The Phantom Cabinet Read online

  “Is this more to your liking? I suppose not, as your face betrays your terror. Perhaps you’d feel more comfortable with your parents present. Mr. and Mrs. Clemson, come show your child some affection.”

  From the garage they lurched, two grinning figures with arms outstretched. Maria Clemson had always been small compared to her husband, but with most of her skin and underlying musculature torn away, she stood almost insubstantial.

  Both their faces were flayed. Maggots nested in their eye sockets. Blindly, they shuffled toward Clark.

  “You couldn’t stand up to your father before, boy. Perhaps you’ll fare better against his corpse.”

  Something in Clark’s mind snapped. Screaming, he collapsed to his knees, palms over his eyes to block out all visuals.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Tiffany Chen asked the librarian. Solemnly, they watched Clark writhe across cork flooring, discharging tears and snot.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’d assume that he recently dropped LSD, or maybe ate a bag of mushrooms. Drugs can sure mess you up, you know.”

  Rising from computer terminals, students began to crowd, some utilizing cellphone cameras to record the spectacle. Douglas volunteered to get the nurse, anxious to escape the scene.

  Besides Clark, only he had seen the porcelain-masked woman. He’d watched her womb of shadows discharge a cavalcade of nightmares, and then reabsorb them moments later. He’d stared in wonder as the library’s interior shifted into a living room, and then back to an archive of well-thumbed tomes.

  Douglas wondered if that bitch was still around, his unseen observer. It was strange to have one’s persecutor act as protector, but he couldn’t deny that Clark had been pursuing with ill intent.

  “Thank you,” he begrudgingly whispered.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 9

  “You’ve been listening to ‘Burial’ by Peter Tosh, on this, the umpteenth hour of our night’s transmission. For all you lonely listeners out there—and I mean you, Emmett—we’ll be broadcasting until there’s nothing left to say, no songs left to play.

  “When we last left off, Clark Clemson had just undergone a very public breakdown, instigated by one of the Phantom Cabinet’s most unpleasant residents. Well, as I’m sure you remember, the poor fellow’s reputation never rebounded from that little weep fest. In short order, Clark found himself ostracized, a subject of half-heard whispers and shouted jeers. He ended up in a similar social position to Douglas, come to think of it.

  “Clark never bothered Douglas again. Passing him in the hallways, Clark avoided eye contact, always maintaining a suitable distance. The mere sight of Douglas conjured horrible memories, phantasmagorias that haunt Clark to this day.

  “But enough about Clark. Let us return to the true star of our story: a long-suffering introvert given to spectral encounters. Let us check back in with Douglas Stanton.”

  ««—»»

  Following a boring day of half-heard lectures, Douglas lurched wearily into his living room. A visitor waited on the couch, reclining awkwardly in an EMU.

  “Hey there, Frank. Long time, no see.”

  “It’s good to see you, Douglas,” the astronaut replied.

  “What’s up, man? You wanna hang out…like we used to?”

  Gordon sighed. “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call, Douglas. There’s someone you need to meet.”

  Douglas laughed. “Really? Don’t tell me you got yourself a girlfriend.”

  “Not even close, buddy. As you know, I’ve been investigating my last mission, scouring the Phantom Cabinet for anyone connected to it, or at least their loose memories. Let me tell you, finding someone in that place is practically impossible. The afterlife shifts and stretches, flows and ebbs. I kept at it, though, and finally hit pay dirt.”

  Gordon stood, floated over to Douglas, and thrust his arm into the teen’s chest. Like a magician, he pulled a ghost out: a sad-faced bald man, wearing a white bathrobe and a single slipper. The man’s back cranium exhibited a grisly exit wound—shattered skull and mangled grey matter. Douglas had seen his face before, staring from Barnes & Noble book covers in bittersweet triumph. He was Gavin Corbett, a child abuse survivor, bestselling author, two-term Republican senator, and suicide enthusiast.

  “Senator Corbett, I can’t believe you’re here,” Douglas declared.

  Corbett gave a halfhearted wave. “Nice to meet you, young man,” he muttered. “I’ve heard…”

  “Enough with the introductions,” interrupted Gordon. “Tell him what you told me…about Space Shuttle Conundrum.”

  Corbett scratched his chin. “Well, I know that it blasted off from a secret launch site. I believe it was in the Mojave—scratch that, it was in the Chihuahaun Desert. Moreover, I know why it was sent up to begin with.”

  “And that was?”

  “To tell you that, I need first speak of myself, of my childhood. I wasn’t always this broken old dead thing, you understand.”

  “You were a United States senator, weren’t you?” Douglas chimed in.

  “Sure I was. But well before that, I was a happy child. In fact, I was a chubby-cheeked bundle of energy, anxious to solve all the world’s mysteries. I would approach strangers on the street just to ask them what they did for a living. Were they unfortunate enough to answer, I’d question them until they fled. I was naïve then, and far too trusting. That trust led to my downfall.”

  “What happened?” Douglas asked, watching complicated emotions swim across Corbett’s face.

  “I met this one man. He wore a leather jacket, leather pants, and diamond earrings in both ears. You should have seen the way he walked; it was like the world bent around him. Encountering the bastard outside a video store, I just had to ask what he did.

  “He said he was a secret agent, just like James Bond. Idiot that I was, I believed him. When he mentioned that he was investigating a drug ring, one operating out of my own elementary school, and that he needed my help identifying the suspects, I was elated. It felt like I was walking on air, like all of my adventure fantasies were finally coming true. When he invited me into his van—so that I could be briefed on my mission at Secret Service headquarters—I didn’t even hesitate. God, I was so stupid.”

  Wiping away a spectral tear, Corbett continued. “I got into the van, drank from an open soda, and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I found myself in a dingy cellar, naked and chair bound. The cellar was lit by a single light bulb, and empty but for a packed dirt floor.” He drew in a hitching breath, not that he needed to. “It was over three years before I escaped. In that time, I was abused on every level imaginable: physically, verbally, and even spiritually. Here, take a look at these.”

  Corbett shrugged his bathrobe open, revealing an upper torso crisscrossed with faded scars.

  “I was beaten, raped and taunted by that man and his visiting friends. They fed me table scraps and water, nothing else, all served in dog bowls. I peed and shit into large metal buckets, which weren’t emptied for weeks at a time. When alone, I was always retied to the chair.”

  Horror bent his features. “Near the end, she came to me, drifting out from the darkness as I sat there shivering, wishing for death. A white-masked woman, she was, a mistress of shadows. Her body was mangled much worse than mine, so I believed her when she said she understood my pain. Her voice was horrible, but offered hope. She whispered of revenge against my abuser, promising that I’d see my parents again if I agreed to serve her in the future.

  “Naturally, I agreed. She shredded my ropes and said to be patient. The basement door was locked, and I was too weak to burst through it. No matter. I knew the bastard would be back.

  “During my years of confinement, time lost all meaning. There were no days or nights, no seasons or holidays. So I can’t say whether it was evening or dawn when the man returned with four friends. But the fact that they held half-empty beer bottles, and reeked of pot and tobacco, makes nighttime seem more likely.


  “Even today, I can picture the five of them: their leather clothes, cheap jewelry, and carefully groomed facial hair. They stumbled down the splintered staircase, nearly reaching the bottom before one exclaimed, ‘Hey, who let the boy loose?’

  “My abductor dropped his bottle, growling, ‘He must have slipped out the ropes. That’s good news, fellas. Now we really get to punish him.’

  “They backed me into a corner, just like a wounded animal, as they had so many times before. Staring into their hungry eyes, I wondered if I’d imagined the white-masked lady. As their hands went to grasp me, I damned her for a hallucination, and all hope curdled.

  “Perhaps the woman needed one last taste of despair to manifest again, because suddenly the room went dark. Within the darkness, great shapes seemed to move. The ground shook from unseen footfalls.

  “A voice cried out, ‘What the fuck? Where’d the light go?’ Another yelled that there were fresh bulbs in the kitchen cupboard, ordering someone named Leonard to go get one. Before anybody could move, the basement door slammed shut.

  “Strange winds billowed. ‘The door’s locked!’ someone cried out. Then the screaming started. I heard one pedophile yelling, ‘Marianne…Marianne…’ over and over again. Another shouted, ‘I killed you once, you bastard! This time you’ll stay down!’ I heard retching, and smelled vomit. All was dark, yet my tormenters responded to personalized visual stimuli. One guy begged God to save him. Another screamed for his mother, seemingly regressed to preadolescence.

  “I’m not sure how long it took, but eventually the screaming gave way to sobbing. The sobbing became wet gurgling, and then all sound died out. I should have been scared, probably. But when the light finally came back on, my face felt weirdly distorted. Later, I realized that I’d experienced the forgotten sensation of smiling.

  “I found my abductor collapsed at the base of the stairway. His eyes had been torn from their sockets, left to ooze onto the dirt. Two of his friends were propped against the far wall, embracing like lovers. One had stabbed the other with a switchblade, over and over, shredding the man’s abdomen into flesh confetti. The stabber had then turned the blade against himself, cutting his own throat open.

  “Another corpse clutched his chest. A heart attack, I suspected. The last of them was still breathing, but his hair had gone completely white. He sat on the floor cross-legged, mouthing nursery rhymes under his breath, refusing to make eye contact.

  “I laughed like a madman, laughed until my chest ached. Eventually—whether minutes or hours later, I cannot say—I left the basement. Naked, I wandered a middle class neighborhood, until a passing driver decided to help me. He drove me to the hospital, where I was reunited with my parents. Soon, the media was reporting my story. The surviving molester ended up in a mental hospital.”

  “Wow,” sighed Douglas. He’d experienced some tragedies in his time, but nothing like those faced by young Corbett. “So what happened with Ms. White Mask? Did she come back right away?”

  “Not in waking life, no. Some mornings, I’d wake with memories of her slithering through my skull, of dream conversations whose details escaped me. Still, I think she was working upon my subconscious even then, shaping me to assist her.

  “Before calling upon me, though, the demoness allowed me to grow up. I graduated high school decades ago. My grades were exemplary, and I still possessed a household name at the time, so I had little trouble getting accepted to Yale University. I walked out of there with a degree in political science, which would prove crucial in my future career.

  “After graduation, I found myself buried in debt. Student loans don’t seem so bad when you’re attending, but when you’re unable to find a decent paying job, they’re pure murder. I needed some quick cash.

  “Have you ever been inside a bookstore, Douglas? Of course you have. Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed those books, you know, fact-based accounts of personal struggles. They tell how someone beat cancer, lost hundreds of pounds, or saved a stranger’s life. You know the ones I’m talking about.

  “Well, I was in a bookstore one day, and noticed how many of those books had made the New York Times bestseller list. If those authors could do it, I reasoned that I could, too. And so I did, completing my first draft three months later. Replacing Ms. White Mask with angelic visions guaranteed to intrigue fat housewives, I landed the second publisher that I sent it to, and soon had my own bestseller.

  “I toured all the talk shows, crying whenever necessary. I gave hundreds of interviews and sat through dozens of book signings. I paid off my student loans, found a nice little house of my own, and still the book kept selling. Eventually, I ended up with more money than I knew what to do with.

  “Around this time, at some stupid cocktail party, someone suggested that I run for office—the California State Senate. ‘Sure,’ I scoffed. ‘Find me millions of campaign dollars and I’ll get right on it.’ Strangely enough, a gossip columnist overheard this remark, and went and announced my candidacy.

  “Before I knew it, I had a bona fide campaign committee behind me, and my very own campaign manager. A real firecracker, she was. She organized all my advertising, interviews and public relations appearances, and could sniff out campaign funds like a cash-hungry bloodhound. Her name escapes me now, but I always wondered what she’d be like in the sack. A real tigress, I bet.” Corbett smiled ruefully, and continued: “No other candidates could compete with my sob story. Soon, I was in Sacramento, drowning in committees and subcommittees. That was when ol’ Ms. White Mask returned.

  “Shaving one morning, I saw her in the mirror, standing just behind me. Her shredded voice poured into my ear, claiming that she’d guided me toward that exact moment. It was time to perform my promised task, she said.

  “She recited a list of names, including congressmen, National Security Council members, NASA’s Administrator and Deputy Administrator, and even the President of the United States. For each name, she spilled secrets—I’m talking murders, rapes, drug abuse, incest and worse—which I used to blackmail them into completing a secret space launch. Somehow, she had the location and launch date already figured out.”

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” Gordon muttered.

  “You wouldn’t believe how much work went into getting the Conundrum into the air. The launch cost had to be buried deep inside the Federal Budget. The site had to be covertly constructed, and then torn back down before anyone could report of it. Astronauts had to be selected, and then deceived about the launch’s true purpose, which not even I was aware of. Still, we somehow managed to send it up on the exact date specified.”

  “But why did everyone go along with you?” Douglas asked. “Couldn’t the President have thrown you in prison, or had you killed?”

  “No, sirree! I told those high-ranking shmucks that I had damning documents stashed in half-a-dozen spots, which would become public knowledge upon my disappearance or death. I was bluffing, of course, but I guess that they weren’t willing to chance it.

  “Well, I’m sure that you know the rest,” Corbett said, nodding in Commander Gordon’s direction. “The shuttle vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. All tracking methods were useless. One second it was there, the next it was as if it had never existed. And since the shuttle and launch had never been acknowledged or recorded, we could pretend it never happened. The families of the missing astronauts were given cover stories, and we all moved on with our lives.”

  “It must have been nice to have a life to move on with. I suppose that my death, that the deaths of my crewmates, never bothered you.” Under his visor, Gordon’s mouth was a twisted snarl; his eyes were large black discs. For the first time, Douglas found himself fearing his longtime acquaintance.

  “Actually, no one could confirm your deaths. For all I knew, you traveled back in time or were abducted by aliens. It wasn’t until later that I learned of the Conundrum’s fate. But if you think I didn’t spend sleepless nights wondering about that shuttle, then you’re q
uite mistaken.”

  “Poor little man, so concerned that he couldn’t sleep. I feel for you, Corbett, I really do. So why’d you kill yourself, anyway? Did your pet goldfish die?”

  Corbett placed his hands on his hips, the better to accentuate his scowl. “Spare me your humor, sir. I’m sorry that you died—please believe that—but suicide is nothing to joke around about. When you’ve been shattered inside, when death seems your only option, it’s a horrible, monstrous feeling. So try to fake a little respect.”

  “Whatever you say, Chuckles. I respectfully request to hear about your suicide. Is that better?”

  “It’ll have to do, I guess. Actually, it was all that bitch’s fault. I’d always viewed her as a sort of guardian spirit, one as ugly as a testicle tumor. She’d saved me from a life of victimization, after all, killed those damn pedophiles real nice. In my ignorance, I thought she cared for me. Boy, was that a mistake.

  “After I set up the shuttle launch, the demoness had no further use for me. Still, we remained connected on some level, with my buried fears and hatreds linking us. I think that anyone who’s been tortured is connected to her, that she gets strength from human suffering. Anyway, when she returned to me, all pretense had been abandoned, and I realized that she’d hated me all along.”

  “What happened?” asked Douglas.

  “She came to me at bedtime. In her presence, I couldn’t move a finger. Night after night, she forced me to relive those childhood traumas, to the point where I wondered if I’d ever really escaped the basement. But even that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was when she revealed her plan for humanity.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Gordon interjected. “Tell us her plan, Corbett, and I’ll let you go back to the Cabinet.”

  “You know the disgust you feel when reading about a child molester or serial killer? Imagine that every single person you saw, from toddlers to geriatrics, made you feel that way. That’s how the demoness views humanity.