Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

what to do. Lissa emerged from behindhim, looking pale and strained and quite decidedly spooked.
    “I didn’t like that at all!” she said loudly. “I thought ghosts would be…thrilling. Exciting! But that was nasty. Horrid.”
    Elizabeth moved over quickly to put an arm across Lissa’s shoulders and comfort her. “It’s all right, dear. We understand.”
    “Do you want us to call you a taxi?” said Benjamin. “You could always go back to your hotel and wait there, till this is all over. We have to be here; but you shouldn’t have to put up with this.”
    Lissa’s chin came up. She straightened her back and shrugged off Elizabeth’s arm, almost rudely. “No. I’m not going. Nothing’s scaring me off.”
    Benjamin gave her his professional smile. “Brave girl.”
    Happy moved in close beside JC. “Look at the stage,” he said quietly. “There’s a layer of dust. See? If you look behind us, you can see all our footsteps, crossing the stage from the wings to here. But there are no footsteps in the dust before us, not a mark anywhere between us and the far wings. Which leads me to believe that there never was anything here. No physical presence, at all. Just the
sound
of footsteps…”
    “Could be an echo out of Time,” said Melody. “Sounds from the Past. Stone tape memory, past events impressed on the surroundings, playing back in the Present.”
    “Why are we still calling it a stone tape?” Happy said suddenly. “Shouldn’t we be calling it a stone CD, these days? Or even a stone download…”
    “Concentrate, Happy,” murmured JC. “That was no echo. Those sounds had a deliberate aim in mind. A purpose…”
    “How very theatrical,” said Melody; and then they all looked at each other for a long moment.
    JC looked across the stage at Benjamin and Elizabeth. “Is this the kind of…event you were expecting?”
    “Well, sort of,” said Benjamin. “You have to understand; we never experienced anything first-hand.”
    “And I have to say,” said Elizabeth, slowly, “that the whole thing seemed to me more menacing than scary. Almost…a threat. We should never have come back here, Benjamin.”
    “We had to,” said Benjamin. “We owed it to the play.”
    And then they all froze in place again as they heard something moving about, under the stage. They all looked down, listening hard, concentrating. Some distance underneath the stage, somebody was walking back and forth, loudly whistling a merry tune. JC stamped hard on the stage; but the whistling didn’t stop, or even interrupt itself for a moment. JC looked sharply at the actors and Old Tom.
    “Is there supposed to be anyone else in the building?”
    “No, sir,” said Old Tom. “No-one. I’d have been told.”
    “No-one whistles in the theatre!” Elizabeth said sharply. “It’s bad luck!”
    “Anyone recognise the tune?” said Happy. There was a general shaking of heads.
    JC looked at Old Tom. “What’s down there, under this stage? Is there any way to reach it?”
    “Of course, sir,” said Old Tom. “That’s the understagearea, easy to get to. There’s a way to everywhere, and I know them all. Follow me, ladies and gents!”

    The way down turned out to be an old iron stairway that spiralled around as it descended into the gloom of the understage area. The stairway didn’t feel properly attached or supported, worn loose through many years of hard use; and it swayed dangerously and made loud, complaining noises as Old Tom led the way down, one careful step at a time. Though whether his pace was due to the infirmities of old age or sensible caution, JC couldn’t tell. He stuck right behind Old Tom, peering down into the gloomy depths in search of the phantom whistler. Happy came next though he didn’t want to. Melody had to drive him down ahead of her, with fierce encouragement and appalling language that the actors pretended not to hear as they brought up the rear.
    The whistled tune cut off abruptly the moment Old Tom and JC emerged from the bottom of the stairway. The understage area was completely empty. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, not even the faintest echo. The light from a single hanging naked light bulb spread a grubby yellow glare across a wide-open space much bigger than the stage above. Everyone relaxed. With no phantom whistler, no footsteps, and nothing in any way unnatural, the open area seemed safe enough. Benjamin made a point of smiling easily around him.
    “Well, this place brings