Phantasos (7 page)

Twelve

BENJI OPENED HIS EYES TO THE soft morning light filtering its way through the blinds in the Emerson’s living room. He awoke in the recliner, and he had a cramp in his leg. Lauren was flipped on her stomach on the couch, her magazine crumpled on the floor beside her. Alley was asleep on the rug, curled up like a cat, a Nintendo controller still firmly in his clutch even though the console and the television had been shut off.

The house was quiet, empty, and still, save for Benji, Lauren, and Alley. Benji figured that the Emerson’s must have left for work already; how they managed to tiptoe around the trio without waking them, Benji had no clue. Then again, teenagers can sleep through anything.

He stood up and stretched his legs, trying to will away the cramp. After a good stretch the cramp lessened and he yawned, louder than he meant to. Lauren started to stir.

“Wakey wakey,” Benji said, playfully.

Lauren grunted, tossed a throw pillow at Benji, then rolled over and buried her face into a couch cushion.

Benji grinned, nodded, and wandered off towards the kitchen on his own. He stretched his arms over his head and examined the kitchen; just like his parents, the Emerson’s left for work early in the morning. So, the kitchen was untended to, and still a mess from the night before. No one bothered to put Alley’s cake in the refrigerator, so the frosting had spread thin and oozed out over the remaining slices of cake. The lettering on the cake that once said “Happy Birthday, Alec!” now read as: “H  y   b    y,  A   !”

With a sigh, Benji picked up some paper plates, stray napkins, empty plastic cups—whatever he could get his hands on—and started tossing them indiscriminately into the trash. The kitchen was halfway back to normal when Lauren walked in.

She opened the fridge door, grabbed a jug of Sunny Delight, and started sipping it from the bottle. When she had enough, she returned it to the fridge and asked Benji, “What are you doing?”

“Just cleaning up a little.”

“All right. That’s a little weird, but all right.”

“Why weird?”

Lauren meandered to the pantry, took out a loaf of bread, and sunk a couple of slices into the kitchen toaster. She set the dial to a high setting and plunged the lever on the side of the appliance. “It’s just kind of weird to clean up someone else’s house, don’t you think?”

Benji shrugged, tossed some plastic utensils into the trashcan, and continued to clean. “Maids clean other people’s houses.”

“Yeah, but. You’re not our maid.”

“Then I’m just being a decent friend, Lore. What’s gotten into you?”

“Just forget it,” Lauren said. “It’s really nice that you’re helping clean up. Forget what I said, how I’m acting. Just forget it.”

Benji stopped what he was doing to look at Lauren for the first time since she woke up, to really
look
at her. She looked like hell. Dark circles under her eyes, strands of hair flying in every other direction. Like she had tossed and turned all night.

“What is it?” Benji asked

The smell of burning Wonder Bread wafted through the kitchen.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on. You’ll feel better.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “I had the dream again. The worst it’s ever been.”

Benji took a deep breath, exhaled sharply. The dream. The
dream
. She needn’t have to say more—though he hoped she would, she always felt better after venting—and he knew exactly what the dream was about. If the conversation had stopped there, the entire matter would have went unspoken. Benji would have known exactly why Lauren was so distraught.

“What happened differently in this one?” Benji asked, not sure that he wanted to know the answer.

“It’s Alley’s…you know…and we’re all standing around in this great big church. I mean, the building is three times as tall as it is wide. The arches seem to go on forever, reaching for the sky. It’s hard to see through the stained glass, but it is dark out. It’s about to rain, if it hasn’t already. I can’t tell. Anyways, we’re all there, and we’re walking up to him one by one. And my parents are a wreck, your parents are a wreck, everyone—they’re just in absolute agony.

“And it’s my turn to walk up, and I look over into the…you know…and he’s lying there, so still.”

Lauren stopped, rubbed her eyes with her palms. Her thinly applied eyeliner started to smear.

“Only this time, something isn’t right, it isn’t the same, and I can tell. I can just
tell.
And I reach down to feel him, or to hug him, just one more time and he springs up. He springs up, turns his head to me, and opens his eyes. Big, red, fiery eyes. And he screams—he screams in this inhuman voice—he screams: ‘This is all your fault. This is all your fault and you know it, you worthless bitch.’”

Benji froze where he stood. Shivered. “Then what happened?”

Lauren choked for a second, then said, “Then? Then this tall, gnarly goon is standing above me, saying ‘Wakey, wakey,’ with his stupid smile.”

Benji nodded, then went back to tossing things into the garbage. He didn’t want to let on, but just the mere mention of Lauren’s dream had upset him, too.

“Well? What do you think?” she said.

Benji raised his eyebrows high, tossed an empty two-liter of Coke into the nearly filled trashcan and said, “I think it means we shouldn’t watch so many Nightmare on Elm Street marathons at The Marquee.”

“You’re right,” Lauren said. “You’re right. It’s just that—anytime we’re on spring break, or summer break, or any type of vacation where I’m home and my parents aren’t, I feel so much responsibility to look after him. I constantly fear that I will fail him. That I’ll forget one of his meds at lunch, or that he’ll fall down the stairs while I’m watching TV or tanning in the yard.”

“He’s not…” Benji paused. “He’s not a paper doll,” Benji said.

“He might as well be.”

“You worry too much. He’s a tough kid. You’re stressing yourself out needlessly.”

“Maybe,” Lauren said. “But it doesn’t necessarily help when I catch you speeding down Shady Reach at one hundred miles an hour, and neither of you are wearing a helmet.”

“That was a one time occurrence,” Benji said, “and I promised we’d wear them in the future.” By now the kitchen was practically spotless. He started taking down some deflated balloons. “Besides, haven’t I repented?

Lauren smiled. “How late were you two up playing that infernal game?”

“At least midnight. Maybe later. We got pretty far, too, just to find out that there isn’t a save feature.”

“So you lost all your progress?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Alley found this clever trick in one of his magazines, though…early on in the game, if you get a flute, you can sort of fly back to where you were…” He could tell by Lauren’s face that she was losing interest.

“Fly? On a flute?”

“It’s kind of convoluted, but it works. You’d think for forty-five-freakin’ dollars, there’d be a save feature built in.”

Lauren shrugged.

By now, maybe because of all the stirring in the kitchen, Alley was wide-awake. When he strolled into the room, his sister was buttering some toast, and Benji was pouring a giant bowl of Honey Smacks. Benji looked up and said, “There’s the man of the hour. Can I fix you a bowl, too?”

“Sure,” Alley said, “sounds good.”

Lauren became paranoid, wondering how much—if any—of her conversation with Benji her little brother may have overheard. “Sleep good?”

Alley sighed. “As good as you can sleep on the floor, I guess.” He poked some sleep dust from the corner of his eye. “I had a weird nightmare.”

“About what?” Benji asked.

“You know, as soon as I woke up, I forgot about it. So I guess it couldn’t have been too bad.”

Benji poured some milk over Alley’s Honey Smacks, and the trio sat down at the kitchen table together.

Alley said, “So, we gonna bike over to Planet X later?”

Benji looked out the kitchen window at the menacing thunderheads forming far, far off on the horizon.

“I don’t know,” Benji said. “It looks like it might start to storm.”

Thirteen

TODD WOKE UP LATE IN THE morning. By the time he rose from bed, the sun was already high overhead, its rays struggling to break through a cluster of dark, billowy clouds looming in the distance.

He started his morning routine the same as any other day: a quick shower followed by a simple breakfast (scrambled eggs, coffee). He put out some food for his cat, Elvira. Today, he poured a little extra in her dish.

The one break in routine was when he sat down at his kitchen table with a notebook and a pen. He scribbled out a note, tore the paper out, folded it in half, and placed it on the table. Then he repeated himself—again, he scribbled out a note, tore it from the metal spiral of the notebook, folded it neatly, and placed it on the table.

He stood and glanced around his apartment, giving it a quick inventory. On a bookshelf near the rear of his living room was a photo of Shelly and him, taken at the Statue of Liberty several years earlier. Shelly was looking directly into the lens of the Polaroid camera, Todd was looking away and off to the side.

What a beautiful picture that could have been,
he thought.

Todd knelt down, stroked Elvira’s back, then grabbed his keys from the counter and exited his apartment.

Danny knew that Todd wasn’t coming into work that day. After the night before—long, mysterious phone calls in the office; flagrant intoxication; sobbing—the two both agreed that a day off was probably in Todd’s best interest.

Todd walked outside, stood next to his Pontiac Fiero, and studied the horizon for a moment. The early morning sun was positively beautiful, bathing the drab parking lot of his apartment complex in lively shades of gold. It was breathtaking, even with the thunderheads inching closer in the distance.

He started the drive up to North Grand Ridge, towards the Sunway Hotel on the edge of town. He clicked a button on the car radio and a tune by Van Halen started to play. A good omen, Todd figured.

The drive up the I-3 was quiet and uneventful, so he passed the time by drumming his fingers on his steering wheel while the Fiero rattled along. He sang quietly to himself, cheerfully:
She take me down, down, down, to the bottom…
and then he hummed the rest of the lyrics that he didn’t know.

Traffic was light. By sleeping in late, he’d dodged the early rush hour entirely. Up ahead, he saw a bright green highway sign approaching. Exit 27. If Todd remembered right, that was the exit that would take him to the Sunway. Not that it really mattered. Even if he was wrong, he could pull over somewhere and ask for directions. He wasn’t in a rush.

He steered the Fiero to the right, merged into traffic, and caught his exit. His car slowed to a stop at a red light, and as he waited, he caught a young couple in the car beside him laughing and playfully tickling one another. He must have been staring too long, because the girl in the passenger seat noticed him and glared, and the couple’s vehicle sped off just as a car behind Todd started to honk.

“It’s green, moron,” a voice yelled.

Todd raised his hand into the rearview mirror, waved, and continued on.

The Sunway was in a miserable, forgotten, old stretch of town at the end of a long and winding road dotted with shady liquor stores and housing projects. He wondered why the Sunway, of all damn places, a place known only for drug and prostitution busts on the evening news, would be the preferred place of meeting. He shrugged. Just another item on a long list of things that no longer made any sense.

Nothing made sense,
nothing,
Todd realized, in the past forty-eight hours. In fact, everything had gone quite to shit ever since…ever since…

Ever since that arcade cabinet showed up,
Todd thought. And he tried to rationalize if the sudden string of odd occurrences could somehow be related to the arrival of Phantasos. But, of all the things that didn’t make sense, that made the
least
sense. If anything, Phantasos had been the only ray of hope he’d seen in the past two days. It would surely drum up business at the arcade, and the game itself was the most wondrous thing he’d set eyes on in recent memory. He remembered the first time he played the game and the dazzling visuals that drew him in, as if he was in another world—

A raccoon ran out into the street in front of Todd, and he stomped on the brake pedal of the Fiero. The car screeched, fish tailed slightly, and came to an abrupt stop just before it would have flattened the creature. The raccoon looked at Todd through the windshield, frozen in fear. Todd honked the horn of the car and yelled, “Get outta the way, would ya?”

The raccoon stood motionless in the road, staring at Todd, and for the first time all morning Todd began to fill with a particular brand of dread. He had been uneasy, sure, ever since he agreed to meet Shelly on the outskirts of town. But this—the two lane road, dense with foliage, ramshackle houses, and sketchy convenience stores; the raccoon staring a hole through him; the smell of burnt rubber tickling his nostrils—it all made his stomach feel sour, and for a moment he considered turning his car around and forgetting the entire thing had ever happened.

Honk. Honk.
Todd repeatedly tapped the car horn, yelled: “Go, go on, get. You stupid raccoon!” And suddenly, as if it had seen something that spooked it, the raccoon darted off into the bushes on the side of the road.

Todd drove up to the Sunway, parked his car, and glanced around anxiously. There were hardly any other cars in the mostly vacant lot. A neon sign to the side of the building flickered, read: Vacancy. Todd thought,
Of course ‘Vacancy,’ who in their right mind would decide to sleep
in a place like this?

He strolled into the front office. In the confusion of his phone call with Shelly, he realized, he had never asked her for her room number. So, short of knocking on each door to find her, and risk being shot at (or worse), Todd approached the weathered woman sitting behind the front desk.

“Excuse me,” he said meekly.

“Whadda ya want,” the woman said, and she took a long draw off of her cigarette. She didn’t bother to turn away from the seven-inch black and white television she was watching.

“I’m looking for someone who’s staying here. I’m not sure what room she’s in. Shelly Flynn.”

“Lotta men come in here lookin’ for women.” The woman shrugged and took another puff of her cigarette, then glanced at the cash register.

“Cut me a break, lady.” Todd said. “You think I’m going to fork over some cash, for what—to find out which room she’s in?”

Again the woman shrugged.

Todd reached over the counter, yanked a clipboard that was dangling in front of the woman, and glanced through a small chart of names and room numbers. Shelly Flynn—125.

“There,” he said, “that’s all I needed to know.” He threw the clipboard back behind the counter of the front desk. He was agitated enough; this ordeal only amped him up more.

The woman at the front desk flushed with anger. “The hell you think you are, fella?” she said, then she snorted, as if she was preparing to spit. “I should call the cops on ya.”

Todd was nearly out the front door. He took a look around the place, said, “I bet you won’t.”

“Getcher ass outta here,” the woman grunted, but Todd had already shut the door.

Todd knocked on the door to 125. Next door, in 126, he saw the curtains flutter. He felt like he was being watched. The curtains went still, and Todd knocked again.

Knock, knock, knock.

The door to 126 opened, and a man with a scraggly beard and very few teeth poked his head outside. “The hell is wrong with you, man? Ain’t no one in—”

The door to 125 opened, and a shimmering head of blonde curls poked out.

“My apologies, man, my apologies,” the strange fellow in 126 said, and he ducked back inside and shut his door.

Todd stood, completely frozen and still, taking in all five feet of Shelly as she stood before him. His hands turned icy, his vision went blurry, and his ears pin holed—for a moment he was certain he would pass out where he stood.

She looked exactly how she did the last time he saw her, gorgeous and radiant. So full of life. So perfect.

“Well?” Shelly said. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

Todd’s eyes swelled with grief. “Hello.” The word came out choked and uneven.

“Are you feeling all right, sugar plum?” she said.

“I’m fine, I just. I can’t believe that…” Todd paused. “It’s so nice to see you again, Shelly. I’ve missed you so much.”

Todd stumbled forward, wrapped his arms around her, and squeezed her tight. She reciprocated, held him close, and the two stood together for a long while.

“Let’s get out of this dingy place, yeah?” Shelly said. She leaned back and kissed him on his forehead, then reached into her purse and pulled out a big pair of Jackie-O sunglasses and slid them on her face. “Let’s go for a drive.”

The car hummed along the back roads of North Grand Ridge. The pair weren’t saying much to one another.

“Where do you want to go?” Todd said.

Shelly replied, “Why, wherever you want, handsome.”

Again, the car went silent. Todd drove, white knuckled, sometimes too afraid to look beside him at his passenger.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” Shelly said.

“I guess…I guess I just don’t know what to say,” Todd said. “I always wondered what I’d say to you again if I had the chance. There were so many things. But now…now I’m just...” He accelerated. “Blank.”

“Well, this will pep you up,” Shelly said, and she reached into her purse and pulled out a small paper towel. She unwrapped it, revealing the prize inside: a thick hunk of partially melted fudge. “Why don’t you have a bite?” Shelly said, and she smiled. “Just one bite.”

“I’m not hungry, Shell,” Todd said.

Shelly looked perturbed. “But I brought it all the way from New York for you. You’ve gone and hurt my feelings.”

The car slowed to a stop at a railroad crossing. The gate lowered, a warning signal chimed, and two red lights beside the arm of the gate started to flicker back and forth.

“I don’t know what that is, but it’s not fudge, and it’s not from New York. And I won’t eat it.”

“Baby,” Shelly said. “What are you so sore about?”

In the distance, Todd could hear the faint whistle of a train and the far off drone of a chugging locomotive.

“Cut the bullshit,” Todd said. “You aren’t my Shelly. I don’t know who you are, but you sure as hell aren’t her.”

“Baby…” Shelly said, and she placed a palm on Todd’s knee. Despite his foot being on the brake, the car inched forward.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Are you crazy?”

“I’m not doing anything. You’re the driver, stud.”

The car rolled forward, the windshield brushing against the bottom of the crossing gate.

“You’re insane,” Todd said, and the car continued onwards.

“If I’m not Shelly,” Shelly said, and the car scraped underneath the crossing gate. The front tires were practically touching the tracks. “Then why would you agree to meet me?”

Todd was hot, now. Hot with panic and fright and queasiness. A cold sweat was beading on his forehead. He stomped the gas: the car did nothing. He stomped the brake: the car did nothing. He shifted into park, out of park, slammed the steering wheel—no bother. No matter what he did, the car continued to roll forward at a snail’s pace. In a moment they’d be square atop the tracks.

“I wanted to know what it felt like,” Todd said, “to see you again—to touch you again—to be held by you again. If I had known that the last time I saw you would be the last time I would ever see you, I would have held you so much longer that morning. I would have made us breakfast and told you to skip your audition, and I would have never let you go.”

Shelly laughed. “You’re all the same. So sentimental.”

The Fiero was sitting perfectly centered on the train tracks now, parked; it refused to move backwards or forward. Todd jiggled the handle of the driver’s side door, but it wouldn’t budge. He tugged at his seatbelt, but it wouldn’t unclick.

“Going somewhere?” Shelly asked with a smirk.

Suddenly, Todd went calm, and he sat still in his seat. The light from the front of the locomotive was shining on him now—a bright, hot, intense light—and the frantic whistle blowing of the engineer was as impatient and close and horrifying as ever.

“That’s unusual,” Shelly said. “Now is ordinarily the time when the terror starts, and the begging, and the pleading, and et cetera…”

Todd sat still. “You’ll have none of that from me. The day I lost you—the day I lost Shelly, the
real
Shelly—I said, ‘I can never go another day without her.’ And I suppose now I’ve finally got my wish.”

Shelly took off her pair of Jackie-O’s. Where bright, beautiful, steely grey eyes should be were nothing but black, empty sockets. Her jaw unhinged, her teeth grew long and sharp, and she tilted her head back and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Todd shut his eyes tightly, trying to ignore the cackling monstrosity to the right of him and the impending doom to the left of him. The locomotive barreled forward, the ground thundering beneath him, the small car shuddering from the vibrations.