Free Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile by Simon R. Green Page B

don’t properly explain the dangers?”
    “Depends how much they pay,” said Happy.
    “Forty thousand pounds, for two weeks, plus bed and board,” said Melody.
    “Chicken feed,” said JC. “That’s what they usually pay for testing cold cures, hand creams, allergy meds. Presumably the company didn’t want to risk drawing attention to what they were doing. How many test subjects were there, Melody?”
    “Twenty. Ten men and ten women, ages twenty to thirty. Of course, some of them would have been given a harmless placebo . . . Testing took place on the second floor; living quarters for the test subjects are on the first floor. Laboratories on the third . . . no information on the remaining floors.”
    “Something’s coming,” Kim said suddenly, and they all looked around.
    The air was suddenly colder, painfully cold in their lungs as they breathed it in. Something was sucking all the heat out of the room. An energy drain, to power some kind of manifestation. There was a growing tension across the lobby, as though something might break, or explode. Suddenly, footsteps started down the stairs at the far end of the lobby. Slow, heavy, and quite deliberate footsteps, descending from above. Each separate sound seemed to hang on the air, unnaturally long, as though reluctant to depart. JC gestured quickly for everyone to spread out at the foot of the stairs, blocking them off. He and Kim got there first, peering eagerly up the stairs, but there was no-one to be seen yet. Melody reluctantly got up from her computer and moved across to join them. Happy stood behind her, not quite hiding. They waited at the foot of the stairs as the footsteps drew steadily nearer, louder, heavier . . . and then, at the moment when whoever was making them would have had to come round the corner at the top of the stairs, and reveal themselves, the sounds stopped. The last of the echoes died away, and there was only the quiet, and the increasingly oppressive stillness.
    JC and the others waited, tense and ready for anything, but the footsteps had stopped. Nothing to hear, nothing to see. JC ran forward and sprinted up the steps to look round the corner, but there was no-one there. No sign there had ever been anyone there. JC came back down the stairs, scowling.
    Then the elevator bell rang.
    They all looked round sharply, and JC led the way as they raced over to the other side of the lobby, to the single elevator. The down arrow above the door was lit, and the row of numbers showed that the elevator was descending from the third floor. The laboratories . . . JC gestured urgently, and they all spread out before the elevator doors. Happy moved to not quite hide behind Melody again, and she grabbed his arm and hauled him out beside her. They all watched the numbers descend, tantalisingly slowly. And then the bell rang again, and the elevator doors slid open, to reveal there was no-one inside. The elevator was completely empty. Happy let out a quick sigh of relief, looked away, then cried out as a uniformed police officer appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the lobby.
    The others spun around, and looked to where Happy was pointing with a trembling hand, but none of them moved. Neither did the police officer. He stood perfectly still, unnaturally still, and stared at them all with unblinking, unwavering eyes. His uniform was perfect, not even the smallest tear or blood stain. Nothing to show how he had died. But none of them doubted for a moment that he was dead. They only had to look at his face.
    “Just an ordinary police officer, a bobby on the beat,” said JC. “He should never have been sent into a place like this. He never stood a chance.”
    “He’s not breathing,” Melody said quietly. “Not even showing the smallest of involuntary movements. His face is . . . empty. Nobody home. And look at his eyes . . . He sees us, but not in a human way. Whatever’s watching us through those eyes isn’t in any way human.”
    A