Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

electromagnetic fluctuations and orgone spikes with an old barometer and a bent penny.”
    JC looked at Happy, who shrugged briefly. “She’s suffering from equipment withdrawal.”
    “Ah, to hell with this,” said JC. “I am not standing around here waiting for thespians to turn up. The traffic’s deafening, the air’s so polluted you could shake hands with it, and the rain’s coming on. Besides, I don’t wait for anyone. It’s bad for the reputation. I am going in. Tally ho, Ghost Finders!”
    He barged straight through the main doors and disappeared inside. Happy and Melody looked at each other and shrugged pretty much simultaneously. Happy held a door open, and Melody hauled her trolley full of equipment up the raised steps and into the theatre.

    JC was already striding round and round the oversized lobby, head held high, looking at everything with keeninterest. His ice-cream white suit seemed almost to glow in the gloom. JC lurched abruptly to a halt, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, looking and listening and sniffing the air, getting a feel for the place. The lobby was big enough to be impressive without being imposing, made to hold crowds waiting for the curtain to go up; but it was dim and dusty now, with more than its fair share of shadows. All the windows were boarded up.
    Melody hauled her trolley into the exact centre of the lobby, looked briefly around her, sniffed loudly when nothing immediately dangerous presented itself, and began assembling her various bits and pieces. Happy stood alone, some distance away from the others, looking cautiously about him. The lobby floor was bare, and so were the walls. Though there were a few large empty wooden frames, here and there, that had presumably once held bright and gaudy posters, advertising past triumphs and tragedies. The lobby looked…depersonalised, anonymous. As though all the glamour and character and history had been deliberately removed, long ago. Several doors led off from the lobby, going who knew where because all the signs and directions were gone. All the doors were very firmly closed.
    Everything seemed peaceful enough; but Happy wasn’t fooled. There was a definite air of…something. An atmosphere of something not easily named.
    JC moved quickly from one door to another, opening each one in turn and shouting a cheerful
Hello!
into the gloom beyond. But there was never any response. JC shut each door firmly, in turn, just in case. He finally cameback to join Melody and Happy, rubbing his hands briskly together. Happy pointed out the Ticket Office, which had been boarded shut.
    “There’s something very sad about that,” he said. “A real sense that the party is over; everyone get your coats and go home.”
    “Softy,” said Melody, not unkindly, not even looking up from fitting her various bits of tech together and hitting them if they didn’t cooperate fast enough for her liking.
    “Is that really all you’re going to use?” JC said innocently because he liked to live dangerously.
    Melody slammed down a sciencey thing and glared at him. “This is deliberate!” she said fiercely. “It’s all part of downsizing; if they prove I can do the job with a minimum of equipment, then that’s all they’ll let me have.”
    “So what are you going to do?” said Happy. “Deliberately sabotage a mission to prove the accountants wrong?”
    “Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me,” growled Melody.
    “I think I’ll go and hide somewhere safe until you’re in a better mood,” said Happy.
    “We’re not going to be here that long,” said Melody.
    While the two of them were preoccupied, JC spotted a door on the far wall that he would have sworn hadn’t been there a moment earlier. He moved slowly over to stand before it. He looked the door up and down, and it looked like all the other doors. He reached out very carefully, very cautiously, and tried the door handle. It turned easily under his hand, almost invitingly, and he pushedthe door open. It swung weightlessly back before him, revealing a deep, dark gloom.
    “JC?” The voice came from deep inside the gloom; and he recognised it immediately.
    “Yes, Kim,” he said. “I’m here.”
    He stepped forward into the dark, and there was Kim, standing right before him. Glowing so brightly, she threw back the gloom. JC stood very still, careful not to do anything that might frighten her away. His breath caught in his throat, and he could feel his heart hammering