Ghost of a Dream (32 page)

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!”

“And that…is why it will take both body and spirit,
the living and the dead working together, to stop you,” said Kim Sterling, the ghost girl.

They all looked round at the unexpected voice, and another aisle opened up among the massed spirits on the stage so that Kim could walk through them, to stand before JC. She smiled at him, and, after a moment, JC smiled back at her.

“You always did know how to make an entrance, Kim.”

“Hello, love,” said Kim. “Miss me?”

“You know I did,” said JC. “I almost died without you. Where have you been, all this time? That was you, at the railway station, wasn’t it?”

“Of course,” said Kim. “You didn’t think I’d leave, walk off and abandon you, did you? But answers will have to wait. There is business to be done here. The Faust must be dealt with. Nasty little thing that he is. We have to do this together, JC. Your flesh and my spirit against the simple brutal thing that is the Faust. Are you ready, my love?”

“Always,” said JC.

“Brace yourself,” said Kim.

She walked forward, into JC’s body, until she overlapped him completely, combining her ghostly self with his physical form. Joining the two of them together, into a whole far more than the sum of its parts. JC cried out, in shock and pain and awe, as his whole body glowed with the same golden glare as his eyes. And both the living and the dead had to turn their faces aside, away from that blinding, brilliant, otherworldly light.

JC and Kim advanced on the Faust, and the ghosts fell
back as something moved through them, shining like a star fallen to the earth. The Faust cried out. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t back away, held where he was by the power in that light. JC and Kim stopped, right before the Faust, and dropped one heavy hand onto his shoulder. And the Faust cried out again, in agony and horror, as his whole body shook and shattered under that unbearable touch.

He crumbled and fell apart, collapsing in upon himself like the artificial construct he was, like a statue struck by a hundred hammers. He fell into pieces, which melted and ran away, dissipating into streaky mists that hung heavily on the still air, before reluctantly disappearing. His face hung on stubbornly, hanging together on the top of the pile till the very last, through some awful act of will, his glaring eyes fixed on JC and Kim. When he spoke, at the last, his voice seemed to come from far and far-away.

“I won’t go,” he said. “I can’t go, not yet. Not till I’ve had my say. One last chance to strike at you, JC, and hurt you. I have enough strength left for that.”

“Stamp on him, JC,” said Happy. “Shut the bastard up. He doesn’t have anything to say that you need to hear.”

“No,” said JC and Kim, with both their voices. “He knows things.”

“I didn’t sell my soul for power,” said the Faust’s face, already drifting away at the edges. “I sold my body to be free from the limitations of the flesh, and of the spirit. For a better soul, not trapped within the body. Already my master is calling me away, to a place where you can’t
reach me. Where he will set me up again, as something new and even more powerful. The new flesh, the bad flesh. You’ll see! Oh, don’t look so disappointed, JC. We’ll meet again. After all, we have so much in common. Because you’re no more real than I am!”

“What are you talking about?” said JC.

“You haven’t been real since the Outside reached down and touched you in the Underground! Don’t you get it, JC? You died down there, on that demon train; and the Outside brought you back!”

“Why?” said JC and Kim. “Why would it do that?”

“For its own purposes, of course. That’s why you can love a ghost girl when most living men can’t stand to be around them. That’s why you can hold her within you now, and use her power, to do this to me! That’s why you were drawn together…That’s why…”

His voice trailed away, his gaze fixed on something only he could see. And a look of utter horror passed over his crumbling face. When he spoke again his voice was full of shock and panic, and a terrible, agonised betrayal.

“No! No, Master! You promised me! You promised me…”

His voice broke into a heart-rending scream of loss and deception; and then his face collapsed into undifferentiated flesh, melting and running away into the open trap-Door, which swallowed him up, slammed shut after him, and disappeared. Kim stepped forward, out of JC, and for a long moment they both looked at where the trap-Door had been before they turned to look at each other.

“Do you believe him?” said Kim.

“I don’t know,” said JC. “I don’t know what to believe. Does it matter?”

“We found each other,” said Kim. “Living or dead, nothing else will ever matter as much.”

“Hello,” said Happy. “Where’s everybody gone?”

Everyone looked around them. The ghosts were gone, all the actors and their audiences, returned to their rest. The stage was empty, the auditorium full of broken chairs again. Happy and Melody stood together, and Benjamin and Elizabeth stood very close together. Alistair Gravel stood to one side, studying JC and Kim thoughtfully.

“I declare this case officially closed,” said JC. “The Haunting of the Haybarn Theatre is over. If that’s all right with you, Alistair?”

“Oh yes. Certainly!” said Alistair. “Job done as far as I’m concerned.”

JC smiled fondly at Kim. “My guardian-angel ghost. Always arriving just in the nick of time.”

“I can’t stay, JC,” said Kim.

“What? Why not?” said JC. “You have to! Or do they…Does someone still have a hold over you?”

“No,” said Kim. “They never did. They never had me, JC. I had to disappear, but I can’t tell you why. Not yet. I saw something, then, and…Come after me, JC. Come and find me. And when you do, all will become clear. The real job, the real mission, isn’t over yet. Come find me, JC. I’ll be waiting for you.”

She placed one ghostly hand against his cheek; and he could almost feel it, like a cool breeze passing by. But by the time he’d raised a hand to place over hers, she was already gone. Disappeared in a moment, as though she
had never been there. JC nodded slowly, at some hidden thought, or decision, then he turned away and walked back across the stage, to join the others.

“You can’t believe anything the Faust said,” said Happy. “The Devil always lies.”

“Except when a truth can hurt you more,” said Melody.

“Really not helping here,” murmured Happy.

“I’m not dead,” said JC. “I’m not. I’d know.”

“There’s all kinds of tests I could run,” offered Melody.

“I don’t think so,” said JC. “I think…we’re in unknown territory, here.” He started to raise one hand to his sunglasses, then stopped himself. He smiled, briefly. “I breathe, I have a pulse, I’m solid; I still get up in the middle of the night to take a pee…That’s real enough for me.”

“The Faust didn’t actually say you were dead,” Happy said carefully. “He said…you might have been, but the Outside brought you back. To life. Think of it as a Really Near Death Experience.”

“Brought back, to serve its purposes,” said JC. “Nothing at all to worry about there.”

“Maybe it knew about The Flesh Undying,” said Melody. “Maybe it needed some powerful agent of its own, in this world, to fight it.”

“And it chose you!” said Happy. “Could have been worse. Could have been me.”

“Kim has all the answers,” JC said firmly. “We have to find her.”

“Of course we will,” said Melody. “We’re the Ghost Finders.”

“Tally-ho,” said Happy.

“Excuse me,” said Benjamin. “But are we supposed to understand any of that?”

“No,” said JC. “Don’t worry about any of it. If you like sleeping at nights.”

“I thought not,” said Elizabeth.

The two actors moved away from the Ghost Finders, to talk with Alistair Gravel. They hugged each other again—not like old friends meeting, more like saying good-bye.

“It’s been so good, to see you again,” said Elizabeth.

“You know I never meant to hurt you, Alistair,” said Benjamin.

“Of course I know,” said Alistair. “I’ve always known.”

“Then why did you wait so long, to call us back?” said Elizabeth.

“It’s not easy, being a ghost,” said Alistair. “It took me years to raise the power to do the job properly. My return had to be…dramatic. As was my death.”

“You always were an old ham,” said Benjamin.

“What do you mean—old?” said Alistair.

They laughed lightly together. Three friends again.

“Go on with your show,” said Alistair. “And I’ll go on…to the bigger show that’s waiting.”

Elizabeth looked at him searchingly. “You can see it?”

“I seem…to sense it,” said Alistair. “Okay, that’s it. No more hanging around. I’m off. Break a leg, my dears.”

“Do you want your body buried properly?” said Benjamin.

“No,” said Alistair. “Leave me where I am. Where I’ve always felt I belonged.”

He turned away and disappeared, like a turned-off
light. Gone, finally. They could all feel the difference in the atmosphere: like an actor who’s finished his last scene and walked off stage.

They walked back through the auditorium. Up the central aisle, surrounded by broken chairs and shattered rows, courtesy of the Phantom of the Haybarn. Benjamin and Elizabeth were already quietly discussing how the hell they were going to sell this to the insurance people. The whole place seemed quiet, calm, at peace with itself.

When they arrived at the great gap where the swing doors had been, JC hung back, to let the others go through ahead of him. He stopped, to look back at the stage. And there, in a single spotlight from nowhere at all, the Lady in White and the Headless Panto Dame were waltzing silently together.

Because the show, the great Dream of Humanity, must always go on.