Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

  Shaky, praying that he was right, Ned got up off the floor. Sight of the skull made him shiver. But this was followed by a feeling of relief as he saw that it definitely was not his mother. Just ... someone. The spa and Ned's imagination had conspired against him before. Now he could see that there wasn't any flesh or skin left either. Death had come to this person some time ago, leaving nothing but moldering bones and that unmistakable smell. Who were you, Ned wondered, that you had to come here, of all places, to die alone and unfound. My bones will be here too, he thought grimly, if I don't take care and get out. It was time to go.

  Ned knew the bees were still in the corridor, but he went to the door and listened carefully. Their sound was a low roar, like a mighty engine straining impatiently in neutral. If Ned tried to leave that way he'd never even get close to the landing. The bees were real, like the spiders above. Not supernatural, just deadly. Everything Ned had run into so far had been natural, of this earth. The visions, the optical illusions and mind games—his own brain must have been responsible for those. Peeler had been right; this spa was a very dangerous place, whether phantoms dwelled here or not. But it does the condemned man no good to understand how dangerous the guillotine is, unless he escapes the prison. The problem at hand was how to get out of this room safely.

  Ned went to the window. He was one floor above the building's ground level, but at this end of the wing the back garden was actually about two floors away, below him. And if he went down here he would still be within the confines of those labyrinthine gardens. The jungle would swallow him. The clear area around the terrace ended about ten yards away. This side of the spa was rather different from the other side, where Ned had fallen during his previous visit. He hadn't noticed then that the gardens came right up to the building at the end of this wing. The thicket below looked uninviting. Would he be able to make his way out of it? He would have to get to one of the walls and climb up on top of it. He could make a pile of some of the brush, to stand on. It might take a lot of hard work and time—he no longer had his knife to cut the stuff with—but it could be done. Besides, there was no alternative.

  Ned tested the wrought-iron grille set in the window casing. It seemed sturdy enough. He put all his weight on it and bounced lightly. This one didn't budge. From his knapsack Ned got a fifty-foot roll of K-mart nylon rope. It would hold him-it had to. He tore off the cellophane wrapper and unwound the rope. He looped one end around the wrought iron and tied a slip knot, just as Peeler had taught him. Ned had no idea if it was a good knot for this kind of job, but it seemed a better bet than the only other one he knew—a conventional shoelace knot. He held the rope out and let it fall. It reached the ground below with plenty to spare.

  Now the question was: Would he be able to hold his own weight as he lowered himself to the ground? Ned decided against using a safety harness and kicking his way down the side of the building because that would involve too much swinging and bouncing, and he wasn't even sure how to rig .such a harness. He would simply have to rely on his hands and feet. He tied knots along the length of the rope, every three or four feet. It was tedious work, but at least it gave him "steps" to climb down on.

  Ned checked the slip knot once more to make sure it was good and snug. Then he stepped over the grille. He was nervous as he took the rope in his hands. He stood one foot on the other, with the rope pressed between his shoes. There was a brief moment of panic when he moved away from the grille and had a sudden urge to leap back to the security of the building, but he clung to his lifeline and breathed deeply to settle himself. The rope was too thin and it felt like cord cutting into Ned's palms, but he didn't dare relax his grip. Hand over hand, a few inches at a time, he descended. The rope slid obligingly through his feet, and Ned had done a good job of spacing the knots conveniently. But it still took a great deal of effort to hold himself up. His breath quickened, coming in short, sharp grunts. Sweat soaked his clothes. His hands really hurt now, and the moisture made it harder for him to keep from slipping.

  A cramp was forming in his thigh muscles, but Ned was close enough to the ground to know that he would make it. He let go of the rope and dropped the last six feet, landing on his butt in a bed of ferns. His body was sore, but he smiled with pleasure as he looked back up at the building. Beat you again, he thought. It occurred to Ned that this was probably the most daring thing he had ever done in his life. He felt a measure of pride as he examined the red welts on the palms of his hands.

  Ned rested where he sat. He ate an apple, a chocolate bar, and he took another drink of water from the canteen. The effort of coming down the rope had made his headache worse, but it was letting up now as the aspirin took effect. The loss of the knife still annoyed him. Other than that, however, he hadn't done badly. He was still alive.

  Ready to move on, Ned turned his attention to the garden he was in. It looked different, now that he was down here and actually in it. From above, even from as close as the top of the walls, it had appeared to be an impenetrable snarl of briars and weedy brush, a jungle choking on itself. But that had been deceptive. At ground level, in this area of the garden anyway, there were occasional thin spots. Beneath the taller, sprawling, bent-over bushes, there were low, tunnel-like passages through which a small body might move. It would be slow going and difficult, but if all parts of the garden were like this Ned thought he would be able to reach the clearing and terrace without having to find a way up one of the high walls.

  He went the route of least resistance, always trying to keep an eye on the walls, looking for the doorway into the next section of the garden. In some places he could almost stand upright, but most of the time he had to stay low or even crawl on his hands and knees. The knapsack on his back snagged constantly, but there was nothing he could do about it except to struggle on. Fortunately, it was cool and shady in the garden, as the tall, leafy foliage screened out a good deal of the afternoon sun.

  After about twenty minutes Ned came to a door in the wall. It wouldn't budge at first, but he kicked it several times until it scraped across the stone sill enough to let him slip through. Was there a doorway in every wall, or just one in each section of the garden? Ned tried to remember what he had observed on his previous visit, but he wasn't sure.

  He wanted to move to the left, toward the center, but he was unable to get very far that way. The dense growth shunted him more or less forward, and after a while he came to another doorway, this one already open. Ned was pushing out, away from the spa building, when he needed to be circling around and back toward the clear ground. An hour later he stopped and tried to get his bearings. He could see enough of the building to get a rough fix on where he was: perhaps halfway between the spa and the back wall, virtually in the middle of the garden and still somewhat off center. Too far, he thought. He had to cut across and back. In spite of the shade he was hot and sweaty and beginning to tire now. He sat down for five minutes to rest again. The bugs were a nuisance—tiny gnats getting in his eyes, and the unnerving buzz of ugly fat flies always around him. But Ned reminded himself that they were much better than bees. So far, no bees, no spiders and no snakes. Think of the good points.

  Funny ... These gardens had always seemed to be the worst possible place Ned could get stuck in, more frightening and dangerous even than the black cellar. Ned had imagined all kinds of strange beasts and deadly creatures lurking in this jungle, waiting to tear apart any hapless intruder. But that fear had vanished—in fact, he hadn't given it a thought—as soon as he had actually landed in the garden. Now it appeared to be no more or less threatening than any other piece of wild ground. Thicker and heavier, maybe, but aside from that Ned could just as well be hiking through part of Old Woods. If this was the devil's playground, there wasn't much to it, he thought. Not yet, anyway; he wasn't safe until he was out—and maybe not even then.

  A little further on, Ned was finally able to break left. He couldn't count the number of bramble scratches on his hands, and he knew there were some on his face, but
this turn in the right direction tapped a fresh reserve of energy and enthusiasm in him. Ducking low, brushing away the raspy weeds and saw grass, he crossed the central ground of the gardens. Now: back to the clearing and the terrace. By then he would have seen and done enough for one day. The light would be fading. He would get out of the spa through the front door and head for home. If he felt it was necessary, he could come back another day to finish the ground floor and the cellar—but right now there was no longer any sense of urgency or importance to the idea. The crazy spa and the crazy gardens had deflated a little on their own. It was a place of natural hazards, and one that lent itself to a lively imagination, but Ned hadn't really encountered anything he could honestly call supernatural. He had to smile. He could see now that he had, in a way, done what his father had always advised. He had faced the nightmare, the weird phenomena, the unexplained and unknown—and he was working his way through it, literally, and coming to certain explanations and an understanding. In the end, there would be no phantom.

  Ned located the spa building. He should be moving toward it. In that direction would be a wall and a door, he knew, followed by another wall and another door, and so on, until the clearing and the terrace. But the way was barred by an immense tangle of briars, thick as cables with vicious, inch long thorns. Jump in there and you'd bleed to death in a few minutes. Once again, Ned was steered off on a tangent, unable to complete the arc. He went the only way he could.

  When he came to the wall, he didn't recognize it, but as he edged along, looking for a doorway, it dawned on him. This was the circular garden. The one Peeler and Cloudy said probably had a hot spring or something of the sort in it. Ned had to see this. He tried to recall how the layout had looked from atop the walls. If he went into the circular garden he might lose a little time, but there was still plenty of daylight left and his course was so unpredictable anyway that it probably wouldn't make much difference. But even if it did, Ned knew he had to enter; instinct told him this was not to be passed by. He stayed close to the wall, afraid to lose sight of it. The mass of vegetation was so dense it almost seemed to push him back. The knapsack was more of a hindrance than ever now, but Ned wouldn't consider ditching it as he climbed and crawled along the base of the wall.

  The entrance itself was also a circle. No hinges, no holes. Never was a door here, Ned thought as his eyes took in the sweep of unbroken brickwork. Just inside, however, there was a kind of door. A tight cluster of twisted saplings had reared up against the inside wall. Holding his knapsack in one hand, Ned slid easily past this natural barrier and into the circular garden.

  The differences were immediately obvious. He could stand up here. The plant growth was tall, reaching the full height of the surrounding wall, but the heavy leaves were banded there at the top, forming a spiky green ceiling. The trunks, or stalks really, were thin and deformed-looking, like spun vines marred by grotesque knotty eruptions. There was hardly any ground cover or scrub—just a bare, hard clay. It was so different from any other part of the spa gardens he had been through that Ned stood for several minutes, looking around in astonishment. He wondered if a bamboo grove might be anything like this. Then he thought, Yeah, in a bad dream.

  He had been aware of the smell from the moment he had come to the entrance. It was not overpowering, but it was acrid and pervasive. Ned had performed enough experiments with his chemistry set to know it was the stink of burning sulphur. It was hard to imagine people wanting to spend time here, breathing this air, much less thinking it was somehow good for their health. Even the insects stayed out of this area; there wasn't a fly or a gnat or a bug of any kind to be seen. It was the quietest part of the spa Ned had come across yet.

  The peculiar nature of the plant life here made it easy for Ned to move around. The last time he had been at this place, looking down from above, the greenery had reminded him of a giant wreath that filled the circular garden but for an open spot in the center. He would get there shortly, but first he wanted to complete one circuit of the inside wall. No doubt he could go to the library and find a book that would tell him what these plants were, but he came up with his own name for them: pipe-cleaner trees. They were sticky to touch, glistening with some kind of sap or resin. Ned moved carefully between them, and soon arrived back at the entrance.

  Now to the center, where the smoke or steam had emanated from. He wanted to see what was really there: the mouth of a fire-beast, the gate to hell, or nothing at all?

  The clearing was a small circle, perhaps twenty feet in diameter. It was ringed by the pipe-cleaner trees, which grew much more closely together at this spot. Ned squeezed through them and stood at the edge of a gradual depression in the ground. Only a few inches from his feet the clay became a deep black pudding, from which a light mist rose. The air was very warm and the smell of sulphur was quite sharp. Peeler was right again, Ned thought. This was the bizarre mud bath the old man had mentioned. In the center of the pit the steam was thicker and the mud was at low boil. Hot bubbles the size of baseballs forced their way up from below and broke the surface with a gruesome, gurgling sound. Ned wondered what the temperature was there. He bent over and tested the mud near his feet with one finger. It had a surprisingly smooth, creamy texture, not at all gritty like ordinary mud. And while it was hot, it wasn't too hot; about like ... well, a nice bath. Of course, it would be much hotter, unbearable, at the center, but there was obviously plenty of usable space. Quite a few people could slide their bodies into this muck at any given time, if that's what they wanted to do.

  Ned thought about it. Did people really come here to wallow like pigs, as Peeler and Cloudy had said? Naked? Men and women together? What a thing to do, and what a strange sight it must have been. Were they young or old, or of all ages? Children too? And what did they look like when they came out-black, coated with mud from the neck down? There must have been showers nearby, perhaps in one of the adjacent gardens. Or maybe they hosed down right here, where all the pipe-cleaner trees now grew.

  Looking at the pit, watching the mud bubble and the mist swirl slowly, Ned could almost see what it had been like. Human heads, male and female, dotting the black cream all around like beads on a necklace. So many of them, so close together their unseen bodies must be touching beneath the surface. It gave Ned a bad feeling, in a way he didn't understand. There was something disturbing about it. His mind kept going back to that room in the spa, to the picture of the young and beautiful woman he had seen in the magazine. Now he could see her walking into this garden, taking off her clothes and getting into the mud with the other people. The thought of it repelled him, and yet at the same time he couldn't help but be fascinated by it. It seemed to be a part of the whole basic feel of the spa—a kind of beauty that had gone a step too far, so as to be itself and something else, something off, something wrong.

  The mud sucked and gurgled. The steam danced on the fetid air. Was there a small breeze here? The pipe-cleaner trees swayed one to another ever so gently, their leaves whisper-hissing overhead. They looked different, as if they had undergone a subtle transformation in the last few minutes. Now they had a flat, two-dimensional quality, like a very detailed and complex line drawing with contrived perspectives. It was a monochromatic scene, a gray on gray variant, every line shading off obscurely. Like one of those puzzle pictures for kids, Ned thought. "How many animals can you count in this picture?" Or, "Can you find all the people hidden in this picture? (Clue: There are 27!)." But now the puzzle was life-size, and Ned was in the middle of it. The picture was entrancing. Faces formed everywhere, fingers curled and flexed. But if Ned tried to focus on anyone spot the image disappeared-a face became another gnarled knot on a pipe-cleaner tree, and fingers were just a spray of twigs. The trick was not to focus but to let his gaze wander slowly, taking in the whole panorama around him. When Ned did that, the effect was dramatic. The grove of weird trees was suddenly full of implicit life, as faces and hands and bodies insinuated themselves into the scene with short, stop-start mov
ements, like clouds on a weather satellite film loop.

  Don't play into it.

  Ned backed away a step but the trees held him comfortingly. He stretched his right arm out to one side and it seemed to blend in as part of the picture. Neat! When Ned was younger he had sometimes thought that it would be great to be able to step through the television set into cartoon land, that magical world. Now, being here was almost like that; not quite, but close. He felt giddy, as if he had just discovered the key that would give him that special ability. No one else in the world would have it. He stood at the gateway to a land that knew only a child's happiness, a land of mystery and adventure and high excitement, a land of fun and eternal play, free from fear, free from pain, a land that went on forever. It was a gateway you could pass through only once. Ned knew dimly that if he turned around and went home, he would never again be able to find his way back to this wondrous threshold. It was too fantastic to lose, but ...

  From the center of the clearing a woman beckoned to him. She seemed to be wearing only a filmy veil of mist. She had a most beautiful smile, and her arms were an open embrace.

  —Child.

  She spoke without sound, directly into his mind. Who are you, he wanted to ask. The woman in the magazine? Yes. No—his mother? Ned's heart ached with uncertainty.

  —Child of mine.

  The thought-words, a sweetness, a light that glowed within him. Just run to her, a few steps only, and lose yourself in her love and goodness for all time in the magic realm beyond the gateway.

  —Child, child, come to me.

  Now and this once, never to know fear or pain again. This is what you have been looking for, this is what you came to find. Ned moved forward hesitantly, his feet sinking into the hot mud.

  —Child, you will be mine again this day.

  The words detonated like depth charges in his brain. Ned froze, eyes widening in terror. You will be mine again—he knew those words. They had been written in the dust on the floor of the spa. They meant he had to get out of here, fast. He stepped back, but the trees seemed to jostle him and press him on toward the woman.