Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

  Even now he couldn't move. Rooted. A scarecrow. Just beyond the light's reach, out of sight, but close enough to see. His thoughts were like giant amorphous blobs that collided and drifted awkwardly in his mind. He hadn't moved. He hadn't done a thing to help his mother. She had been left to battle, and lose, alone, while he cowered in his room. Now it was too late.

  They had tricked him. That was the worst part. Ned could see now what a fool he had been. You think you understand, you think you're doing exactly what should be done, and then wham, you find out you did it all wrong. What was the rule, the one saving provision? Simple: once you have drawn in beneath the covers and sealed yourself in the protection of your bed, you must not move out of it again until morning. If you break that rule, if you so much as stick out an eyelash, the terror will be there. And that's what had happened. Ned had popped up out of the blankets like a jack-in-the-box and gone to see what was happening. Now he was seeing it, and the terror was real. He would continue to see and see and see, until it was all over for this time. Because there is no way back under the covers.

  Fully dressed now, Michael returned and pressed the back of his hand to Linda's forehead. As if by magic, she stirred and moaned faintly at the touch. Michael was startled, but a little relieved. Then there was a knock at the door and things began to happen fast. Ned saw his father admit two men in white uniforms. One was carrying a folded up canvas chair with wheels. They both looked older than Ned's father. The three of them stared at Ned's mother, as if wondering what to do with a big mess that had been left on the floor. Is she dead, the boy wondered. No, she just moved and made a noise.

  "She's had an asthma attack."

  "Has it happened before?"

  "Never like this-she never passed out."

  "Does she take anything for it?"

  "This." Michael held out the inhaler. "I tried to give it to her but I couldn't get her mouth open."

  The two ambulance men studied the object briefly and then handed it back to Michael.

  "Okay, let's take her in."

  One of the men started to set up the wheelchair.

  "I don't think she's breathing," Michael said nervously. "Would you please check?"

  "In the ambulance."

  "Do you have any oxygen?" Michael asked. "I think she should have some oxygen. Fast."

  "In the ambulance. We got to get her in the ambulance," the man with the wheelchair said. "That's the first thing."

  His partner was down on the floor, examining Linda. He checked her pulse, parted her lips, and he held the dial of his watch to her nose.

  "She's sorta breathing," he announced, standing up with a loud sigh. "Best thing is, get her to the hospital where a doctor can take a look."

  The wheelchair was ready and the three men tried to lift Linda into it, but suddenly she began to wave her arms and kick her legs, violently resisting any attempt to move her.

  "Hey, hey, what's this," one of the ambulance men said. "Linda, honey, just relax and let us lift you into the chair," Michael said.

  "She don't wanna go."

  Ned saw that his mother's eyes were wide open now. They darted about wildly, frantically. It was as if she was seeing a different world, or some other, unknown dimension. She showed no signs of recognizing her husband or the apartment.

  "Okay, let's go."

  "One, two ... "

  They lifted again, and again Linda lashed out with her arms and feet. They couldn't get her off the floor, where she huddled to herself.

  "What's her name?"

  "Linda."

  "Last name?"

  "Covington. "

  "Mrs. Covington, we're gonna move you into the nice big comfortable chair now," the ambulance man said sweetly. "It's much nicer than where you are now, so just enjoy the ride and let us do all the work, okay? Ready?"

  "One, two ... "

  He sounds like a goddamn Lawrence Welk, Michael thought angrily.

  This time Linda pushed one of the ambulance men away, breaking his grip completely, and her foot caught Michael on the side of the jaw, knocking him over. The other man, who hadn't gotten hold of her at all, looked on in disbelief. Linda curled up on her original spot, half in and half out of the bathroom. Her eyes danced.

  The ambulance men looked unhappy. They picked up the inhaler and examined it a second time.

  "She take a lot of this?"

  "She takes it when she needs to," Michael said defensively. Something was pushing up, trying to break the surface in his mind. Something ugly.

  "You ever seen her like this before?"

  "No, I told you. The worst that ever happens is she gets breathless and a little dizzy. She takes the inhaler and sits down until she feels better."

  "You say it's asthma, but I've never seen anybody with asthma act like this."

  "No way," the other ambulance man added gratuitously.

  "Can't you do something?" Michael begged. '

  "Not until we get her in the ambulance."

  "What is that, some kind of law?" Michael shouted.

  "You ask me," the ambulance man went on calmly, "I think she OD'd on this stuff." He held up the inhaler like exhibit number one in a court case. "Took too much, you know, pop, pop, pop. That's why she's acting crazy like. Now she's off on a little trip."

  That didn't sound right to Michael. He had never heard of an asthma inhalant doing that to a person.

  "Will it wear off soon?" he asked. "Should we wait a few more minutes before trying to move her again?"

  "Beats me," one ambulance man said as the other shrugged. "I suppose you could call her doctor and ask him about it."

  These guys are truck drivers, Michael thought in despair. They've probably been doing this for years and they probably mean well, but they don't know a damn thing. They might as well be here to collect a load of old newspapers. What did they handle most of the time-gunshot wounds, stabbings, drunks? They might well know what to do with those cases. But asthma? Forget it.

  "She needs oxygen," Michael heard himself say. "At least give her that."

  The ambulance men exchanged glances, then nods, and one of them went out to get an oxygen tank.

  "I don't know if it'll do any good," the one who remained said. "But we'll give it a try." He looked at the inhaler again, as fascinated as a man who has just discovered a whole new life form.

  "Don't you have a set procedure for dealing with asthma attacks?" Michael asked.

  "Too many pops," the man muttered.

  Ned's eyes were on his mother's. She looked like a trapped animal, eyes ricocheting around in their skull sockets, breath coming in short, husky grunts. It seemed like she was a hundred million miles away. They have her, Ned thought. She's here, but they have her.

  The other uniformed man came back into the hallway with a long metal tank and a plastic face mask.

  "Mrs. Covington, we're gonna give you some nice fresh air now, okay dear? Just relax and breathe it all in nice and deep."

  Before the mask reached her face Linda was squirming and thrashing, twisting her head away and striking out at the three men around her.

  "Aw Jesus Christ, this is not like anybody with asthma that I ever seen. What the hell has been going on around here?" the ambulance man asked accusingly.

  Michael ground his teeth like someone trying to bite through a two-by-four. Something was pushing harder, closer. Something ugly. The thought formed: irreversible brain damage.

  "She needs oxygen," Michael said furiously. "She has had a severe asthma attack and her brain is starved of oxygen. Now give it to her."

  Michael jumped on his wife and pinned her arms to her sides. One of the ambulance men held her head while the other one slapped the mask to her face and turned on the oxygen, Linda writhed in agony and shrieked like a grievously wounded beast. They wrestled to keep her in place for a long minute, two. She roared and brayed and howled, and finally wailed with diminishing strength, She looked like one of the earth's dying creatures at the end of the wor
ld. When it was all over she subsided on the floor. Her face was streaked, her hair and nightgown drenched with sweat. She was a heap of bones in a flimsy bag of skin. Only Linda's eyes were still alive, racing feverishly.

  "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay." The words rattled off her tongue in a rush. "I'm tired, I'm so tired."

  "I bet you are," one of the ambulance men said with a smile. "I'm tired, too."

  "Linda, honey!" Michael exclaimed. He could hardly believe that she might actually come out of It.

  ''I'm tired, so tired," she repeated. .

  "Sure you are, honey,” Michael said. "You're going to be all right, but you have to go to see the doctor now."

  "Okay, but not yet," Linda said wearily. "I want to rest here for a little while."

  "You rest, honey, that's right. We'll move you."

  "No, don't move me yet." A hand fluttered weakly. "In just a few minutes ... " Her eyes closed.

  "Lookit that, she's asleep," one of the ambulance men said after a minute.

  "Wish I were," the other remarked.

  At last they were able to shift Linda into the wheelchair and fasten a restraining belt around her. They were ready to go.

  "Do you want to come with us?"

  "Yes—oh, no, I can't," Michael said. "We have a child sleeping in there." He gestured towards Ned's room, without noticing that the door was open a crack.

  "Just as well," one of the ambulance men said. "Nothing you could do at the hospital anyhow."

  "Get some rest now," the other advised. "You can see her later."

  Michael was smiling as he stood by the door and watched them go, which seemed strange to Ned. True, his mother hadn't flown away or disappeared, but she was gone all the same. How could his father look so happy?

  Michael walked into the living room and wrote down the name of the hospital and ward the ambulance men had given him. He was to phone in a couple of hours and find out what the situation was. Now he collapsed on the sofa. He brushed his hair back and noticed that it was damp and matted. Quite a wrestling match for a while there, he thought. Thank God she's all right ... if she is all right.

  What would have happened if he hadn't heard the sound of the inhaler and then Linda falling to the floor? What if he hadn't dragged himself from sleep to go and see what was the matter? Would she have died there on the floor, head sticking out of the bathroom, a corpse waiting for him or Ned to—

  Ned!

  Dear God, I hope he slept through it, Michael prayed. It was hard to move from the sofa, but he went to check on his son. He knew that Ned's door was always left open a crack, but in all the commotion he hadn't thought to shut it or make sure the boy was sound asleep.

  "Oh, no," he whispered to himself. Ned was still standing on his spot, staring sadly ahead. One hand held his penis through his pajamas. "Hey, what're you doing up?" Michael forced his voice to come as close to normal as possible. "Do you have to go pee, Ned?" He scooped his son up in his arms.

  "No." So tiny and forlorn.

  "Well, you should be in bed sleeping. It's the middle of the night." Michael carried the boy across the room and set him down on the bed. He brushed the fine light hair away from Ned's face. "Are you sure you don't have to go pee?"

  "Yes." A little waver. Perhaps close to crying.

  "Okay, how about sleep then?" Michael hugged Ned. "You know, the Hulk has to get his sleep, otherwise he won't be strong in the morning."

  "No, I don't want to."

  "Are you all right, Ned?"

  "Where's my mommy?"

  There it was.

  "Mommy got sick, Ned. She had to go see the doctor, but she's going to be just fine, and tomorrow you and I will go see her. Okay?"

  "But where is she?'

  "Gone to see the doctor."

  "But I want her."

  "Hey, come on, Ned. I told you we'd see her in a little while. You want your mommy to get better, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, she has to go to the doctor to get better, and we have to get some sleep so we'll be wide awake when we go to see Mommy later."

  "But I want to see her."

  "So do I, Ned, but the most important thing right now is that she go to the doctor. You love Mommy and I love Mommy, and she loves us. We all love each other, but Mommy has to go to the doctor now. You don't see me crying about it, do you?"

  "No." How could a four-year-old make a word sound so stony?

  "We should both be happy that Mommy can go to the doctor and get better, right?"

  "I want my—"

  "I'd really like to sleep here and cuddle with you, Ned. Is that all right? Can I do that? Then we'll get up and go see our mommy in the morning. Is that oi5ay? Can I sleep here with you?"

  Finally: "Okay."

  "Okay, good. Come on now, give me a big cuddle." Ned hugged Michael's neck but there was no strength in his arms. Michael pulled the blankets up over them and held his son close. The gray light in the window made him wonder how much time had passed. It seemed like hours since that first dreadful sight of Linda on the floor, but it probably hadn't been very long at all. The images that filled his mind were too vivid—he had to lose them in sleep, if that was possible.

  Ned clung tightly to him, which was a good sign. Michael couldn't bear to think about how much the boy might have seen. And Linda, dear Linda .... What the hell had happened to her? She had asthma, yes, but she had never had an attack even remotely as serious as this one was. What had caused it? She used her inhaler three or four times a day, a little more on especially dry days, but that was it.

  Now this. She had been hysterical, delirious. Off the goddamn wall, with that kicking and punching and ungodly screaming. The ambulance men thought she was doing drugs, that's for sure, and not just the inhaler. It hurt him to recall how they had taken in the view when, in Linda's thrashing about, her nightgown had jumped up her thighs. And the way they had looked at Michael, as if he had done something and it was all his fault that she was in such a state.

  Michael sighed deeply. The boy seemed all right. Whatever he had witnessed earlier, he was clinging to his father now and breathing with the even rhythms of sleep. It'll all seem like a bad dream to him when the sun comes up, Michael thought. Kids are tough.

  Linda had to be okay. Everything was just starting to go well for them in Washington. Our lives are just beginning, he thought, she has got to be okay. And Ned too. Let this not be a trauma, let there be no mental scars. Let there ... Michael fell asleep.

  Ned was close to sleep, but his mind hadn't let go completely yet. Snug in his father's embrace, he felt safe and comfortable. One of the rules was that if you were with either or both of your parents nothing, but nothing, could happen to you. If only he could sleep with them every night—but, no, they didn't allow it. Ned couldn't understand. It was as if they were actually looking for trouble.

  What had happened before—he couldn't think about that now. He was too weak and tired. Besides, it didn't matter. His mother would come back, or she wouldn't. It made no difference as far as the real problem was concerned. Ned knew what had happened. A phantom had come and turned his mother into a raving mad dog of a person. Even if she survived somehow and came home again, the point had been made. The line had been crossed. Day and night were mixed, once and forever.

  That was just a demonstration.

  If they could do that to your mother, just think what they could do to you ....

  * * *

  1. Lynnhaven

  It wasn't much of a town anymore. You could ride the old Coast Turnpike every day and hardly notice Lynnhaven. Those who did take a look invariably described it as sleepy. Local pundits often used the word "coma," while the Town Clerk was fond of saying that Lynnhaven was in a period of transition. If so, it had been going on for thirty or forty years. Lynnhaven was not so much a town as a fishing village, and even the fishing activity was residual now. More and more of the young people regarded fishing and crabbing as hard, poor-paying work at a time
when better opportunities could be found elsewhere. If Lynnhaven had a future it was probably in the direction of light industry, tract homes, condos, shopping plazas and fast food chains, but the new era had not yet arrived. Lynnhaven was a forgotten pocket of a community, waiting half-heartedly to be rediscovered.

  There were other towns up and down the shore, larger and suburbanized, so the rest of the world began nearby and Lynnhaven didn't really seem like an isolated or remote place. But inland, on the other side of the low hills, the earth was an expanse of undeveloped, uninviting woods and swamps that stretched for miles. Lynnhaven was merely one of the smaller and less conspicuous stops along the Chesapeake from Annapolis to Norfolk.

  In the old days, before the Depression and scandal shut down the spa, Lynnhaven had a population of ten thousand, but it had dwindled down to a third of that now. The Sherwood family was dead and gone, their spa nothing more than a ruin on the hill. Housing was no problem in Lynnhaven; a number of fine white clapboard homes stood vacant and shuttered, ready for new buyers. There wasn't a wharf along Polidori Street that didn't need some repair work or general sprucing up, but no one bothered; there didn't seem to be much point. It was a place of flaked paint and driftwood grays, and if it had long since stopped taking itself seriously, well, maybe life was a little easier for that.

  The spa on the hill had been Lynnhaven's claim to fame back in the Twenties. The Sherwood family, who built it, brought relative prosperity to the town for a few years. Local old-timers who could still remember something of those days tended to regard the spa as a folly or a sucker-farm that had sprung up in their midst and then, in the manner of such things, collapsed. The money had been nice, but too many years had passed for Lynnhaven to feel anything more than indifference to the dim memory buried in the tumbledown estate high on the edge of town.