The Phantom Cabinet Page 17
“I don’t think she even understands kindness. To her, all human interaction is a prelude to misery. Our entire race is nothing but a planetary virus, one she plans to eradicate. I’m talking about genocide on a global scale, the extinction of everyone you know. God forgive me, I helped her do it.”
“What do you mean, sir?” asked Douglas. The jigsaw puzzle was assembling, forming a putrefied image.
“When the shuttle disappeared, it passed into the realm immaterial, leaving a hole between Earth and the afterlife. As long as that tear remains, ghosts will continue pouring into this world. They are growing stronger; their range of influence continues to expand. Soon, no corner of the globe will be safe.”
“Big deal, Corbett. I’ve been dead for nearly two decades. Is that all your Ghost of Gang Rapes Past had to tell you?”
Corbett tsk-tsked. “Knock it off, Gordon. You know that these hauntings are no coincidence. That bitch is wielding spirits like weapons. Her ghosts are killing people now, spreading fear and terror to give her more power. Soon, she’ll be able to kill hundreds at a time, then thousands. Eventually, she’ll remake the whole world in her image, just one big lifeless husk. If not for me, she would never have had the chance. I couldn’t take it. I put a gun in my mouth and said, ‘Goodnight.’ That’s my story…all of it.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Then, quietly, Gordon told Corbett he could leave. Ghost became smoke, which unraveled into nothing.
Douglas exhaled. He felt sick inside, and slightly confused. “Can I ask you a question, Commander?” he eventually asked.
“Sure.”
“What was the point of that little visit? Why put Corbett through all that? So we know that the porcelain-masked bitch wants to kill everybody. So what? We’re not superheroes; you’re not even alive. We can’t do anything to stop her.”
The astronaut’s face went queasy. But ghosts feel no nausea. Douglas realized that his friend was about to declare some unpleasantness.
“I can’t do anything, true. You, on the other hand, can do everything to stop her.”
“How? How could I possibly stop that bitch?”
“You know how.”
For prolonged moments, they stare-dueled. At last, realization dawned. Sighing, Douglas said, “You want me to kill myself.”
“It’s the only way. I’m sorry, little buddy, but I’ve known it all along. I’d have killed you years ago, but something prevents it. Watch.”
Gordon threw a white-gloved punch, which passed harmlessly through Douglas’ skull. “See, I go completely intangible any time I try to hurt you.”
“You’ve tried before?” Douglas felt rage sprouting, as a longtime façade crumbled. He’d always thought of Frank Gordon as a kindly uncle type figure, one he could turn to for advice and comfort. Now the illusion was shattered.
“You were sleeping at the time, Douglas. You looked so peaceful, nestled in the covers. I wanted to smother you, so that you never felt a thing. It was the kindest way I could think of. But when I brought the pillow down, it fell right through my hands. You’re protected, it seems. I’m not sure that any ghost can harm you.”
Douglas growled, “Get out…”
“Douglas…”
“Get the fuck out of here! You think I want anything to do with someone who wants me to kill myself? We don’t even know if Corbett was telling the truth. He was a politician, for Christ’s sake! They lie for a living!”
“Calm down…please. We both know that death isn’t the end. I’ll go into the Phantom Cabinet with you, if you like, and we can unravel together, shedding all our fears and insecurities. We’ll become part of the next generation of souls, and help shape society’s future.
“I know that you hate me, but there will be no future for anyone if you stay alive. It’s time to go, Douglas.”
“Get out!” Douglas screamed, his vehemence causing the astronaut to shimmer, and then to disappear altogether. Douglas was left alone with aggravated thoughts.
The ruminations grew overwhelming. He needed to get out, to drive somewhere, anywhere. Time blinked, and he found himself on I-5 North, mashing the accelerator pedal to the floor, threading traffic like a man possessed. Headlights and taillights glimmered throughout the darkness, a moving, manmade constellation to spite those up above.
— | — | —
PART 3:
GRAVEYARD ORBIT
— | — | —
Chapter 10
“Hot on the heels of Commander Gordon’s bombshell, that was Gravediggaz with ‘1-800-Suicide.’ I hope you’re not too tired, old friend. There’s much ground yet to cover.”
Truthfully, Emmett was anything but. His body exploded with energy, as if he’d swallowed a handful of Adderalls. Pacing the apartment like a lunatic, he wished that he could step into the past, to help Douglas through his tribulations. Had their friendship really dissolved over a frickin’ phone call? It was ridiculous. If Emmett had known about all the ghost nonsense, he’d never have bothered.
Emmett threw some jabs, pretending to pummel a porcelain mask.
His old friend Benjy, dead and cheery, dribbled his voice through the headphones, coating Emmett’s brain with truths and ideas. He might never be the same after the broadcast, he realized. How could he return to construction, or any job, with so much going on behind the scenes? Maybe he’d take up ghost hunting, or become a psychic’s apprentice. Did psychics even take on apprentices? Did they even exist? Emmett didn’t know, but his mind burst with possibilities.
“Consider your own situation for a moment, Emmett. You have no close friends, speak to your family rarely, and spend most of your free time with your face glued to the TV. Now that you’re single again, your circumstances aren’t all that different from where we left Douglas. The only thing separating you—besides skin color, that is—is that Douglas could visit the Phantom Cabinet whenever he wanted.
“Anyhow, let’s jump ahead a bit, shall we? I could regale you with thousands of ghost stories, spiraling out from Oceanside into the world at large, but eventually even the supernatural grows monotonous. So we’ll check back in with Douglas during senior year, a time when most students are worried about SATs and college applications.
“Carter and Elaina Horowitz’s romance had progressed to a point where he’d pretty much moved in with her. Buying himself a brand new luxury sedan, he left Douglas with the Pathfinder.
“In fact, by senior year, Douglas barely saw his father at all. The man paid the bills on time, and transferred monthly funds into Douglas’ account, but he rarely set foot into the Stanton home. On birthdays and holidays, they’d still get together, but their happy family pretense had begun to unravel.
“Truth be told, this estrangement was no coincidence. It was in the porcelain-masked entity’s best interest to keep Douglas isolated, as she couldn’t have him sacrificing himself to close the Cabinet. As long as Douglas had no close relationships, he had no need to play the martyr.
“Killing Carter might provoke drastic action; it was better to make him a stranger to his son. To that end, the bitch used aversion therapy.
“When Carter was home alone, he’d witness a parade of mutilation, barely recognizable as human. During family dinners, he’d find his food maggot-infested. At night, he’d awaken to rotted fetuses crawling along his torso. Is it any wonder, then, that he sought solace in the arms of Elaina? In her bedroom, he could sleep soundly; at her table, he could relish his meals. He still loved his son, but just thinking about him became enough to give Carter chills.
“Similarly, Commander Gordon had stopped visiting Douglas. Disappointed with the boy’s unwillingness to self-sacrifice, Gordon continued to lurk behind the scenes, monitoring the Phantom Cabinet’s growing influence.
“That sets the stage, I think. We’ll step back into the story with a fateful Oceanside Credit Union visit…”
««—»»
Crossing the parking lot, Douglas approached an ATM, one of three lurking at the bui
lding’s periphery.
Every month, Carter deposited six hundred dollars into Douglas’ account, which mostly went toward groceries and fast food. At month’s end, Douglas bought books and comics with the remainder. It wasn’t a bad way to live, all things considered.
Douglas inserted his card and punched in his pin number. Withdrawing forty dollars, he became aware of a commotion to his right, near the building’s entrance.
Some man yelled “faggot” and “cocksucker” at the top of his lungs, so enraged that his voice cracked. Not being homosexually inclined, Douglas ignored the outburst, assuming that it was directed elsewhere. But when the bellowing moved leftward, as Douglas waited for the machine to spit his card and cash out, he couldn’t help but cringe.
“How would you like to get hit by a car?” the man shouted.
Appraising the shouter with a sidelong glance, Douglas saw a swollen, red face framed by clenched fists. He had no idea what he’d done to set the guy off.
Dismissing the yeller as a madman, Douglas ignored his threats. Returning to an idling vehicle, his steps were slow and measured, refusing to show fear.
Suddenly, a white Mitsubishi Eclipse flew at him, inches from Douglas’ heels. Its speed made his shirttail flutter, and his heart skip a beat. The vehicle fishtailed into traffic, provoking a car horn chorus line.
An obese Samoan couple smirked at Douglas, peering from a parked Ford Bronco. Their well-fed faces rippled with laughter, and for just a moment, Douglas wished he had a firearm. Scowling, he climbed into the Pathfinder, setting off for the nearest hamburger joint.
“I’m supposed to sacrifice myself for these people?” he growled darkly. “Like that’s gonna happen.”
««—»»
Milton Roberts pounded his dashboard, blasting Slayer’s Hell Awaits through blown out speakers. His forehead throbbed slowly. A migraine made him squint.
“I almost had that little fucker,” he muttered. “Clean brains on the pavement, no drugs involved.”
Riding invisibly beside him, Commander Gordon whispered, “I guess it’s true what he said about you. You are just a pussy, too scared to step out of your car. Even with three thousand pounds of Japanese engineering, you still failed. I bet your dad is turning over in his grave right now, ashamed that he raised a little fairy boy.”
As he had moments prior, Milton assumed that the voice emanated from his own mind, his psyche given articulation. The voice had informed him of the boy’s mockery, of his quiet little taunts.
“I’m no bitch!” he shouted, oblivious to his fellow drivers. “I’ll see that little faggot again, count on it! I know what bank he goes to, don’t I? I’ll see him again!”
Smiling melancholically, the astronaut faded into the ether.
««—»»
Wrestling with half-remembered dream fragments, Missy stared into darkness, awaiting the rising sun. It was 3:06 AM, and try as she might, she could not get comfortable. Her mattress was too lumpy; the pillow bent her neck at an odd angle. The room’s atmosphere seemed to flip-flop from hot and stuffy to frigid on a regular basis. One minute she’d be sweating, the next she’d be shivering. The shadow shapes of her dresser, desk and beanbag chairs grew malignant, lurking like sideshow freaks.
Beneath her, the bed began to shudder. Missy braced for an earthquake.
Ba-bump…ba-bump.
There was no earthquake. Implausibly, her bed had gained a heartbeat, a freshly developed cardiac cycle.
Ba-bump…ba-bump.
Before she could leap to safety, the phenomenon ceased. Perhaps it was only her strained imagination. Gradually, she became aware of a disturbance just outside the window.
Sometimes a cat will cry like a baby in the dead of night. It is an unnatural sound, more suited to gothic tales of terror than ordinary reality. As a little girl, Missy had run into her parents’ bedroom, and crawled under their covers, anytime she’d heard such peculiar yowling. Even years later, she still hated felines above all other creatures. Behind their reflective tapetum lucida, she suspected that unholy deliberations dwelled.
It had been nearly a decade since she’d last heard such eldritch feline weeping, but what now reached her ears sounded like half a dozen cats crying in unison. Curious despite her terror, Missy climbed from the bed and made her way to the window. Shivering in her long t-shirt and panties, she parted the blinds.
Streetlights provided islands of visibility in the predawn darkness, standing like sentinels under the distended moon. In one’s glow, just two houses down, Missy glimpsed pure madness manifested. Even with all she’d seen and experienced—from her sister’s bizarre death to the ghost of the hanged man—the sight took her by surprise.
There were no cats, after all. She’d heard babies crying because there were babies crying—nine of them, crawling under the streetlamp clad only in diapers. Each child wore a cracked leather leash around its neck.
Holding the loop handles of all nine tethers, letting the babies crawl before her like sluggish canines, was a ghastly woman, dressed in stained, shapeless burlap. Her hair was grey and frazzled, fluttering about her face as if charged with static electricity. Even from a distance, Missy could see that the crone’s face was deeply seamed, made nightmarish by caked-on makeup and a clownish lipstick application.
The woman turned her rheumy gaze toward Missy, freezing her statue-still. Displaying a mouthful of rotted teeth, the crone leered upward.
Missy wanted to flee, to hide between her parents as she’d done in years past. She knew that the woman’s intentions were evil incarnate, yet remained rooted in place.
And then—oh supreme horror—the babies rose above the sidewalk, straining at their leashes as they crawled skyward. As they ascended, the crone’s heels followed suit. Like a demonic version of Santa Claus and his reindeer, they met the sky, cutting a diagonal toward Missy’s second-story window.
Missy stepped back, letting the blinds fall closed. “It’s not happening,” she told herself, but the words rang hollow. A furtive scratching met her ears, and Missy knew that the crone was just a couple feet away, behind only a thin pane of glass.
Scratch…scratch…scratch.
Missy knew the woman’s fingernails would be long and jagged, perhaps sharp enough to cut through the window itself. Light thumps reverberated upon the rooftop, questing infants seeking entry.
Something in her mind snapped then, and Missy began to scream. Red-eyed and bedraggled, her parents ran into the room.
“What is it, honey?” Herbert asked, as his wife engulfed their daughter in a suffocating hug.
“At the window!” Missy screeched. “She’s at the window!”
Herbert drew the blinds, peering inquisitively into the night. Turning away from the glass, his moonlit face showed confusion. “There’s nothing there, Missy. What did you think you saw?”
“Daddy, it was horrible! There was a woman…an evil woman. She had…babies with her. They flew through the air, and…I think she wanted to take me with them. Please don’t let her, Daddy! Please!”
“It’s okay, dear,” Diane murmured in her daughter’s ear. “We’re here for you now. We’ll call the therapist in the morning, and get this all straightened out.”
««—»»
“Ooh, these look good. They’ll like these.”
John Jason Bair tossed a bag of miniature candy bars into his shopping cart. Now its bottom was completely obscured by candy, a multicolored arrangement of bargain-priced sweets. There were Snickers bars, rolls of Smarties, Gobstoppers, Twizzlers, M&M’s, Kit Kats, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Skittles bags and more, enough to send even the healthiest individual into a diabetic coma. Looking upon his bounty, John couldn’t help but smile.
At the register, the overweight cashier scowled. “You were just here yesterday, and now you’re back for more? How can you eat so much candy in a single day?”
John took in the woman’s three chins, the hairy mole sprouting from the corner of her lip, and lau
ghed. “I sell the candy at school,” he lied. “The snack machine is infested with rats, and the students need their sugar fixes.”
“Can’t you give them something healthy to eat? We’ve got a bunch of rice cake flavors to choose from.”
What a hypocrite, John thought. No way is this woman not putting down three pounds of candy a day, at least. Look, her arms are jiggling and she’s standing still.
“Maybe next time,” he said.
The yellow vested lady bagged his purchases and bid him good day. John pushed his cart into the lot and retrieved his Schwinn, securely chained to the bike rack. He’d recently attached a wire basket to its handlebars, for the sole purpose of candy transportation.
John noted the sinking sun sphere, and pedaled furiously to outrace its descent.
His mother worked most nights, gyrating naked for strangers, writhing in their laps. But how else could a high school dropout support her bastard son? At any rate, John usually had the house to himself, a situation he tried to make the most of. He’d thrown some wild house parties in the past, and most likely would again.
But on this night, a party couldn’t have been further from his mind. His fellow students were quite boring when one got right down to it, their thoughts mostly limited to sex, inebriation, and whatever pop culture churned out.
“I made it,” he gasped, screeching to a halt before a yellow-painted bungalow. He lived at the street’s bend, with neighbors that were rarely seen.
The sunset was spectacular—streaks of blue, orange and purple smeared across the horizon like watercolors—but he barely noticed. Passing under a sloped roof, his hand trailed along wood shingles on its way to the doorknob. Pushing his bike into the house, John dropped his purchases onto the foyer’s padded chair. He washed his face, changed his clothes, and awaited the night’s first knock.