Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

it. The last few lights went out in a rush, leaving Melody standing alone in the dark, in a small pool of light generated by her monitor screens and work lights. The darkaround her was solid and impenetrable, without even an exit light. Melody kicked in the heavy-duty spotlights she’d incorporated into her equipment stand, for just such emergencies as this; but they didn’t make much difference. The pool of light surrounding her instruments grew a little brighter, but it didn’t expand one inch. The light couldn’t seem to push out into the darkness at all.
    Melody made herself check her readings methodically, one by one. Everything was functioning as it should, but none of it was telling her anything useful. She glared about her, into the dark. She couldn’t see a damned thing. The lobby was…gone. She had a sudden horrible feeling that she was alone in the dark, that the rest of the world was gone, and only she and her small pool of light remained. As though the world had been taken away, or she had been taken out of it…like the old steam train at Bradleigh Halt. And now she was trapped, floating forever in an endless sea of darkness…She shook her head fiercely and took a firm hold on her thoughts. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. Darkness was only the absence of light. The world was still there; all her sensors said so. Which meant that this was another form of psychic attack. And like the posters, it might be scary, it might mess with her head, but nothing was happening that could actually hurt her.
    She activated the communications system built into her decks and called Happy on his mobile. It rang and rang and rang, but nobody picked up. Which was odd. If Happy had turned his phone off, it would have gone straight to voice mail. So why wasn’t he answering? She tried reaching JC, but he didn’t answer either. Unless…someone was shutting off the sound, the same way it was shutting off the light…
    Melody placed her hands flat on top of her instruments, and said to herself,
I’m not afraid. I’m not. I don’t believe in any of this bullshit.
    Her head came up sharply, and she glared out into the darkness. Someone was walking around. There were footsteps, in the dark. Not the loud and crashing impacts she’d heard before, up on the stage…but quiet, steady, perfectly ordinary footsteps. Melody listened carefully. On the whole she thought they sounded more like a man’s than a woman’s. And not a particularly big man, at that. Melody smiled. She could handle men. The footsteps walked round and round her pool of light, taking their time. Sometimes coming close but never actually emerging from the dark to enter into the light. Going on, round and round and round…
    “Who’s there?” said Melody, in her most strident and challenging voice. “Identify yourself! Talk to me! Don’t make me come out there and get you!”
    There was no reply. Only someone walking unseen, round and round her. Melody reached down, into the special cabinet set under the short-range sensors, and pulled out her favourite machine-pistol. She always kept a gun or two handy, for those moments when diplomacy had clearly failed. She aimed the machine-pistol out into the dark, right at the footsteps; and then hesitated. She didn’t want to fire blindly out into the darkness. If she randomly shot up the lobby, the theatre’s owners would be bound to kick up a fuss. Not that she really gave much of a damn, but she couldn’t justify it to herself, opening firewithout an actual target. The others would look at the widely sprayed bullet holes, and they’d know. They’d look at her and think she’d become spooked, maybe even panicked. And she couldn’t have that.
    And then all the lights came back on at once, quite suddenly, as though they’d never been away. Melody jumped, despite herself. She glared fiercely about her, sweeping the machine-pistol back and forth. The lobby looked back innocently, quiet and empty and ordinary. As though nothing at all had happened. A voice spoke behind her, and she spun round, bringing the machine-pistol up to fire; and then she stopped herself at the last moment. It was only Old Tom, the caretaker, standing quietly by the main doors in his long brown overall, regarding her with his usual vague smile and watery eyes. Melody lowered her gun and sighed loudly as the tension ran out of her.
    “Where the hell have you been?” she said sharply. “We looked everywhere for you!”
    “Oh,