The Phantom Cabinet Page 21
Jonas turned and lunged at McMurray, his blade ripping the man’s cardigan, falling millimeters short of epidermis. Seizing the opportunity, the Nordic pounced upon the killer, pinning his arms behind his back, sending the knife clattering to the floor. A flurry of fists and kicks fell upon Jonas then, leaving him flopping on his back, too battered to rise.
During the scuffle, a lone patrol car had arrived at the scene, more to check out the GPS-related hoopla than out of any misconduct suspicions. After viewing the basement, the investigating officer quickly called in backup, and Jonas was taken into well-deserved custody.
Sixteen minutes later, Erin Rodriguez’s smile had turned genuine. A career-defining story had fallen into her lap, and she’d be damned if she didn’t exploit it to the fullest. Adlibbing into the microphone, Erin felt as if she could peer through the camera’s lens into the eyes of the couch potato multitude, millions of viewers hanging off her every word.
“What had begun as a curiosity now stands as one of the most disturbing discoveries in all of American history. And I am Erin Rodriguez, reporting exclusively for XBC News.
“When a select group of Minnesotans found themselves inexplicably directed to this seemingly abandoned structure, no one could have predicted the carnage contained within. Indeed, it seems that an undocumented serial killer has been operating out of this very home for quite some time now.
“Not only were dozens of corpses discovered in the basement, but their presumed killer was still lurking here, waiting to attack curious onlookers. The maniac was subdued by the combined efforts of six brave men, one of whom suffered a gruesome cheek slashing.
“Parents, we advise that you pull your children away from the screen, as this recently captured footage may prove highly upsetting. Similarly, those viewers with delicate constitutions may wish to switch the channel for the next few minutes.”
Shaking herself from the GPS signal stream, a satisfied Winona Tambor allowed spirit magnetism to return her to the Phantom Cabinet. Surrendering to its relentless pull came as a relief, as she’d raged against it for far too long.
She knew that the man who’d taunted and brutalized her would finally face justice, that her departed shell would soon receive a proper burial. Winona’s mouth memory smiled, as she finally let herself dissolve.
Wasting not a second, a fresh spirit claimed her GPS stream position.
««—»»
“So, you finally worked up the courage to ask me out. What’s it been, three weeks since I came by your store?”
“Three weeks? It hasn’t even been one. In fact, this is the first night I’ve had off, or I would have called you sooner.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bet you’re secretly dating someone else, aren’t you? Is that it? Am I the ‘other woman,’ Douglas? Is your other girlfriend even alive, or am I competing with the ghost of Marilyn Monroe? Maybe even Cleopatra herself, huh? Man, you must have your pick of dead celebrities.”
“That’s not really how it works,” explained Douglas, trying to conceal his nervousness. It was hard to meet Esmeralda’s intense gaze without sexual thoughts arising, thoughts which shamed him, though he knew they oughtn’t to.
“Really? Then how exactly does it work?”
“That’s a long story. Maybe I’ll even tell it to you sometime.”
“Oh, you better,” she replied suggestively.
He drummed his fingers on the table, staring at their partially consumed pasta and risotto dishes. Esmeralda loomed beyond unlit candles, awaiting his response. Their food was growing cold, becoming less appetizing with each passing second, yet all forks had been set aside.
Unwilling to appear cheap, Douglas had invited Esmeralda to Federico’s Italian Café, a moderately priced Encinitas restaurant just past the YMCA skate park. So far, the service had been slow and surly, and the food portions tiny, yet he was glad they’d come. Somehow, Esmeralda possessed the ability to put him at ease one moment, and then fill him with tension the next. He never knew what she was going to say or do, and found that incredibly refreshing.
As the only girl who’d ever expressed any kind of interest in Douglas, she remained an enigma. Half of him still suspected an elaborate joke, while the other half was picturing her naked.
“So…Esmeralda, what are you doing these days, anyway? Are you working? Going to school? You haven’t told me much about yourself.”
“Well, Douglas, where to begin? My GPA and SAT scores got me into every college I applied to. Unfortunately, my dad was diagnosed with liver cancer just before graduation, and his medical bills swallowed all our savings. Dad’s crappy health insurance provider helps out a little bit, but my college plans are on hold, if not completely canceled. Low-paying employment is my destiny, unfortunately. I don’t have a job yet, but I’ve been filling out applications like a madwoman.”
“Uh…I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“It’s tragic, certainly. But with proper treatment, he might pull through yet. Speaking of tragedies, have you heard about Missy Peterson?”
Douglas’ stomach lurched. He wished for a topic shift, knowing that the evening was about to turn ugly. Still, he replied, “No, what’s up with Missy?”
“You really don’t know? Christ, I was asking you that ironically. It was all over the news, in every frickin’ newspaper. You really live with your head in the sand, don’t you?”
She leaned across the table, lowering her voice a few decibels so as not to offend their fellow diners. “They found her in her dead sister’s room two days ago. Her parents went out for ice cream, bringing back strawberry sherbet for Missy—her favorite, the papers said. But Missy was in no shape for ice cream. Someone had killed her, slowly and painfully, removing every inch of skin from her scalp to her toes. The police have no suspects—they haven’t even found the murder weapon, if you can believe that—but people are beginning to question whether or not Gina Peterson’s death was really a suicide.”
And there it was. Douglas had been ignoring all news reports for some time, fearing to learn of a death his own demise could have prevented. The fact that it was Missy Peterson, who’d begged him for help not even a year past, made it all the worse, twisting an invisible knife deep into his gut.
“Douglas, are you all right? Your face has gone greenish, and your eyes are starting to water.”
“Yeah…sorry. I think there’s something wrong with my food, or maybe I’m coming down with the flu. Would you mind if I drove you home now?”
“Sure, Douglas. I’m stuffed, anyway.”
Douglas paid the check with a quartet of twenties, not caring whether the tip was sufficient. He hustled Esmeralda into the Pathfinder, sped to her house, and bid his date adieu without even a kiss goodnight.
Returning to an empty home, Douglas barely made it into the bathroom before unleashing a torrent of guilt-propelled vomit, over and over again. Shifting in the shadows, the porcelain-masked entity watched silently, ensuring that her doorway posed no threat to himself.
««—»»
Drawing essence from the shadows—both those caused by direct light obstruction and those buried within human souls—it was possible for the porcelain-masked entity to observe every living person inside her sphere of influence, peering malignantly from the shade. Thus was she able to slip through shadow subspace, entering the bedroom of her current concern in mere seconds, abandoning the slumbering Douglas to his underfed dreamscapes.
And there was her quarry, held between blanket, pillows and mattress like a fly trapped in amber. The girl slept serenely, with framed pop acts she no longer cared for watching from the walls. Unaware that the room’s temperature had suddenly dropped several degrees, she continued her steady respiration.
Esmeralda presented a problem for the porcelain-masked entity. It was obvious that the girl was growing closer to Douglas, which could prove disastrous to the entity’s plans. Esmeralda’s love could inspire him to suicide—the only way to spare the girl from the impend
ing spirit apocalypse. Similarly, if the porcelain-masked entity slaughtered Esmeralda outright, Douglas might just kill himself as revenge.
No, the entity would have to be subtle, gently separating them just as she’d done with the boy’s father. The endgame was fast approaching, and it wouldn’t do to have a wildcard in the mix.
With her gleaming false face just millimeters from Esmeralda’s own, the entity pushed one shadow tendril into the girl’s unconscious mind, corrupting her dreams with scenes of morbidity:
Esmeralda sat upon a chair of human bones, at a stone slab table crowded with empty plates. Though unshackled, she was unable to move, could only stare forward. She was in a barn, she thought, although the structure’s dimensions continuously bulged and contracted.
From the edge of the room, Douglas approached—wearing the same outfit he’d worn on their date—gripping a silver dining platter. Placing the platter before her, he removed its lid, revealing the skinned face of Esmeralda’s own father, mouth still gaping in pain.
Unable to control her actions, Esmeralda found herself manipulating a knife and fork, cutting a sliver from her father’s cheek and bringing it up for consumption. Just as she was about to pop the morsel into her mouth, Douglas leaned over the table and vomited up an unending stream of Jerusalem crickets, twitching monstrosities that scuttled about madly.
For weeks, these images returned to Esmeralda anytime she thought of Douglas, bringing shivers even in the warmest weather. Still, their relationship progressed.
««—»»
Orbiting at 22,000-mile altitudes, five Defense Support Program satellites drifted—primary sensors pointed at Earth, star sensors aimed deep into the cosmos. Scanning the planet through Schmidt camera eyes, their linear sensor arrays swept the globe six times per minute, over and over again.
Unfailingly, they downlinked information to USSTRATCOM and NORAD early warning centers, to be forwarded to other defense agencies if necessary. Through them, the U.S. Air Force could identify missile launches and nuclear detonations, which left telltale infrared emissions, easily tracked.
At around 400 million dollars per unit, these satellite provided peace of mind for every U.S. citizen, delivering a heads up for incoming war acts. Unfortunately, Northrop Grumman hadn’t safeguarded against ghosts during their construction.
So it came to pass that a ballistic missile attack was first reported by DSP satellites, and then confirmed by Space Based Infrared System satellites.
The projected missile path landed in the Southwest, sending early warning centers into full alert. An engagement decision was made, and an anti-ballistic missile was sent into the air to counter the attack before it could reap American lives. Using its on-board sensor, the interceptor propelled itself toward a high-speed collision, seemingly obliterating the threat midflight.
Unfortunately, the satellites had lied. What they’d reported as a ballistic missile had in reality been a commercial airline flight heading from Seattle to Omaha, Nebraska. Transporting over two hundred passengers across the country, the plane’s two pilots had neither the experience nor the equipment to evade an ABM.
A cross section of humanity met their fates that evening, blown into the Phantom Cabinet before they could even comprehend their peril. Biological fragments and chunks of plane rained upon an empty field, staining and mangling corn stalks, striking craters in the soil.
The next morning brought a flurry of activity. A number of high-ranking government officials and satellite technicians examined the kill assessment information to determine what had gone so terribly wrong, and also devise a cover story accounting for scores of dead Americans. Eventually, the media was informed that faulty aircraft design caused the tragedy, and that steps were being taken to prevent similar occurrences in the future. It made for interesting sound bites, if nothing else.
««—»»
After a few minutes of preliminary stretching, to stimulate slumbering quadriceps and hamstrings, Cedric Cole began his morning jog, accelerating to a comfortable rhythm. His route stretched 1.25 miles, following the Strand from Wisconsin Avenue to the Oceanside Pier. From there, he planned to grab a soda and stroll the pier for a while, before jogging back to starting position.
It was overcast, the air saturated with moisture. Between the cold weather and the early morning hour—just twenty-three minutes past sunrise—Cedric had the whole beach to himself. He preferred it that way, actually. With no one in sight, he felt like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes, following the shoreline in pursuit of some cataclysmic revelation.
He could see his breath with each exhalation, jogging through water vapor with his fists pumping reassurance. It was like being reborn, passing through the reality membrane into a purer state of existence. What had started out as exercise had become near-religion.
Cedric was a simple man, with simple ideals and average looks. He was the type of guy who could tell a bad joke well and a good joke poorly. He watched football and basketball regularly—even baseball during playoffs—and favored videogames over books. He’d never believed in the supernatural, and avoided horror movies at all costs. So when he saw what appeared to be a crumpled pile of wet clothing at the pier’s base, his first instinct was to ignore it.
Drawing closer, though, Cedric couldn’t look away. His darkest suspicion became reality. The clothes were occupied. Now he had no choice but to investigate. Cutting a diagonal across the sand, he brought his jog up to a sprint.
“They must have been tourists,” he remarked to himself, startled at the raggedness of his own speech. A group of nine lay before him, their ethnicities swallowed by the sea. There were four children, their parents, and three grandparents—at least, that’s what Cedric assumed—piled atop one another. A broken digital camera hung from the father’s neck, lens shattered, interior components spilling out.
The entire group wore white pants and bright yellow shirts. One young girl wore a beige brimmer hat, its drawcord cinched tightly around her neck. Cedric guessed that they’d all worn similar headwear at one point.
From their light bloating and drained complexions, Cedric figured that they’d recently drowned. Whether they’d been pulled from the sea or washed up by the tide, he had no idea.
But drowning didn’t explain the condition of the bodies, the compound fractures in their arms and legs. Bone shards surfaced from chilled limbs, bursting through stained garments, nestled in red slime. Gap-toothed grimaces attested to clumsy teeth removal. Large contusions turned skin into choropleth maps.
When a voice spoke from just over his shoulder, Cedric’s heart nearly burst from terror.
“It was the Invisible Man that did it,” declared garbled androgynous speech. “It happened last night, at around nine or three.”
Turning, he beheld an amorphous shape in the pier’s shadow, perched atop large green rocks. It appeared to be female, bloated not from water, but from years of consumption. Clad in brown tatters, the woman represented the sort of vagrants one always finds wandering the beach in the fringe hours: muttering to themselves, perambulating aimlessly across the sand.
When the woman lurched from the rocks, Cedric’s first instinct was to flee. Her grey hair was mostly gone, with only scattered strands remaining rooted in a crusted dome. A third of her bulbous nose had rotted away. Her grin displayed very few teeth.
“I saw it all, I tell ya,” continued the crone, shuffling forward in slow motion. “One minute they’s walking back from Ruby’s, the next they’s screamin’…danglin’ in the air, crumbled like soda cans. But there was no one there, no one. Somethin’ picked them up, mashed them good, and tossed them off the pier, right into the Pacific. If it wasn’t the Invisible Man, I don’t know who it was.”
Cedric practically whispered, “Did you pull them out, and stack them up like that?”
“Yeah, it was me,” the woman admitted, breathing sour corruption to scorch Cedric’s nostrils. “I finished just moments ago. It was too dark last ni
ght, with only the pier lights and stars twinklin’.”
“I’m going to call 911,” Cedric told her. “Stay here, why don’t ya? I’m sure the cops will have plenty of questions.”
“I reckon so. They always do, don’t they?” With a long phlegmy cough, she faded back into the pier’s underside, to nestle amidst the boulders. By the time the police arrived with their questions, it was already too late. Her unbreathing lips would provide them no answers.
««—»»
“This is your room?” Esmeralda asked playfully, scanning the superhero posters on the walls, the loose comics and SF paperbacks littering the floor. “Dude, you’re a bigger nerd than I thought. It’s a wonder you ever pulled a girl.”
“Look who’s giving me crap. Just last night, you were talking about how Batman Returns is one of your all-time favorite movies.”
“That doesn’t mean I have his entire printed history stashed under my bed. Can’t you read something more intellectually stimulating?”
“Aw, you’re just like the rest of ’em. Everyone looks down on comic book readers, yet look at how many people line up to see some crappy Fantastic Four adaptation. You just don’t get it. None of you do.”
Then they were kissing again, and Douglas’ halfhearted rhetoric dissolved. Just minutes ago, they’d been on the living room sofa, eating Chinese food, watching reality television. When Esmeralda casually mentioned that she’d never seen his bedroom, Douglas had practically shoved her down the hallway, sure that he was in for something special. After almost a month of dating, it seemed that their relationship was finally progressing past kissing and over-the-clothes groping.
In what felt like one fluid motion, Douglas removed his sweatshirt and threw back the bed’s flannel covers. Gently pushing Esmeralda to the mattress, he reached under her top to cup one ample breast, dipping his head to gently bite her clavicle.