Phantoms

by Dean Koontz

  The others looked relieved to see him.

  Clearing his throat, trying to conceal the fact that he was badly shaken, he said, “Dr. Yamaguchi, I need your help here.”

  Tal, Jenny, Lisa, and Sara Yamaguchi stepped into the field lab. Frank and Gordy remained outside, by the door, nervously surveying the street, where the daylight was fading fast.

  Bryce showed Sara the computer screens.

  SHALL WE HAVE A LITTLE CHAT?

  He told them what had flashed onto the video displays, and before he was finished, Sara interrupted him to say, “But that’s not possible. This computer has no program, no vocabulary that would enable it to—”

  “Something has control of your computer,” he said.

  Sara scowled. “Control? How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who?”

  “Not who,” Jenny said, putting an arm around her sister. “More like what.”

  “Yeah,” Tal said. “This thing, this killer, whatever the hell it is, it has control of your computer, Dr. Yamaguchi.”

  Obviously doubtful, the geneticist sat down at one of the display terminals and threw a switch on an automatic typewriter. “Might as well have a print-out just in case we actually get something from this.” She hesitated with her delicate, almost childlike hands poised above the keyboard. Bryce watched over her shoulder. Tal, Jenny, and Lisa turned to the other two screens—just as all the displays went blank. Sara stared at the smooth field of green light in front of her, and then finally keyed in the access code and typed a question.

  IS SOMEONE THERE?

  The answer came at once, the word appearing under Sara’s: YES.

  WHO ARE YOU?

  COUNTLESS.

  “What’s it mean?” Tal asked.

  “I don’t know,” the geneticist said.

  Sara tapped out the question again and received the same obscure response: COUNTLESS.

  “Ask it for a name,” Bryce said.

  Sara typed, and the words she composed appeared instantly on all three of the display screens: DO YOU HAVE A NAME?

  YES.

  WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

  MANY.

  YOU HAVE MANY NAMES?

  YES.

  WHAT IS ONE OF YOUR NAMES?

  CHAOS.

  WHAT OTHER NAMES DO YOU HAVE?

  YOU ARE A BORING, STUPID CUNT. ASK ANOTHER QUESTION.

  Visibly shocked, the geneticist glanced up at Bryce. “That is definitely not a word you’re going to find in this computer’s dictionary.”

  Lisa said, “Don’t ask it who it is. Ask it what it is.” “Yeah,” Tal said. “See if it’ll give you a physical description.”

  “It’ll think we’re asking it to run diagnostic tests on itself,” Sara said. “It’ll start flashing up circuitry diagrams.”

  “No, it won’t,” Bryce said. “Remember, it’s not the computer you’re having a dialogue with. It’s something else. The computer is only the means of communication.”

  “Oh. Of course,” Sara said. “In spite of the word it just used, I still want to think of it as good old Meddy.”

  After a moment’s thought, she typed: PROVIDE A PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF YOURSELF.

  I AM ALIVE.

  BE MORE SPECIFIC, Sara directed.

  I AM BY NATURE UNSPECIFIC.

  ARE YOU HUMAN?

  I ENCOMPASS THAT POSSIBILITY ALSO.

  “It’s just playing with us,” Jenny said. “Amusing itself.” Bryce wiped a hand over his face, “Ask it what happened to Copperfield.”

  WHERE IS GALEN COPPERFIELD?

  DEAD.

  WHERE IS HIS BODY?

  GONE.

  WHERE HAS IT GONE?

  BORING BITCH.

  WHERE ARE THE OTHERS WHO WERE WITH GALEN COPPERFIELD?

  DEAD.

  DID YOU KILL THEM?

  YES.

  WHY DID YOU KILL THEM?

  YOU

  Sara tapped the keyboard: CLARIFY.

  YOU ARE

  CLARIFY.

  YOU ARE ALL DEAD.

  Bryce saw that the woman’s hands were shaking. Yet they moved across the keys with skill and accuracy: WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL US?

  THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE FOR.

  ARE YOU SAYING WE EXIST ONLY TO BE KILLED?

  YES. YOU ARE CATTLE. YOU ARE PIGS. YOU ARE WORTHLESS.

  WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

  VOID.

  CLARIFY.

  NOTHINGNESS.

  WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

  LEGION.

  CLARIFY.

  CLARIFY MY COCK, YOU BORING BITCH.

  Sara blushed and said, “This is madness.”

  “You can almost feel it in here with us now,” Lisa said.

  Jenny squeezed her sister’s shoulder encouragingly and said, “Honey? What do you mean by that?”

  The girl’s voice was strained, tremulous. “You can almost feel its presence.” Her gaze roamed over the lab. “The air seems thicker—don’t you think? And colder. It’s as if something’s going to... materialize right here in front of us.”

  Bryce knew what she meant.

  Tal caught Bryce’s eye and nodded. He felt it, too.

  However, Bryce was certain that what they felt was entirely a subjective sensation. Nothing was really going to materialize. The air wasn’t actually thicker than it had been a minute ago; it just seemed thicker because they were all tense, and when you were rigid with tension, it was just naturally somewhat more difficult to draw your breath. And if the air was colder... well, that was only because the night was coming.

  The computer screens went blank. Then: WHEN IS HE COMING?

  Sara typed, CLARIFY.

  WHEN IS THE EXORCIST COMING?

  “Christ,” Tal said. “What is this?”

  CLARIFY, Sara typed.

  TIMOTHY FLYTE.

  “I’ll be damned,” Jenny said.

  “It knows this Flyte character,” Tal said. “But how? And is it afraid of him—or what?”

  ARE YOU AFRAID OF FLYTE?

  STUPID BITCH.

  ARE YOU AFRAID OF FLYTE? she persisted, undeterred. I AM AFRAID OF NOTHING.

  WHY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN FLYTE?

  I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT HE KNOWS.

  WHAT DOES HE KNOW?

  ABOUT ME.

  “Evidently,” Bryce said, “we can rule out the possibility that Flyte is just another hustler.”

  Sara tapped the keys: DOES FLYTE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE?

  YES. I WANT HIM HERE.

  WHY DO YOU WANT HIM HERE?

  HE IS MY MATTHEW.

  CLARIFY.

  HE IS MY MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE AND JOHN.

  Frowning, Sara paused, glanced at Bryce. Then her fingers flew over the keys again: DO YOU MEAN THAT FLYTE IS YOUR APOSTLE?

  NO. HE IS MY BIOGRAPHER. HE CHRONICLES MY WORK. I WANT HIM TO COME HERE.

  DO YOU WANT TO KILL HIM TOO?

  NO. I WILL GRANT HIM SAFE PASSAGE.

  CLARIFY.

  YOU WILL ALL DIE. BUT FLYTE WILL BE ALLOWED TO LIVE. YOU MUST TELL HIM. IF HE DOES NOT KNOW THAT HE HAS SAFE PASSAGE, HE WILL NOT COME.

  Sara’s hands were shaking worse than ever. She missed a key, hit a wrong letter, had to cancel out and start over again. She asked: IF WE BRING FLYTE TO SNOWFIELD, WILL YOU LET US LIVE?

  YOU ARE MINE.

  WILL YOU LET US LIVE?

  NO.

  Thus far, Lisa had been braver than her years. However, seeing her fate spelled out so bluntly on a computer display was too much for her. She began to cry softly.

  Jenny comforted the girl as best she could.

  “Whatever it is,” Tal said, “it sure is arrogant.”

  “Well, we’re not dead yet,” Bryce told them. “There’s hope. There’s always hope as long as we’re still alive.”

  Sara used the keyboard again: WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

  TIME IMMEMORIAL.

  CLARIFY.

  BORING BITCH.

  ARE YOU EXTRATERRESTRIAL?


  NO.

  “So much for Isley and Arkham,” Bryce said, before realizing that Isley and Arkham were already dead and gone.

  “Unless it’s lying,” Jenny said.

  Sara returned to a question she had posed earlier: WHAT ARE YOU?

  YOU BORE ME.

  WHAT ARE YOU?

  STUPID SLUT.

  WHAT ARE YOU?

  FUCK OFF.

  WHAT ARE YOU? She typed again, pounding at the keys so hard that Bryce thought she might break them. Her anger appeared to have outgrown her fear.

  I AM GLASYALABOLAS.

  CLARIFY.

  THAT IS MY NAME. I AM A WINGED MAN WITH THE TEETH OF A DOG. I FOAM AT THE MOUTH. I HAVE BEEN CONDEMNED TO FOAM AT THE MOUTH FOR ALL ETERNITY.

  Bryce stared at the display, uncomprehending. Was it serious ? A winged man with the teeth of a dog? Surely not. It must be playing with them, amusing itself again. But what was so amusing about this?

  The screen went blank.

  A pause.

  New words appeared, even though Sara had asked no question.

  I AM HABORYM. I AM A MAN WITH THREE HEADS - ONE HUMAN, ONE CAT, ONE SERPENT.

  “What’s this crap all about?” Tal asked, frustrated.

  The air in the room was definitely colder.

  Only the wind, Bryce told himself. The wind at the door, bringing the coolness of the oncoming night.

  I AM RANTAN.

  Blink.

  I AM PALLANTRE.

  Blink.

  I AM AMLUTIAS, ALFINA, EPYN, FUARD, BELIAL, OM-GORMA, NEBIROS, BAAL, ELIGOR, AND MANY OTHERS.

  The strange names glowed on all three screens for a moment, then winked off.

  I AM ALL AND NONE. I AM NOTHING. I AM EVERYTHING.

  Blink.

  The trio of video displays shone brightly, greenly, blankly for a second, two, three. Then went dark.

  The overhead lights came on.

  “End of interview,” Jenny said.

  Belial. That was one of the names it had given itself.

  Bryce was not an ardently religious man, but he was sufficiently well-read to know that Belial was either another name for Satan or the name of one of the other fallen angels. He wasn’t sure which it was.

  Gordy Brogan was the most religious one among them, a devout Roman Catholic. When Bryce came out of the field lab, the last to leave it, he asked Gordy to look at the names toward the end of the print-out.

  They stood on the sidewalk by the lab, in the dwindling light of day, while Gordy read the pertinent lines. In twenty minutes, perhaps less, it would be dark.

  “Here,” Gordy said. “This name. Baal.” He pointed to it on the accordion-folded length of computer paper.“I don’t know exactly where I’ve seen it before. Not in church or catechism. Maybe I read it in a book somewhere.”

  Bryce detected an odd tone and rhythm in Gordy’s speech. It was more than just nervousness. He spoke too slowly for a few words, then much to fast, then slowly again, then almost frenetically.

  “A book?” Bryce asked. “The Bible?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I’m not much of a Bible reader. Should be. Should read it regular. But where I saw this name was in an ordinary book. A novel. I can’t quite remember.”

  “So who is this Baal?” Bryce asked.

  “I think he’s supposed to be a very powerful demon,” Gordy said. And something was definitely wrong with his voice—with him.

  “What about the other names?” Bryce asked.

  “They don’t mean anything to me.”

  “I thought they might be the names of other demons.”

  “Well, you know, the Catholic Church doesn’t go in much for fire-and-brimstone preaching,” Gordy said, still speaking oddly. “Maybe it should. Yeah. Maybe it should. ’Cause I think you’re right. I think those are the names of demons.”

  Jenny sighed wearily. “So it was just playing another one of its games with us.”

  Gordy shook his head vigorously. “No. Not a game. Not at all. It was telling the truth.”

  Bryce frowned. “Gordy, you don’t actually think it’s a demon or Satan himself or anything like that—do you?”

  “That’s all nonsense,” Sara Yamaguchi said.

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “The entire performance on the computer, this demonic image it wants to project—all of that’s only more misdirection. It’s never going to tell us the truth about itself because if we knew the truth, then we might be able to think of a way to beat it.”

  “How do you explain the priest who was crucified above the altar at Our Lady of the Mountains?” Gordy asked.

  “But that was just one more part of the charade,” Tal said.

  Gordy’s eyes were strange. It wasn’t just fear. They were the eyes of a man who was in spiritual distress, even agony.

  I should’ve noticed this coming sooner, Bryce berated himself.

  Speaking softly but with spellbinding intensity, Gordy said, “I think maybe the time has come. The end. The time of the ending. At last. Just like the Bible says. That was something I never believed. I believed in everything else the Church taught. But not that. Not judgment day. I just sort of thought everything would go on like this forever. But now it’s here, isn’t it? Yes. The judgment. Not just for the people who live in Snowfield. For all of us. The end. So I’ve been asking myself how I’ll be judged. And I’m scared. I mean, I was given a gift, a very special gift, and I threw it away. I was given the gift of St. Francis. I’ve always had a way with animals. It’s true. No dog ever barks at me. Did you know that? No cat has ever scratched me. Animals respond to me. They trust me. Maybe they even love me. Never met one that didn’t. I’ve coaxed some wild squirrels to eat right out of my hand. It’s a gift. So my folks wanted me to be a veterinarian. But I turned my back on them and on my gift. Became a cop instead. Picked up a gun. A gun. I wasn’t meant to pick up a gun. Not me. Not ever. I did it partly ’cause I knew it would bother my folks. I was expressing my independence, see? But I forgot. I forgot about where it tells you in the Bible to honor thy father and thy mother. What I did instead was hurt them. And I turned my back on God’s gift to me. More than that. Worse than that. What I did was to spit on the gift. Last night I made up my mind to quit the force, put away the gun, and become a vet. But I think I was too late. Judgment was already underway, and I didn’t realize it. I’ve spit on the gift God gave me, and now ... I’m afraid.”

  Bryce didn’t know what to say to Gordy. His imagined sins were so far removed from genuine evil that it was almost laughable. If there was anyone here who was destined for Heaven, it was Gordy. Not that Bryce beiieved the judgment day had come. He didn’t. But he couldn’t think of a thing to say to Gordy, for the big, rawboned kid was too far gone to be talked out of his delusion.