Phantom Read Free

"Breathe, Linda,
breathe."
    Michael snatched the inhaler off the floor,
but when he tried to put it into Linda's mouth he found that her
teeth were clamped tight and it was impossible for him to force her
jaw open. He slapped her cheeks lightly, then harder, but it had no
effect. He splashed her face with cold water from the bathroom
faucet, but that too failed to bring any response. Again Michael
pressed his ear to her face. Nothing. If she's not breathing, he
thought, she's dying. Now. Here. On the floor of their apartment.
He grabbed her wrist, but his own hands were shaking and he was
sobbing now, so he couldn't tell whether she had much of a pulse or
not. He turned and rushed to the living room to call for an
ambulance. Somehow, he dialed and got through.
    " ... Severe asthma attack .... "
    He heard them, but the words meant nothing
to Ned. All he knew was that a phantom had come and done something
monstrous to his mother. Any second now she would disappear before
his very eyes. Then she would be caught, she would be one of them.
and he would never see her again. Then what? Another night, soon,
they would come back and take his father. How could he stop them?
Ned would be left all alone. Until, at last, they came for him, and
he knew that when that happened nothing, not even the borders of
his own bed, would save him.
    Michael Covington returned to his stricken
wife. He placed a pillow beneath her head and wrapped her in a wool
blanket. He raised her feet and rested them on the edge of the
toilet seat so more blood would flow to her head. 'Still, she
looked like a dead woman. Michael hurried away to put on some
clothes.
    A few feet away, in the darkness of his
room, Ned gazed through the one-inch gateway to hell. Perhaps he
had seen too much; certainly, he had heard too much. Overloaded, he
was going numb, vacating himself to deeper, inner havens. Like
everyone else, Ned lived in two worlds: day and night. But this was
reality of another kind. Bizarre and disturbing as the night, it
was nonetheless the daylight life of his mother and father, now tom
and twisted. Within the space of a few minutes the two worlds had
been thrown together in a way Ned had never experienced before, and
it was a diabolical mixture. That was his own mother out there,
propped against the toilet like a stray plank.
    Even now he couldn't move. Rooted. A
scarecrow. Just beyond the light's reach, out of sight, but close
enough to see. His thoughts were like giant amorphous blobs that
collided and drifted awkwardly in his mind. He hadn't moved. He
hadn't done a thing to help his mother. She had been left to
battle, and lose, alone, while he cowered in his room. Now it was
too late.
    They had tricked
him . That was the worst part. Ned could see
now what a fool he had been. You think you understand, you think
you're doing exactly what should be done, and then wham, you find
out you did it all wrong. What was the rule, the one saving
provision? Simple: once you have drawn in beneath the covers and
sealed yourself in the protection of your bed, you must not move
out of it again until morning. If you break that rule, if you so
much as stick out an eyelash, the terror will be there. And that's
what had happened. Ned had popped up out of the blankets like a
jack-in-the-box and gone to see what was happening. Now he was
seeing it, and the terror was real. He would continue to see and
see and see, until it was all over for this time. Because there is
no way back under the covers.
    Fully dressed now, Michael returned and
pressed the back of his hand to Linda's forehead. As if by magic,
she stirred and moaned faintly at the touch. Michael was startled,
but a little relieved. Then there was a knock at the door and
things began to happen fast. Ned saw his father admit two men in
white uniforms. One was carrying a folded up canvas chair with
wheels. They both looked older than Ned's father. The three of them
stared at Ned's mother, as if wondering what to do with a