Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) by Simon R. Green Page A

teeth.
    “Hello, JC,” it said, on a waft of breath like a charnel-house. It had a voice like screaming women and troubled children, like a blade slicing through yielding flesh. “The infamous JC Chance himself. Well, well. I am honoured. Have you come to lead me back to your world, like the good little Judas goat you are?”
    “Dream on,” said JC. “Kim, we are going!”
    The ghostly aura leapt suddenly out to surround not only him but the four students as well. And suddenly they were all back in the lounge, on the other side of a normal-sized television screen.
    | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
    The aura shrank back to cover just JC again; and four confused and dazed spirits stumbled back to their bodies, still sitting round the coffee table. Kim stepped out of JC, to stand before him; and they smiled contentedly at each other. Dominic’s spirit stopped suddenly and looked back at JC.
    “It knew your name,” he said. “How did that thing know your name?”
    “I get around,” said JC.
    Dominic went to join his friends as they clustered confusedly round the coffee table. Happy and Melody stood behind the equipment array, looking thoughtfully at JC and Kim.
    “How . . . ?” said Melody.
    “Hold everything!” said Happy. “Look at the television!”
    They all turned to look. Blood-red light was blasting out of the screen as it bulged away from the set. The screen stretched impossibly wide, pushing forward, as though being forced out by some unbearable pressure from the other side. The television screen stretched and stretched, like a soap-bubble that wouldn’t break. Something huge and dark pressed up against it from the other side, the other place.
    “It knows we’re here!” said Happy. “It’s coming through! You showed it the way, and it followed you! I can feel it . . . So hungry . . .
Get out of my head!
”
    Melody worked her keyboards fiercely, then glared at JC. “It’s coming through; and I haven’t anything here that can stop it!”
    “I can’t stand it!” said Happy, his eyes screwed tightly shut. “It’s inside my head, and it’s too big, too powerful. I can’t contain it . . .”
    He scrabbled desperately in his pockets, pulling out a dozen pill boxes at once. He fumbled and dropped them, and they hit the floor and burst open, spilling multi-coloured pills everywhere. Happy cried out and dropped to his knees, scrabbling for his pills with both hands.
    “You don’t need your damned pills, Happy!” said Melody. “Just stop that bloody thing coming through!”
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Happy. But he didn’t look up from his precious pills.
    JC looked at Kim, and she nodded quickly. She strode back into him again, and he glowed fiercely in the gloom. JC made a gun with his right hand and pointed the finger barrel at the bulging television screen.
    “Bang,” he said.
    The television exploded, throwing its insides across the carpet. The set was suddenly normal again; the screen nothing more than so many broken bits on the floor. The light fixture overhead snapped back on, filling the lounge with perfectly ordinary light. All the oppressive atmosphere was gone in a moment. Kim stepped out of JC. His glow flickered and went out, and he put his sunglasses back on.
    “According to my instruments, everything here is back to normal,” said Melody, in an only slightly brittle voice. “No dimensional door, no strange energy readings; even the temperature is climbing back to what it should be.”
    She left her array of equipment and knelt down beside Happy, to help him gather up his scattered pills. She didn’t say anything to him.
    “Is it over?” asked the professor, looking dazedly around him. “Is it finally over?”
    “For now,” said JC. “There’s a good chance the dimensional door has made a permanent weak spot here; but I’ll send you some Institute technicians to put in a patch. To be on the safe side.”
    He stopped, as he realised Melody and Happy