonised sounds behind her; the Phantom, trying to force air back into his lungs.

She was already deep into the maze of corridors when she heard him coming after her.

The Faust nodded once and turned away, quietly satisfied at having ticked one small thing off his list. He looked up at the Door, still hanging open, hovering below the ceiling. He waved it away with a brief dismissive gesture, and the Door disappeared. The Faust looked quickly around the empty lobby, then he disappeared, too.

For a moment there was peace and quiet in the theatre lobby, then a figure stirred in the shadows. From where he had been watching all this time, unsuspected and unobserved, Old Tom, the caretaker, emerged into the light, shuffling out across the lobby floor. He stopped and looked at the doors where Melody and the Phantom had made their exit; and then he looked thoughtfully at the spot where the Faust had disappeared.

“You’re not one of mine,” Old Tom said finally. “So whose little ghost are you, I wonder? It doesn’t matter. You won’t get to spoil anything; I’ll see to that. I’ve still got a show to put on.”

And then he disappeared. And the lobby was finally empty and quiet.

Melody ran headlong through the narrow theatre corridors, not once looking back. She didn’t need to look back to know that the Faust’s Phantom was still hot on her trail. She could feel his presence behind her, feel his hot gaze on her back, feel his rotten breath on her neck…She pounded down the dimly lit corridors, arms pumping at her sides, not even trying to pace herself. She had to get to the others, had to tell them about the Faust…because they only thought they were dealing with a haunting. They didn’t know there was a monster in the house. In the end, she had to look back over her shoulder, because she couldn’t stand the tension any more; and, of course, he wasn’t there. Never had been. She made herself run a little faster anyway. She hoped she was going in the right direction. All the corridors looked the same to her. She felt like a mouse running a maze, with a cat at every exit. She took a sharp left turn without slowing and pounded down another long corridor that looked like all the others.

The Phantom burst out of a side passage and slammed right into her, lifting her off her feet as though she weighed nothing and throwing her hard against the far wall. She cried out miserably at the impact and tried to struggle; but he held her easily with one hand at her throat, her feet kicking helplessly several inches above the floor. She made herself fight him, flailing wildly; but her human strength was nothing compared to the Phantom’s. He pushed his masked face right into hers, smiling nastily with the revealed half of his face. Up close, the grubby mask smelled of rotting leather, while his half-face smelled of rotting flesh.

“You can’t outrun me, my sweet,” he said, and his voice was a low, hissing thing, full of venom. “I’ll always be able to run faster than you because I’m a made thing, not bound by human limitations. I was made to run down my prey, then do awful and unforgivable things to it. I was made to make you suffer, and to enjoy it. And I will! It’s good to have a purpose in life.”

Melody brought up her machine-pistol, stuck the barrel right under his jaw, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun was shockingly loud, and Melody cried out despite herself at the terrible sound and the blinding glare. The sheer velocity of the bullets slammed the Phantom’s head back. The repeated impacts broke his hold on Melody and drove him backwards. Melody half collapsed into a crouch before she got her strength and balance back, but she kept firing. The Phantom lurched and swayed this way and that, but she moved the gun with him. The bullets punched right through his formal clothes and cape, but he didn’t cry out, and he didn’t bleed. Melody quickly realised that the Phantom could heal as easily as the Faust who made him.

A sudden silence fell across the corridor as Melody ran out of bullets. The Phantom smiled at her. She looked blankly at the gun in her hand, as though it had betrayed her, and she shook the pistol for a moment, as though that would do anything. She had more clips for the gun, but they were all back in the lobby, in the arms cabinet. She looked at the Phantom, smiling at her like a shark that’s scented blood in the water; and she smiled back at him. He didn’t like that. He started towards her, and she went for him, throwing the empty gun into his face. He snatched the machine-pistol out of mid air and crumpled the metal in his inhuman grasp. And while he was preoccupied doing that, Melody punted him good and hard between the legs. The Phantom dropped to his knees, mouth stretched wide as he tried to force a scream through his constricted throat. Melody punched him once, in the side of the head, just to be sure, then ran on.

The Faust really shouldn’t have made you in his own image, she thought, as she ran. Given you two hostages to fortune…And you really should have been expecting that. Not terribly bright, this Phantom of the Haybarn.

She rounded the next corner at speed, and there, waiting for her was Old Tom, the caretaker. She stumbled to a halt, and he smiled benignly at her. He didn’t seem in the least surprised to see her. She struggled to get her harsh breathing back under control, so she could warn him about the Phantom; but he was already talking.

“You don’t want to go this way, miss. You want to go down there, round that corner, then it’s second on the right. Take you straight to the main stage area, that will. You can’t miss it.”

“Get out of here!” Melody said finally.

“What?”

“Get out of here! Get out of the theatre! There’s bad people here. Dangerous people.”

Old Tom smiled and shook his head. “Bless you, miss, I’m not in any danger. No-one’s going to hurt Old Tom. You follow the directions I gave you, and you’ll be fine.”

He pointed out the direction to her. Melody looked, and when she looked back, he was gone. Not a trace of him anywhere. Melody scowled briefly, gathered up her strength, and ran down the corridor.