Melody looked around her. “What’s everybody doing back here?”
“That is what we were…discussing, when you made your dramatic entrance,” said JC. “Old Tom brought Lissa and me a message. Ostensibly from Happy, saying we all needed to meet back here. Urgently. Only when Lissa and I arrived, it was to find Happy and his two actors waiting here for us, demanding to know why I’d called them back.”
“Old Tom is a ghost,” said Happy. “Or more properly, a ghost in disguise. I saw him disappear into a pool of darkness.”
“I said he was too broad a character to be true,” said Benjamin. “A performance of a caretaker; not the real thing.”
“We were always very suspicious of him,” said Elizabeth. “But only because we thought he was a journalist in disguise.”
“Never even occurred to us that he might be the ghost haunting this theatre, said Benjamin. “I mean, walking around with us, pretending to be real, like us…That is so creepy, the hairs on the back of my neck are tying themselves in knots.”
“Sly,” said Elizabeth. “Underhanded. I mean, you don’t expect spirits to sneak around and take advantage of you.”
“He told Lissa and me that Happy wanted us here, urgently,” said JC.
Happy shook his head quickly. “Not me, boss. Nothing to do with me.”
“I had gathered that,” said JC.
“We’re here because we found a note pinned to the wall,” said Happy. “Apparently from you, telling me to get the actors back here sharpish.”
“And you didn’t think to phone me first, to check?” said JC.
“No signal,” said Happy. “And no, I didn’t try to reach out to you with my mind. After watching Old Tom melt away to nothing, I didn’t trust the atmosphere in this place; and I certainly wasn’t going to drop any of my mental shields. It’s not safe here, JC. For Old Tom to pass as human like that, up close and personal, with none of us suspecting a thing…that’s almost unheard of. Maintaining something like that takes a hell of a lot of power.”
“Have you still got the note?” said JC.
“Sure,” said Happy.
But when he rummaged in his pocket, it wasn’t there. Happy smiled weakly at JC and tried all his other pockets, sometimes more than once; but the note was gone.
“Someone wanted us all here,” said JC. “Old Tom…or whatever that really is, hiding behind the appearance of Old Tom.”
“A kindly old duffer who no-one would look at twice,” said Happy. “So clearly harmless, no-one ever suspected a thing. Good disguise.”
“Excuse me!” Melody said loudly. “But I do have something very urgent and extremely dangerous to discuss!”
JC smiled at her easily. “Of course you do. Very well, Melody; what brings you back here? In such an excited and sweaty state?”
“Something is chasing me,” Melody said bluntly. “Trying to kill me; and then all of you.”
“How very stupid of it,” murmured JC. “Where…”
Melody gestured back at the swing doors, at the rear of the auditorium; and everybody looked. The doors didn’t move. It was all very still and very quiet. Everyone looked at Melody again.
“Who is it?” said JC. “Who’s after you?”
“The Phantom of the Haybarn,” said Melody.
“You have got to be fucking kidding,” said Happy.
He sniggered, until Melody shut him up with a cold glare. She filled them all in on her encounter with the Faust, and his creation, the Phantom. She made it as clear as she could for the actors, while still being careful to refer only obliquely to The Flesh Undying. Some things civilians were better off not knowing. JC and Happy got what she was talking about immediately and shared several thoughtful and meaningful looks. Benjamin and Elizabeth, and Lissa, mostly looked confused. Melody finally ran down, and they all looked at the swing doors again.
“We are in deep shit, people,” said Happy. “This isn’t just a haunting any more. I say we get the hell out of here, napalm the theatre, then salt the ashes afterwards. It’s the only way to be sure.”
And then he broke off abruptly. All of them turned around as the sound of quiet, mocking laughter drifted across the stage from the far wings. And there, standing half in the shadows and half in the light, smiling easily, was Old Tom, the caretaker. Except he was standing taller and straighter now…and he didn’t look like someone who’d take orders from other people. He looked like the man in charge. Benjamin and Elizabeth stared at him, then moved to stand close together. Happy started forward, to put himself between the two actors and danger…and then he remembered that JC was here, so he didn’t have to be the hero any longer. That was JC’s job. With a certain amount of relief, Happy fell back and hid behind Benjamin and Elizabeth, out of harm’s way. Melody moved over to join him. JC took a moment to notice that Lissa was giving Old Tom her full attention although she didn’t seem nearly as affected as everyone else. JC filed that thought away for future reference and stepped forward to face Old Tom.
“Who are you?” said JC.
“What are you?” said Happy, from a distance.
Old Tom stepped out onto the stage, into the bright light. The flesh of his face had sunk in deeply, right back to the bone, becoming desiccated, mummified. The face of some long-forgotten corpse, brought to light at last. Dark lips had drawn back from yellow teeth in a never-ending smile. The only life left in him burned in his eyes, shining brightly from his dead face.
“I am the unquiet dead,” he said grandly. “The unquiet past, determined to be heard at last.”
“Damn,” said Benjamin. “He’s one of us! He’s an actor! We’re the only ones who talk like that.”
“Ah,” said Old Tom. “But not just any actor.”
“You’ve put on a pretty good show, so far,” said JC. “All the thrills and chills of a ghost train; but no-one was ever in any danger of getting hurt. So what’s really going on here? What’s this all about?”
“Why don’t the dead lie still in this empty palace of broken dreams?” said Old Tom. He pointed a single skeletal finger at Benjamin and Elizabeth, still huddled together. “Ask them. They know.”
And then he faded away, melting into thin mists that blew away and were gone. Even though there wasn’t a breath of a breeze, anywhere on the stage. JC, then Happy and Melody, and finally Lissa, turned to look at Benjamin and Elizabeth.
“It’s time to tell the truth,” said JC, not unkindly.
“Past time, I’d say,” said Lissa.
Benjamin and Elizabeth consulted each other silently, with one of their long looks that meant so much, but only to each other. And only then did they both nod briefly, in agreement. They held on to each other’s hands, like lost children comforting each other in a dark forest, and turned to face the Ghost Finders, and Lissa.
“It’s all my fault,” said Benjamin. “Alistair Gravel didn’t disappear. He didn’t go away. I killed him.”
“It was an accident!” Elizabeth said immediately. “We were arguing, at the top of the stairs. Raised voices, shouting into each other’s faces, lots of arm-waving. Benjamin shoved Alistair in the chest. And he fell, backwards.”
“I’d forgotten where we were,” said Benjamin. “And I never meant to shove him that hard. By the time we got to the foot of the stairs, he was dead.”
“What were you arguing about?” said JC.
“The play, of course,” said Elizabeth. “The bloody play.”
“Twenty years ago, we wrote the play for Alistair to star in,” said Benjamin. “It was a good play. I mean, really good. Everybody said so. We all knew it was our best chance for fame and glory, to break out of this very small pond and make real names for ourselves. But, we were having trouble raising funding. Until Frankie Hazzard came forward. Mister big-name movie star. He wanted a starring role in the theatre, to give himself some credibility. Someone sent him a copy of our play, and he wanted in. Wanted to star in it. And with his name attached, suddenly there was no problem getting all the money we needed, and then some.”
“But Alistair would have none of it,” said Elizabeth. “He refused to be pushed aside and replaced. This was his big chance, too, and he knew it. He said…he’d contributed so much to the play already, in rehearsal, that he’d sue us if we tried to go ahead without him. We did offer to pay him off, but he wasn’t interested. He insisted on his right to play the lead.”