Phantom (33 page)

Then Ned noticed lines in the ground. There
were only a few at first, but they increased steadily. The lines
were both straight and curved, mostly short, and they seemed to be
scattered naturally at random. A little further along, Ned saw that
the whole face of the mountain was tattooed with these curious
lines. There was something familiar about them. Ned wondered if he
had seen them in another place, a long time ago.

A sudden impulse made him look up. There it
was. The top of the mountain.

The ground was softer. It seemed to be
composed of some kind of caked dust and broken shells. The lines
were lost now, but they had pointed to this. Ned wanted to ignore
it, but part of his brain told him it was important. He tried to
think, to connect what he was seeing to something in his memory.
The woman was tugging, but she couldn't distract him. The
realization hit him, and it was a tidal wave of horror. For the
first time, he stopped the woman. He dug his hands into the ground
and then held them up.

These are bones!
his mind screamed.

—
Come.

Bones and skulls! This whole mountain is a
burial mound.

—
Come now.

The woman pulled Ned along as if he were a
troublesome puppy, but she didn't bother to shut him up. He could
babble all he wanted now. They were at the top of the mountain.

Everyone who ever lived must be here,
billions and billions of them. Piled up to make—a mountain.

Steps carved into the mountaintop provided
the only access to the peak itself, which was a flat, circular
area. Ned was snatched up onto it and let loose. The woman stood by
the top step, watching him. Now that he was here, he looked around.
He walked the circumference. The drop, at every point, was sheer.
How many miles below was the rest of the planet? Fifty, perhaps. Or
none, for the planet was no longer there. Just the top of the
mountain of death, and the void. It doesn't matter, Ned thought,
and that's why there are no answers. He came back to the woman.

Her eyes burned, but with a cold, lifeless
fire. The smile on her face belonged to her alone; it shared
nothing with Ned. She still looked beautiful—in fact, more
beautiful by far than she had at any time before this moment. Ned
was almost tempted to give up and throw himself into her arms, but
he knew it would be a mistake. And useless. Forget all that eternal
love and peace stuff. It was time to stop looking for mirages.

Are you Mrs. Farley?

The woman laughed. Then she kicked a skull
with her foot.

—
That is Mrs.
Farley.

She laughed again and kicked another
skull.

—
Or that is. Pick anyone you
like and that is Mrs. Farley.

The woman's amused laughter echoed
unpleasantly in Ned's mind. He got down on his knees before her and
looked at the ground. He brushed the dust and bones with the palm
of his hand, as if he were choosing a place for himself. But
something was pushing in his mind, trying to surface and break out.
Ned stared at the ground, waiting for it to come. Please. Anything.
The woman caught that and laughed. Then, without looking, Ned knew
she was bending down, reaching for him. His fingers traced two
bones in the dust. They were lying at a certain angle to each
other. Ned recognized it. He picked up one of the bones and turned
to meet the woman.

Are you Death?

—
Your very own.

Remember my scarecrow?

The bone had a sharp, jagged end where it
had broken. Ned rammed it into the woman, driving the full length
of it up under her ribs toward her heart. No blood. Ned backed off
several steps. The woman's eyes were shut, but she didn't move.
Nothing happened. Can you kill Death? Ned didn't think so, but the
bones had reminded him of the scarecrow and part of his brain had
roared the order to stab the woman ....

Her eyelids opened, revealing empty sockets.
Her mouth opened in a wide, cavernous smile. She started walking
towards Ned, and as she came closer, spiders crawled out of her
dark eye sockets. More of them poured out of her mouth. They
streamed over her face and down the front of her robe. Hundreds of
spiders gushed out of her, and still the woman came, smiling. Her
laughter boomed deafeningly.

Ned was incapable of thinking anymore. He
turned and ran as fast as he could. When he reached the edge he
didn't stop, but hurled himself off the peak and into the void. He
tumbled through space, terrified of only one thing: that when he
got to the bottom, she would be it.

The mountain was still there. Ned plummeted
past what looked like an endless wall of grinning human skulls—it
snaked nightmarishly around him but after a while it didn't bother
him. Falling is a kind of peace in itself, and it can be so
exquisite that great velocity is transformed into a long, gentle
glide. The best thing is to have no place to land and to keep
falling. Ned thought he could stay this way forever. That word
again. Maybe it was valid at last. Maybe he was finally becoming
that single free atom he wanted to be, falling aimlessly through
the universe.

But now Ned saw something.
He was flying toward a point of light. It was streaking up to meet
him. When he recognized it, he knew he was about to die. It made
him think again of something the woman had said. The phantom in his
room, the woman—they were one and the same. Who are you? Ned had
asked.
You
, had
been the answer. Death is the phantom you meet up with, and it
looks like you.

So did the point of light Ned flew into.

* * *

29. 4:50 A.M.

No! You can't have him!

Linda put her mouth over Ned's, pinching his
nose at the same time, and tried to force her breath into him. His
teeth were locked shut. There was no take.

She clutched her hands together and slammed
them down on his chest as hard as she dared. She did it again, half
expecting to hear her son's bones crack. Broken bones didn't
matter. Nothing mattered anymore but the life of her child. If it
were possible, she would have tom open his chest, seized his heart
and squeezed the life back into it.

Take me instead. Oh, please ....

Linda put the oxygen mask back on Ned's
face, hooking the loops behind his ears. She turned the valve on
full and then went back to pounding his chest desperately. Was it
too late? How much time was there—minutes, seconds—before he was
beyond reach? The ghastly details of death howled in her mind.
First, irreversible brain damage would set in. Then the brain would
liquefy.

Dear God, let him live!

How had it happened? In a
swift, devastating moment, less than the span of a single day,
everything she had dreaded for years had come to pass. In a way,
her husband had been right. All that worrying had been silly,
irrelevant. For now that
it
was on her, and Ned, nothing she could do had any
significance. Just two more lives ground to bits in the blind,
inexorable march of nature. Coming from nowhere, going nowhere, two
infinitesimal blips on the face of darkness. There, then
gone.

Take me with him.

Linda rocked on her feet. She was dizzy and
the room was a blur drifting around her. Only the bed was still,
like a raft inexplicably anchored in a turbulent sea. She climbed
onto it and sat by Ned. Her breath rattled alarmingly, and the germ
of a new desire began to grow within her. The desire to surrender
now, to have it all end.

Her arms continued to rise and fall
mechanically, her double fist making a dull splatting sound when it
hit Ned's chest. But her strength was running out fast. There was
no force left in her efforts. How could she bear to go on living if
she failed Ned? She had to die, for him or with him. Michael would
survive, but not Linda. She knew herself too well. This was it.

NO!
Linda screamed. She fell forward onto Ned, her body covering
him like a blanket. Black spots appeared, quickly filling her
vision.

Take me ....

It took Michael a few moments to realize
that he was sitting up. The bed felt strange, and the pattern of
darkness around him was unfamiliar. Then he remembered: he was
sleeping in Ned's room. Why was he awake? He thought he had heard
someone call out, but the recollection of it was dim and distant,
like the wing light of an airplane flying away into the night.
Maybe he had heard something, maybe not.

Linda. Ned. Better check.

He moved, and winced. Michael's mouth was
sticky and foul, his head felt like a wad of steel wool. Christ, I
only had a couple of drinks, he thought. I was fine when I went to
bed. Scotch, that was it. Scotch always did this to him, and yet he
persisted in drinking the stuff. Not for the first time, Michael
vowed to switch to white liquor. Vodka, that's the ticket.

What was he doing? Oh, yeah. He stood up,
groped his way to the door and shuffled down the hallway toward the
patch of illumination that spilled from the master bedroom.
Something came back to him. "Your lovecraft ebbing," or something
like that. It was the punch line to one of Bill Kinloch's punishing
jokes. But Michael couldn't remember what came before it.

The scene was weird. A magazine on the
floor. Linda sprawled on the bed beside Ned, one arm flung across
the boy protectively. Ned's pajama shirt was open and there were
bruises on his body. What the hell had gone on here? Linda's
emergency bottle of oxygen was on the bed too, its mask hissing
uselessly at the side of Ned's face. Michael was puzzled but not
immediately worried, because the most curious aspect of this
curious tableau was that his wife and son appeared to be sleeping
peacefully. Well, Ned did look pale. Michael put the back of his
hand to the boy's forehead. The temperature was down, no doubt
about it. Ned looked very still, though .... Too still? Michael
took Ned's hand and tried to find a pulse. Come on. It has to be
here somewhere. Was Ned breathing? Just for a second, Michael
wasn't sure. But then Ned jumped slightly in bed and sighed deeply.
The digital clock-radio on the night table read 4:50 and blinked to
4:51.

Michael shut the valve on the oxygen; that
stuff costs money. Wife okay, son okay. It was almost dawn. So,
what's it all about, Alfie? He would ask Linda in the
morning—later. There would be plenty of time to talk—later. Right
now, Michael asked himself again: Why am I awake? He straightened
out the sheet and pulled it up to cover Linda and Ned. Gently, he
removed the oxygen mask and bottle, setting them down on the floor
by the bed.

There was enough room if he slept on the
side, with Ned in the middle and Linda on the other side. Your
regular family sandwich. Michael turned off the lamp and slipped
into bed. It occurred to him that the alarm probably wasn't set,
but he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. If he was
late, he was late; so what. He had to slide Ned over a few inches.
The boy stirred briefly in his sleep, exhaling three whispery
words.

"Dad—the moon .... "

Michael smiled. Not tonight, son.

* * *

Summer's End

Ned borrowed his mother's gardening gloves
without telling her. He put them on and sat down at his desk.
Before him was an ordinary tablet of ruled paper, the kind you
could buy in thousands of stores across the country. He tore off a
sheet from the middle of the pad. Ned didn't really believe they
would check for fingerprints, but maybe they would have nothing
better to do. Maybe they would decide to make a big case out of
this. Why take a chance? He had to do it right: no traces, no
clues. He picked up a number 2 pencil and began to print large
block letters.

Dear Sir

A few days ago I was in the old Lynnhaven
spa on the hill. There is a body of a dead person in one of the
rooms there. I thought somebody should know about it and take care
of it. Whoever it was must have died a long time ago because it is
just a skeleton really.

Somebody Who Saw It

Ned stared at the message for a few moments,
decided it was all right and folded the piece of paper. He took the
envelope, which he had extracted from the packet on his parents'
writing desk downstairs, and addressed it to the Police Department,
Lynnhaven. Ned knew they might think it was just a prank, but he
thought they would probably go to the spa and take a look anyhow. A
dead body is too serious to ignore. Besides the problem had nagged
Ned ever since the day he had been at the spa. He couldn't come up
with a better idea than this anonymous note. He put the message in
the envelope and sealed it.

This was the first time he was being let out
of the house since he had been sick. For five whole days he had
felt fine, but he had been restricted to either his bed or the
living-room sofa. His mother and father had insisted. They weren't
taking any chances and they had to be convinced that Ned was fully
recovered. Ned didn't like it, but he guessed he could understand
it. He knew he had been sick—really sick. He couldn't remember much
about it. There was a day missing from his life.

His parents unintentionally told him how
serious it had been. At some point during the illness, he woke up
in the big bed and heard them talking. They obviously thought he
was asleep and it sounded like they were standing just outside the
bedroom door, in the hallway. Their voices were hushed, but it was
clear to Ned that they were having more than just a casual
conversation. He didn't catch all of it, but he heard enough.

His mother kept saying his heart had
stopped! It was astounding, and yet Ned believed it because she
said it without the slightest hint of doubt. His father thought she
had imagined it or else had simply not noticed Ned's pulse in her
excitement. He told her she had probably been on the verge of
hysteria and wouldn't have heard a bomb go off. Ned could tell his
father was losing this argument, and he smiled when they dropped
it, agreeing not to mention a word of it to the boy.