Ghosts Read online

  Ghosts

  by

  Martin Thompson

  Copyright ? 2002, Martin Thompson

  https://www.alphatucana.co.uk

  All rights reserved. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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  Finally, nothing in this e-book is intended to replace common sense, legal or other professional advice, and it is meant to inform and entertain the reader. It is a work of fiction.

  Ghosts

  by

  Martin Thompson

  https://www.alphatucana.co.uk

  When scientists finally discovered the secret of consciousness - the C particle - they also discovered what the mystics had known all along: everything is conscious (in its own way). At least, those things that interact with the C particle. That includes pretty much all matter, anyway. And indeed, anti-matter, but that is of no importance, there being hardly any of the stuff around this part of the Universe. And, in theory noted by but a few, all dark matter...

  Dark matter. That strange stuff that has gravity but interacts in no other way with ordinary matter.

  It parallels all the properties of ordinary matter, but there is around ten times as much of it as ordinary matter in the Universe. Your room could be full of it and you'd never even notice without the most sensitive of gravity meters to detect it for you. You could spend your entire life in two worlds simultaneously - your own world, and a dark matter world occupying the same space, and not know, except that you'd be somewhat overweight (hmm...). But objects substantially smaller than worlds would be to all intents and purposes undetectable.

  Except insofar as they have 'C ' as people would one day come to say. And as one person came to realise, it must therefore in theory be detectable - by consciousness.

  Ghosts.

  Yes, ghosts. Invisible people made entirely of invisible dark matter, from invisible dark matter worlds lit by invisible dark matter suns. Detectable by conscious beings but invisible to all other instruments except perhaps the most sensitive of gravity meters.

  "Spider" McCool was a psychic investigator. But when he read about dark matter in a science magazine one day, he had an epiphany. Ghosts? No! Aliens! Or, better, both! At last, a scientific explanation for ghosts that didn't involve self-delusion.

  That was why he was camped out in this dingy old abandoned mansion deep in the English countryside for the night. The place was supposed to be haunted, and he wanted to see what was going on. He had cameras set up, and thermal imaging equipment too. None of this should work on C, but people had obtained interesting signals at other sites, assuming they weren't mistaken or faking it, so it was worth a try. He didn't have a portable gravity meter: unfortunately, nobody had invented one yet and he wasn't about to either. He would just have to rely on his built-in C: his consciousness.

  Why wasn't there a C-detector? he wondered. Too new, he supposed. One day... then nobody will laugh at his theories any more. Meanwhile he'd have to hang around in dingy places like this and hope to gather some evidence. Well, not evidence exactly, more hearsay. Without detectors, anything he said would be believed by believers and ridiculed by sceptics. Same old same old.

  Anyway, better get down to work for a bit, he thought: it was 9pm and getting dark outside. According to his information, from the owners of the mansion, figures were reported to be seen every now and then walking past upstairs windows, usually after midnight. The owners themselves lived in a cottage about half a mile up the road and they had a good view of the mansion from there, even if the family couldn't afford to maintain it in recent generations. They made a bit of money renting it out to ghost-hunters. Occasionally they'd call in a proper investigator to drum up a bit of publicity. Tonight it was his turn. And one day, when he was rich, maybe he'd be able to afford some assistants.

  For now, though, he was on his own. He set up his cameras, thermal imaging thingamajigs and microphones in the most likely-looking rooms: those containing furniture. Scruffy-looking furniture, but furniture nonetheless: a four-poster bed that had clearly seen better days, some dressers, chairs, wardrobes; the usual for mansions that had once housed the rich. The cables from his gadgets snaked across the hallway into a sparsely furnished room on the other side he had designated as his 'office' for the night. Well, it had a mangy old wooden table and some cheap-looking wooden chairs in it, at least. He set his monitoring equipment up on the table, then went back across the hallway to the other two rooms to check that they were in fact being monitored. He waved in front of the cameras, and said "testing" into the microphones.

  Then, turning out the light, but leaving the doors open for easy access, he ambled back to his 'office' to check the results: all working. Good, he thought. He pulled the door of his office almost closed, then sat down at the table and pulled a paperback from one of his bags. It was probably going to be a long night, and he had come prepared. He pulled out a gigantic thermos flask as well, and a huge stack of sandwiches, and began eating: might as well get scared on a full stomach, he thought to himself with a grin.

  Time passed. 10pm. 11pm. He carried on reading, eating, drinking tea, reading some more, glancing at the instruments every now and then, and ignoring the occasional creak from the nether regions of the old building as it cooled down for the night: he was used to that sort of sound. He read some more.

  Midnight. He shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair. He was getting tired now. He sat back and poured himself some more tea. He sighed. He stretched. He took a sip of tea. He heard something. He froze, stifling any outer reaction, pretending he hadn't heard anything: he didn't want to give the game away.

  What was it? He quietly took another sip of tea, pretending nothing was amiss. He flicked his gaze quickly across the instruments arrayed in front of him: no reactions there either. He pretended to scratch his ear as he looked casually to one side and the other in the room. As expected, it all looked normal.

  There it was again! Faint. Muffled. Something. A movement? Not in this room, but nearby nevertheless. Somebody standing, perhaps, and moving slightly. He hadn't been able to place it properly, but his hearing was without peer. He knew what he had heard.

  It was something that didn't belong. He smiled to himself. He could smell a fake. Somebody was up to something. He shifted his position in his chair slightly, casual-style, so he could move quickly if attacked. Just in case.

  Nothing happened for a few moments. He made a pretence of rummaging in his bag, and pulled out a second thermos. This one had been filled with boiling water to top up his other thermos, but it would make a good weapon too, should he need it. He loosened the lid and placed the flask on the table within easy reach. He sat back in his chair again, as if nothing was up. Instruments: normal.

  He again sat back in his chair, stretching again and cautiously examining the room a bit more thoroughly. Ancient faded wallpaper. Unpolished wooden floorboards, with a worn-out rug covering the central portion under his table and chairs. Skirting board. An old wardrobe against one side wall; nothing against the other, or against the back wall.

  He got up and opened the door to his office, and leaned against the door-jamb, again casually, looking out across the hallway, as if he was just a bit bored and had decided to stand there for a change. There was no sign of life in the hallway or the rooms opposite, but he hadn't expect
ed any anyway.

  He looked up and down the hallway for a few moments, then came back into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar as before. He put on a thoughtful pose and paced slowly around the perimeter of the room, secretly examining the floorboards and the skirting boards and the wallpaper. He was looking for... something. Something inconsistent. A clue.

  He found it. Near the centre of the back wall, the skirting board had two tiny breaks, barely a millimetre wide, about three feet apart. He realised immediately that this could represent the base of a disguised door. But there was no corresponding break in the wallpaper: it may have been papered over a long time ago.

  He carried on walking slowly around the room, thinking this over. Could somebody be watching him through the wallpaper? He remembered how, many years ago, he had somehow managed to calculate the ideal size for the pinhole when he had been making a pinhole camera for himself. One third of a millimetre, it had turned out, was just right. If there was such a hole in the wallpaper, or better, two, one for each eye, he would have little chance of spotting anything from this side without making it obvious he was looking. But someone on the other side would get a good view into the room if it was adequately lit.

  Well, he hoped they enjoyed the show. He plonked himself back down in his