Read Online Phantom File by Patrick Carman - Free Book Online

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    I’m Will Besting, and I’ve already told the unbelievable story of how I came to be cured. I’ve explained about Rainsford, the one who lives forever, the person who at once fixed me and cursed me in the space of seven days. And I’ve documented the insane fears of the Seven, an exclusive club I am, unhappily, a card-carrying member of. All of our fears were blown away by the power of one man.
    Before the cure, I couldn’t step into a room full of people without feeling like we were all crammed tightly into an elevator. I would hear my dead little brother’s voice in my head: This is bad. Better run before it’s too late . And so I’d move away into the comfort of empty space. Once I was by myself, I could breathe again
    But how does Rainsford do it? How did it begin? Where did this terrible power come from?
    I have a knack for finding hidden things, probably because I spend a lot of time searching. It’s an obsession. But even I’m surprised when I discover the truth. I have found the story of his beginning, and while I still hate him for what he did to me and my friends, there is a tiny corner of my soul that feels sorry for him, too.
    The power he wields came with a price.
    Before being cured by Rainsford, I spend a lot of time alone because I was afraid to be around other people. Now I just spend time by myself because I’m obsessed with discovering every detail about the person who cured me. I think I do it because I’m searching for a way to destroy him, but sometimes I wonder if it’s just morbid curiosity, because really, I don’t think he can be turned off. I don’t think Rainsford will ever come to an end.
    My memory of past events is clearer on some details than others, and this has made the material stored on my Recorder more important than ever.
    My Recorder, filled with material by Rainsford’s mortal enemy, Eve Goring. No one hates Rainsford like Mrs. Goring does (I run a distant second). Some of the files Mrs. Goring put on my Recorder when I left Rainsford’s domain are there because I was supposed to find them. But there is one file, a phantom file, I am certain I was not meant to see. I think she put it there by accident, erased it, and thought it was gone.
    I’m smarter than that, Mrs. Goring.
    If it’s been on my Recorder, deleting it won’t help you.
    A phantom file remains.
    No one knows the Recorder like I do, because I built it with my own hands. I know how to find things hidden in the dark corners of the flash memory, things other people assume are dead and buried.
    It took me three months, but I found it.
    Here is the story of Rainsford’s beginning, told by the only living person who could have known.

    Found file: Rainsford.origin
    Author: e.goring
    Origination date: 06/23/1971
    Stored at 9:21AM 08/12/2011
    Removed at 9:27AM 08/12/2011
    My mother, who died of bitterness and spite, taught me one thing well before she keeled over: a man is likely to betray you; be prepared to make him pay.
    I was a quiet child, always watching, always listening. I knew my mother was plotting against my simpleminded father long before he did. She would go through his pockets like a thief, searching for things that could be turned against him, should the need arise. If she discovered something juicy, my mother would squeal with delight, as if she couldn’t wait for the day this thing could be wielded in opposition. A receipt for bottles of booze, tickets from the horseracing track, random phone numbers scribbled on tiny pieces of paper—these were little treasures neatly organized, for my mother was a recorder of many things. If my father arrived home late with beer on his breath, she wrote it down. Date, time, infraction, all dutifully lined up in columns and tidy paragraphs designed to blow up in his face at the moment of her choosing.
    He never hurt me, but there were times when I hurt myself, as all children do now and then. If I fell down and cut myself or bruised an