The Phantom Cabinet Page 23

Placing a razor to his wrist resulted in an implausibly shattered razor. Even stepping into rush hour traffic on Highway 78 failed to do the job. For a moment, it had seemed like it would, as Douglas stared into oncoming flatbed truck headlights. But then the truck hit an invisible wall, crumpling against nothing discernable. This led to a multi-vehicle collision: burst glass, twisted metal, and many scrapes and bruises.

  Douglas had walked from vehicle to vehicle, ensuring that his gambit produced no fatalities. There were a few possible concussions, but nothing serious.

  Motorists shouted at him, demanding to know how he could act so recklessly, promising to call the cops. A group of large bikers even stepped forward to “teach him a lesson.” And so Douglas fled. He wanted to die, after all, not face pointless violence or prosecution.

  His last major suicide attempt took place two days after the pileup. After spending an entire evening on Google Earth, Douglas found an empty backyard pool less than a mile from his house. He knew that the program used out-of-date images, and that the pool could have easily been refilled, but figured he should give it a look anyway.

  Parking down the street from the residence, he pretended to read a newspaper while waiting for the homeowners to depart. Just after eight A.M., a Honda Civic left the garage, followed by a Lexus eleven minutes later.

  He scanned both sides of the street, ensuring that no neighbors observed him. He saw no one, and so made his way around the country style home, pulling the gate latch and slipping into its backyard.

  The pool was still empty, save for a thin leaf layer at its bottom. It sloped down from about three feet to an eight-foot depth, with a diving board overhanging the deep end. With a little luck, he could dive headfirst to an instant death. Or he could end up paralyzed, or maybe with brain damage.

  With these possibilities spinning through his psyche, Douglas stepped upon the diving board and walked to its edge. He bounced softly, springing up and down as he waited for courage to build. There’d be no swing to catch him this time, he realized. The thought filled him with mixed fear and elation.

  He leapt, completing half a front flip, with his feet in the air and his head leading the descent. His self-preservation instinct demanded that he put his arms out, to let his palms take the brunt of the impact and spin him into a somersault, but Douglas fought the urge.

  Time decelerated to a crawl. Thus, Douglas was able to watch a familiar white mask push past damp leaves, emotionless as it rose to meet him. With it came the shadows, which filled the pool like water from the River Styx.

  He found himself engulfed in their frozen caress, spun to a standing position, and deposited safely at the pool’s bottom. The shadows then withdrew, contracting back into the porcelain-masked entity’s fluctuating cloak. Yet again, Douglas was to confront his malignant caretaker.

  Hideously disfigured flesh, enwrapped in living darkness, drifted forward. Through hidden lips, the foulness spoke: “You think you can die at will, but that is a fallacy. You will perish at humankind’s omega, after your entire species has passed from existence. Thus do I reward my servant.”

  Douglas attempted no argument. He was beyond sick of the entity, weary with nearly two decades’ worth of fear and frustration. Instead, he threw himself forward and punched her mask, shattering it into dozens of floating fragments.

  For just a moment, he viewed her curdled countenance in its entirety. Jagged teeth snarled within suppurating burn victim skin; eyes glared with burst blood vessels. Hairless, with hardly any lips or nose remaining, his longtime tormenter stood revealed.

  She’s more pitiful than frightening, Douglas thought to himself, before the porcelain fragments fused back together, returning the mask to its unbroken state. Once more the face was hidden, save for flashes of raw flesh.

  Turning away from the entity, Douglas climbed from the pool. It was time to go home.

  Back in his living room, he dialed a number from memory. “Esmeralda? Yeah, it’s me. I’m sorry I missed your calls, but I’ve been sick. With the flu. No, I didn’t wanna bother you. Anyway, I’m better now, and I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight. Sure, whatever you want.”

  ««—»»

  The Oceanside Recovery Center was located on Mission Avenue, on the piece of land that once contained the Valley Drive-In Theater. Justine Brubaker remembered the drive-in well, could recall dozens of visits leading up to its 1999 demise. She remembered sex in back seats and truck beds, as explosions and music poured from pole-mounted speakers.

  Oh, those nights of drug consumption—pot, painkillers, and even psychedelics—which turned bad movies good and good movies transcendent. Consequently, the irony of attempting to kick substance addiction at the site she’d most relished them was not lost on her, as she made her way to that afternoon’s group therapy session.

  The Recovery Center was designed for optimal patient comfort, furnished and decorated to resemble a home more so than a clinic. But with a profusion of nurses, social workers, substance abuse technicians and counselors constantly swarming about, it was hard to forget exactly where Justine was, and her reasons for landing there.

  The center was actually composed of two facilities: one for males and one for females. The “guests” at these facilities were kept segregated at all times, which made complete sense to Justine. If there were cute guys around, after all, it would be hard to take recovery seriously. Thank God she wasn’t a lesbian, like her middle-aged roommate at the center, Jolene.

  Justine had arrived four days ago, after her mother walked in on her smoking meth with Leon, her mom’s boyfriend. Sure, the drugs had been Justine’s, but it was still unfair that Leon got off with only a lecture. Justine was nineteen years old, for Christ’s sake. If she had enough money to move out, she’d never have put up with such nonsense.

  Detoxification hadn’t been so bad. Justine was used to poor quality meth, to the debilitating aches and pains that followed wild all-nighters. Likewise, the physical exam and psychiatric evaluation had been a breeze. No, what really killed her was the boredom.

  Justine missed her books, DVDs and laptop. She missed boys. But what she missed most of all was her cellphone, which they’d confiscated upon arrival. All she had now was her room’s basic cable television, which never got interesting before eight P.M.

  ««—»»

  The group therapy room was surprisingly classy, Justine thought, with comfortable leather chairs circling its center. A working fireplace took up most of one wall; a well-stocked fish tank was pushed against another. Between them was a giant window, offering a bland view of distant hillsides.

  Stepping inside, Justine found the entire group assembled. There were seven women of various ages and ethnicities present, with a grey-haired counselor named Edith seated amongst them. Grabbing the closest available chair, Justine nodded at the counselor.

  “Great, she’s finally here,” muttered Macy Lynn, an overweight African-American in love with hip-hop and heroin, though not in that order.

  “Let’s start then, shall we?” the counselor asked, in a low childish voice, equally soothing and patronizing. “Who wants to go first?”

  The session began. Justine tried to appear interested as her fellow patients bitched and moaned about their cravings.

  Boo-fucking-hoo, she thought. People are dying all over the world, and these bitches have the nerve to whine about how tough their lives are? This is pathetic. I’m going to kill Mom when I get back.

  Then all was silent. Glancing up, Justine saw every eye in the room turned toward her. “Uh…what was that?” she asked, embarrassed.

  “I said you’ve been too quiet,” replied the counselor. “It’s important that you contribute to these discussions, Justine. When you share your frustrations with women in similar situations, it forms a bond between you, one that will see you through all the hard times ahead.”

  “Oh…okay.”

  “So tell us how you feel. Let us in on your struggle.”

  Justine ha
d no idea how to respond. Her natural inclination was to be sarcastic, but with no friends around, sarcasm lost its bite. She opened her mouth, unsure what to say.

  Then it happened. Simultaneously, every chair jerked out from under its occupant, sending them tumbling onto their backs, limbs waving like dogs feigning death. Like angry hornets, the chairs began to hover menacingly above.

  One of the patients, Loretta Whitley, leapt to her feet cheering excitedly. “Where’s the hidden camera?” she cried, attempting to scan each of the room’s corners simultaneously. Her jubilation was silenced when a chair dive-bombed down, smashing its walnut frame against her temple. Hemorrhaging, the woman fell limp to the floor.

  The room’s fish tank and window exploded, as the fireplace flared to life. Tetras and barbs fell to the carpet and gasped their last breaths, unnoticed by women too busy screaming Loretta’s name.

  Shelly, a defiant biker chick obscured by bad tattoos, attempted to grab one of the levitating chairs, receiving a broken jaw for her efforts. Screaming through a face like a Halloween mask, she flailed her arms ineffectively at the hovering seats.

  Edith the counselor attempted to pull Shelly to the floor. Somehow, a chair leg—split into a sharpened stake—stabbed itself through the back of her head, emerging from Edith’s left eye socket. That was when Macy Lynn made her play for the door.

  Racing across the room, the heavyset woman displayed surprising rapidity. Unfortunately, the haunting proved far quicker, as a ball of flame shot from the fireplace, formed into a roughly humanoid figure, and embraced Macy. An instant inferno, she collapsed into her own bubbling epidermis.

  As the chairs set upon the surviving women, smashing down again and again in a series of sickening crunches, Justine crawled forward. She kept her head down, her teeth gritted, even as the furniture bashed against her back torso.

  Broken and ripped, fluttering like fractured bats, the seats continued their merciless bludgeoning, until only Justine remained breathing. Her body blotched with emergent bruises, she made it into the hallway and slammed the door closed, breaking a transgressing chunk of walnut from its frame.

  Heart hammering, she leaned against the door and hyperventilated, impotent chair thuds reverberating against her back. Fighting back the feeling of an impending spontaneous combustion, her thoughts turned toward escape.

  Screams and death gurgles echoed through the facility, but Justine paid them no mind. Her stretch of hallway was clear, empty of furniture, with every door closed. If she could sprint down the corridor and hook a right, she’d be out of the facility in half a dozen yards.

  As she prepared to propel forward, every fluorescent bulb burst, leaving the center gloom-swallowed. No longer could she run; she’d be liable to smash face-first into a wall. So with both arms extended, she began to walk, dreading the caress of an unknown hand.

  With a blink, the black shifted. Now everything was tinted green, as if seen through night vision goggles. Again, she could see the doors ahead of her, three on each side of the hallway. They were slowly opening.

  She realized that the screaming had ceased. The only sounds now audible were squeaking hinges and her own labored panting, as she stopped in her tracks, debating whether to run or retreat.

  The doors swung all the way open, revealing dark rectangles like standing coffins. Shamblers emerged from these oblongs, turning to regard her. There was a social worker, whose name Justine couldn’t quite remember, snarling through shredded lips. The woman’s teeth were broken and jagged, like those of a cannibal. Her arms hung uselessly at her sides, dislocated and fingerless.

  She saw a skeleton wearing a nurse’s face like a mask, as if in remembrance of its own shed features. She saw what looked like a World War II fighter pilot, his goggles cracked and half-melted above a charcoal-like face. Next came a nude, gutted woman, still trying to push her spilled intestines back into position.

  A jester cavorted into the hallway, dressed in a hodgepodge of ridiculous checkerboard-patterned clothing, wielding someone’s thighbone like a scepter. His floppy hat included a bell at each point, which jingled madly as the apparition moved. Blood dripped from his giggling mouth.

  Others, equally disturbing, followed. Some Justine recognized from the rehab center. The rest belonged to past eras. All were deceased.

  A flayed Egyptian relic approached her, dressed in a shendyt and khat headdress. Strips of flesh had been torn from his torso, revealing glimpses of his spine and ribcage. His eyes were missing, along with his lower jaw.

  Overcome with terror and revulsion, Justine backed away, gibbering in protest. She kept her eyes on the dead, praying that they wouldn’t increase their stilted paces.

  But hallways go in two directions, and Justine had neglected to consider the doors opening behind her. A bloated hand fell upon her shoulder; cold lips pressed lovingly to her ear. Pain flared, and Justine joined the multitudes.

  ««—»»

  Milton Roberts awoke to screaming, an earsplitting series of shrieks from the apartment next door. The sun wasn’t even up yet, but the sound made him instantly alert. Springing from his malodorous mattress, he threw on a pair of shorts.

  His walls had always been thin—millimeters wide, he suspected—but he’d never overheard such commotion from his neighbor, the single mother. Sure, he’d heard the omnipresent wails of her child, and the phony screams of actors whenever she turned her TV up too loud, but this was something else entirely. It was like she was being raped to death with a claw hammer.

  In the hallway, he saw more of his neighbors, bleary-eyed with sleep, faces alternating between fear and concern. “What’s going on?” he practically shouted at a young Middle Eastern émigré.

  “Beats me, fella. We knocked on the door, but Janine won’t answer. It sounds like she’s shouting about her baby, but it’s hard to be sure.”

  “Has anyone called the cops?”

  “Yeah, Mrs. Henderson from 308 went to call ’em.”

  A fresh series of screeches began. Milton felt something harden inside him, returning him to his old Marine mindset—before a misunderstanding had left him dishonorably discharged from the Corps. He could feel his heart beating through his forehead, as his hands curled into fists.

  “Hold tight, y’all. I’m goin’ in.”

  His first kick cracked the door. The second blasted it clear off its hinges. Eyes darting frantically from one point to another, seeking out an intruder, Milton leapt into the room.

  “My baby! Come back to me, Lulu! Come back!”

  Janine’s shouts came from her bedroom, just out of sight. Wishing that he’d thought to bring his revolver, he crept past an open bathroom, and approached the hysterical female.

  When he stepped into the bedroom—containing a queen-sized bed, a large teak dresser, and a bizarre bubble-shaped baby crib sculpted from acrylic plastic—Milton glimpsed no intruder. Instead, he found Janine standing with her back to him, wearing a faux silk bathrobe too sexy to be practical. She held her baby, little Luella, to her chest, so that the infant’s head peeked over Janine’s shoulder. Luella’s eyes were open, staring forward without seeing. A tiny tongue protruded from her mouth.

  When he tapped her shoulder, Janine stopped screaming, and whirled around to face him.

  “Help her,” she pleaded, thrusting her dead infant into Milton’s grasp. Overcome with revulsion—wanting to drop the child and immediately wash his hands—Milton asked what had happened.

  He’d always harbored a crush on Janine, with her voluptuous figure and girlish voice. On many nights, he’d silenced his television and pressed his ear to their dividing wall, listening to her meaningless phone conversations for hours at a time. Generally, he’d fondled himself while eavesdropping. But now, with one considerable breast having escaped her bathrobe—displaying a flawless double-D implant capped with a quarter-sized areola—all he could feel was disgust, compounded by an urge to flee. Only a sense of male duty kept his feet rooted to the carpet, his hands
gripping cold flesh.

  “I thought it was a dream,” Janine moaned. “Just a stupid dream, from too much junk food last night.”

  “I don’t understand,” Milton said, handing the child back, shaking his arms to clear away the sensation of waxy epidermis. “What was a dream?”

  “The woman: a witch in bad makeup, with crazy hair and black teeth. Her clothes looked like a potato sack, and she never even spoke.”

  “This woman…she came into your apartment? Did you leave your door unlocked?”

  “She came in through the sliding glass door…from the balcony. She flew.”

  “And she killed Luella?” Milton suspected that he was speaking with the true executioner, a victim of a psychotic breakdown. Still, he strove to keep his voice soothing, lest Janine turn her maternal fury upon him.

  “She had babies on leashes, two dozen or more. They crawled all around her, crying and crying. When she walked over to Lulu’s crib and lifted my sweetie up, I tried to get up and stop her, but something kept me paralyzed.

  “The witch put a leash around my baby’s neck, and then they all flew away. The door closed behind them, all by itself. I fell back asleep; I couldn’t help it. I thought it was a dream, until I looked over and saw Lulu so still. She took my baby!”

  Squinting suspicion at his neighbor, Milton tried to speak reason: “You were dreaming, Janine. I don’t know how Luella died—I’m guessing crib death—but she obviously wasn’t kidnapped. You’re holding her body, for cryin’ out loud.”

  “This is just a body! The witch took my baby’s soul!”

  The other neighbors, realizing that there was no immediate danger, began to drift into Janine’s apartment. They surrounded the woman, blanketing her in worthless mollification and pseudo sympathy. Milton took the opportunity to flee the scene. He had errands to run, after all.

  ««—»»

  It was a cold morning, held at bay by covers, sheets and body warmth. Stroking Esmeralda’s hair gently, luxuriating in the afterglow of the previous night’s dalliance, Douglas let his thoughts roam freely. But wandering thoughts, like a loyal canine, eventually wind their way homeward, back to familiar subjects.