Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

“They’re trying to see how little tech I can work with! I cannot be expected to do deep research on dead things with such limited resources! I’d have better luck catching ghosts by running after them with a bloody-big enchanted butterfly-net!”
    “I think I saw one of those in the Boss’s office, one time,” said JC, not looking around. “On the wall, behind her desk, right next to the enchanted grenade-launcher.”
    “I wish I thought you were joking,” said Happy.
    He and Melody moved forward to stand on either side of JC, and they all took their time studying the exterior face of the Haybarn Theatre. None of them was particularly impressed. Time and the weather had not been kind to the brick and stone though it was surprisingly free of graffiti. Unlike most of the surrounding office buildings. Apart from the Haybarn’s name, still spelled out in cold grey neon tubing, above the closed main doors, therewas nothing obvious to mark the old building as a theatre. All the colour and glamour had been stripped away long ago, and now it looked like any other old-fashioned building, silent and unoccupied.
    “Has this place really been empty for twenty years?” JC said finally. “I mean, this is prime location, if nothing else. Right in the middle of the business section. The land alone must be worth a fortune…”
    “Maybe the building has a reputation, as a bad place,” said Happy. “Last thing a developer wants is a poltergeist running wild in the lanes of his supermarket. Or restless spirits grinning out of the changing-room mirrors in a women’s fashion outlet.”
    “There’s no mention of anything like that in the briefing files,” said Melody. “No trouble at all until the renovations started. Are you picking up anything yet, Happy? Any bad vibrations?”
    “There’s a curry house not far away,” said Happy.
    “You can’t be hungry already, not after everything you stuffed down yourself on the train!”
    “Working for the Carnacki Institute is like serving in the Army,” Happy said solemnly. “Eat when you can, sleep where you can, because you never know when you might get another chance…” He sniffed loudly. “I’m not getting anything from this building, which is a bit odd. I mean, this place has to be at least a century old. I should be getting something…”
    Melody looked at JC. “Do you have any idea who this important friend of Catherine Latimer’s might be, the one we’re doing this for?”
    “She didn’t say anything,” said JC. “But then, she never does.”
    “Are we supposed to go in through the front doors, or should we go round the back and enter through the stage door?” said Happy.
    “Hell with that,” JC said firmly. “I do not use the back door. Except sometimes as an exit in times of high peril.”
    Melody moved forward and tried the front doors. They both opened easily before her. “Not even locked,” she said. “That can’t be right. Not in this day and age.”
    “Someone is expecting us,” said Happy.
    “A sign from Above!” JC said merrily. “Inwards and onwards, my children! Danger and excitement await us!”
    “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d been at my pills,” said Happy.
    “We are going in!” said JC.
    “You first,” said Happy.
    “Of course!” said JC.
    “Hold it,” said Melody, and it was a measure of their professionalism that both men stopped immediately and looked at her.
    “What?” said Happy.
“What?”
    “We’re supposed to wait here,” said Melody. “Because we’re being joined by the two actor-producers responsible for renovating this place.”
    “Oh, wonderful,” said Happy. “Passengers! Why are we going to put up with these civilians, exactly?”
    “Because they know the history of this theatre,” Melody said patiently. “And, they know all about the haunting. If it is a haunting and not a bunch of grown menjumping at shadows. I blame those
Most Haunted
shows on television.”
    Happy looked innocently at JC. “Do we really have to put up with this? You know they’re going to get in the way and make the job ten times harder.”
    “Yes, we do have to put up with them,” said JC. “The Boss said so. And you don’t say no to the Boss if you like having your organs on the inside. In fact, she was most insistent about making these actors a part of our investigation. Do try and keep them alive.”
    “You try,” Melody said immediately. “I am going to be busy trying to follow