Authors: Simon R. Green
“Something wrong?” he said quietly.
“I’m not sure,” said Benjamin, frowning. “It’s just…I don’t remember its taking this long to get to the stage, back in my day. And I’m almost sure the layout was never this complicated. It almost feels like we’re going round and round in circles.”
Elizabeth nodded vigorously. “I do have to wonder, darling, whether Old Tom is so far gone that he doesn’t actually remember where he’s going and is too proud to admit it. Or even…if he isn’t really the caretaker he claims to be and some journalist trying to bluff his way through. Or could he be deliberately trying to disorientate us? I don’t know what’s going on here, Benjamin, but I don’t like it. Something doesn’t feel right.”
JC left Benjamin and Elizabeth muttering uneasily together and fell back to walk with Happy and Melody. Happy was scowling even more fiercely than usual.
“Something is definitely not kosher with these corridors, JC. The amount of time we’ve spent walking, we
should be through the back of the theatre and half-way down the street. It feels to me…as though there’s more space here than there should be. As though the local geometry isn’t as properly nailed down at the corners as it should be.”
“I wouldn’t argue with that,” murmured JC. “This whole theatre feels wrong to me.”
“Maybe we should start leaving a trail of bread-crumbs,” suggested Melody.
As she was saying that, Old Tom took a sharp right turn, led them up some steps, and out onto the main stage. All the lights were on, bathing the entire massive stage in a fierce illumination. Everyone stood together, blinking through the harsh glare at the gloom of the massive auditorium, laid out before them. It was like standing on an island of light, peering out at a sea of darkness.
“Who the hell left all these lights on?” said Elizabeth. “The workmen assured me that everything had been turned off when they left! I really don’t need the theatre’s owners adding their energy bills to our running costs.”
“There weren’t any lights on in the lobby,” observed JC.
“So why are they on here?” said Benjamin.
He strode forward across the stage, Elizabeth sticking close beside him. Lissa wandered after them, smiling happily about her as though she was finally where she belonged. Old Tom stayed by the wings, at the far side of the stage, as though he knew his place and wasn’t prepared to venture beyond it. JC moved cautiously forward. To his surprise, he found he didn’t like being on stage. It felt too open, too exposed, too vulnerable. He glared out
into the shadowy auditorium, and the rows upon rows of empty seats stared silently back at him. JC knew what the workmen meant, now, when they talked of being watched by unseen, unfriendly eyes. He slipped his heavy sunglasses down his nose, so he could peer over the top of them, but even his augmented eyes couldn’t make out anything useful. He pushed the glasses back up his nose again. He didn’t want his glowing eyes to freak out the civilians; and he was getting really fed up with having to come up with clever answers to distract them.
Happy and Melody stuck close together, braced and ready for an attack that never came.
“Must bring back memories, eh?” Old Tom said cheerfully to Benjamin and Elizabeth. “All the plays you appeared in, all the characters you played; must feel like coming home. I suppose.”
Benjamin and Elizabeth walked to the very front of the stage, as though drawn there. They stood arm in arm, looking out into the Past, smiling reflectively.
“This was our kingdom, once upon a time,” said Benjamin. “Where we were Kings and Queens, angry young men and femmes fatales…We played Shakespeare and Marlowe, Becket and Brecht, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, bless his declamatory speeches…Hell, we did it all, didn’t we girl, one time or another. For everything from standing ovations to sullen silences. Because you can’t please all the people all of the time, the ungrateful bastards…”
“I sometimes think we had more fun backstage,” said Elizabeth. “Applause is what it’s all about, of course; but there’s more to theatre than the smell of the crowds and
the roar of the grease-paint. For happy times and camaraderie, give me a theatre bar any day. Do you remember the one time we did the Scottish play.”
“Ah, the Caledonian Tragedy,” said Benjamin.
“Do you by any chance mean
Macbeth
?” JC said innocently.
Everyone except the Ghost Finders winced.
“Please,” said Benjamin, with all the dignity he could muster. “Don’t do that. It’s unlucky.”
“And I really don’t think we’re in any position to push our luck at the moment,” said Elizabeth.
“Anyway,” said Benjamin, “you remember young Dicky Moran, dear; playing Seyton, MacB’s second in command? He was lumbered with one of the most familiar lines from Shakespeare:
The Queen, my lord, is dead.
Well, what can you do with that that hasn’t been done a hundred times before? Particularly if you’re young and ambitious and keen to be noticed, like Dicky? We got all the way to the technical rehearsal, before Dicky came up with his Big Idea and presented it proudly to the director. He wanted to walk on stage with the Queen lying limp in his arms, present her to the King, then say the line! Would have been very effective. You were up for it, weren’t you, darling?”
“It would certainly have made a big impression,” said Elizabeth, which JC couldn’t help noticing wasn’t exactly the same as agreeing, “But the director wouldn’t wear it. Complete sense-of-humour failure…Which is probably why Dicky did what he did the next evening, at the dress rehearsal…You remember, darling; it was right at the end, with half the cast on stage celebrating MacB’s death,
and the rest of us watching from the stalls. Hoping it would all end soon, so we could get a drink in. Someone has to bring on a fake severed head and say it’s MacB’s, then the big names go into soliloquy mode. Well, Dicky noticed that the actor holding the head was surreptitiously turning it back and forth so that it seemed to be looking at whoever was speaking. Well, once Dicky saw that, he couldn’t help himself. He started going
Gottle of Gear
from the front row, and other ventriloquist classics, like
Get back in the box! I don’t want to get back in the box!
And, of course, the moment he pointed it out, everyone else could see it, too! We rocked with laughter, all of us! We fell about, we leaned on each other, we laughed till we cried. Completely ruined the atmosphere…”
“The director blew his top,” said Benjamin, nodding happily. “Wanted to fire young Dicky, right there on the spot. But I put my foot down.”
“Indeed you did, darling,” said Elizabeth, “and quite right, too. Though the first night we had to go on without a severed head because no-one could look at it with a straight face any more. And might I point out, darling, you could be just as bad yourself. I’ve never been able to forget what happened with
Cider with Rosie
…”
“Oh God, yes,” said Benjamin, grinning broadly and not looking in any way ashamed of himself. “It was the technical again, when evenings grow long, and nerves grow short. We’d been running the play for hours, and we were all exhausted. We wanted to go home, or to bed, or both. Anyway, we’d finally made it to the last scene, where young Laurie Lee is in the hay-cart with young Rosie, and she’s about to give him a glass of cider and
show him what life is all about…Except, neither of the two youngsters could get their lines right! They kept stopping, or jumping, or getting it wrong, over and over and over…The rest of the cast were all out there in the auditorium, watching from the shadows, getting more and more impatient. Until finally a voice was heard, rising out of the dark, saying
For God’s sake, Rosie, will you please wank him off, then we can all go home!
”
There was general laughter, while Elizabeth shook her head in mock condemnation. Benjamin smiled innocently.
“Might have been me. Might not. Who can say?”
Lissa wasn’t laughing. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest and was trying very hard to look as though such unprofessional behaviour was entirely beneath her. Elizabeth smiled at her frostily.
“You haven’t done much stage-work, have you, dear? You mustn’t worry—it’s the little moments of madness that keep us all sane. And after our play, you’ll be able to command every stage you walk onto. You really must try some Shakespeare; nothing like the Bard to stretch the acting muscles.”
“I have always fancied putting myself up for Lady MacB,” said Lissa. “But if I do, I’ll stick to the words. I really don’t have any time for sparking up the material with special bits of business, like certain actresses who’ve played her nude, or peed on stage during the sleep-walking scene.”
“Yes,” said Benjamin. “I remember that. I do recall being a bit nervous about which way the stage was sloping…”
“It’s all about the performance,” Lissa said firmly. “Shakespeare doesn’t need improving.”
“It’s all about getting noticed,” Benjamin said wisely. “But, then, you’ve probably never had any problems with that, have you?”
They all stopped and looked around sharply. Suddenly, without any warning, there was the sound of loud footsteps approaching from off stage. No build-up, no quiet sounds growing louder; only very heavy footsteps in the far wings, heading towards the stage. Everyone turned to look. The footsteps grew even louder, and heavier, as they drew nearer, slamming down with more-than-human weight and an inhuman sense of purpose. The stage itself seemed to shake and shudder with every step as though in anticipation. As though it was frightened. The footsteps reached the edge of the stage, left the wings, and continued on; but there was no-one there. Nothing to see, nothing at all. Only the sound—one loud crashing step after another, heavy enough to break the world, loud enough to raise the dead, crossing the stage with horrid determination, heading straight for the living.
Benjamin and Elizabeth clung to each other tightly, stupefied by what was happening, unable to move. Lissa fell back to stand behind Old Tom, who didn’t seem to know what to do. He stood there, staring blankly at the approaching footsteps. As though it were all happening to someone else. JC moved forward to face the sounds and place himself between the advancing footsteps and the civilians. Melody started after him, realised Happy wasn’t moving, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him
along with her. The three of them stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the approaching sounds.
“Talk to me, Happy!” said JC. “What is this?”
“I don’t know!” said Happy. “I’m not seeing anything! Anything at all!”
JC whipped off his sunglasses and turned the full force of his glowing eyes on whatever was before him; but the footsteps kept coming, and he couldn’t see a damned thing. He held his ground, and the footsteps walked right up to him and stopped. Silence fell across the stage, the quiet broken only by the strained harsh breathing of the living as they waited for something to happen. But no-one appeared, and there weren’t any more footsteps. JC carefully extended one arm and waggled his hand back and forth before him; but there was nothing there.
JC put his sunglasses back on and frowned thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said finally. “That…was a bit odd.”
“Really?” said Happy, mopping at his damp face with a grubby handkerchief. “You think?”
“I was expecting whatever was making the footsteps to turn around and walk away,” said JC. “But they didn’t. The sounds just stopped. As though they’d served their purpose, accomplished everything they were supposed to…”
He turned around and looked back at the civilians. Benjamin and Elizabeth had let go of each other and were looking around a bit self-consciously. Old Tom was standing very still at the wings, as though he didn’t know where to look or what to do. Lissa emerged from behind
him, 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.