Benjamin held Elizabeth tightly in his arms, cradling her head to his chest. “Leave her alone!” he shouted into the face of the roar. “Leave her alone, you bastard!”
JC yelled at everyone, straining to be heard above the appalling sound. “Stick together! Don’t let it separate us!”
He forced his eyes open, a bit at a time, but even with his augmented vision he still couldn’t see anyone, or anything. There was only the sound and the rage within it.
And then it stopped. No falling away, no quietening down; it simply broke off abruptly, without even leaving an echo behind it. For a long moment, everyone stood where they were, opening their eyes and lowering their hands from their heads, all of them suddenly limp with relief. The end of the sound was like the ending of a physical assault. It had beaten and battered them like some unseen bully; and now it felt good, so good, that it was over. One by one, they all started to relax and look around them. Benjamin and Elizabeth let go of each other and stepped back to look each other over, make sure everything was all right. So did Happy and Melody.
They were all of them shaken, amateur and professional alike, by the sheer fury in the sound. And, it seemed to JC, a very human fury. He strode back and forth across the wide-open area, glaring into shadowy nooks and crannies, finding nothing. He didn’t like being caught by surprise. He looked back at the others, and was surprised to see Lissa standing on her own, calm and quiet and apparently entirely unaffected by what she’d been through. She didn’t look scared, or shaken; she stared straight ahead of her, her face calm and quiet and completely empty. As though she couldn’t be bothered if there wasn’t an audience…JC stopped and considered her thoughtfully. Shock, perhaps? He started towards her, then Benjamin suddenly spoke up.
“Hold it; where’s Old Tom?”
Everyone stopped where they were and looked quickly about them; but there was no trace of the old caretaker anywhere. They all called his name; but there was no response. And even with the single light bulb and the many concealing shadows, there was nowhere in the understage area where he could have hidden himself.
“Where could he have gone?” said Elizabeth. “There’s no way he could have gone back up that creaky iron stairway without us noticing.”
“Is there any other exit?” said JC.
“Not that I know of,” said Benjamin, looking vaguely about him.
“Maybe something…reached out, and took him,” said Lissa.
Her voice was very small. Almost lost. For a moment everyone stood still, then Benjamin snorted loudly.
“Just because we don’t know of any other exit doesn’t mean there isn’t one! Come on, you all heard the man—There’s a way to everywhere, and I know all of them. I don’t believe he ever was a caretaker; he’s a journalist who’s done some research. That moustache never did look real to me.”
“He could be back up on the stage,” said Lissa. “Where it’s light…”
JC led the way back to the iron stairway.
Back on the open stage again, they all called repeatedly for Old Tom; but there was still no reply. The brightly lit stage was something of a relief, even a comfort, after the claustrophobic gloom of the understage area. It might not actually be any safer on the stage; but at least here they could all see nothing coming towards them.
“He’s got to be around here somewhere,” said Benjamin, with more hope than certainty. “He can’t have come to any harm. We’d have heard.”
“It’s just struck me!” said Elizabeth. “No-one’s been hurt, have they? I mean, yes, of course, it’s all been very scary…but it’s all threats and menaces. Nothing that could actually do us harm.”
“Then where’s Old Tom?” said Lissa. “What happened to him?”
The stage lights flared up suddenly, blazing into blue-white incandescence, then went out, all at once. Darkness fell across the stage, and everyone huddled together. Individual lights blazed up, here and there, sudden flares and flashes…and then the bulbs began to explode, one after another. Everyone on stage flinched away from flying slivers of glass, but none of it came close enough to hurt anyone. A heavy, ponderous gloom filled the stage, only held back by brief surges from individual lights. JC grabbed Happy by the shoulder, and he shrieked loudly. JC shook him hard till he stopped.
“What’s happening here, Happy? Talk to me! What’s behind all this?”
“I don’t know!” said Happy. “I’m not picking up anything! And since I sure as hell bloody well should be picking up something, someone or something must be deliberately blocking me. Which isn’t easily done…” Happy took a deep breath to calm himself, thinking it through. “It’s all tricks, JC! Shock and awe, smoke and mirrors, all of it designed to distract us, draw our attention away from what really matters. But don’t ask me what this is all about…I can’t sense a damned thing. It’s like being deaf and blind and wrapped in poisoned cotton wool, all at once.”
“You are seriously underperforming on this case, Happy,” said JC. He looked at Melody, who immediately shook her head.
“No use looking at me. You know I can’t tell a damned thing without my instruments. I should never have left them behind. You’re the leader! You do something!”
“There’s nothing to do,” said JC. “Happy’s right, for once. This is all ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ Carefully orchestrated bits of theatrical business. Someone’s putting on a show.”
Suddenly, all the house lights came up. Steady, dependable light filled the whole of the vast auditorium and spilled out across the stage, pushing back the darkness. JC looked quickly back and forth across the rows of raked seating, but every seat in the house was empty. The normal, everyday electric light was peaceful and reassuring, and everyone began to relax again. JC looked at Benjamin and Elizabeth.
“Could someone be overseeing all this business with the lights from the lighting control room?”
“I don’t see how,” said Elizabeth. “It hasn’t been wired up properly yet. And even if Old Tom isn’t who he claimed to be, and he was only here to mess with us, he couldn’t have got all the way to the lighting booth in time.”
“Unless he isn’t working on his own,” said Lissa.
JC turned to Happy. “Are you sure you’re not getting anything?”
Happy looked past JC, swallowed hard, and said, “Uh, JC, I am 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 digging its 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 something like it. But that could wait. First things first. JC turned back to Happy.