Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

  It suddenly came back to Ned in a flash of pain: his parents. Were they down there, in that gigantic collection of twitching statues? He couldn't bear the thought, and as the pain dug deeper into him he knew with certainty that he had to go back and take his place, to be with them. If that was their fate, it would be his as well. But the woman held him where he was until his pain turned into anger.

  —You did that to yourself.

  Why don't you answer me?

  —It isn't necessary, when you answer yourself.

  Then my mother and father are down there?

  —Still the wrong question.

  It's not wrong as far as I’m concerned.

  —But it is. Exactly.

  I want you to—

  —Come.

  The woman turned and resumed her ascent. Ned went with her because he had no choice. Her power held him as surely as the stringer had held those rock bass flopping against his leg the day he and Peeler had walked back from Baxley Mill Pond. The irony didn't escape him. The rock bass at least had no idea of what was happening to them, since they don't have ideas at all. But Ned could think, and it was a curse to him now.

  The woman. He hated her. He—

  She spun around and her eyes seized Ned. The woman radiated warmth and affection. Her beauty was dazzling. Ned felt as if he were dissolving in her love, and he knew that he loved her. He always had, he always would. Even in this place the end would be perfect and happy, because they would be together. Ned rushed to bury himself in her embrace.

  In that instant her smile changed. It was the barest of movements, but with it she turned off the illusion. Ned stopped short, stunned with cold. Her smile was not quite a sneer, but it said: "You see what I've just done to you?" Ned felt betrayed and manipulated, but more than that he was ashamed of himself. What a puny fool he was that she could toy with him so easily. She had rubbed his nose in hopelessness.

  They continued on their way. Lesson over, Ned thought. And lesson it was, for he had begun to realize that there was something to be learned from that little episode. She knew his thoughts. She had always known his thoughts, and she was undoubtedly taking them in right now. The mistake was to let thoughts form in the first place. He would have to rely on whatever was to be found below the surface of his mind. He would have to cultivate it and get it ready, but he would also have to keep it down there, unspoken, unthought, until the time was right. And at once Ned knew what it would be, but he quickly pushed it back into his subconscious before it could take shape. She can't reach that far—can she?

  Don't keep the mountain waiting, don't keep the mountain waiting, he thought like a moron singing some inane anthem.

  The woman yanked the leash sharply, and hooks of pain caught in his mind. Now, that's pain that comes from the outside, he thought loudly. The woman didn't respond, but Ned didn't expect her to. His wince worked itself into a determined smile.

  Ned looked around. They were so high on the mountainside that it was no longer possible to see the people far below. The ocean of burnished skin and the desert of black sand had merged into a featureless expanse that disappeared without the benefit of a horizon. It was as if only that speck of sun and this mountain existed in space. The rest of the planet might as well have fallen away, Ned thought. No going back; it wouldn't be there.

  Don't keep the mountain waiting ....

  He was learning how to keep his mind active, preoccupied. Thoughts were like ice skaters on a frozen pond. You had to keep them busy doing figure eights and toe stands while the real work went on below the ice.

  The group was still changing, Ned observed. Slowly, but unmistakably. At this altitude the black sand had pretty much vanished. The mountainside was dark and bare. It looked like solid rock, but it gave slightly underfoot, with that feeling of matted egg cartons. In places it was almost springy. It amused Ned to think that the mountain might actually be hollow, a colossal papier-mâché prop. He and the woman would be ants on a stage set for space giants. Was the curtain up or down?

  Then Ned noticed lines in the ground. There were only a few at first, but they increased steadily. The lines were both straight and curved, mostly short, and they seemed to be scattered naturally at random. A little further along, Ned saw that the whole face of the mountain was tattooed with these curious lines. There was something familiar about them. Ned wondered if he had seen them in another place, a long time ago.

  A sudden impulse made him look up. There it was. The top of the mountain.

  The ground was softer. It seemed to be composed of some kind of caked dust and broken shells. The lines were lost now, but they had pointed to this. Ned wanted to ignore it, but part of his brain told him it was important. He tried to think, to connect what he was seeing to something in his memory. The woman was tugging, but she couldn't distract him. The realization hit him, and it was a tidal wave of horror. For the first time, he stopped the woman. He dug his hands into the ground and then held them up.

  These are bones! his mind screamed.

  —Come.

  Bones and skulls! This whole mountain is a burial mound.

  —Come now.

  The woman pulled Ned along as if he were a troublesome puppy, but she didn't bother to shut him up. He could babble all he wanted now. They were at the top of the mountain.

  Everyone who ever lived must be here, billions and billions of them. Piled up to make—a mountain.

  Steps carved into the mountaintop provided the only access to the peak itself, which was a flat, circular area. Ned was snatched up onto it and let loose. The woman stood by the top step, watching him. Now that he was here, he looked around. He walked the circumference. The drop, at every point, was sheer. How many miles below was the rest of the planet? Fifty, perhaps. Or none, for the planet was no longer there. Just the top of the mountain of death, and the void. It doesn't matter, Ned thought, and that's why there are no answers. He came back to the woman.

  Her eyes burned, but with a cold, lifeless fire. The smile on her face belonged to her alone; it shared nothing with Ned. She still looked beautiful—in fact, more beautiful by far than she had at any time before this moment. Ned was almost tempted to give up and throw himself into her arms, but he knew it would be a mistake. And useless. Forget all that eternal love and peace stuff. It was time to stop looking for mirages.

  Are you Mrs. Farley?

  The woman laughed. Then she kicked a skull with her foot.

  —That is Mrs. Farley.

  She laughed again and kicked another skull.

  —Or that is. Pick anyone you like and that is Mrs. Farley.

  The woman's amused laughter echoed unpleasantly in Ned's mind. He got down on his knees before her and looked at the ground. He brushed the dust and bones with the palm of his hand, as if he were choosing a place for himself. But something was pushing in his mind, trying to surface and break out. Ned stared at the ground, waiting for it to come. Please. Anything. The woman caught that and laughed. Then, without looking, Ned knew she was bending down, reaching for him. His fingers traced two bones in the dust. They were lying at a certain angle to each other. Ned recognized it. He picked up one of the bones and turned to meet the woman.

  Are you Death?

  —Your very own.

  Remember my scarecrow?

  The bone had a sharp, jagged end where it had broken. Ned rammed it into the woman, driving the full length of it up under her ribs toward her heart. No blood. Ned backed off several steps. The woman's eyes were shut, but she didn't move. Nothing happened. Can you kill Death? Ned didn't think so, but the bones had reminded him of the scarecrow and part of his brain had roared the order to stab the woman ....

  Her eyelids opened, revealing empty sockets. Her mouth opened in a wide, cavernous smile. She started walking towards Ned, and as she came closer, spiders crawled out of her dark eye sockets. More of them poured out of her mouth. They streamed over her face and down the front of her robe. Hundreds of spiders gushed out of her, and still
the woman came, smiling. Her laughter boomed deafeningly.

  Ned was incapable of thinking anymore. He turned and ran as fast as he could. When he reached the edge he didn't stop, but hurled himself off the peak and into the void. He tumbled through space, terrified of only one thing: that when he got to the bottom, she would be it.

  The mountain was still there. Ned plummeted past what looked like an endless wall of grinning human skulls—it snaked nightmarishly around him but after a while it didn't bother him. Falling is a kind of peace in itself, and it can be so exquisite that great velocity is transformed into a long, gentle glide. The best thing is to have no place to land and to keep falling. Ned thought he could stay this way forever. That word again. Maybe it was valid at last. Maybe he was finally becoming that single free atom he wanted to be, falling aimlessly through the universe.

  But now Ned saw something. He was flying toward a point of light. It was streaking up to meet him. When he recognized it, he knew he was about to die. It made him think again of something the woman had said. The phantom in his room, the woman—they were one and the same. Who are you? Ned had asked. You, had been the answer. Death is the phantom you meet up with, and it looks like you.

  So did the point of light Ned flew into.

  * * *

  29. 4:50 A.M.

  No! You can't have him!

  Linda put her mouth over Ned's, pinching his nose at the same time, and tried to force her breath into him. His teeth were locked shut. There was no take.

  She clutched her hands together and slammed them down on his chest as hard as she dared. She did it again, half expecting to hear her son's bones crack. Broken bones didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore but the life of her child. If it were possible, she would have tom open his chest, seized his heart and squeezed the life back into it.

  Take me instead. Oh, please ....

  Linda put the oxygen mask back on Ned's face, hooking the loops behind his ears. She turned the valve on full and then went back to pounding his chest desperately. Was it too late? How much time was there—minutes, seconds—before he was beyond reach? The ghastly details of death howled in her mind. First, irreversible brain damage would set in. Then the brain would liquefy.

  Dear God, let him live!

  How had it happened? In a swift, devastating moment, less than the span of a single day, everything she had dreaded for years had come to pass. In a way, her husband had been right. All that worrying had been silly, irrelevant. For now that it was on her, and Ned, nothing she could do had any significance. Just two more lives ground to bits in the blind, inexorable march of nature. Coming from nowhere, going nowhere, two infinitesimal blips on the face of darkness. There, then gone.

  Take me with him.

  Linda rocked on her feet. She was dizzy and the room was a blur drifting around her. Only the bed was still, like a raft inexplicably anchored in a turbulent sea. She climbed onto it and sat by Ned. Her breath rattled alarmingly, and the germ of a new desire began to grow within her. The desire to surrender now, to have it all end.

  Her arms continued to rise and fall mechanically, her double fist making a dull splatting sound when it hit Ned's chest. But her strength was running out fast. There was no force left in her efforts. How could she bear to go on living if she failed Ned? She had to die, for him or with him. Michael would survive, but not Linda. She knew herself too well. This was it.

  NO! Linda screamed. She fell forward onto Ned, her body covering him like a blanket. Black spots appeared, quickly filling her vision.

  Take me ....

  It took Michael a few moments to realize that he was sitting up. The bed felt strange, and the pattern of darkness around him was unfamiliar. Then he remembered: he was sleeping in Ned's room. Why was he awake? He thought he had heard someone call out, but the recollection of it was dim and distant, like the wing light of an airplane flying away into the night. Maybe he had heard something, maybe not.

  Linda. Ned. Better check.

  He moved, and winced. Michael's mouth was sticky and foul, his head felt like a wad of steel wool. Christ, I only had a couple of drinks, he thought. I was fine when I went to bed. Scotch, that was it. Scotch always did this to him, and yet he persisted in drinking the stuff. Not for the first time, Michael vowed to switch to white liquor. Vodka, that's the ticket.

  What was he doing? Oh, yeah. He stood up, groped his way to the door and shuffled down the hallway toward the patch of illumination that spilled from the master bedroom. Something came back to him. "Your lovecraft ebbing," or something like that. It was the punch line to one of Bill Kinloch's punishing jokes. But Michael couldn't remember what came before it.

  The scene was weird. A magazine on the floor. Linda sprawled on the bed beside Ned, one arm flung across the boy protectively. Ned's pajama shirt was open and there were bruises on his body. What the hell had gone on here? Linda's emergency bottle of oxygen was on the bed too, its mask hissing uselessly at the side of Ned's face. Michael was puzzled but not immediately worried, because the most curious aspect of this curious tableau was that his wife and son appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Well, Ned did look pale. Michael put the back of his hand to the boy's forehead. The temperature was down, no doubt about it. Ned looked very still, though .... Too still? Michael took Ned's hand and tried to find a pulse. Come on. It has to be here somewhere. Was Ned breathing? Just for a second, Michael wasn't sure. But then Ned jumped slightly in bed and sighed deeply. The digital clock-radio on the night table read 4:50 and blinked to 4:51.

  Michael shut the valve on the oxygen; that stuff costs money. Wife okay, son okay. It was almost dawn. So, what's it all about, Alfie? He would ask Linda in the morning—later. There would be plenty of time to talk—later. Right now, Michael asked himself again: Why am I awake? He straightened out the sheet and pulled it up to cover Linda and Ned. Gently, he removed the oxygen mask and bottle, setting them down on the floor by the bed.

  There was enough room if he slept on the side, with Ned in the middle and Linda on the other side. Your regular family sandwich. Michael turned off the lamp and slipped into bed. It occurred to him that the alarm probably wasn't set, but he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. If he was late, he was late; so what. He had to slide Ned over a few inches. The boy stirred briefly in his sleep, exhaling three whispery words.

  "Dad—the moon .... "

  Michael smiled. Not tonight, son.

  * * *

  Summer's End

  Ned borrowed his mother's gardening gloves without telling her. He put them on and sat down at his desk. Before him was an ordinary tablet of ruled paper, the kind you could buy in thousands of stores across the country. He tore off a sheet from the middle of the pad. Ned didn't really believe they would check for fingerprints, but maybe they would have nothing better to do. Maybe they would decide to make a big case out of this. Why take a chance? He had to do it right: no traces, no clues. He picked up a number 2 pencil and began to print large block letters.

  Dear Sir

  A few days ago I was in the old Lynnhaven spa on the hill. There is a body of a dead person in one of the rooms there. I thought somebody should know about it and take care of it. Whoever it was must have died a long time ago because it is just a skeleton really.

  Somebody Who Saw It

  Ned stared at the message for a few moments, decided it was all right and folded the piece of paper. He took the envelope, which he had extracted from the packet on his parents' writing desk downstairs, and addressed it to the Police Department, Lynnhaven. Ned knew they might think it was just a prank, but he thought they would probably go to the spa and take a look anyhow. A dead body is too serious to ignore. Besides the problem had nagged Ned ever since the day he had been at the spa. He couldn't come up with a better idea than this anonymous note. He put the message in the envelope and sealed it.

  This was the first time he was being let out of the house since he had been sick. For five whole days he had felt fine, but he had been
restricted to either his bed or the living-room sofa. His mother and father had insisted. They weren't taking any chances and they had to be convinced that Ned was fully recovered. Ned didn't like it, but he guessed he could understand it. He knew he had been sick—really sick. He couldn't remember much about it. There was a day missing from his life.

  His parents unintentionally told him how serious it had been. At some point during the illness, he woke up in the big bed and heard them talking. They obviously thought he was asleep and it sounded like they were standing just outside the bedroom door, in the hallway. Their voices were hushed, but it was clear to Ned that they were having more than just a casual conversation. He didn't catch all of it, but he heard enough.

  His mother kept saying his heart had stopped! It was astounding, and yet Ned believed it because she said it without the slightest hint of doubt. His father thought she had imagined it or else had simply not noticed Ned's pulse in her excitement. He told her she had probably been on the verge of hysteria and wouldn't have heard a bomb go off. Ned could tell his father was losing this argument, and he smiled when they dropped it, agreeing not to mention a word of it to the boy.

  It was amusing and fascinating. Ned had no feeling that they were talking about him. Strangely, it was as if they were discussing some other person. He was the star, but he had missed the whole show! To think that his heart had stopped dead. And he was still here, still alive. It was a little scary, but it also gave him an undefined feeling of accomplishment—he knew he had done something without knowing what it was.