Forces from Beyond Read Online Free PDF

was no dial tone.
    “Nothing,” he said.
    “Not even the sea?” said Happy.
    JC frowned and pressed the phone to his ear. “Wait a minute . . . I just heard someone crying. Hello? Is anyone there? Can we help you? What’s wrong?”
    The crying stopped. JC put the phone down. “We’re on our own . . .”
    “If only that were true,” said Happy.
    “Really not helping, Happy,” said Melody.
    She got out her cell phone, but it was just as dead. Melody glared at the phone before putting it away, as though it had let her down. She looked at JC.
    “I suppose screaming for help is out of the question?”
    “Please,” said JC. “I have my pride.”
    “What makes you think anyone would be allowed to hear us?” said Happy.
    “Okay!” said Kim. “You are seriously creeping me out now. And I’m dead! I’m supposed to be above such things.”
    “The room can’t hold us here for long,” said JC. “The manager is bound to come up, to check why we haven’t reported back. We just have to . . . outwait the room.”
    “And if we can’t?” said Happy.
    “Then we use your head as a battering ram to break down the door!” said JC. “It’s not as if there’s anything left in there to damage.”
    “I’ve got a few explosive devices about me, somewhere,” Melody said demurely.
    Happy smiled. “Never knew you when you didn’t, dear.”
    “I think we’ll save the scorched-earth policy for a last resort,” said JC. “We came here to help the manager, not destroy his livelihood. We need to be more . . . receptive. Work out what this is, what it wants.”
    “Or needs,” said Happy. “I am getting a strong feeling this has all happened before. We’re not the first to be held in this room. I am getting a definite sense of history repeating.”
    “Ghosts are history,” said JC. “The Past refusing to go away, imposing itself on the Present.”
    “Then where is the ghost?” said Kim. “Why isn’t it showing itself, making itself known? Why doesn’t it just tell us what it wants?”
    “I don’t think it’s that kind of haunting,” said Happy.
    “I should have hauled my equipment up the stairs,” said Melody. “I’d have had this ghost pinned to a wall by now, interrogating it to within an inch of its death.”
    She stopped because Happy was shaking his head slowly.
    “Ghosts are mostly what remains of people,” said Happy. “Tortured individuals, with unfinished business. This . . . is nothing like that.”
    “Come on, Happy,” said JC. “Give me something I can use. What kind of haunting is this?”
    “The dangerous kind,” said Happy. “We could die here. Many have.”
    “Then where are their ghosts?” said Kim.
    The four Ghost Finders came together in the middle of the room, standing shoulder to shoulder, staring quickly about them. Ready for any attack. But the light remained steady, there were no deep dark menacing shadows anywhere at all, and nothing came out of the woodwork. The room looked entirely empty even though they could all tell it wasn’t. JC’s hands clenched into fists. He hated not knowing what was going on, not knowing who or what to strike out at.
    “Hold it,” said Happy. His eyes were huge, unblinking, almost fey. “The spiritual weather in this room just changed.”
    “What?” said Melody. “What does that even mean?”
    “Something is heading our way,” said Happy. “Closing in on us.”
    “Where’s it coming from?” said JC.
    “It’s already here. It’s always been here. It’s just coming into focus. Concentrating on us.”
    “Who is it?” said Kim.
    “It’s not a who,” said Happy.
    They could all feel a growing force in the room, like an approaching storm pressing in from every direction at once. And then they all cried out and rocked on their feet, as harsh emotions sleeted through their minds, unsettling their thoughts in favour of disturbed instincts. They backed quickly away from each other, glaring suspiciously from