Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

corridors, endless walls spattered with images out of Hell, howls and screams and hopeless sobbing all around him. Illusion. Had to be. JC kept his head down and concentrated on pursuing the only thing that mattered. His trained will was a match for any illusion. Unless . . . whatever was down in the darkness with him was actually so powerful it could distort Space and Time itself . . . in which case, he was in real trouble.
    He rounded a corner and staggered to a halt as he saw Kim hanging in the air at the end of the new corridor. He fought for breath, half-bent over as sweat dripped from his face, glad of the chance for a break but already looking about him for any trace of a new threat. And that was when the walls on either side began to close in, moving remorselessly forward from both sides at once. The suddenly very real and solid walls ground loudly against the hard floor. JC straightened up immediately and looked behind him; but he was too far down the corridor to escape. He couldn’t hope to reach either end before the walls slammed together. They were closing in on him steadily, taking their time. They looked heavy and solid enough to crush him to a bloody pulp. And they would do it slowly, inch by inch, while Kim watched. JC risked a glance at her. She was looking at him beseechingly, imploring him to get out of there. Her lips moved, but no sound came to him as she silently begged him to save himself.
    JC shot her a reassuring smile. He breathed deeply, dragging air far into his lungs, gathering his strength and calming his mind. Sweat was still running down his face and stinging his eyes, and he took a moment to pull out a handkerchief and mop his face clean. Kim stared at him wildly, hardly believing he would waste time while the walls were closing in to crush him. JC put his handkerchief away with a flourish and looked left and right to check how close the walls were. The harsh grinding sound of their progress across the floor was very loud, and very near. At the speed they were moving, his death would be a slow and horrible thing, with the cracking and breaking of bones first, then the slow crushing of inner organs, as he literally died by inches. He’d probably be alive right till the end, so Kim could suffer as much as he did.
    JC was really looking forward to meeting his unseen enemy and teaching it the error of its ways.
    He stretched out both arms, hands splayed, as though he intended to stop the incoming walls with sheer brute strength. But JC had been trained better than that. The Institute prepared its agents to be strong in all kinds of ways. JC calmed his mind with familiar and well-rehearsed routines, drew on his inner resources, and quite simply refused to accept what was happening. The walls couldn’t be moving because the unseen enemy wasn’t strong enough to rewrite physical reality. It couldn’t be. JC defied the evidence of his senses and denied the movement of the walls through sheer strength of will. He closed his eyes and stood there with arms outstretched . . . and nothing came forward to touch his waiting hands. He slowly opened his eyes, and the corridor walls were back where they belonged as though they had never moved. Because, of course, they hadn’t. JC slowly lowered his arms. He smiled at Kim, still hanging unsupported at the end of the corridor, and she smiled back.
    Inside, JC was laughing his head off. He’d bet his shirt the enemy had been bluffing, and he’d won. It wasn’t that powerful, after all. And that . . . was good to know.
    He walked forward, and Kim hung there before him, dangled before him like a toy, or a lure. JC kept his approach slow and careful, not allowing himself to run to her, and his heart leapt a little when Kim didn’t move. He made himself stop a careful distance away, somehow knowing that if he tried to free her from whatever held her, she would immediately be snatched away again. So he stood before her and smiled at her, and she smiled back, and they talked in quiet, calm, rational voices.
    “You have to give this up,” said Kim. “You can’t keep chasing me. It’s killing you. I don’t want that.”
    “I have to run,” said JC. “I have to try. I can’t give up on you. Not so soon after finding you.”
    She smiled again, but there was sadness in her eyes. “I’m afraid we found each other a little too late, my sweet. I’m dead, aren’t I? Only a ghost now, a memory of the person I once was.”
    “Yes,” said