John Connolly - The Creeps - A Samuel Johnson Tale

The problem was that the good people of Biddlecombe didn’t particularly want scientists lurking around every corner and asking hopefully if anyone had been abducted, possessed, or attacked by something with too many arms. The people of Biddlecombe were hoping that whatever hole had opened between universes might have closed by now, or been filled in by the council. At the very least they wanted to forget about it because, if they did, then it might forget about them, as they had quite enough to be getting along with, what with rescuing tourists from the corner of Machen Street and avoiding walking into old statues.

The result was that the scientists had been forced to sneak into Biddlecombe and cleverly hide themselves in a secure location. Of course, Biddlecombe being a small place, everyone in the town knew that the scientists had come back. Now they could only pray that the scientists might blow themselves up, or conveniently vanish into another dimension.

The location of the secret facility was slightly—well, considerably—less spectacular than CERN’s massive operation in Switzerland. The annex was housed in the building formerly occupied by Mr. Pennyfarthinge’s Olde Sweete 6Shoppe & Factorye, 7unoccupied ever since a tragic accident involving Mr. Pennyfarthinge, an unsteady ladder, and seventeen jars of gobstoppers. To keep up the pretense, the scientists had reopened the sweete shoppe and took it in turns to serve sherbet dabs, licorice allsorts, and Uncle Dabney’s Impossibly Sour Chews 8to various small persons for an hour or two each day.

Technically, Brian was not, in fact, a tea boy, but a laboratory assistant. Nevertheless, as he was the new kid, his duties had so far extended only to boiling the kettle, making the tea, and keeping a close watch on the Jammie Dodgers, as Professor Stefan was convinced that someone was stealing Jammie Dodgers from the biscuit tin. Professor Stefan was wrong about this. It wasn’t “someone” who was stealing Jammie Dodgers.

It was everyone.

Brian’s proper title was “Assistant Deputy Assistant to the Assistant Assistant to the Assistant Head of Particle Physics,” or ADAAAAHPT for short.

Which, oddly enough, was the last sound Brian made before he fell to the floor.

“Adaaaahpt,” said Brian. Thump .

The noise caused Professor Stefan, who was concentrating very hard on a piece of data analysis, to drop his pen, and Professor Stefan hated dropping pens. They always managed to roll right against the wall, and then he had to get down on his hands and knees to find them, or send the Assistant Deputy Assistant to the Assistant Assistant to the Assistant Head of Particle Physics to do it for him. Unfortunately, the ADAAAAHPT was now flat on his back, moaning softly.

“What is the ADAAAAHPT doing on the floor?” said Professor Stefan. “He’s your responsibility, Hilbert. You can’t just leave assistants lying around. Makes the place look untidy.”

Professor Hilbert, the Assistant Head of Particle Physics, looked at Brian in puzzlement.

“He appears to have fainted.”

“Fainted?” said Professor Stefan. “ Fainted? Listen here, Hilbert: Elderly ladies faint. Young women of a delicate disposition faint. Assistants do not faint. Tell him to stop all of this nonsense immediately. I want my Jammie Dodgers. He’ll have to get some fresh ones. I’m not eating those ones after they’ve been on the floor. We can give them to the numbskulls in Technical Support.”

“We don’t have any Technical Support,” said Professor Hilbert. “There’s only Brian.”

He helped Brian to sit up, which meant that Professor Hilbert was now technically supporting Technical Support.

“Guh—” said Brian.

“No, it’s not good,” said Professor Hilbert. “It’s not good at all.”

“Guh—” said Brian again.

“I think he may have bumped his head,” said Professor Hilbert. “He keeps saying that it’s good.”

“You mean that he’s bumped his head so hard he thinks good is bad?” said Professor Stefan. “We can’t have that. Next he’ll be going around killing chaps and asking for a round of applause as he presents us with their heads. He’ll make a terrible mess.”

Brian raised his right hand, and extended the index finger.

“It’s a guh—it’s a guh—it’s a guh—”

“What’s he doing now, Hilbert?”

“I think he’s rapping, Professor.”

“Oh, do make him stop. We’ll have no hip-hoppity music here. Awful racket. Now, opera, there’s—”

“IT’S. A. GHOST!” shrieked Brian.

Professor Hilbert noticed that Brian’s hair was standing on end, and his skin was covered in goose bumps. The atmosphere in the lab had also grown considerably colder. Professor Hilbert could see Brian’s breath. He could see his own breath. He could even see Professor Stefan’s breath. He could not, however, see the breath of the semitransparent young woman, dressed as a servant girl, who was standing in a corner and fiddling with something that was obvious only to her. Her image flickered slightly, as though it were being projected imperfectly from nearby.

Professor Hilbert stopped supporting Brian, who duly fell backward and would have banged his head painfully had not some Jammie Dodgers absorbed most of the impact.

“So it is,” said Professor Hilbert. “I say, it’s another ghost.”

Professor Stefan peered at the young woman over the top of his spectacles.

“A new one, too. Haven’t seen her before.”

Professor Hilbert carefully approached the ghost.

“Hello,” he said. He waved his hand in front of the ghost’s face, but she didn’t seem to notice. He considered his options, then poked at the woman’s ribs. His finger passed right through her.

“Bit rude,” said Professor Stefan disapprovingly. “You hardly know the girl.”

“Nothing,” said Professor Hilbert. “No response.”

“Just like the rest.”

“Indeed.”

Slowly, the image of the girl began to fade, until finally there was only a hint of vapor to indicate that she had ever been there at all, If, in fact, she had ever been there at all. Oh, she was certainly somewhere, of that Professor Hilbert was sure. He just wasn’t convinced that the somewhere in question was a laboratory in twenty-first-century Biddlecombe.

Brian had managed to struggle to his feet, and was now picking pieces of Jammie Dodger from his hair. He stared at the corner where the girl had been.

“I thought I saw a ghost,” he said.

“Yes,” said Professor Hilbert. “Well done, you. And on only your second day, too. You can’t go around fainting every time you see one, though. You’ll end up on the floor more often than you’re upright if you do.”

“But it was a ghost .”

“Just make a note of it, there’s a good chap. See that big hard-backed notebook on the desk over there?” He pointed to a massive black volume, bound in leather. “That’s our record of ‘ghost sightings.’ Write down the time it began, the time it ended, what you saw, then sign it. Professor Stefan and I will add our initials when you’re done. To save yourself some time, just turn straight to page two hundred and seventy-six. That’s the page we’re on now, I think.”

Brian looked like he might faint again.

“Page two hundred and seventy-six? You mean that you’ve filled two hundred and seventy-five other pages with ghost sightings?”

Professor Hilbert laughed. Even Professor Stefan joined in, although he was still disturbed at the loss of so many perfectly good Jammie Dodgers.

“Two hundred and seventy-five pages!” said Professor Stefan. “Young people and their ideas, eh?”

“Two hundred and seventy-five pages!” said Professor Hilbert. “Dear oh dear, where do we get these kids from? No, Brian, that would just be silly.”