Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

quite definitely seeing something now.”
    JC turned around quickly, to follow his gaze, and everyone else looked, too. A horribly emaciated figure, dressed only in rags and tatters and dark splashes of dried blood, was lying full length on the stage by the far wings, facedown, pulling itself laboriously forward by diggingits broken fingers into the wood of the stage. The figure crawled slowly forward, in sudden, painful lurches, leaving a long, heavy trail of blood behind it. The head came up slowly, to reveal a ravaged face: a mask of blood with one dark, empty eye socket and a single eyeball hanging down onto the cheekbone from the other. The mouth was gone, the lips torn raggedly away, to reveal blood-stained teeth bared in an endless, horrid grin. The figure hauled itself along, every movement a slow, agonised effort, full of desperate determination. The sound of broken fingertips scratching and scraping across the wooden stage filled the horrified hush on the stage.
    Benjamin and Elizabeth clung tightly together, all the colour fallen out of their faces. They didn’t want to look at the awful figure, but they couldn’t bring themselves to look away. JC snapped his fingers at them several times, to get their attention.
    “Has either of you ever seen anything like this before?”
    “Of course not!” said Benjamin.
    “We would have said!” said Elizabeth.
“What is that thing?”
    Happy and Melody stood close together, studying the slowly crawling figure with professional interest. They might not like the look of it, but they’d seen a lot worse, in their time. JC looked across at Lissa. She was standing very still, staring, wide-eyed; but once again, not nearly as scared as JC would have expected. Most civilians, with no experience of ghosts and monsters, would have screamed or run or even fainted dead away. Lissa looked…as though she’d been expecting this. Or somethinglike it. But that could wait. First things first. JC turned back to Happy.
    “Is it real?” JC said urgently. “Is that thing really there? Physically present?”
    “Not physically present, as such,” Happy said immediately. “And it’s definitely not what’s left of Old Tom, if that’s what you were about to ask. I’m finally getting something…but don’t ask me what. There’s a strong sense of
presence
, but…whether we’re looking at a ghost, or a manifestation, or a stone tape memory…is beyond me. I can’t see! There’s so much power here, JC…It’s swamping the aether and saturating all the psychic channels!”
    “You made that bit up!” said Melody.
    “There’s so much power, I can’t tell what’s what!” Happy said stubbornly. “It’s like staring into the sun, with different radios blasting into each ear…This whole building is soaked in some kind of overwhelming presence. A real
genius loci
…”
    JC glared at Happy for a long moment, then turned away to give the crawling figure his full attention. It had dragged itself half-way across the stage, shaking and shuddering with effort, heading straight for them.
    “All right, Happy,” said JC. “Go and talk to it.”
    “
What?
You go and talk to it!” Happy said immediately. “Whatever that is, it doesn’t look like it’s got anything to say that I would want to hear.”
    “For once, I am in complete agreement with Happy,” said Melody. “I may be a big brave Ghost Finder, but that thing is officially creeping the hell out of me.”
    “Damn right,” said Happy. “You couldn’t drive me an inch closer to that thing with a whip and a chair and an electric cattle prod.”
    “Stay here,” said JC.
    “You got it, boss,” said Melody.
    JC slowly walked forward and took up a position right in front of the crawling figure, blocking its way. It stopped, and slowly raised its bloody face to JC. The dangling eyeball rolled slowly back and forth across the crimson cheekbone. JC knelt before the figure, lowering his face so that it was on a level with the thing before him.
    “Can I do anything to help?” he said. “Who are you? What do you need? Who did this to you?”
    On the last question, the figure raised one hand and pointed a single finger past JC, at Benjamin and Elizabeth. Blood dripped thickly from the pointing, accusing finger. Everyone turned to look at Benjamin and Elizabeth; and when they looked back again, the crawling figure was gone. And so was the long, bloody trail it had left behind it. There wasn’t a single trace