Phantom File

by Patrick Carman

  Rainsford had stopped speaking of Howard as anyone but himself and I was truly terrified of the man before me. Again I thought of screaming or running for the stairs, but something held me. It was his eyes, not violent but despairing, and my own curiosity. I felt the end of the story coming and couldn’t bear to leave it unheard.

  Experiments followed. Many years of tampering with things no man should touch. We had many cadavers, rivers of blood, and unquenchable curiosity. The things we did—to our minds and our bodies—unthinkable. But the further we went, the less we cared. Soon we were at a full boil; nothing was safe from our touch.

  My brother had gone further than any man into the deep realm of the ancients. The darkest place in the universe is at the foot of the Almighty, you see? Andrew had taken on a Godlike complex. I had corrupted him. I brought him back out into the cruel world, but how could I have known? The kind of power he had was made for the desert, not the deadly basement laboratory.

  He had dreams and nightmares all the time, waking in the night and standing at the side of my bed, tapping me awake, saying the same words over and over until I thought it would drive me to the grave. He said:

  “And in my dream I saw a beast coming to take me away.”

  At long last our paths of knowledge and science and the ancients crossed in the form of the procedure. The procedure, with the power of blood, was the tool I used to extract what had to come out. For you see, I came to believe my brother’s gift had become his curse. Whatever this thing was that found a home inside him needed to come out. What was once a power to heal had become a monster that was killing my brother.

  “It cannot be destroyed,” he told me. “It will find a home.”

  “Better someone else than you,” I reasoned.

  “That’s not how it works,” he assured me. “I give it to whom I choose and I always get it back.”

  A madman!

  We had pushed each other with all manner of experimentation. We had tampered with God’s work. Andrew believed, and who was I to doubt, that the power could be unleashed and made free by one way and one way alone. The procedure. The power of thunder would free him.

  But what did it mean to break the curse we had made?

  By this time Andrew was, in my humble view, very close to losing his mind. He spoke nonsense morning, noon, and night. He spoke of being ageless, repeating it over and over in his private room as a screaming, violent invocation of the most dreaded kind.

  “I will never die! Never! Never! Never!”

  Finally I could take no more. He wished to have it and I was willing to go to any extreme to save him. From what? From damnation, if you must know.

  Strapped to the wicked chair, shackled by ankle and wrist, the procedure had him in its claws and I had the power to burst the beast from my brother’s chest.

  He was at peace in the chair, the crazy chants softened to a soothing whisper. And then his words changed to that grim message I’d heard a thousand times at my bedside.

  “And in my dream I saw a beast coming to take me away.”

  Andrew turned his head to me and spoke.

  “I have asked it what it will do when it gets out and it has told me. This eater of death, it speaks.”

  Oh God, let it end! My young brother has gone mad!

  “It’s not your fault alone, Howard. But know this, and know it well. We have played God, the two of us together—we have done this wicked thing. Now a price must be paid.

  “This monster we have made can only live in one, you understand? When I’m gone, it will go on. It will go on forever. It cannot be stopped. What if it chooses you? Then you will live and live and live. It speaks.”

  I was crying, trying to listen and nod and pretend my poor brother hadn’t gone insane, wanting to end it, but unable to. He kept at it, rambling on and on about rules and consequences, things it had told him.

  “Remember these things I say,” my brother said, “because it tells me it will never speak again. It is careful. It has its own ways and they are not your ways. I loved it once—you know this. But we have corrupted it and it has turned to a mind of its own.”

  I took this as a slap to the face, my ways of science, which had utterly destroyed the peaceful path my brother was on. But somewhere, in the deepest part of my soul, I knew his path had been no better. All along the way, those many years in the desert, he’d wanted more than the world had to offer. I knew this because we were brothers, and because I had always felt the same way.

  He went on raving quietly—it was almost a whisper now—tears running down the side of his face. I placed the helmet on his head, this most beautiful invention. Seven tubes projected out of the helmet, long and slithery like snakes, leading to six more helmets on six cold cadavers. Brave men, useless in battle. They would be of use to me now.

  My brother was speaking again.

  “You are a wicked boy, Howard. I know what you’re trying to do. You will fail.”

  This message from whatever demons had taken my brother from me was unthinkable nonsense. It was not my brother, but the broken mind of a wandering man in the desert.

  And yet I drove him on!

  “Why do you say such things, Andrew?”

  “You want to live forever. I know you. You’re a coward.”

  “I don’t understand,” I blathered, my hand shaking on the switch that would end the nightmare. “What do you mean to say?”

  “This is no mercy—it is only an experiment. It is only ever an experiment for you, is it not?”

  I told him I loved him.

  I wanted to hear him tell me he loved me, too. Three simple words—that’s all I wanted! But he had stopped talking. He would say no more, so I went about the grisly business of preparing myself for the inevitable. I put my own helmet on. There were blades and tubes inside, cutting precise incisions into my neck and head. A burning line of pain crawled inside my skin, into my chest.

  My own brother and the other six, they were my first, for he was right. Andrew was crazy beyond repair, but he spoke the truth.

  It was my grand experiment. And lo, on that very night, it proceeded to work its black magic. The procedure was set in motion.

  I threw the switch and Andrew’s body charged with convulsions as blood raced out of him. How it burned that first time! Burned like fire! I cried out for God to forgive us our wicked deeds. I was full of anger and confusion and regret and, most of all, a harrowing loneliness.

  For I knew the truth before the deed was done. He would not live through the procedure.

  When I opened my eyes, my brother Andrew was gone.

  I will never know if his spirit, forged in the desert over many years, had anything to do with the outcome. But one thing was sure, one thing was learned. It would lead Howard onward, beyond all reason.

  When he stood up from the chair, he was a younger man.

  Rainsford was crying softly there in the kitchen. I had questions, things I didn’t understand, but I didn’t want to disturb him. Rainsford had weaved himself in and out of the story like a confused child. He had conjured a masterpiece of reanimation, of becoming younger, of making the old and dead new again. My mind was alive with ideas.

  I had my thread.

  And of one thing I was sure, as Rainsford had been sure: this was no madman, but a curious, broken creature. And an extraordinary storyteller. He would have received a standing ovation from Lord Byron without question.

  I leaned in, seeing he had wiped away a tear and taken a deep breath. He seemed to have expunged himself of some hidden evil carried inside for far too long. Truly a remarkable story, most notably for the way he knitted himself into it, playing the part of the older brother, then backing away as if he’d come too close to the edge of a cliff and looked down. Brilliant. I must learn from this man’s story, I thought, in the ways of the craft.

  I ventured a question, whispered in the dark of the kitchen, playing his game.

  “When do you suppose your story takes place?�
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  He smiled at me then, the wide, crazy eyes returning for an instant as I reared back in my seat.

  “It is timeless.”

  A chill of fright ran through me, but I forged on, desperate to know the end of his depraved tale. Such a master as this must have more to tell if only I could reach inside and get it.

  “When Howard murdered his brother,” I began. But he would have none of it.

  “There was no murder!”

  Rainsford banged his fist on the table. Oh, the glory of men who drink! Percy and Lord Byron surely would have raced downstairs had they heard, but no, the house was big, the echo distant, and the men deeply sedated. And as for Claire? Well, she hadn’t an ounce of courage in her. She could never do what I was doing now. A sound from outside the door would only make her pull the covers up tighter around her neck.

  “You don’t understand at all,” he continued. “The war took him, don’t you see? And all their meddling and playing God. It drove him out of his mind. Howard had to throw the switch!”

  “What is this curse you speak of? You haven’t explained yourself, and this makes for a troubling story. It’s marvelous what you’ve concocted, but there are things missing. Tell me of the curse. Tell me what happened to Howard.”

  I sat spellbound and desperate for the last of the tale while Rainsford scratched nervously at one of his forearms. And then he told me the very end, which was terrible indeed.

  This thing is alive, but not in the way of the world. It lives in the world but comes from outside the world. Andrew called it a cornered spirit, hopelessly trapped in the world of men. It lives on in . . . in Howard, I suppose. And so Howard lives on. I could live a thousand years—longer.

  Rainsford could not or would not remain detached from the story he told. Always he would drift from Howard to himself and back again. It was disarming and hopeless and thrilling to hear the words pour out of his mouth.

  The procedure is mostly science, a victory. Nine parts human ingenuity, one part faith. But I don’t see how it could work without that special ingredient Andrew brought into the world. It’s small, but it’s mighty. When Howard is ready to die, when he’s had enough of this world, there will be no more subjects to find, no more procedures. At the end only faith remains. I fear it will take Howard to places best avoided as long as possible.

  He looked at me then as if he might have a purpose for me. For a fleeting moment I thought I would follow him anywhere. My poor Percy would wilt under the heat of this man. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

  I might stay on a day or two, Rainsford whispered.

  And I knew then, if he did, I would undoubtedly leave with him and never return. He had such magnetism, something more than mere charm alone. Two more days with this creature and I’d be finished. He would have me.

  Rainsford was through. He had no more to say to me or, more likely, no more he wanted to tell for one night. Questions remained, questions I hoped to get answered in time. And so I left him there in the kitchen, alone with his thoughts.

  Come morning, Rainsford was gone. I was both sad and relieved, for he was the most dangerous kind of a man, a man I could have gotten lost in. Who knows what would become of me in his arms? His absence made me wonder if it had all been a dream. But my notes were there on the nightstand. I had written it all down.

  I will not write Rainsford’s story, because in the telling, I found a story of my own. I am especially interested in this idea of playing God, of tampering with creation and bringing things to life. And I do believe I’ll make for myself a character, a mad scientist of some sort, one who wants more from the world than it has to offer, one who makes things he should not, who goes too far.

  My mind is aflame with ideas.

  The first time I read Mrs. Goring’s phantom file, my mind was not aflame with ideas as Mary Shelley’s had been. My mind was aflame with something else.

  Questions.

  Where did Rainsford go after that chance encounter with one of the world’s most famous writers? When did the war he spoke of take place? And how old is Rainsford, really?

  Most people probably wouldn’t pay much attention to the minor details of a story like the one Mrs. Goring recorded. But I’m Will Besting. I’m all about the details. And the hidden detail that struck me more than any other in her story was the repeated mention of a desert.

  A desert?

  There are no deserts in England. I’m not even sure they have sand. So I’m left to assume the war Rainsford spoke of took place somewhere else. But where? Could it have been a more ancient place and a much older war? There are records of wars as far back as 2700 BC (I know, I looked it up) and most of the old ones were near deserts. The war Rainsford speaks of could have occurred any time in recorded history. It’s scary to think of how old he might be, and in the end, unknowable. He’s the only one who knows and he’s not telling. But Mrs. Goring’s phantom file, at least for me, confirms what I have long suspected: Rainsford is much older than a mere two or three hundred years.

  My other theory about this story is that it is the beginning, not the end of a great evil. Knowing what I know about how the cure works, I would also guess the death of Rainsford’s brother did not result in a long-term cure for mortality. It would not have been pure fear blood Rainsford was using, but that first procedure would have given him a clue to the power of a certain kind of tainted blood. A thousand years or more is a long time to work on a curse and a cure. It’s chilling to imagine how many times Rainsford experimented on people just like me in order to perfect his witches’ brew. Crazy Mrs. Goring is, in the end, one hell of a recorder of things. She’s even better than I am, and that’s saying something. It’s a pretty incredible story in more ways than one. If it’s true, there are some amazing things Mrs. Goring discovered:

  Mary Shelley, the Mary Shelley, had an encounter with Rainsford almost two hundred years ago, and the encounter led to one of the most famous stories of all time: Frankenstein.

  Mary Shelley experienced something of Rainsford’s power on that very night. She said so herself. If he’d stayed on another day or two, Mary Shelley would have been like Avery Varone or Mrs. Goring before that, Rainsford’s chosen one, if only for a time. Whoa.

  The procedure, as he called it, was used first on his own brother and a bunch of dead guys. If he’s had a thousand years or more to work on it, he’s obviously moved on to more live subjects and precise systems, but the methods seem generally the same. Blood is transferred—special blood—and Rainsford becomes younger. It couldn’t have stuck that first time, but it almost certainly gave him the achievement he needed to keep going, to keep experimenting, and to eventually find a way to stay alive forever.

  There is a magic or otherworldly quality to what’s going on here. It’s not all science. It’s also paranormal. Whatever came out of Andrew ended up in Rainsford. It makes him stronger and more powerful. It’s the magic dust sprinkled over all his black proceedings.

  How many people have recorded Rainsford’s path on his long march across time? At least three: Mary Shelley, Mrs. Goring, and me. We all received something out of the deal—Mary Shelley was given the seed of a world-class novel, I got cured of my crippling fear, and Mrs. Goring became the most bitter woman on earth, something only she could call “a joy.”

  But I also lost something in the deal, and so did all my friends. None of the Seven came out unscathed. We’ve got the scars to prove it. And for that, I’m still planning to make Rainsford pay.

  If there’s a way to end him, I’m going to find it.

  DO YOU CRAVE ANOTHER CURE?

  TAKE A SNEAK PEEK AT

  PATRICK CARMAN’S

  DARK

  EDEN

  EVE OF

  DESTRUCTION

  “Any of you ever been in the pump house?” Goring asked, breaking her silence as we came to the dock.

  No one raised a hand as Connor leaned down and splashed water on his face, but all eyes were on the rundown wooden structure
that sat next to the pond. It was small, like the gardening shed in my backyard at home, and it looked like it might fall over in a strong wind.

  “It’s not really a pump house,” Mrs. Goring continued. Then she walked away in the direction of the thing we were talking about and left us all scratching our heads about what was really inside.

  “Why do we all have to go down there?” asked Ben. “Why not just Will? He got us into this mess.”

  “Did not,” I said. Getting dumped on was growing old fast. “We all got cured, we all got symptoms. How is any of that my fault?”

  “I think we should all go,” Connor said, “Come on, it’ll be cool.” And that, more than anything, is probably what got us to do it. In the end it was like a dare no one wanted to miss out on as much as anything. And there was the promise of a cure, even if the promise was made by an insane woman living all alone in the woods. It was something to hold on to.

  “At least make him go first,” Alex said. “That way if I fall I’ll land on his head.”

  Marisa didn’t come to my defense. She wouldn’t even look at me. It got worse when Connor started whispering to her, glancing over his shoulder as I fumed.

  She’s back on the market. Nice. That’s what his muscle-headed look told me, and Marisa didn’t do a thing to protest the idea.

  “Fine, I’ll go first,” I yelled, blowing past everyone and arriving inside where a metal door with a latch sat against the ground. Mrs. Goring knelt down beside me and grabbed the metal lever with her hand, shoving it sideways with a grinding noise that reverberated into places I couldn’t see.

  “He’s older than seven hundred,” Mrs. Goring whispered close to my ear, and I turned to her. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t see one more bloody year.”

  She shoved something in my hand and looked at me as if it was to remain our secret, whatever it was. Did I really think it was a good idea to conspire with Mrs. Goring again? She’d gotten me in a heap of trouble with Marisa and the rest, and yet I had a weird feeling I should let it pass. It crossed my mind to tell her about what I’d found in the woods, but there was no time.