The Phantom Cabinet Page 25
As the distance closed, Douglas passed through a menagerie of memories, a procession of experiences—highlights from countless abandoned lives. It was overwhelming and exhilarating, and he realized that his past Phantom Cabinet sojourns paled to the true soul traveling experience.
The spectral static suffused him, stealing stray memories and personality quirks, trying to pick him apart completely. He fought its influence the best that he could, holding onto his identity by replaying treasured recollections on a mind loop. He remembered excursions with Esmeralda, dinners with his father, and countless hours of goofing off with Benjy and Emmett. He remembered scenes from his favorite movies, passages from his favorite books and comics. Years of accumulated fear, awkwardness and uncertainty fell by the wayside, shed like an arthropod’s exoskeleton. This was his true homecoming, his destiny manifested. Distance held no meaning in the limitless haze labyrinth, but he knew he was almost there…
Back in the Cabinet’s confines, the porcelain-masked entity sent shadow tendrils along multiple pathways, seeking Douglas before his two selves could converge. Through shifting spirit matter, her tendrils traveled, seeking an interception point.
Leaving behind a shade servant—a familiar top hatted figure—to guard Milton’s soul, the entity shot forward. Tossing shadow strands in all directions, she spun a gloom web, sure to ensnare her prey.
With consolidation just seconds away, Douglas felt a sudden manifestation, a familiar tingle signifying a long-hated presence. Like a moon descending, a featureless white oval appeared between his soul halves, too large to circumvent.
Douglas had never faced the porcelain-masked entity inside the Phantom Cabinet, her place of power. She was practically godlike now, sending shoots of blackness to all points. Effortlessly, her ebon tendrils entrapped him. Losing forward momentum, Douglas wondered if she’d yet prove victorious.
The porcelain-masked entity knew that forcing one of Douglas’ soul halves back outside of the Phantom Cabinet would reopen the doorway, permitting her to continue her extinction tactics. Compacting a shadow sheath around one piece—the recently departed Earth half—she attempted to squeeze it through itself, to pop it back into known reality.
Concentrating on the task at hand, she failed to notice a disturbance in the ether.
Figures sprouted from spectral froth, bare outlines forming into hundreds of frantic specters. Piranha-like, they swarmed the porcelain-masked entity.
As his last act before dissolution, Commander Frank Gordon had embarked upon one last tour of duty. Shifting through thousands of phantoms—remnants unwilling to succumb to recycling and reincarnation—he’d recruited an army of sympathetic spirits to stand as status quo guardians.
Ghosts engulfed the porcelain-masked entity, unraveling her shadow shroud to harvest long-suffering flesh. She shrieked as they tore her apart, howls of frenzied anguish that would reverberate for centuries, poisoning the dreamscapes of the living.
The mask exploded, its fragments forming into scores of maggots, which slowly wriggled their way into nonexistence. The entity would reform soon enough, all knew—the cosmic balance demanded it—but not quickly enough to stop Douglas.
Unencumbered, young Stanton smashed his spirit halves together, letting them fuse into what they should have been all along: one essence, now complete. Marveling at his newfound wholeness, Douglas pulled the Phantom Cabinet closed, fastening his inner egress with relief.
««—»»
INTERRUPTIONS:
The children crisscrossed the floor, walls and ceiling, obscuring wallpaper and framed photographs. Nearly one hundred infant souls scuttled forth—black, white, and several shades in-between—eternally tethered to a dead woman’s hand. Insubstantial, the babies cried for lost parents, for the unconditional adoration they’d once known, the warm swaddling of crib blankets. Leashes passed through leashes, dark enchantments keeping them untangled.
With mold-spotted teeth, the crone smiled, her name and identity long swallowed by antiquity. All she understood now was the hunger for guiltless souls, the cold comforts of her whimpering collection. Sometimes she sang as they traveled, in a language no longer spoken by the living.
In one living room corner, a father and mother sobbed, holding hands while pinioned to the floor. Infants piled atop their bodies, preventing them from attending to their squalling son. Helpless, they begged the crone to leave them be, still half-convinced they were dreaming.
The crone leaned over the crib, reaching varicose-veined arms toward young Carlos. Dense makeup and abstract lipstick smears failed to conceal her rotted countenance; her coos of assurance were anything but soothing. Leaning forward, she moved to caress, fingers just millimeters away. Hands curled into impotent fists, Carlos batted the air.
Then, in a burst of green vapor, she was gone, along with all of her child pets.
The family cried together, this time in relief. Minutes later, they realized that Carlos’ diaper needed changing, a much-needed dose of the mundane after one terror-saturated afternoon.
John Jason Bair peered into his shopping cart, appraising pounds of chocolate and sugar, caramel and nougat.
Halloween was finally over, he realized, having no clue as to the knowledge’s source. There’d be no more ghostly trick-or-treaters, no more brushes with the great beyond. Something had shifted in the afterlife.
Slowly, he returned the candy to the shelves.
Holding the knife—a Buck 110 Hunter—to his grandmother’s throat, Leland begged for understanding: “They’re telling me to, Nana—Dad, Grandpa, and all the rest. Don’t worry about a thing; I’ll be following right behind you. We’ll join them all in Heaven.”
Helpless atop her hospital bed, Geraldine struggled to speak, to align events within her Alzheimer’s-ravaged mind. Blood trickled into her gown, cool against fevered skin, as she scrutinized a vaguely familiar face.
Leland tensed for the fatal slice, for the impending gore fountain, kissing her forehead for what was sure to be the final time.
Suddenly, the voices in his head were gone—or perhaps they’d never truly been present. Blinking furiously, as if awakening from deep slumber, he folded the knife and returned it to his pocket.
“Here, Nana, let me find you a Band-Aid,” he said, his contrite tone implying apology.
In her makeshift fortress—a flannel bedspread thrown over a round dining table—Margo Hellenberg cowered, clutching chrome legs for small reassurance, fear-regressed to her grade school persona. She’d been there for hours, ever since the visitors began pouring through her kitchen walls.
Skeletons pushing through peeling parchment skin, they cavorted. Unclothed, the apparitions mocked Margo for her timidity, promising pleasures undreamt of if she’d only die for them.
Margo was about to surrender, to climb out from the table shade and let them rend her asunder, when the laughter and catcalls faded. Peeking under the flannel, she saw that the spirits had departed—every single one of them.
The irate dead left the airwaves, their vindictive words and malevolent ballads bedeviling the living no longer. Similarly, deceased celebrities and worm-riddled politicians were eradicated from all channels, returning satellite broadcasts to their regularly scheduled programming. All over Southern California, an atmosphere of morbidity dissolved into sunlight, leaving its citizens’ auras shining bright once again. Soon, spontaneous celebrations broke out in bars and private residences; jubilation held sway over all.
The Great Spirit Purge had begun. True mediums everywhere released sighs of relief.
««—»»
Afterlife time is highly subjective, experienced differently by each passing soul. For some, decades can pass in the span of seconds; for others, the opposite is true. Therefore, Douglas couldn’t say with any certainty whether he’d spent minutes or years seeking Esmeralda’s spirit in an infinite static sea.
Over the course of his search, he passed through countless lives—experiencing their highs and lows,
moments of despair bleeding to elation—finding the same motifs repeating over and over in an endless loop. Yet his girlfriend remained beyond cognizance. Had she gone ahead without him?
Then a stray thought smacked him: a view of his own face moving in for a kiss. This was followed by images of a familial setting: a dinner scene wherein concerned relatives assured a tired, withered man that he would beat his liver cancer, no problem at all. Douglas experienced a dance recital through the eyes of a four-year-old girl, and then teen terror at the attentions of an overenthusiastic prom date. He’d finally found Esmeralda.
««—»»
Phantom Cabinet communications are like no other information exchanges. Instead of talking, spirits converse by merging completely, until two sets of memories and personalities have become amalgam. Like a deep thinker attacking a problem from opposing sides, communicants bat ideas back and forth, as if they are both bursting from the same cerebrum.
Consequently, Douglas’ reunion with Esmeralda can be described thusly:
I finally found you.
It’s been so long. I’ve been ready to let go for a while now, but held onto the possibility of one last encounter. I knew we’d meet again.
Shall we do it together, then, just unravel into the spirit foam?
I’m not scared to. We’ll disperse into the next generation of infants. In that way, we’ll never really die.
Maybe parts of us will end up in the same person. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Almost like we had a child of our own.
Even better.
Let’s get on with it, then. I don’t want to be one of those pathetic ghosts hanging on past their expiration date. One, two, and away we go…
I love you/us/me.
Goodbye.
Speculating on the identities of all those he’d be next, Douglas allowed the tide of spirit energy to claim him, throwing intangible arms wide, delivering himself wholly to the salvaging static chill. Phantom foam poured into and through him, carrying away Douglas’ quintessence a piece at a time. His memories fell away, slowly at first—a birthday party, a first day at school—and then with increased acceleration. His identity was the last to go, the very concept of Douglas Stanton.
At that precise instant, when the last vestige of Douglas passed unheralded from existence, conceptions flourished globally. Infant life sparks flickered, fusions of sperm, ovum and reprocessed spirits. During their lingering womb tenancies, these fragile beings dreamt remarkably: clouded glimpses of a departed homeland, to which all must eventually return.
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Epilogue:
Transmission’s End
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Every graveyard is the same, Emmett thought to himself, shivering in the light evening drizzle. Dirt, grass and plaques; that’s all it ever boils down to. Sure, they can erect a columbarium wall or commission a marble monument, but they’ll never make a depressing site cheery. This place is no different from where they buried Benjy, or where Aunt Adalia was laid to rest.
Ear buds wedged firmly in place, he stood as Timeless Knolls Memorial Park’s sole visitor, reading his erstwhile friend’s name off an impersonal stone slab. The sun was leaving the horizon; shadows lengthened by the second. Soon, the shadows would bleed into each other and swallow all scenery, which Emmett could only consider an improvement.
He never knew what to do when visiting a gravesite. It seemed so pointless to lurk ghoulishly over a decomposing body, six feet above a lifeless husk, when the deceased could just as easily be remembered from more relaxed surroundings. Still, after hearing Douglas’ story in its entirety, he had to drive over, if only to confirm the demise. Emmett had read about the bank shooting and mysterious decapitation a few weeks prior—Oceanside Credit Union’s security cameras having inexplicably blacked out—but his eyes had glazed over when reading the names of the fatalities.
He’d missed the funeral and memorial, and wondered if anyone had bothered appearing. There were no flowers at the headstone’s base, no footprints in the dampening soil—nothing to signify the presence of mourners. Emmett hoped that Carter Stanton had attended, at least, and maybe even a few of their former classmates.
As if anticipating Emmett’s last burning question, Benjy’s voice reemerged from the radio: “I know what you’re thinking, my friend. You’re wondering how, if all the other ghosts were sucked back into the Phantom Cabinet, I’m still speaking to you. Well, there’s one thing I failed to mention during this absurdly long broadcast.
“Yes, Douglas remerged with his spectral side and closed the Phantom Cabinet fissure. This resulted in all the freed specters being pulled back into the afterlife, as I’ve already said. I left out the method by which this occurred.
“You see, just as the ghosts passed through Douglas’ soul half to exit the Cabinet, they had to pass through his completed spirit to reenter it.
“So there I was, flitting through the cosmos, piggybacking on streams of satellite code, when I too found myself returning to the dead zone. But as I passed through Douglas, our old buddy noticed me. Naturally, in that strange afterlife communication method, we talked. First, he apologized for kicking my head in, and I assured him that it wasn’t his fault. Actually, it was more like we apologized to and forgave ourselves, but let’s keep this simple. Then he asked me why I’d avoided soul recycling for so long.
“I told him that I liked being a spirit, watching over the world, experiencing songs and films from within their actual broadcasts. I liked keeping an eye on old friends, and people I’d never met while living. Why should I dissolve myself for another round of flesh puppetry, my personality divided into a bunch of sweating, shitting newborns, wailing for their mothers’ tits? I enjoy my incorporeality, and have no desire to end it.
“So he offered me a choice. Douglas said that I could stay out of the Phantom Cabinet for as long as I like, with but one condition. You see, he knew that he’d soon submit to the spectral foam, and so I’d no longer be able to pass through his spirit to reenter the afterlife. To permit this reentry, I had to link my essence with another’s, so that I’d be drawn back into the Phantom Cabinet upon their demise.
“Well, you see where this is going. I chose you, Emmett old boy. When you die, I’ll be heading to the great hereafter right alongside you. I can even show you the sights, if you want.
“Yes, my friend, we’ll be hanging out for some while yet. Toss your satellite radio and I’ll show up on your TV screen; switch to basic cable and I’ll crawl inside your GPS. We’re closer than brothers now, linked at the very core. In fact, you’re the last person on Earth who can legitimately claim to be haunted. You should be honored.”
Emmett frowned, reeling at the implications. Then he shrugged, pulled the buds from his head, and dropped his radio to the soil. Haunted he might now be, but he would be damned if he’d spend every waking moment listening to Benjy talk.
Drenched and shivering, feet slipping on slickened grass, Emmett trudged his way out of the graveyard, contemplating the bone leavings six feet beneath. It dawned on him then that all the peaceniks had been right, after all. Race is meaningless. What use does a skeleton have for ethnicity, with its pigmented epidermis long since discarded? Decomposition erases even gender, removing every insignificant boundary separating one person from another. What is a body, anyway, besides a temporary home for one’s current soul fragment amalgamation?
His thoughts twisting in existential spirals, Emmett prepared for the status quo’s comeback. He had a job to return to, perhaps even an ex-girlfriend to look up. Story time had been fun, granted, but his newly gained knowledge held no practical application. Consciousness expanding insight doesn’t pay the bills, after all.
Night descended, slumber’s faithful herald. There came no hand bursting from graveyard soil, no final message from a departed hero. Douglas Stanton was gone, entirely reallocated, fated to join the ranks of the forgotten within a handful of decades.
Circling the sun at 67,000
miles per hour, Earth maintained its unwavering orbit. From the fringes of its gravity cocoon, satellites broadcasted songs and stories to inspire songs and stories, until the moments when they too succumbed to entropy. Slipping away to junk orbit oblivion, these man-sculpted behemoths rested in their own cosmic graveyard—desiccated, drifting discarded above those they’d once served.
Seasons continued to bleed from one to the next, their paces accelerating for each aging consciousness. Stars flared out in phoenix fire flashes, their dust tithing—each grain an alchemist’s bounty—soon reaped by solar winds. These same winds howled for the living, and all of those yet to be born.
Everyone…everywhere…continued.
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About the Author
Jeremy Thompson is a Southern California-based writer of horror, SF, thrillers and bizarro fiction. His published work includes The Fetus and Other Stories and The Phantom Cabinet, as well as Into the Darkness: Volume One’s closing tale.