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
“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.
“Is there supposed to be anyone else in the building?”
“No, sir,” said Old Tom. “No-one. I’d have been told.”
“No-one whistles in the theatre!” Elizabeth said sharply. “It’s bad luck!”
“Anyone recognise the tune?” said Happy. There was a general shaking of heads.
JC looked at Old Tom. “What’s down there, under this stage? Is there any way to reach it?”
“Of course, sir,” said Old Tom. “That’s the understage area, easy to get to. There’s a way to everywhere, and I know them all. Follow me, ladies and gents!”
The way down turned out to be an old iron stairway that spiralled around as it descended into the gloom of the understage area. The stairway didn’t feel properly attached or supported, worn loose through many years of hard use; and it swayed dangerously and made loud, complaining noises as Old Tom led the way down, one careful step at a time. Though whether his pace was due to the infirmities of old age or sensible caution, JC couldn’t tell. He stuck right behind Old Tom, peering down into the gloomy depths in search of the phantom whistler. Happy came next though he didn’t want to. Melody had to drive him down ahead of her, with fierce encouragement and appalling language that the actors pretended not to hear as they brought up the rear.
The whistled tune cut off abruptly the moment Old Tom and JC emerged from the bottom of the stairway. The understage area was completely empty. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, not even the faintest echo. The light from a single hanging naked light bulb spread a grubby yellow glare across a wide-open space much bigger than the stage above. Everyone relaxed. With no phantom whistler, no footsteps, and nothing in any way unnatural, the open area seemed safe enough. Benjamin made a point of smiling easily around him.
“Well, this place brings back memories! Remember when we were playing the leads in the Restoration comedy,
“Oh God, it’s another anecdote,” muttered Happy. “I think I’d rather have a ghost…”
“Of course I remember!” said Elizabeth, seizing the moment to lighten the mood. “We had a real pit band, you see, in the open area before the stage, to play real Georgian music; but at the end of the play, they had to leave the pit and come up onto the stage to accompany the final banquet scene. At the end of which, I would walk forward, the curtains would close behind me, and I would deliver the long closing speech straight to the audience. This was to give the other actors time to race off stage and change into their final costumes for the final walkdown. But it also meant the pit-band had to hurry down here, via that awful old stairway, charge across the understage area, and re-emerge in the pit in time to play music for the walkdown. Well, to begin with, all went well. But by the end of the run, I was belting through the lines so we could all get off stage and get to the bar that much earlier; which meant the poor pit band had to run like fun to get to the pit in time. Many the night I heard muffled curses
