Phantasos (4 page)

Six

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. LAUREN HAD fallen asleep in her lawn chair and Benji was close to drifting off, too. When all the notebooks of the past year had been set ablaze, the trio turned to grilling hotdogs on sticks. When the hotdogs were gone, they switched to making s’mores. As midnight crept close, eyelids grew heavy; Lauren was the first to crash, a smear of Hershey’s chocolate dried to the corner of her lips. Benji would be next, the gentle chirping of cicadas lulling him to sleep.

But Alley, sweet Alley, too good for this world Alley, showed no signs of tiring. Benji suspected it was because his birthday party was the next night.

“It has been a lovely night,” Alley said in a mock British accent. He was staring at the stars, just as he had been for most of the evening. “I don’t think I’ve been bit by a mosquito once.”

Benji yawned. “Me neither, Al,” and he thought to say:
maybe it’s time we head inside for the night.
But Alley’s face was so filled with wonder, staring up at the cosmos, that he didn’t dare.

“Do you think there’s aliens up there looking back down at us?”

Benji chuckled and thought for a moment. “Whether I say yes, or whether I say no, the answer is kind of spooky. It’s too late for me to start having such gnarly thoughts. They’d keep me up all night.”

Alley continued to press the subject anyways. “Have you ever heard of a guy named Fermi?”

“Fermi?” Benji asked, and he leaned forward, picked up the bag of marshmallows, and skewered one onto the stick he’d been using to cook with all night.

“Yeah, Fermi,” Alley said. “The guy has a paradox named after him.”

Benji smiled, thought:
Fermi, paradox, space?
Despite being a grade behind him, Alley was always so much smarter than he was, and Benji suspected that Alley was about to prove that point again. “No, Al. I’ve never heard of him.”

“Okay,” Alley said. “Well what Fermi basically said, was this: With the universe being as old as it is, and as big as it is, there should be a bunch of solar systems out there, with suns like ours and earths like ours. So, with the high probability of so many other planets that could nurture life, where
is
everyone?”

Benji shoved a burnt marshmallow between two graham crackers. All the chocolate was gone. “I don’t know, Al…what do you mean?”

“I mean, everything is in place for another civilization to have visited us by now—or, at the very least, send us a radio message saying ‘hi’—and they haven’t. Why don’t they want anything to do with us?”

“If an alien civilization ever visits Grand Ridge, I hope Sigourney Weaver is in town that day.”

“I’m being serious, Ben,” Alley said, and he threw a piece of stale graham cracker at his friend.

Benji said, “Maybe they
have
visited us, and we just don’t know it yet.”

Alley laughed. “Well that’s a scary thought. I never thought of that. Yikes.”

The two chuckled, and after a pause Alley said, “Well, where I was going with all of this was…it’s a big universe to feel so alone in, you know? And I wonder, if it’s so big, if there’s a heaven and where it is?”

Benji stopped smiling, stopped laughing. He started to chew on his s’more slower. It was absolutely dreadful whenever Alley got stuck in a depressing train of thought like this, and Benji couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want to think of how sick his best friend was, and all the reasons why he would have thoughts like this. He tried not to be saddened by it, tried to pep up and answer his friends question honestly.

“Maybe it’s there and we just can’t see it,” he said.

Alley looked around at the campfire, then back up at the stars. “I think maybe heaven is right here, right now. Maybe this is heaven.”

Benji smiled and said, “I hope not. If so, heaven is out of chocolate.”

By now, Lauren was starting to squirm, curled up in her chair. She opened one eye and looked over the dying embers of the campfire. “What are you two zeeks going on about?”

“Oh, you know,” Benji said. “The nature of the universe. Basic campfire chit-chat.”

Lauren stood up, stretched her arms and legs, and let out a roar of a yawn. “C’mon, Alley. We gotta get back or mom and dad will kill us. It’s gotta be past midnight.”

Alley waved towards the house across the street. “Uh, they know where we are. They can see us from the living room if they want to. I don’t think they’ll mind. It’s not like we’re prowling the streets of Grand Ridge all night long.”

Lauren crossed her arms. “It’s late, you have a big day tomorrow. You have to be rested for your party.”

“Fine, fine. Whatever.”

Lauren groaned and started clawing at her arm. “Freakin’ mosquitos,” she said. “I was nearly eaten alive tonight.”

Benji walked Lauren and Alley across the street and up to the front porch of the Emerson household. Alley walked in first, said, “Goodnight, lovebirds,” and pretended to vomit.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow night then?” Lauren said.

Benji said, “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Do you guys have any plans during the day?”

“Sitting in the living room, eating ice cream from the carton, watching The Price is Right. That’s about it.”

“That sounds great and all,” Benji said, “but I thought maybe we could bike over to the Shop-and-Save and fish for some quarters. Get a good haul so that we can get some serious playtime in at Planet X later in the week.”

“That sounds fun,” Lauren said, smiling. “And I’m sure Alley would like that plan, too.”

“If he’s feeling up to it.”

“Of course,” Lauren said, and she nodded as if to say goodnight.

“Well, goodnight, Lore,” Benji said.

“Goodnight.”

Benji snuck up the stairs of his house, so as not to wake his parents. He counted the steps in his mind as he went: one, two, three…. Step thirteen had the awful creak, and if you hit it too hard it would groan, and he didn’t want his father—who had to be up
awfully
early for work—to hear the groan and scold him. Ten, eleven, twelve. Benji held his breath, grabbed the railing, and skipped the thirteenth step entirely.

He found his way to his bedroom, didn’t bother to click on a light. He was
exhausted.
He plopped onto his bed and stared out of his bedroom window at the Emerson house across the street.

Light from streetlamps poured in through the blinds, along with the high beams of the occasional passing car. He thought of Lauren and wondered what she was doing. She was probably curled up in bed with a paperback. He wondered if she was wondering about him, then thought it was probably best not to think of such things. The Bauers and the Emersons had been neighbors for ages; Benji, Lauren, and Alley had practically grown up together. More family than friends.

As he stared out of his bedroom window, a familiar light flashed and caught his eye.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

It was Alley, delivering flashlight signals from his bedroom to Benji’s. Benji recognized the triple blink and how it was code for:
Pick up your walkie.

Benji was tired, it had been a hideously long day. He just wanted to sleep, but he could never say no to Alley. He got up from his bed, stumbled over to his dresser, picked up his walkie and clicked the switch to on. The speaker hissed to life.

“Alley? Over.”

“Benji. I’ll be quick. Over.”

“’Sup Alley? Over.”

A pause.

“Lauren said you want to go quarter fishing at the Shop-and-Save tomorrow. Over.”

“Yeah, we haven’t been to Planet X in weeks. Figured we could stop in sometime, depending on how many quarters we find. Over.”

“That sounds tubular. I’m so excited, I can’t wait! Over.”

“Me too, Alley. It’ll be a lot of fun. Over.”

“I heard they have a new machine, and it has cutting-edge 3D graphics, and it’s all in virtual reality. They call it fan…fant…Phantasos?”

A loud, squelching tone erupted through the speaker on Benji’s walkie, so loud he worried it might wake his parents. He paused, waited to hear if Alley said anything more.

Alley said, “Are you there? Over.”

“Yeah—did you hear that sound? Over.”

“What sound? Over.”

“It’s probably nothing, Alley, but I have to go to sleep. Goodnight, I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll meet up after Price is Right. Over.”

“I can’t wait. Goodnight. Over.”

Seven

TODD JUGGLED TWO COFFEES IN ONE hand and the keys to the arcade in the other. It was early; the sun was just breaking over Grand Ridge. The air was a pleasant temperature. Crisp, not too cool. By the time afternoon rolled around, it would surely be muggy and sweltering outside.

The front door of Planet X unlocked and Todd strolled in. He set the coffees down on the prize counter. One for Danny, marked with a “D”: heavy cream, extra sugar. And, one for himself, marked with a “T”: black. The only way he drank it.

He rubbed his forehead and recalled the night before. The prank phone call, the destruction of the office phone, the long night out with Danny. Three hours of hard drinking at the Frosty Boot. Todd didn’t get to bed until four in the morning, and when he did, he didn’t sleep well. His alarm rang at seven.

Danny should be in any minute now,
Todd thought,
unless he overslept…

He walked into the office to examine the damage from the night before. It was worse than he remembered. Where the office phone was once bolted to the wall was now nothing but a jagged, punched out hole of drywall, so deep that the wooden frame behind it was exposed. The phone itself, smashed to bits, was scattered across the floor.

Looking back, Todd wished that he could have controlled his temper better. But his prank caller had infuriated him with their strange remarks and the eerie way they delivered their taunts. No pause for breath or punctuation, their words still rang through Todd’s mind:
Do you ever wonder if you’ve failed Shelly and do you ever wonder how you’d feel lying on the tracks as a speeding train—

Todd ran his fingers through his hair. He had to stop thinking about the mystery caller and their cruel idea of a joke, and he had to clean up. Some of the machines needed their quarter trays emptied, the prize cabinet needed readjusting, the popcorn machine needed a scrub down. There was a busy day ahead whether he liked it or not. He grabbed a broom and started sweeping up his mess from the night before, when—

Skitter, skitter. Clank.

“The hell was that?” Todd muttered under his breath. He stopped sweeping to concentrate on listening. For a moment, the arcade was perfectly silent and still, before again—

Skitter, skitter, skitter.

“Danny?” Todd called out. “Danny is that you? I’m in the office.”

No answer.

“Danny?”

Total silence.

Todd finished sweeping the remaining bits of phone into a dustpan, leaned the broom against the office wall, and tiptoed out into the arcade. The room was empty, devoid of all life. He put his hand on his hips and blew upwards, directing some loose hairs away from the front of his face.
Better not be rodents again.

And then, there she was, standing just outside of the front door of the arcade, looking in through the glass window. Todd froze in disbelief. She was as beautiful as the last time he saw her. She may have even been wearing the same outfit. Long curls of blond hair rolled down to her shoulders, and she was smiling that beautiful, perfect, dazzling smile that she always had.

It was Shelly—but what was she doing at the arcade? It was impossible. It didn’t make any sense. Time stopped and Todd could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He slowly raised a hand, attempted to wave, and tried to say the word: “Shelly.” But all that came out was a helpless croak, and he was startled by the skittering sound behind him.

He snapped around, caught something out of the corner of his eye behind the prize cabinet, and saw that one of the coffees had been tipped over.

“Dammit,” Todd said to no one, and he walked back to the prize cabinet to pick up the fallen beverage before it drained all over the cheap teddy bears and generic action figures. He looked down, saw that the spilt coffee was the one marked with a “T”—of course it was—and he yanked some paper towels from nearby and started to wipe up the mess. After the first paper towel wipe, he looked back up at the door. Shelly was gone.

He finished dabbing up the small pool of coffee, then tossed the empty Styrofoam cup and dirty paper towels into a trash basket behind the prize counter. As soon as he was done, there was a heavy knock at the door.

Todd looked up to find Danny with his head pressed against the window looking in. There was something in his hand.

Todd lightly jogged to the door, opened it, and let his business partner inside.

“I’m sorry, man. I forgot my keys this morning.”

Todd said, “It’s no problem.”

Danny held up his hand. In it was a black, rotary telephone. “I had an extra one lying around the house.”

“I really appreciate that, friend,” Todd said. “Hey, was there anyone out there with you?”

“No. Why?”

“I thought I saw someone, that’s all.”

“Who?”

“Never mind, it’s stupid.”

Todd ducked out of the front door anyway, looked up the street, then down it, then back up it once more. Then he hopped back into the arcade.

Danny said, “What’s the matter? Didn’t believe me?”

“It’s just—I didn’t—just forget about it, Danny. All right?”

“Sure, sure,” Danny said.

“Long night of drinking, is all. Long night of drinking. Come in, let’s get to work.”

Danny lazily swept the front of the arcade with one hand and drank the coffee that Todd brought him with the other. It was delicious, so warm and nourishing; it helped to bring him back to life after a long night out with little sleep.

In the office, Todd was connecting the temporary phone that Danny so graciously brought in. The drywall would need repair and a better phone would need to be bought—the cord on this one was much too short—but for now, it was better than nothing.

Todd flipped through a short stack of papers on his desk. Whoever had called the night before was not only cruel in their prank, but had an intimate knowledge of Todd and his business. They knew enough that a new arcade machine was brought in, that it was manufactured by the Vidtronix Games Corporation, and that someone had even stopped by to calibrate it. Todd tugged out a sheet of paper with the phone number for Vidtronix, walked over to the phone, and dialed.

“Vidtronix Games Corporation, where video games are brought to life. How may I direct your call?”

“Yes,” Todd said, and the word left his mouth with a stutter. He drew a sharp breath, trying to remain calm. “My name is Todd Prower. Your company installed a Phantasos machine at my arcade in Grand Ridge, Oregon. The Planet X Arcade.”

“Oh, sure,” the woman on the other end said. “Is there a problem? How can I be of assistance?”

“Who am I speaking to right now?”

The woman paused. “My name is Veronica, sir—”

“Veronica what?” Todd demanded.

Veronica said, “Veronica Sheehan, and there is no need to take such a tone with me.”

Todd paused. “I’m sorry. Please connect me with…” he looked at the name he scribbled into his notes beside Vidtronix’s phone number. “Amy Armstrong. I need to speak with Miss Armstrong, thank you.”

The voice on the phone hesitated, and Todd even heard the sound of some computer keyboard clicks, before she answered: “I’m sorry, sir. No one works here with that name.”

Todd bit his lip and slammed his palm on his desk. “The hell they don’t.”

“Sir, if you keep using that language, I’ll have to disconnect—”

“Someone named Amy Armstrong called from your office just after eleven last night, and—”

“Sir, our office closes promptly at five PM, PDT. I assure you that there was no one here that would call your business at such an hour.”

“And
I
assure
you
,” Todd said, almost yelling, “that there was. Now cut the bullshit with me and—”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I asked you politely not to talk to me in such a disgusting manner. The next time you are the victim of a prank call, I suggest that you contact your telephone company or local law enforcement agency for further information. Good day.”

Todd heard the slam of a telephone handset, followed by a dial tone.