Phantasos

by Robert Barnard

  In no time at all, the blaze had consumed Phantasos and at least five other nearby machines.

  The blaze grew and grew, swallowing everything in its path.

  Phantasos fought hard to not ignite, but the encroaching fire was too strong. The cabinet started to melt, and hiss, and crackle, and pop, until it collapsed forward into the flames.

  Benji watched tiny bubbles escape his lips and float to the surface of the tub, when suddenly—

  He was released. He surfaced to the top of the water and let out a burning, wheezing breath of air. He gulped at the oxygen rushing into his lungs.

  On the ledge of the tub, she raised her hands in shock and awe. The flesh fell from her bones, then the bones turned to brittle and dust.

  Her arms missing, she looked terrified—truly terrified. She muttered: “How can this be? Bloom promised this would never happen…”

  He didn’t know what she meant by that, but what did it matter? All Benji could do was sit and watch her. Watch as her body fell apart, then burst into flames. She hovered there a moment, a burning spectral, screaming in anguish. She turned to Benji, unhinged her jaw, and howled until she exploded into one million tiny fragments.

  A cloud of black particles hung in the air for a moment before vanishing in the blink of an eye.

  Benji took three deep breaths. Then, at the top of his lungs, he screamed for his mother. This time, the words left his throat without any hesitation.

  Forty-Two

  BENJI WOKE IN THE HOSPITAL AFTER a long, wonderful sleep. It was the best sleep he’d had in as long as he could remember.

  When he woke up, his mom—the one who brought him there the night before—was sitting patiently, waiting.

  He squinted his eyes and said, “Mom?”

  “Honey, I’m right here,” she said, and she hugged him tighter than she ever had before.

  “What happened?”

  “You fell asleep in the tub, Ben. It’s amazing that you didn’t drown.” She stroked his forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “Better than ever.”

  A television was playing at the end of Benji’s hospital room, across from his bed. His mother looked at it and frowned.

  “Ready for some bad news?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Your favorite arcade burned down last night. It’s been the talk of the town. An awful, awful blaze. Nothing left but ash.”

  Benji nodded. “Is that so?”

  His mother raised her eyebrows.

  “It’s not bad news,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to play another video game for a very, very long time.”

  A nurse knocked on the hospital door, and Benji and his mother turned in her direction.

  “You have some visitors,” the nurse said.

  Through the door entered Lauren and her father. Lauren looked like she’d been crying; she ran up to Benji, wrapped her arms around him, and held him tight.

  “What happened to you, you dink?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  She leaned back. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

  Mr. Emerson crossed his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said, and the words left his mouth in a stuttered choke. “I’m sorry we’ve all been so distant, Ben. With Alley—well, with Alley our lives have been upside down. But the thought of losing you, too. It really tore us up.” He looked to where Mrs. Bauer was sitting, then back at Benji. “I think tonight we should all go out to dinner. Like we used to. I think it would be good for all of us. And I know it won’t be the same without Alley, but I think Alley would like that it happened.”

  Benji smiled. “I would really like that.”

  Forty-Three

  GRAND RIDGE, OREGON, NEVER AGAIN HAD a summer as exciting as the summer of 1990.

  The train accident in North Grand Ridge. The untimely, tragic deaths of Alec Emerson and Rodney Frye.

  The fire that consumed the Planet X Arcade.

  As the years passed, Grand Ridge moved on—and healed. Grand Ridge High enacted bi-annual seminars for teachers and students on suicide prevention, bullying, and the consequences of reckless driving.

  Where Planet X once stood was nothing but a crater in the ground until 1992. A place where local kids gathered to trespass and tell their urban legends and ghost stories. Everyone knew the real reason the arcade burned down: a vengeful ghost, an insane arcade owner, aliens. The story differed depending on who told it.

  In ’92, some developers flew in from California. They bought the land where Planet X once stood and split the parcel into three different small boutiques, all in an effort to revitalize historic downtown Grand Ridge.

  But it was never the same. Not like it used to be.

  And, just as Grand Ridge moved on and healed, so did Benji and Lauren. Both graduated high school in 1994. Lauren, who graduated at the top of her class, moved out of state for college, upon her acceptance into the University of California, Berkley. Afterwards, she attended the University of California: Irvine School of Law. In 2000 she graduated with her Juris Doctorate and was preparing to take a job at a leading law firm in Northern California, when she received news that her father had fallen ill.

  She returned to Grand Ridge to help her mother—still tirelessly working at Crawdaddy’s Diner—take care of her father and his sudden, rampant illness.

  And it was during her return to Grand Ridge that she happened to drive by Bauer’s Body and Collision. She waited at the stoplight on the corner of Ocean and Little Hollow, and couldn’t help but peek in. Mr. Bauer had lost some hair; his belly had grown a little wider. Beside him was a very fit, strong young man, buffing out a paint repair on a classic Corvette.

  Benjamin Bauer.

  She thought to herself how she could lie—she could say that her Civic had engine problems on the drive up to Grand Ridge from Irvine. But they were a body shop not a maintenance shop, so that might be dumb.

  So she did the honest thing. She pulled in, and simply said hello.

  And in the coming months, her and Benji reconnected as if no time had passed at all. Her father’s sickness slid into remission and she helped her parents with some careful budgeting and planning. Her father’s retirement pension from the factory was not a windfall, but it was generous; so she convinced her mother to quit her job at the diner, and left her parents well taken care of.

  All in all, Lauren spent six weeks in Grand Ridge.

  When it came time to return to Irvine—where home was, now—she didn’t have to drive alone.

  Forty-Four

  LAUREN WAS GETTING DRESSED IN THE upstairs bedroom. Benji was taking a load of laundry out of the downstairs dryer, hurrying to finish some chores before the big family trip to Seattle.

  Carrying an unwieldy laundry basket and unable to see ahead of him, Benji nearly tripped over a skateboard left carelessly in the Bauer’s kitchen. One foot hit the board, started to slide, and Benji caught himself before he fell over.

  He said, “Dammit, Al, how many times do I have to tell you to put your stuff away?”

  Al—short for Alexander, this time—kept his eyes glued to the sixty-five inch wide flat panel television in the Bauer’s living room, a PlayStation controller gripped snugly in his hands.

  “I’m sorry, dad.”

  Benji stopped to look at Al, lost in his virtual world, and smiled. He couldn’t stay mad. He never could, his boy reminded him too much of—

  “Hey,” Al said. “Play a game with me before we go, huh?”

  Benji shook his head. “Your mother wants to get out of here soon to beat the traffic. Besides, you know I hate those things.”

  Al rolled his eyes and turned off the PlayStation.

  Upstairs, Lauren was standing before the mirror above her dresser, pulling her hair into a tight ponytail. Benji came into the room, dropped the basket of laundry, and sighed.

  “Is he almost ready?” she said, holding a hair tie with her lips.

  “Yep. We all are.”

>   Lauren finished her ponytail and adjusted her blouse, then stared for a moment into the mirror.

  “Are you all right?” Benji asked, walking up from behind to give her a hug.

  “You know how I get this time of year.”

  “I know,” Benji said, understanding. It would soon be the twenty-fifth year anniversary of that one, horrible summer. Though it was so very long ago now, each time the date approached it felt like only yesterday.

  Benji tried not to think about it too much. As adults, the bathtub incident had only been spoken of between him and his wife once or twice. And each time, though Lauren listened, or nodded her head empathetically, Benji knew that she did not believe him. Which was hard, because when he stopped to reflect on it, it all still felt so real and visceral.

  So the weeks after Alley Emerson’s death went mostly unspoken in the Bauer household, the two chalking up whatever strange memories they had of that period to the distortion of time; the way memories become fuzzy and twisted and biased after enough time passed. Nothing happened quite as they remembered it, they’d convinced themselves. There was nothing supernatural that occurred, no ghosts, no demonic spirits inhabiting arcade machines—nothing happened during that four week time frame that could not be explained by rational thought.

  Benji tried to block it out of his mind the best that he could, but try as he might, he could never shake the little feeling that he had escaped some terrible fate. He had managed to outwit and avoid Phantasos’ grasp. It was a horrible feeling that stayed with him, tucked in the same dark corner of his mind that housed memories of Rodney Frye: They played and they perished, and I played and I didn’t.

  Lauren put her hands on her hips and turned around from the mirror. “Now who’s the one lost in thought?”

  Benji stood still for a moment before saying, “I get the melancholy this time of year, too. Come on. The drive to Seattle will cheer us up.”

  The drive was long and miserable, often times requiring navigation through torrential rains. At one point Benji wanted to turn the family SUV around, but Al had been so patient—waited so long—for the weekend long gaming expo in Seattle, that Benji didn’t dare.

  After four grueling hours of inclement weather and stop-and-go traffic, the Bauer family finally arrived at and checked into the Seattle Marriot, where the Gaming North West convention was being held.

  Gaming North West—or GNW—had evolved from a small online message board in the early nineties to a full-blown video game news network, of which Alexander was a huge fan. Al loved all things video games, and the GNW convention promised to show off the latest and greatest upcoming game hardware and software.

  It was one of the many times Benji, who hadn’t picked up a video game controller in decades, wished that Alley was still around. Uncle Alley and Little Al—playing games together, goofing around. It was an imaginative scenario that Benji often found himself day dreaming of and finding great happiness—and sadness—in.

  Benji, Lauren, and Al hit the convention floor together, walking from booth to booth, letting Al try out the new games that weren’t available to purchase yet.

  They were half way across the floor when Benji bumped into an old, familiar face.

  “Benjamin…Bauer?” the older gentlemen said, catching Benji from behind a booth as Lauren, Al, and himself passed by.

  “What would you know,” Benji said, approaching the man behind the booth. “How the hell have you been, Danny?”

  Danny smiled. “I’ve been fine. Aaron and I have had a great weekend so far.” Danny crossed his arms and grinned even wider, nodding at Aaron, seated next to him. “It’s amazing seeing you kids all grown up with a kid of your own.”

  “Can I introduce you?” Benji said. “My son’s a huge fan of the YouTube series you and Aaron put together. He listens to you all the time—the podcasts, the live streams, everything.

  “Of course, of course,” Danny said.

  “Hey, Al,” Benji said, pulling his young son—who was standing shyly behind his parents—forward to meet Danny. Aaron finished a bite of food and stood up behind the booth, too. “Say hi to Danny and Aaron. I knew these guys when I was your age.”

  Al timidly approached the booth and stuck out a hand, said, “Wow, that must have been forever ago.”

  Danny laughed. “Sure feels like it sometimes.”

  “Can I get an autograph?” Al asked.

  Danny and Benji smiled at one another as Aaron fished around the booth for a piece of paper and something to sign it with.

  “You bet you can,” Danny said, and him and Aaron took turns signing the back of an expo pamphlet. They left a note that read: “To Al, our favorite fan. Game on! From the Cranky Gamers—Danny & Aaron.”

  Al smiled and said, “Wow!” Then, he took the piece of paper from Danny’s hands.

  Lauren said, “What do you say, Al?”

  Al said, “Thanks Danny, thanks Aaron,” then he started to wander away from the booth in the direction of the next gaming station.

  Lauren raised her eyebrows, said, “I guess I’m going where he’s going. You stay here, go ahead and catch up.”

  Danny sat back down behind the booth and offered Benji a seat.

  “Are you sure?” Benji said. “I mean, you’ll have fans wanting autographs and stuff.”

  “Doesn’t mean you can’t sit with us,” Danny said.

  Benji nodded and took the seat. Aaron returned to the chicken sandwich he was eating.

  “She’s beautiful,” Danny said. “Crazy that after all this time, you two ended up together.”

  “They were pretty big odds,” Benji said with a laugh. “She went off to college, I stayed back in Grand Ridge. I helped out with my father’s body shop for a while. She was back in town for some personal reasons, and we just—” Benji clicked his tongue. “Clicked, I guess.”

  “That’s so great,” Danny said. “That’s wonderful. I can tell you two are in love. You know the way you can just look at someone and tell? You two got it.”

  Benji blushed. “Thanks, Danny.”

  “And your boy,” Danny added. “God, he looks just like Alley did.”

  Benji nodded, felt the smile leave his face. “Yeah. Yeah he does.”

  “Al—short for Alec?”

  “Alexander,” Benji clarified. “Lauren thought Alec was too old fashioned.”

  After a short silence Benji said, “How about you guys? Man, I don’t think I’ve seen either of you since the fire.”

  Aaron set his sandwich down. Danny leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.

  “Yeah…” Danny said, his voice trailing off. “That was a difficult time.”

  Aaron didn’t say anything.

  “We missed you in Grand Ridge, you know,” Benji said. “It was never the same after the arcade was gone. There’s a little Italian bakery there now, and a flower shop, and a used book store—all in the spot where it used to stand.”

  “Is that so?” Danny said, feigning interest. “A lot of things were never the same, huh?”

  Benji nodded. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  Danny poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, thinking about how to say what he wanted to say next. It was hard to put the words together. A teenage girl was getting Aaron’s autograph when Danny said: “Have you seen it yet?”

  Benji paused. “Seen what yet?”

  Danny sighed. “The uh…well. The Phantasos machine.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s one here?”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “Some guy in Portland found one in a storage locker and brought it out to the convention. Apparently there aren’t many left in existence. The damn thing has a bizarre cult following online—he’s charging people to take pictures with it.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  Danny nodded his head.

  Benji shot up from his chair at the booth. “Why did you wait this long to tell me?” Benji was hollering; the girl getting her autograph gave Benji
a dirty look.

  Danny said, “I don’t—I don’t know why. I didn’t think about it until just now.”

  Benji jumped from behind the booth and scanned the convention hall. He couldn’t find them—couldn’t find Lauren, couldn’t find Al.

  He started to run in one direction, panicking, and then another. “Lauren,” he yelled out. “Alexander,” he screamed.

  The throngs of expo attendees spread out around Benji, confused, not knowing who he was or what he wanted or what was going on.

  “Lauren?” he yelled again. “Alexander!”

  Suddenly, Lauren appeared in a clearing of visitors. She looked to Benji, worried.

  “Where is he?” Lauren cried out.

  “You—you had him!” Benji yelled.

  Danny pulled aside a security guard, told him to start looking around the convention hall for the small child.

  “He said he was going back to meet you at Danny’s booth!”

  “He’s not here! He never came this way!”

  Benji put his hands on his hips, spun around, looked in all directions. His pulse pounded in his head, his breathing shortened.

  And then, there he was—Al, Alexander, his son—unmistakable from behind, in the center of the convention hall, standing before a tall, black arcade cabinet.

  In an instant time froze, and it might as well have been 1990 again. Benji was still that clever boy who had broken a very important promise to his one true friend…

  And his punishment, after waiting so patiently, had finally revealed itself.

  Benji screamed—an agonizing scream—but it was too late. Al stood like a statue, eyes pressed into the descended pair of goggles, one hand on a joystick and the other hand on buttons. He stood there, playing the game.

  He stood there, playing Phantasos.

  About the Author

  Robert Barnard lives in Orlando, Florida, with his dog, Lady, his two cats, Bella & Conan, and his best friend, Mary. In 2014, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies from the University of Central Florida.