Phantom (20 page)

It was all too much. No matter how he tried,
he couldn't begin to make sense of it .. He wished he could tell
Peeler 'everything and beg the old man for help. There was a
tremendous desire in him to tell someone, and Peeler was the person
most likely to understand. But Ned could imagine what he would be
told. Peeler would say that Ned was wrong to try and figure it all
out in his head, that it was a mistake to look for answers or
explanations where there were none, or where they would do no good.
He would tell Ned that he shouldn't try to work this out as if it
were a jigsaw puzzle. And Peeler would probably be right, too, Ned
thought. But that was no help, because he was in a situation where
he really did need an answer, or at least a clue. He couldn't just
do nothing and carry on, oblivious to everything that had already
happened.

He wanted it to be over, one
way or the other, no matter what that meant for him. It was time to
stop thinking, and to start acting. No more shying away. It was
time, finally, to lift up the sheets, to turn around and face
whatever was there. He had tried everything else but that, and now
there was nothing left to do but
seek it
out
. Attack, with nothing but nerve,
perhaps, but: attack.

Ned decided that he had to go back to the
spa. Whatever happened would happen there. He didn't want to wait
for another invasion of this room, his room, in his parents' house.
The struggle was not theirs. Ned knew it was foolish to think of
returning to the spa, but there were no alternatives now. He
couldn't drift on from day to day, always fearing what might happen
at any moment. Nor could he cling to his parents, or to Peeler and
Cloudy, for protection; he wasn't a baby. It was his problem, and
his alone. So he would march into the dark ruins and force the
issue, once and for all.

This time, however, he would be better
equipped. He would bring along candles and matches, a flashlight
and batteries. He would carry rope and a knife. He would wear
sensible clothes. He would have no preconceived ideas of what to
expect—they would only distract him. He would expect anything, or
nothing.

And, just in case, he would search around in
the back field and find two sturdy sticks, which he would bind
together to make a cross, and he would carry it with him.

* * *

19. The Spa (1)

He had to wait nearly a week. His mother
took him to see the doctor a couple of days after the attack. The
physician gave Ned a thorough examination and found him to be in
fine health. But he said that as long as the current heat wave
continued it would be a good idea for Ned to take it easy and not
to overexert himself. Linda told Dr. Melker what had happened, and
his opinion was indeed much the same as Michael's had been. The
doctor added that Ned's dizzy spell might have been aggravated by
hunger, since it occurred in the latter part of the afternoon and
light lunches were the norm in summer. He advised Linda to make
sure that Ned ate plenty of fresh fruit between meals. She felt
considerably relieved after listening to the doctor. On the way
home that day they stopped at a sporting goods store and bought a
new baseball cap for Ned to wear to protect his head from the sun
whenever he went outside. Ned was compliant but uninterested. A
visit to the doctor, a baseball cap—these were things obviously of
some importance to his mother and father, but Ned knew they
wouldn't do him any good when the time came.

He spent those days carefully going over his
plans and preparations. The list of items he was going to take with
him grew until his knapsack was full. As far as possible, he was
determined the expedition and the likely confrontation would be on
his terms. Ned reckoned that by going to the spa he would be taking
the initiative, and he hoped that would count for something.
Moreover, he intended to set off immediately after breakfast so
that he would have the advantage of a full day's sunlight. Ned
studied the weather forecasts with great interest. Six days after
the attack in his room, the heat broke. The temperature dropped
into the low eighties and a steady breeze further improved
conditions. Ned knew he couldn't afford to wait any longer.

He had prepared his mother and father for
this in advance, telling them he would be gone all day, hiking and
catching frogs and crayfish. He led them to believe he would be
with Peeler and Cloudy all the time. His parents had no objections,
so long as he promised to be careful and to keep his baseball cap
on. It was the first time in his life that Ned had gone well beyond
an innocent fib with his parents. He didn't like the feeling it
gave him, but he couldn't think of any other way to handle the
matter. It bothered him, too, that if he never returned from the
spa the lie would stand and forever color his last hours with his
mother and father. Ned thought it might be a good idea to leave a
note for them. He could put it among his clothes in the bureau so
that they wouldn't find it until some time later—if, and only if,
the worst had come to pass. But when he tried to write the note, he
ran into difficulties. He saw again how defeating the problem was,
how impossible to explain. Finally he gave up and wrote simply:
"Mom and Dad, I love you always. Ned." He dated the paper, put it
in an envelope and slipped it in beneath some clean shirts in the
second drawer of his bureau.

Ned also wanted to see Peeler and Cloudy.
They were the two friends he had made since moving to Lynnhaven.
His only two friends. But he was afraid that if he saw them again
he would be unable to keep from telling them everything, including
his plans to go back to the spa. That would upset them too much and
quite possibly undermine his resolve as well. No, he could only
hope that he would see them again, but first he had to go through
with this other matter on his own.

As Ned walked purposeful1y through the
streets of Lynnhaven he let his mind begin to consider what might
actually happen to him that day. It was the one question he had
done his best to avoid—not so much out of fear, although there was
that, but more because he didn't want to confuse himself with all
sorts of possibilities. He needed to concentrate on what was, and
nothing else. But now that he was on his way he felt free to think
about it. The assumption behind this journey to the spa was that
once Ned was there again something would happen. But what? An
encounter with the devil? A battle for his soul? A huge
phosphorescent balloon? A phantom? Or nothing. In a way, that last
was the most worrying. If Ned passed the day uneventfully at the
spa, would it mean that he had been wrong, that no phantom haunted
him, that the crisis was all in his head? Or rather, that his
gambit had been declined? He knew it was too easy, and foolish, to
dream of triumph. It was not impossible, however, that he could
survive. He believed this, as he had to. The alternative was that
he would be taken. That he would die. Death; it could happen. Ned
was well aware of that possibility—it had prompted his note to his
parents—but he kept it locked away within him. To dwell on it would
be paralyzing. Besides, people always believe they will somehow
live through almost anything; the human mind rejects the notion of
its own imminent death, and the young mind, especially, barely
conceives the idea of death.

Ned crossed the old railroad tracks and made
his way to the long drive. This time he would enter the spa from
the front. This approach was useful in two ways. It was far simpler
and easier than scaling the back wall again, saving Ned time and
strength, and it was also a psychological ploy, a kind of reversal
in his favor, as he returned by the route he had taken in fleeing
the spa on his previous visit.

By the time he reached the front door, any
fear he felt had been overtaken by a growing sense of anticipation
and excitement. He might be walking through the gates of hell, but
it was an adventure! Ned knew he could be making the biggest
mistake of his life, but the day was right and he was as ready as
he would ever be. He reminded himself of the possible advantages on
his side. Perhaps there were limits to the unknown power Ned faced.
Perhaps challenging it in this way really was the smartest thing to
do. As he stood outside the enormous building Ned realized that he
might succeed in another way. If nothing at all happened today he
would then at least have managed to conquer the old spa, defusing
it and eliminating it as one of the elements in the nightmare. Yes,
he told himself, he was doing the right thing. One way or the
other, Ned's mission today had to be a step forward.

The cross he had made from two sticks of
wood was tucked under his belt. He crawled past the loose boards in
the doorway and stood up. He was inside, once more.

The first thing Ned looked for was the place
on the floor where the threatening words had been scrawled in the
dust. He had obliterated them with his sneaker, and now he saw that
nothing had changed; the message had not been rewritten. It was a
good sign.

Nor did the rest of the large entrance hall
appear to be any different. Although Ned had been there only for a
few minutes the last time, it seemed quite familiar to him. Not
evil, but dead. Not dangerous, just ... sad. Again he found it easy
to imagine how splendid the spa must have been when it was alive
with people and activity. A shimmering palace of wealth and beauty.
But Ned knew it was important for him to remember that this place
was now just a ruin, nothing more.

His plan was to climb the wide stairway
directly to the top floor, explore the rooms there and then do the
same on the next floor—and so make his way back down to ground
level. By noon, Ned calculated, he would have covered the entire
spa building, with the exception of the cellar, which he would
decide about when the time came. It was not that Ned was afraid of
descending into the darkness again; he carried two flashlights and
extra batteries for just that purpose. But he knew that if he put
the rest of the spa behind him first he would be in an even
stronger position to take on the cellar.

The stairs wound up and around the central
atrium. Paint or paper hung in tattered ribbons from the walls. Ned
touched one strip and it crumbled to powdery flakes in his fingers.
Like some strange creature that sheds its skin from the inside, he
thought. After that, Ned didn't pause until he had arrived on the
uppermost landing.

There, he was surprised to discover how
different the visual perspectives were. The rich blue morning sky
above seemed to be literally sitting on the roof of the spa, so
close and tangible that Ned almost believed he would be able to
grab a piece of it if only he could reach up through the broken
frame of the skylight. It was a remarkable illusion. Perhaps this
was how Jack felt when he climbed through the clouds to the top of
the beanstalk.

Ned turned and peered down the stairwell. He
gasped—it was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
The ground floor seemed to zoom away from him as if it were the
ever-receding bottom of an abyss. The whole mansion felt like it
was tilting slowly around Ned, trying to push or pour him off the
top floor. He gripped the marble banister tightly and shut his eyes
to fight the terrible sensation that he was slipping over the edge.
There was something attractive, dangerously attractive, about
looking down, and Ned knew he couldn't give in to it. Could the
building really spin around? No—but then, why did Ned's body feel
as if it were hanging upside down? These are illusions, games,
tricks, he told himself. Just the spa's way of saying hello. Use
your sense, and your senses; don't let them be used against you.
Gradually, he regained a measure of confidence. He felt okay, sure
that he wouldn't betray himself. He opened his eyes. Vision
apparently all right, and right side up. Ned backed away from the
stairwell. He was here to explore the rooms, not to gape at the
view.

The landing was strewn with debris that had
been blowing in for years through the open skylight, mostly rotting
leaves and twigs. The summer heat had pretty well dried out the
place, but today the air was pleasantly cool, with a sweet, woody
smell. Taking care to watch out for snakes, Ned moved toward the
passage on his left. When he had examined that wing he would come
back for the other. As he approached, the corridor made him think
of a cave, dark and beckoning. Something was wrong. Ned knew from
his observations outside that all the windows were wide open on the
upper floors of the building, so the corridor should be reasonably
well-lit. But no, maybe not. All the inside doors could be closed,
and daylight from the open skylight wouldn't penetrate far into
these corridors. Ned took one of the flashlights from his knapsack,
switched it on and stepped into the gloomy tunnel.

He cried out immediately and
jumped back, stumbling and losing his balance. He had dropped the
flashlight, and now he scurried to retrieve it. It still worked.
Cautiously, Ned inched forward again, wondering
What did I see?
Something startling
... but he didn't feel frightened by it. It was like a wall, a
barrier of some sort—but more than just that. The light beam probed
the darkness. There was a gauzy gray veil suspended from the
ceiling to the floor, filling the hallway. Tiny shapes flitted
around behind it—or rather,
in
it
. Spiders, Ned realized. It was an
enormous spider web, dozens, hundreds of them, built up to form a
whole colony. They had taken over the corridor in this
wing.

Ned went back onto the
landing and found a piece of wood. He poked it into the webbing,
which felt unusually firm, and tried to carve out an opening. To
his amazement, the webs ran deeper than he thought possible. There
was no end in sight. And as soon as Ned started damaging the
structure, several spiders danced out
toward
him. He stepped back and tossed
the stick aside. As far as he knew, there was only one poisonous
spider in the United States, and that was the black widow. He had
no idea what these spiders were but he did know they were not black
widows. Nonetheless, he wasn't about to assume that they were
harmless. They looked rather aggressive.