Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

of the honeycomb, forcing their way further into the world. Happy stared at it, studying it with more than his eyes, and knew it for what it was. The world the Mad Doctor ghosts had made for themselves, located in the spaces between spaces, so they could hide like rats in the walls of reality. The ghosts had brought their world with them, and it was making itself at home.
    A Mad Doctor ghost appeared suddenly before Happy, and he reacted instinctively by kicking it good and hard in the balls. The ghost dropped its bone-saw and crashed to its knees. Happy kicked it in the head, and it fell over backwards.
    “The longer they stay in our world, the more bound by its rules they become,” said Kim, drifting up by the ceiling. “That’s what they want—to become real again. They don’t know they’re dead.”
    Happy nodded quickly, and picked up the ghost’s bone-saw. It was cold and fragile in his hand at first, hard to get a hold on, but the longer he hung on to it, the heavier and more real it felt. The ghost reared up before Happy, screaming and howling as it reached for its weapon. And Happy cut its head off with one hard blow. The head fell to the floor and shattered slowly, like a smashed egg in slow motion. The headless body drifted apart, like smoke on the wind. The bone-saw disappeared from Happy’s hand.
    He looked back down the laboratory, in time to see the Mad Doctor ghosts pull Melody down and swarm all over her. Scalpels flashed brightly. Happy yelled her name and sprinted back the way he’d come. Melody fought as hard as she could, but she was only human, and her attackers weren’t, any more. They held her down with their cold hands, while one of them pressed a scalpel against her belly.
    “It’s all got to come out,” said a familiar voice. “The insides are the best part. Flesh is wasted on the living.”
    Happy hit the ghosts like a cannon ball, scattering them with his sudden appearance and a telepathic blast of sheer rage and fury. The ghosts were blown away by his fierce concentration and ran madly this way and that, flailing their arms, light glinting fiercely from their surgical weapons. Happy hauled Melody to her feet, and they stood back to back as the Mad Doctor ghosts remembered their purpose and circled them slowly.
    “You hurt?” Happy asked Melody.
    “I’ll live,” said Melody. “Any chance you can do that again?”
    “Not for a while,” said Happy. “That kind of thing takes a lot out of you.”
    “Any other ideas?”
    “Not really.”
    “Terrific,” said Melody.
    JC had found Kim. “Is there anything you can do to help? Anything you can see here that we can’t?”
    Kim nodded slowly, her head bobbing directly below the ceiling. “The ghosts all look the same to me. They’re all Mad Doctor ghosts—no trace of individuality. It’s like they’ve all been overwritten by something stronger. Whatever they were exposed to didn’t only make them crazy, it made them all crazy in exactly the same way. Someone has taken advantage of that to graft on purpose and intent. Driving them on, like it did the shells. These Mad Doctor ghosts are really just more of the building’s attack dogs, another layer of the New People’s defences.”
    She broke off abruptly as one of the Mad Doctor ghosts came dancing along the ceiling towards her. It shot past her, scalpel flashing as it lashed out at her, and Kim cried out in shock and horror as the vicious blade cut deep into her ghostly flesh. Blood-tinged ectoplasm ran down her arm and dripped from her fingertips.
    “Paper cuts scissors, doctor cuts patient,” said the Mad Doctor ghost, pirouetting unnaturally slowly in place. “You’re all grist to the mill to us, the living and the dead. Suffering is such sweet sorrow, and we eat it up with spoons. We will cut you all up and put you back together, remake you in our own fashion, to serve our special needs and pleasures. And you will last forever, and your torment will never end.”
    “JC?” said Kim. “Please do something. I’m really not ready for a fate worse than death.”
    “JC!” yelled Happy. “We’re surrounded! And their world is invading ours! Any suggestions would be gratefully received!”
    “Kim says they’re all linked!” JC yelled back. “Can you find that link and break it?”
    “Now I know what to look for . . .” said Happy. He concentrated, and his face lightened a little. “Yes! It’s there! Like a signal, connecting and commanding them.