Simon Green: Ghost of a Dream

Flesh at its most basic, all appetite and menace, here to serve The Flesh Undying.

Alistair Gravel lifted his ghostly feet and sat cross-legged in mid air, perfectly poised, looking down at the flesh moving jerkily below him with a curled lip of cold distaste. The flesh ignored him. Perhaps because it could tell he wasn’t real, that he had no physical presence to absorb.

Happy glared about him, scowling at the gleaming, pulsing mass. “Okay. This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been around.”

“Are you picking up anything, from this…stuff?” said JC, looking quickly about him for anything that might serve as an exit and not finding one.

“Yes,” said Happy. “It’s not an illusion. Unfortunately. It’s really physically here even though I do wish ever so much that it wasn’t. It’s alive, and it’s hungry. Don’t let even the smallest part of it touch you.”

“Way ahead of you there,” said Melody.

“It’s like that movie, with Steve McQueen,” said Elizabeth, clinging tightly to Benjamin while trying hard to sound brave.

“Hush, dear,” said Benjamin. “You’re showing your age.”

“Oh come on, darling. Who remembers anything about that awful remake? Benjamin, it really is getting awfully close…”

“Stay close to me, love. Stick close to me.”

By now, they’d all been herded together in the middle of the stage while the flesh urged slowly forward on all sides at once. It was almost half a foot deep, and growing taller and thicker all the time, as more and more of the sickening stuff burst up out of the trap-Door. It advanced in sudden leaps and spurts, throwing up into the air sticky projections, projections that fell back to be absorbed and vanish into the main mass. The flesh oozed straight past the Faust without touching or bothering him, and he smiled happily at his victims, huddled together before him.

Benjamin looked urgently at JC over Elizabeth’s shoulder as she hid her face against his chest. “You and Happy destroyed the Phantom! You’re the professionals here! Can’t you do anything?”

“I am,” said JC. “I’m thinking.”

“What?” said Benjamin. “You’re thinking ?”

“Yes,” said JC. “The Phantom was flesh but a small thing. There doesn’t seem to be any end to this…”

“Where’s it all coming from?” said Happy.

“From The Flesh Undying, I assume,” said JC. “Directly or indirectly. It would appear the name is more literally descriptive than we realised. I’d been hoping it was a metaphor…Still, spirit trumps flesh every time. Because flesh begins and ends in life, while spirit transcends life…So, to counter this much flesh, we need more spirits. Logic. Alistair Gravel! Come on down! This is your theatre, your place of power. We need a helping hand here, and you need to put a stop to this unwelcome intrusion. If you really have forgiven your friends, and don’t want them to die…”

“Of course I don’t!” said Alistair. “But what can I do?”

“We need spirits, darling!” Elizabeth said, turning away from Benjamin without leaving his arms to stare desperately at Alistair. “Spirits like you, to throw against this awful Faust person. Can you oblige?”

“Glad to,” said Alistair. “Sorry if I’m a bit slow, my dears, but this is all new to me. And rather more than one poor ghost can handle. Fortunately, I’m not alone here.” He lowered his legs to stand on the stage, right in the middle of the fleshy sea. The pulsing white mass cringed back from him, repulsed by his very nature. Alistair sneered at the Faust. “How do you think I achieved all my many illusions, and manifestations? My power comes from the theatre: a place of dreams and dramas, created by the living to be timeless. So that the Past and the Present and the Future could always be with us. Visions and fantasies become eternal truths, on this stage. History becomes legend; ordinary men and women become immortal. The Haybarn is full of the spirits of performances long past and audiences long gone. They’re all still here, in spirit, because they loved this place too much to ever leave it completely.

“So rise up, dear friends! Let us fill the stalls with our English dead, and drive out this soulless, heartless wretch and the mess he’s made of our glorious stage! Rise up, you players all! ‘The play’s the thing!’”

Suddenly, the whole stage was full of costumed men and women. Packed from front to back and wing to wing. With lords and ladies, character roles and spear-carriers, and every actor who ever created magic for an audience…with words and gestures and perhaps a knowing look. Whole armies from Shakespeare, crowds of comic actors and proud tragedians, uncounted heroes and villains, and any number of attendant lords proud to swell a scene. Drawn back to the stage, by the pride and glory of their ancient profession, to set their great hearts and hard-learned lessons against the simple, spiteful malice of the Faust.

Great in spirit, no matter how small they may have been in life, because deep down every one of them knew that everything they did on the stage was not for them but for their audiences.

And there they were, too, all the audiences that ever were, countless bodies filling the ranked rows of seats in the vast auditorium. A sea of faces, come in celebration of the magic they saw made before them every night, of the lifting of the spirit and the awakening of the heart, that the actors made possible. Come to stand against the empty heart of the Faust.

Actors stood together on the stage, row upon row and rank upon rank, packed so tightly they overlapped each other. And together, they advanced upon the Faust. The audience stood up, as one, and charged the stage, rushing forward in a great tide. The dead actors and the dead audiences fell upon the Faust, and all his vicious flesh was no match for their spirits.

The glistening sea of flesh withered at their touch, unable to cope with so much spirit in one place. It fell back from them, dissipating and disappearing, surging back to the trap-Door. In moments, it was all gone. The ghosts swarmed past Benjamin and Elizabeth and the Ghost Finders, not even seeing them, all their attention focused on the Faust. Benjamin and Elizabeth looked on, wide-eyed and wondering, recognising a face here and there. Even though the ghosts didn’t see them. They were not here for the living. The ghostly actors and audiences surrounded the Faust, circling him, round and round and round; while he turned his face away, this way and that, crying out…faced with something beyond his powers and his experience. All he knew was the selfishness of flesh. All the arrogance and confidence had been beaten out of him, and he had nothing to replace them with.

Alistair Gravel came forward, and an aisle opened up before him so that he could walk unhurriedly through the army of ghosts he’d called up, to confront the Faust. Alistair came forward, and the Faust spun around to face him, confused and half-mad. The two men stared at each other—the dead man not yet departed and the living man who’d only thought himself so much more.

“There’s more to life than flesh,” Alistair said finally. “Here, in this theatre, generations of actors and audiences have celebrated all the glories of the human heart and soul. Monday to Friday, twice on Saturdays. The theatre celebrates all the things…that life is for. The things more important than life, that make being human worthwhile. The great Dream of Humanity. What is flesh in the face of that?”

“Don’t get cocky, little ghost,” said the Faust, breathless with shock, glaring desperately about him. “There’s more to power than sheer strength of numbers. All of you together are no match for me! I’m the Faust! I’m not just flesh; I am the force that gives flesh form and meaning and appetite. I’m alive; and you’re dead!”