Well, he didn’t really want to think what was beyond that right now. If he did, there was a very good chance he’d wet himself, pass out or do both of those things simultaneously.
“This is the one hundred and third floor,” Weinberg explained. “It’s the highest point on the whole building. Y’know, if you don’t count the spike.”
“Wow, the ground is a long way away, isn’t it?” said Smithy. “Look, Denzel. Denzel, look. Look, Denzel. Look at it, Denzel.”
“Shut up!” Denzel yelped, then he pressed himself harder against the wall. “How is this allowed? This can’t be safe.”
“Depends,” said Weinberg.
Denzel opened one eye. “On what?”
“On if you fall off or not,” Weinberg said. She grinned. “It’s fine, you’re perfectly safe. I won’t let anything happen to you. Take a look.”
Denzel tried to summon the courage to detach himself from the wall, but his body overruled him. It did allow him to open his other eye though, as long as he kept facing straight ahead and didn’t even think about looking down.
It was a compromise he could live with. He’d already got a pretty good bird’s-eye view of the city when he’d been plunging towards it from above the clouds, and he didn’t really want to see it again. Besides, he didn’t really need to look down to see it. The city spread out before him for miles in every direction. Night was closing in and the buildings were ablaze with lights of every conceivable colour.
This high up there was no sound from the streets below, and Denzel almost felt like he was floating in outer space, gazing out over some vast, newly discovered galaxy.
“Imagine falling off,” said Smithy, breaking the spell. “Like, imagine you tripped and just went flying over the edge. I wonder how long it’d take to hit the bottom?”
Weinberg shrugged. “Well, taking into account wind resistance, it’d take roughly eight seconds to hit a terminal velocity of a hundred and twenty-two miles per hour, which is … what? Fifty-four metres per second?”
“About that, yeah,” said Smithy, who had absolutely no idea.
“We’re around four hundred and forty-three metres in the air at the moment…”
Denzel let out a high-pitched cheep of fear.
“So I guess around … eleven seconds?” said Weinberg.
“And then … splat!” said Smithy.
“Yeah. Kind of,” said Weinberg. “Although, when you factor in mass and bone density of the average human being and the like, it’d be more of a crunch. Now, a horse – a horse would go splat.”
Smithy nodded slowly. “How would we get a horse up the stairs though?”
“I wasn’t actually suggesting we throw a horse off the top of the Empire State Building,” said Weinberg. “I’m just saying, if we did—”
“Please stop talking!” Denzel whimpered.
“What’s wrong?” asked Smithy. “Why are you shaking? Are you cold? You’re cold, aren’t you? I think he’s cold.”
Denzel shook his head. He was actually pretty cold – the wind was bitter up there – but it wasn’t so much the chill that was making him shake; more the overwhelming sense of eye-popping terror he was currently experiencing.
He’d never really been all that bothered by heights before, but then he didn’t think he’d ever been this high up.
OK, technically the plane had been much higher than this, and the whole teleporting into mid-air thing, and he’d recently flown above his home town in a suit made entirely of ghosts, but this was different somehow. On all three of those occasions, what happened next had been pretty much out of his control. Now, though, his life depended on him not doing anything stupid. One slip, one small error of judgement, and – eleven-ish seconds later – his body would quite closely resemble his last meal.
Smithy slapped him hard across the face. Denzel gaped at him, his mouth hanging open. “Ow! What did you do that for?”
“You looked like you were panicking,” said Smithy.
“I was panicking!” Denzel confirmed. “And I’m still panicking, only now my face hurts.”
“Oh,” said Smithy. “Right.”
He thought for a moment, then slapped Denzel again.
“Cut it out! Stop hitting me!” Denzel yelped.
“Should I kick you in the leg?”
“No!”
“I could knee you in the—”
“Don’t do anything!” Denzel said. “It’s not helping.”
Smithy shrugged. “Suit yourself. Don’t say I didn’t offer.”
Denzel’s eyes darted to Weinberg. “Why did you bring us up here?”
Weinberg pointed up. “The spike,” she said. Denzel’s body reluctantly let him move his head, but took a moment to stress the importance of not looking down, just in case he’d forgotten. He hadn’t.
A small stone ledge hung above Denzel’s head, blocking his view.
“You can’t see it from there,” Weinberg said. “You have to step out a bit.”
“Not going to happen,” said Denzel. “Describe it.”
“It’s like… Have you ever seen pictures of this building?”
Denzel nodded.
“You know that spiky bit on the top?”
Denzel nodded.
“It’s that.”
Denzel’s nostrils flared. His lips went thin. “You dragged us all the way up here for that?”
“I thought you’d want to see it,” said Weinberg.
“Nope!” Denzel said, his voice coming out as a squeak. “Definitely don’t.”
“OK, well, short version then. When Kong was on his rampage it became clear there was no way of capturing him with the weapons available at the time,” Weinberg explained. “So one of my predecessors – our predecessors, I guess – found a way of building a Spectral Resonance Unit right into the building’s antenna.”
“Clever, that’s just what I’d have done,” said Smithy, then: “What’s a Spectral Resonance Unit?”
“Uh… Think of it as a vacuum cleaner, but for ghosts,” said Weinberg. “Anything made up of Spectral Energy gets too close and – zip – the spike pulls it in.”
“Anything?” said Smithy. He gripped on to the low railing fixed to the top of the wall.
“Relax,” said Weinberg. “It hasn’t worked in years. Better Vulterons than me have tried to fix it, but it’s kaput. It worked on Kong though, which was the point. And then, over the next forty years or so, before it broke down, it just sort of drained all the Spectral Energy from the city. Nowadays New York is pretty much a ghost-free zone. That’s why Martinez may have been acting a little … weird earlier.” She shot Smithy an apologetic look. “See, we don’t have much experience with actual ghosts, as such. In fact, I don’t even remember the last time we got a—”
A walkie-talkie on the girl’s belt crackled into life. “Uh, Weinberg,” said Martinez. “We just got a call. Over.”
Weinberg frowned, but it was a good-natured one, like she’d just been told a joke she didn’t yet understand. “From who? Over.”
“No. I mean we got a call,” said Martinez. “Over.”
“Oh,” said Weinberg. She looked Denzel and Smithy up and down, the radio held motionless in front of her mouth. “Well, this can’t be a coincidence. We’ll be right down. Over.”
She clipped the walkie-talkie back on to her belt. “OK, so that’s weird,” she said. “It seems there are some ghosts left in New York City, after all. I guess we’d better go to work.”
“It happened through there. But I’m telling you, I ain’t ever seen nothin’ like it.”
The man standing before the locked double doors was old and burly, with dirty calloused hands that had spent a lifetime punching people in the head and upper body. His nose was a misshapen bump in the middle of his face and his ears looked like they’d been made out of Play-Doh.
The call had come via a contact in the mayor’s office. A boxing gym in an area of New York called Brooklyn was reporting some highly unusua
l activity, and while Weinberg assumed it’d be a false alarm, they’d all come along to check anyway.
“And what’s through there, sir?” asked Weinberg.
“The pool.”
“As in…?” Smithy mimed hitting a pool ball with a cue.
“As in swimming pool,” said the man.
“Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up, Jim,” said Smithy.
“My name ain’t Jim. It’s Arnold.”
“Oh,” said Smithy, slightly taken aback. “Then who’s Jim?”
“He runs a gym,” said Denzel, gesturing at the empty hall behind them, filled with punch bags, weight benches and a full-size boxing ring.
“That’s probably why he’s getting confused,” said Smithy.
Arnold, who hadn’t previously been confused at all – but was rapidly starting to be – frowned. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Who are you anyway? You don’t look like city officials. You ain’t old enough.”
“We’re older than we look,” said Martinez.
Smithy pointed to Denzel. “He’s fifty-seven.”
Arnold shook his head. “OK, get out,” he said, moving to push them aside. Martinez placed a hand in the middle of the man’s broad chest. A yellow light briefly crackled from the Oberon’s fingertips.
“I think we should take a look around,” said Martinez.
Arnold stopped. He blinked slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, you should take a look around.”
“Thank you,” said Martinez. He removed his hand, then turned back to the others and winked as Arnold unlocked the doors behind him.
A wave of heat rolled out – that type of heat you only ever get around indoor swimming pools that immediately makes your back start sweating. Arnold shambled through. Weinberg and Martinez went next, with Denzel and Smithy tagging along at the back.
The pool was around the size of a tennis court, perhaps a little smaller. Light rippled and danced across the windowless walls, picking out details Denzel reckoned would have been better off hidden.
The room the pool was housed in was old and dirty, with black mildew on the tiles and rings of damp up on the ceiling. The floor tiles were chipped, cracked or – in some cases – missing completely. A weed grew in the gap between two of the grubbier tiles. By the looks of it, it had been there a while.
It was the first swimming pool Denzel had ever seen where drowning was way down the list of potential health and safety issues.
“Tell us in your own words what happened,” said Weinberg.
Arnold blinked again, as if waking from a dream. “Uh, so there was this noise.”
“Definitely ghosts,” said Smithy. Martinez shot him an anxious look, then glanced around for danger.
“What kind of noise?” asked Weinberg.
“Like … a kind of groaning,” said Arnold. “You know, like the noise old pipes make when they expand.”
Denzel glanced up at the mouldy ceiling. There was a grid of rusty metal pipes criss-crossing over around a third of it.
“And then a kind of … whispering.”
“Ghosts,” said Smithy.
“Whispering?” said Weinberg.
“Yeah, you know. Like … like water swishing through pipes.”
“Right. Right,” said Weinberg. “It all seems pretty pipe-based at the moment. Maybe a plumber would be a better—”
“And then everyone started floating.”
Weinberg hesitated. “In the water?”
Arnold shook his head. “In the air.”
“Oh.”
“Ghosts,” Martinez whispered.
Smithy shrugged. “Well, let’s not rush to any conclusions.”
Martinez sniffed the air, following his nose until it led him to a gloss-painted wall. Black stains bloomed beneath the paint’s shiny glaze. After another few experimental sniffs, he touched his tongue against the paintwork.
Denzel and Smithy both recoiled in disgust. “Ugh what are you doing?” asked Denzel. “That wall looks poisonous.” He smiled at Arnold. “No offence.”
“I’m definitely getting something,” said Martinez.
“Ebola?” Denzel guessed.
“Spectral Energy. Recent.”
Weinberg unclipped a small device from her belt. It was a little larger than a mobile phone, with a screen on the front and four short prongs fixed to the top. It let out a short bleep when she switched it on…
…and then immediately exploded in her hand with a bang that echoed around the windowless room.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, flexing her fingers inside her scorched glove. “There is definitely Spectral Energy in here.” She looked across to the other side of the pool. There were three doors there, all closed. “What’s through there?”
Arnold lifted his head slowly and frowned, like he’d never seen the doors before. “Uh, changing rooms and storage,” he said, after some thought. He pointed. “Men. Women. Closet.”
“We should check them out,” said Martinez. “Weinberg, we’ll take the changing rooms, one each. You two,” he continued, gesturing to Smithy and Denzel. “Maybe you could check the closet?”
“Is that wise?” asked Weinberg. “They’re not armed. They might get hurt.”
“He’s already a ghost,” said Martinez, nodding at Smithy.
“Yeah, but Denzel isn’t,” Weinberg pointed out. “The Elders won’t be happy if we get him killed.”
“I won’t exactly be delighted either,” Denzel pointed out.
Weinberg smiled at him. “Relax. You’re fine. Smithy, you check out the closet. Denzel, wait here and, uh, make sure no one else comes in.”
Denzel and Smithy looked at each other, then shrugged. “OK,” said Denzel. He gestured to the door. “I’ll try to fight back the hordes.”
Martinez gestured for Arnold to lead the way. The old man unhooked a bunch of keys from his belt as he shuffled around the pool. He didn’t appear to be even remotely surprised by any of the conversation he’d just heard, but then Martinez seemed to have zapped him with some magic mojo, so that probably helped.
With three echoing clunks, the doors were unlocked. Weinberg and Martinez exchanged a nod, then creaked the changing-room doors open and stepped inside. Arnold followed Martinez inside, trotting along behind him like a loyal puppy.
Smithy hesitated at the closet door, turned and gave Denzel a wave, then stepped backwards, slipping cleanly through the peeling paint and damp wood like a – well, like a Smithy.
Denzel shoved his hands down in his pockets and walked slowly along the side of the pool, swinging his feet in wide arcs. He whistled, but the echo was annoying, so he didn’t keep it up for long.
He clicked his fingers a few times, then yawned. He couldn’t remember when he’d last slept. Today? Yesterday? The day before? Surely not that long ago, but he couldn’t really be certain. He tried to figure out what time it would be back home, but he’d forgotten if you added hours on or took them away. He’d have to ask Weinberg and Martinez when they got back.
SSSSSSHHHHK.
Denzel stopped. He looked down at the water, then up at the pipes on the ceiling above him. He listened. He was sure he’d heard … something. A hissing, maybe.
After several seconds he shrugged and went back to pacing again. He was halfway along the poolside when he heard another sound. Definitely a sound, but not a hissing.
A whispering.
He is coming.
The words bounced back at Denzel from all four walls, overlapping until the room was filled with the whispers.
He is coming.
He is coming.
HE IS COMING.
Denzel took his hands out of his pockets, but otherwise froze. He held his breath, managing to keep it in until the whispers faded back into silence. He let the breath out slowly, scared to make a sound. It turned into a cloud of white vapour in front of his mouth, and Denzel felt his skin prickle as a wave of cold air washed over him.
The three doors were still closed. Denzel thought ab
out calling for the others, but that would definitely involve making a sound, and he wasn’t sure that was such a good idea right now.
Something moved beneath the surface of the pool, sending bubbles rolling to the surface. Denzel’s first instinct was to run away and never look back – with some possible screaming in there for good measure – but he planted his feet on the cracked tiles and gritted his teeth.
He shouldn’t be scared of ghosts. He was a Spectre Collector, after all. Not being scared of ghosts was pretty much his job now.
Besides, the majority of the ghosts he’d personally encountered had turned out to be pretty decent people. Well, maybe not “people” exactly, but whatever they were, they were mostly nice, all the same.
Sure, during his training he’d heard tales of monstrous horrors that had kept him awake for the better part of a week, hugging his pillow and silently crying, but his personal record with supernatural entities had mostly been a positive one.
Denzel had just about managed to convince himself he had absolutely nothing to worry about when two tendrils of dirty pool water tangled around his throat like vines and yanked him off his feet.
For a tiny moment, Denzel felt as if he were flying, and then he hit the water with a splash. The stinging chlorine forced his eyes closed, even as the grip on his throat tightened. He kicked frantically for the surface, his arms thrashing like a paddling dog. The water itself seemed to be dragging him down though, pulling him further and further away from the precious fresh air above.
He’d barely had a moment to gulp down a breath, and already he could feel his lungs cramping up. The tendrils tightened and a worrying number of bubbles escaped through Denzel’s nose.
He was becoming disorientated, and could no longer figure out which way he should be swimming. He forced his eyes open and twisted his head, searching for the surface. It was just above him – barely further than his arm could stretch – but there was no way of reaching it.
Through the blur of chlorine, Denzel spotted a shape in the pool with him. It was a large shape. Worryingly large.
Terrifyingly large, in fact.
And it was getting closer.
But, right now, that was the least of Denzel’s problems. Pain flared in his lungs. The grip tightened around his throat. His mouth opened with a bubbling gasp, and as the pool water seeped down his throat, Denzel sank slowly into darkness.
A New York Nightmare! Page 5