Phantom (10 page)

Ned knew it was late in the day and that the
sensible thing would be to go home so that he would be there in
plenty of time for supper. He had found the way, he could return
whenever he wanted, tomorrow even, and resume his exploration of
the spa. Yes, that was the sensible thing to do.

But ... Ned was here now, and it seemed
silly to have come so far only to turn away just when he had
reached what might be the best part of the expedition. If he left
now he would be awake all night, wondering what he had missed. The
corrugated metal leaned there, glinting dully in the sunlight, so
close, an invitation rather than a barrier. How easy it would be to
push it to the inside, to the fortress heart and headquarters of
the dead spa. To the center of it all. The ruined walls outside
were amazing, but who knew what might be found inside? The rusty
hulks of Frankenstein machines, perhaps, or a closet full of skulls
and bones .... It was frightening, but there was no other way of
seeing what the spa was like, and maybe even finding out what
people had done there. It was frightening, but irresistible. No, of
course he couldn't leave now. There might not be enough time to go
through the whole place, nor even all of this wing, but he could
look at a few rooms and then, having planted his flag, make it home
before supper had gathered too much dust. Ned moved.

What followed was a far more threatening
version of his first attempt on the spa wall. As soon as Ned got
his weight onto the grille, part of it ripped free of the weak,
powdery cement and tilted out away from the building. Terrified, he
could do nothing but hang on, and then it gave way completely,
rushing him to the ground below. He landed on his back in a patch
of spongy plants that cushioned the blow and spared him serious
injury. But the wind had been knocked out of him and for a while
all he could do was lie there, stunned, until things slowly began
drifting back into focus and he realized what had happened to him.
.

I'm trapped.

Before, he had been above,
looking down from the safe height of the walls, surveying the
grounds almost casually. But now he was down, well and truly caught
within the confines of the spa. There was a feeling of dread in
him, the fear that he had crossed an invisible line, taken that one
step too many—and that now he would pay for it. I have to get to
the terrace and find a way out of here, Ned told himself
urgently.
Otherwise ...

Ned shoved the treacherous
wrought-iron grille off his chest, and in doing so became aware of
the fact that
he was
sinking
. Something cold and wet oozed
through his clothes and it felt as if the earth were trying to draw
him into itself. He tried to push himself up, but his hands plunged
into creamy black mud that nearly caused him to vomit. Dimly, it
made sense to him. This corner of the property, well shaded by the
building and wall, had turned to swamp, and he had fallen into it
... quicksand? Ned had never seen quicksand, except in the movies,
but in his mind the word was as touchy and potent as
nitroglycerine. One person alone could never escape from it. When
it got in your ears you stopped thinking, your brain was instantly
dead. Like the Sandman, it filled you, seeping into your nose and
mouth, blinding your eyes. And in the end, you disappeared
forever.

Ned forced himself to
concentrate; panic would only make matters worse. If that was
possible. He remembered what he was supposed to do. Lie flat and
make no violent moves. Your body is light, he thought, even if it
doesn't feel that way. It is light enough to stay on the surface,
if you let it. Eyes closed, Ned lay still. It's all part of the
same rule, he reminded himself. The only difference is, you're not
in bed now and you can
feel
the demon danger through your clothes and on your
hands, you can smell it. Ned expected the awful slime to flow into
his ears at any second, but it didn't. The rule was working once
again. Finally, he opened his eyes. The forbidding face of the spa
building towered over him, and Ned wouldn't have been surprised to
hear it boom out,
What a puny fool you are
to enter here
. Ned turned his head slightly
and saw that he hadn't sunk any farther. It might just have been
the pressure he'd exerted trying to push the heavy grille away, or
so he tried to convince himself. Anyway, the springy clumps of
weeds seemed to be holding him up somehow, and he would have to use
them if he was going to escape the foul mire.

Slowly, patiently, Ned raised his body an
inch or two and shifted it sideways. He made progress this way, as
long as he kept his movements short and gentle. But if he reached
too far or pushed a little too hard, his hands would slip through
the bog plants into the muck again.

"Aaaugghh!"

He had come face to face with a fat, shiny
creature about three inches long that looked like a snail without a
shell. Ned grabbed the disgusting thing with the tips of his
fingers and flung it as far away as he could. Was it a leech, a
bloodsucker? It must be, and if there was one there would be others
.... Ned shuddered and worked backward, awkwardly inching his way
across the swamp. He saw himself, in his mind, as a kind of human
crab crawling laterally on its back.

Abruptly, he discovered that he was on firm
ground—had been for several yards. He jumped up, patting down his
hair and body until he was sure there were no leeches on him. Ned
trembled—from the damp, he told himself. Now he looked around to
get a better idea of his position. He didn't know how much time had
been lost, but he no longer cared how late it would be when he got
home-as long as he did get home. The terrace still appeared to be
the best, perhaps only chance he had, and Ned started for it. Along
with the two huge doors, a number of windows faced onto the
terrace, so he would try to get into the building through one of
them and then out again on the front side. If that didn't work, he
could stand on the balustrade and look for a place where he might
be able to get back up onto the wall.

Before Ned reached the terrace, however, he
stumbled through a brake of brushwood and found himself looking at
a door set in the base of the building. The cellar, naturally—any
building this big was sure to have one. He hadn't seen the door
sooner because the plants had screened it from view. The door was
wedged into its stone frame, but after repeated yanking it popped
open, rattling on its corroded hinges.

Now the way was clear, the fortress
breached, but Ned hesitated. The late afternoon light illuminated
only the first few feet of the interior, leaving the rest in utter
darkness. He would be wandering around in that darkness, in the
bowels of an enormous mansion he was completely unfamiliar with,
unaided by the flashlight and matches that were in his bedroom at
home. Was this really such a good idea? Ned blamed himself again
for being so careless. You think you know what you're doing, but
you always find out the hard way that you don't. This moment seemed
to sum up everything about the day's venture. With luck, or else by
doing something the wrong way, Ned had made progress. But he had
reached the threshold in more ways than one. He knew it wouldn't be
wise to suppose he had any luck left, and he also knew that if he
did something wrong inside the building it would be his last
mistake. His allotted number, Ned sensed, had been used up. Once he
got in there, could he find his way out of the building by himself?
Could he deal with whatever he might encounter in that darkness (at
least he had been able to see that leech)? The answers to these
questions were Probably Not and No. Well, he could still try the
wall again.

No. The door was open and Ned decided that
he might as well finish what he had started. Besides, his eyes
would adjust to the darkness so he wouldn't be totally blind. Some
light must get through in there. It required a certain amount of
caution and common sense, that was all. This door led to the
basement beneath the right wing of the building, so he would just
have to work his way to the left until he found stairs. When he got
out of the cellar the going would be much easier; plenty of light
must filter in on the upper floors. It seems like a hard thing to
do, Ned reasoned with himself, until you take a second look at the
problem and break it down, and then you find it's simple. Sort
of.

It was like stepping into a black pit where
the air conditioning was on high. The temperature in the cellar
felt thirty degrees cooler than outside. Enough light came through
the doorway to show Ned that he was in a small room, and he could
just make out another door in the wall ahead of him. It opened
easily, but the outside light died at that point. Ned moved into
the next room and waited for his eyes to adjust. Every room must
have a door, he thought. Rather than walk straight ahead it would
be better to follow the wall until he found the next door. At last
Ned came to the conclusion that his eyes were as ready as they
would ever be, and that he. was not going to see much of anything.
Taking a deep breath, he turned left and walked. The rectangle of
pale light at the outside door was gone now, so it was all the more
important that he concentrate on what he was doing. Ned kept the
back of his left hand pressed against the wall, and he walked by
sliding his feet along the gritty floor. He held his right hand out
in front to warn him of any object in his path.

He continued this way for a while, and then
his left hand tapped wood instead of the rough stone wall. Okay,
here was another door. Ned was about to open it when he paused to
think again. He had been moving more or less parallel to the
outside wall of the building, which meant that this door probably
opened into a room similar to the first one he had entered. If so,
it was of no use to him. Of course, it was always possible there
was a stairway in there ... but probably not. Ned left the door
shut and went on, encouraged by the possibility, a new one, that he
was in a corridor that ran the length of the wing—and that he was
advancing right to the center. Although it was uncomfortable to be
in such overwhelming darkness, Ned tried to ignore it by closing
his eyes and pretending the place was actually lit up, making a
game of his task. It seemed to work, as he felt better and was
moving faster. But then he opened his eyes, annoyed that he had
been so foolish. With his eyes closed he would miss the telltale
shaft of light that might signal stairs. Some game: he could wander
here forever with his eyes shut.

Ned passed another door, then a third, and
after that he didn't keep Count, but there were several more. He
would like to explore them all, but not today, not without a light.
For now, he had to stay on the straight line he was following.

How far had he walked? Surely he had come
under the center of the building by now. That was another small
mistake: if he had counted his paces he would at least have a rough
idea of where he was. Ned tried to draw a picture of the whole
building in his mind, a transparent diagram of the structure, and
then he plotted his course from point of entry. He should be
about-but it was no good, just guesswork. He could be anywhere
along that straight line. If it was straight. Ned went on, knowing
it would be yet another mistake if he were to change his plan now.
He walked at almost his normal speed, anxious to come across
something, anything other than those useless side doors.

Ned hadn't known what to expect inside the
building, although the usual images had come to mind: creaking
floors, heavy cobwebs that wrapped around you, the sound of
trailing footsteps, clanking chains, the squeal of hungry rats,
maybe even a mummified corpse whose eyes would fly open the moment
you saw it. But he experienced nothing like this, only the cold air
which thoroughly chilled him. And the silence, so vast and
conclusive that the small sounds of his own movement seemed more
than sacrilegious. It was a silence so profound that simply to be
there seemed an affront. It was a perfect place for ghosts, Ned
knew, but he had the feeling that even ghosts would feel unwelcome
here.

Ned stopped.
Too far, I've come too far
. It was impossible to think otherwise now. His senses
couldn't deceive him that much—could they? Perhaps he had marched
on into the left wing without realizing it. There comes a time in
the execution of every plan when the drawbacks can no longer be
ignored. Sooner or later, if the wall led nowhere, it would be
necessary to open a door, try something different. But Ned didn't
want to move. The wall was a comfort, his lifeline back to the
outside if he gave up in here. Although even that thought was
rapidly losing its appeal. By the time he got outside it might well
be too dark to find a way back over the wall. He had reached the
point where all plans seem unworkable. Ned knew that if he sat down
and cried he would eventually feel better, but he wasn't ready to
give in to that, at least not yet.

So he couldn't go back. That meant he would
have to make do with the emptiness and the sense of going nowhere
inside. Walls and walls and walls ... Ned wanted more than anything
to lie down, fall asleep and wake up tomorrow morning in his own
bed. Or to see flashlight beams knifing through the pitch black, to
hear shouting voices and to run crying into the arms of his father.
But things like that didn't happen, not in real life. If he was
going to be rescued, he would have to rescue himself.

He could follow this wall, or ... He could
find out if he really was in some sort of central corridor. Walk
straight out away from the wall, count the steps taken, and he
should come up against another wall. If it seemed like he was going
too far to be in a corridor, he could always turn around and count
his way back to this wall. Ned considered the idea at length before
deciding it was a reasonable experiment.