Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

weapons.”

THREE
    WE SHOULDN’T BE HERE
    They went up the stairs to the next floor because none of them trusted the elevator. They didn’t particularly trust the stairs, either, but as Happy pointed out, at least stairs don’t get you half-way there and then plummet to the basement. Or turn into something nasty and swallow you up. Happy had a lot of other reasons why he didn’t trust elevators in general and this one in particular, but the others were already half-way up the stairs and not listening to him. JC went bounding up the stairs two at a time, with all his usual energy and enthusiasm, Kim floating along beside him. Melody followed behind, still grumbling under her breath over what had happened to her precious equipment. Happy sighed deeply and brought up the rear, very reluctantly.
    The stairs were only stairs, with no graces or comforts. The walls were bare, the single railing was as basic as health and safety regulations would allow, and the light was sharp and bright, with no shadows anywhere. Even so, there was still something distinctly uneasy about the narrow stairway, something . . . not quite right.
    “I know we’re going up,” said Happy, after a while. “But I swear it feels like we’re going down . . .”
    “Steady in the ranks,” said JC. “Don’t let the place get to you. All right, this building has proved to be entirely spooky and mysterious, in a malevolent sort of way, full of uncanny things that we haven’t encountered before, but is that any reason to be downhearted?”
    “Well, yes!” said Happy.
    “It makes the job that much more interesting,” JC said firmly. “You’re never too old to learn something new. And make a serious profit from it.”
    He slammed through the swinging doors at the next floor and led his team into a brightly lit corridor. He stopped abruptly to take a good look. Melody nearly ran into him. A seriously long corridor stretched away before them, barely wide enough for two people to walk down abreast. To JC’s left, a series of rooms lined the corridor. All the doors were standing open. To his right was a blank wall, painted industrial off-white. With all the doors open, there was only room to walk down the corridor single file. No windows, no signs or instructions on the wall or the doors, and no signs of violence or destruction anywhere. Like the lobby, it was all very still and very quiet, with a subtle tension in the air. JC moved over to the first open door and studied it carefully.
    “All right,” he said. “First interesting thing. This door has a very heavy, very solid steel lock. No electronics. Far more security than you’d need for what is, after all, a basic hotel room. Especially when beefed up by this very solid steel bolt, on the outside of the door. Suggesting that once the subjects were bedded in for the night, they were intended to stay put until someone came and let them out in the morning. Now why would the researchers feel the need to do that? To stop their subjects from wandering? Or because said subjects might become dangerous once they’d been dosed? Or even . . . because they might panic when the first symptoms or changes occurred and try to run?”
    “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Melody. “The best security measure, with drug trials or anything else, is to control the supply of information. The people in the trial might have been locked in to make sure they didn’t see anything they weren’t supposed to. Never put down to supernatural nastiness what you can as easily put down to the fear of industrial espionage.”
    “A lock and a bolt,” said Happy. “The researchers weren’t taking any chances, were they?”
    JC strode off down the corridor, leaving the others to catch up with him. He was doing his best to seem cool and calm and utterly at his ease, but he looked very thoroughly into every room he passed, taking it all in. The rooms were comfortable enough, if somewhat small, with all the usual luxuries. Television, computer . . .
    Melody waited till they reached the third room, then she couldn’t stand it any longer. She darted inside and sat down at the computer. The others stopped and came back, watching from the doorway as Melody turned on the computer and logged on.
    JC sighed quietly.“So much for being in charge . . .”
    “You need information,” said Melody, not looking up from the many illegal things she was doing. “This is where I find information.”
    “Indeed,”