Phantom by Retifer M. (debian ebook reader .txt) 📖

so helpfully.
“Yeah.” Sam agrees, nodding her head. “We’ll be quick, Danny. I just wanna get a few pictures for my scrapbook! And then we’ll binge Dead Teacher and eat this all this crap. It’ll only take like five seconds, come on.”

“And what if something happens?” I argue. “What if something like, explodes or something?”

“We won’t touch anything.” Tucker holds up one hand as if pledging. “We swear.”

“Yeah! We’ll just go on down, take a look, and come right back up.” Sam places her hand over her heart. “I promise.”

Tuck quickly copies Sam and slaps his hand on his chest. “We only ever get to hear about it! I wanna see it for myself.” His tries to give me his version of the puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”

I groan and drag my hands down my face. “Fine, but we’re coming right back up and doing… this.” I gesture to the general area of the living room.

They both nod enthusiastically.

I lead the way through the kitchen and down the stairs into the lab. The door to the lab used to have a lock, but some crazy experiment blasted the door practically off its hinges once and it never properly locked or closed again. Mom and dad hadn’t bothered having it replaced since they trust Jazz and I not to get into any trouble down here.

That might not have been the most responsible decision.

I get to the bottom of the stairs, the large room dark besides the blinking lights on the working inventions strewn about the lab tables and the eerie green glow from the portal at the far side of the room. I move my hand along the wall searching for the light switch. Finding it, I flick it on.

The fluorescent white lights in the ceiling flicker on, blinding the three of us.

Before I’ve had the chance to blink the dots out of my eyes, Sam and Tucker have already rushed to the other side of the lab, in awe of the large, glowing, hexagonal hole in the floor. I don’t blame them; it’s pretty much ripped straight from some cheesy scifi movie.

The portal looks like a supernatural well. Short, metal fences, which they’d installed just before finishing the portal, partially surround it, covering four of the six sides. At the very bottom is a few inches of, in the place of water, ectoplasm.

It’s neon green, glowing, and looks kind of like half done jell-o. Jazz and I had to sit through a two hour ‘Ectoplasm Safety’ lecture a few weeks ago before being allowed in the lab again.

I have no idea where they got the stuff, but it was recommended that you don’t touch it without a specially made hazmat on, the kind my parents created and wear all the time, even when they aren’t handling dangerous substances.

I stand a little further away than my friends do, feeling the chill that the ectoplasm gives off from here, even through my clothes. It’s not unlike leaving the freezer door open for a little too long, if that freezer was filled with citrus, ozone, old pennies and the general feeling of being watched.

I rub my arm uncomfortably, smoothing down the hairs standing up there.

Sam pulls out her Polaroid and snaps a picture of the portal. She shakes out the image and smiles as it starts going from black to grey. After a moment she slips the picture into the darkness of her bag, now resting against one of the lab tables.

“Awesome,” Tucker gawks at the glowing liquid. “I don’t get why you complain so much about your parents, dude. This is so cool!”

“Yeah, Danny! Aren’t you the least bit interested in any of this?” Sam lifts her camera again. “I mean, it has to be at least a little exciting that you always get the first look at something that might turn out to be revolutionary.”

The camera clicks, then another blank picture slides out, already fading slowly to colour.

“Maybe. Eh, I’m kinda used to seeing crazy inventions all over my house.” I wave my hand at a table cluttered with gun-like things and- a thermos? Dad must’ve been eating down here. “I get lectures about at least half of this stuff over dinner, and it’s my chore to clean the lab, so, no; a hole in the ground’s not all that exciting to me.”

Plus, I got out all of my excitement and curiosity last week, just before the portal failed to work, but I wouldn’t tell anyone that.

“Well, it’s exciting for me!” Tucker says, leaning over the gate around the portal and staring down into the luminescent depths.

“Hey, don’t do that! It might, I dunno, zap you or you might fall in or something.” I grab Tuck and pull him back, side eyeing the seven foot drop with a shiver. “If you guys get hurt down here my parents’ll give me a giant lecture on lab safety again, if they don’t totally murder me first.”

“Glad to see you care so much for my wellbeing.” Tucker says, placing his hand on his chest and feigning hurt.

“You’re welcome. Just stay on this side of the yellow line.” I point down at the black & yellow hazard tape my parents decorated the floor around the portal- and one of the fences- with before taking several steps away from it.

“But,” Sam continues, still standing way too close for my comfort. “A portal to another dimension? You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”

I look down at it thoughtfully. “I guess it’d be awesome if it did work. To be honest,” I admit, “I’ve always wondered what kind of super cool things could be on the other side of that thing.”

Sam takes another picture and, after a conversation between Tuck and Sam about whether or not it could work- with some comic book and video game references from Tucker that only seemed to annoy Sam- I clear my throat.

“Okay, so you’ve seen the portal. Can we get out of here now?”

“Wait, just one more picture.” Sam says, turning to me with a sly look.

I shrug. “So take it.”

She rolls her eyes and gestures towards the portal. “Of you with it. Please?”

I stare blankly at her, but she doesn’t back down.

“Technically it’s your portal, Danny. I want a picture of you with it.” Glancing back at Tucker, who’s creeping back up towards the fence again, she mutters, “Plus, the only photos I’ve gotten so far are of Tucker.”

I grumble a fine and stand near the portal, at a safe distance.

Sam brings the camera down from her face, shaking her head. “No, go closer. Pose with it! Come on, Danny, have some fun! Plus, it’ll be cool! I’ll put it in my scrapbook and we can look back on this day later in life and-”

“Okay! Okay, I get it,” I wave my hands and take a step towards the portal.

I freeze mid-step, give Sam a cheeky grin, and spin around, heading for the other side of the room first. I pull down a box from one of the shelves where my parents store the stuff they don’t really use that often. When I get strange looks from Tuck and Sam, I pull out the box’s contents.

“A hazmat suit.” I elaborate. “Unlike you, I don’t have much of a death-wish. That stuff is practically toxic waste, guys.” Also it looks kinda cool; I could totally use it for a zombie Halloween costume or something.

Tucker waggles his eyebrows, completely ignoring what I’d just said. “Always wear protection, kids.”

Sam and I just frown at his lame attempt at humor, which also earns a heavy sigh from Sam. I go back over to the portal. “That wasn’t even well executed, Tucker.”

“Hey!”

I hold out the hazmat in front of me, letting it unfold until it hits the floor. I don’t even have time to smile as Sam snaps another picture. I probably look like an idiot. I suppress the urge to giggle.

“So? Put it on.” Sam urges, not even attempting to hide how she’s enjoying every second of this.

Second guessing myself I look uneasily at the white hazmat suit, but slip it on anyways. I open and close my hands a few times when the black gloves are in place, and tap my toes on the concrete to fix the position of my feet in the boots. I zip the zipper up to my neck.

“That doesn’t look like a traditional hazmat.” Sam looks me up and down.

I stare down at myself; it’s like a normal one- god knows I’ve seen a million hazmats in my fourteen years of life- but with slight differences, like the belt around the midsection- I suspect for holding weapons- and the thickness of the supposedly ectoplasm proof material, not to mention the detachable gas mask that clearly isn’t a normal gas mask and looks super creepy despite being white.

“No, my parents made all of these ones special, like ectoplasm drysuits or whatever.” I nod at the portal, “You know, hot-tub portal and all.”

I can almost feel the environmental speech about to come out of Sam’s mouth- pollution in the ocean and whatnot- so I go on quickly, not wanting to waste more time down in the lab when we’re supposed to be gorging on junk food and watching Dead Teacher.

“Not sure, though.” I flip the hood up, not bothering to put the gas mask on, the importance of which my parents had spent at least an hour telling us about. “Hey, maybe this other dimension is some sort of underwater world.”

“Like Atlantis?” Tuck raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, but like, in another dimension.” I stand on the warning tape and pose stupidly for Sam’s picture. “You never know; maybe it’s a world of mermaids.”

The camera clicks as Tuck and I giggle. Sam waves her hand towards the other side of it.

“Go over there. Better shot.” Her eyes flick towards the box which my hazmat had been in a second earlier. “Also, that gas mask looks badass; you should put it on.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. “The mask? You won’t even be able to see my face.”

“What?” She walks over and hooks a finger under it, holding it up and looking at it closely. “You’d totally be able to see at least part of your face. This part’s see-through.” She chucks it at me and I barely catch it.

“Ugh, fine. You guys owe me after this, ya know.” Tugging my hood back down, I hold it up to my face and luckily remember at the last second how exactly to get the thing on.

I pull the straps over the back of my head and try not to make a face, although they probably wouldn’t be able to see it.

After a minute of slightly struggling to get it on at least semi-properly, I pull my hood back up and lean against the railing next to the portal. The only part of my face visible is my eyes, the lower half of my face being covered by the respirator on the front and the “nosecup” as my parents called it. It’s supposed to prevent the visor from fogging up, I think.

Behind me, I hear Tucker snicker.

I turn to glare at him. “Hey, you-”

I turn and am cut off at my foot sliding unnaturally across the metal and into something. A large hum sounds throughout the lab as the overhead lights flicker for a second. A vibration runs through my hand clutching the railing.

I turn again to try to get a look at what I’d kicked; internally swearing at how I may have just damaged my parent’s greatest achievement, even if it doesn’t exactly work.

Before I can make out what it is