by Rhys Thomas
‘Gone down?’
‘Sunk.’
Sam had seen cargo ships on a business trip to Rotterdam, seen the shocking nature of their enormous size. Huge chunks of metal, skyscrapers laid sideways, drifting calmly. That one of those things might sink – even in open sea, let alone in a canal – seemed impossible.
‘They’re sending through the waybills and packing sheets,’ said Rebecca.
Others in the office were talking on phones, readjusting figures, pulling files, but it was always Rebecca who took the lead. He set to work checking his own accounts, entering the lost stock into the system to see the new forecasts and trying to calculate how much he would have to ship by air, which was very expensive. To not have stock arrive on time would be a huge dishonour to Electronica Diablique, not to mention the cataclysm of shutting down production lines all over the country.
The work kept Sam’s mind off his impending date. He spent a lot of time emailing his clients, asking how much stock they had in reserve and how long they could manage without their parts. In the world of electronics manufacturing this was about as exciting as it got. He found something thrilling in writing the words, One of our ships has gone down in the Suez Canal. On the Internet it said all men aboard had been recovered safely, apart from one worker, still missing, last seen heading towards the engine room, which had flooded and caused the disaster. A life at sea comes with known risks, Sam reasoned. It is something a seaman accepts. But as he sat there with his databases and spreadsheets, the thought of that man, a humble sailor trying to save his ship, kept scratching at the window of his mind. He tried to remember how to create an Excel pivot table but found it impossible as suddenly, just like the engine room, his mind flooded and all he could think about was the act of drowning, the terror coming in the minutes leading up to death when you realise that it’s going to happen and there’s nothing you can do.
And the old storm clouds drifted in.
He hadn’t felt this way in years, this awful desperation, hovering over the edge of a panic attack. Suddenly the raging turmoil was back, as if it had never been away, setting in motion the foggy tumult of depression. Why is this happening? He sat at his desk and printed out some sheets and tried to staple them, but he couldn’t get the edges to align perfectly and he was overcome by the sudden impulse to smash the stapler through the barred window above his desk. He was sweating. That poor man, trapped down there with the water coming in, trying to save the ship. And why? Sarah’s face appeared in his mind’s eye. The containers that moved around the world and kept the man in a job so he could provide food and shelter for his family, the containers that were dispatched to production lines all over the world, millions of people standing over conveyer belts moving pieces of metal from one place to another and if they didn’t exist the man wouldn’t have been on the ship in the first place and so wouldn’t have had to try to save them and would still be alive. By this far-reaching, irrefutable logic, Sam was responsible for the man’s death. Through the complex web of modern-world connections he was directly linked to that drowning sailor trapped in the depths of a hulking cargo chip.
He remembered his breathing techniques and closed his eyes. He imagined a lovely beige carpet cut into a freshly painted skirting board, a bare room with minimalist furniture. Simple. Simplicity. Sitting down to a nice cup of coffee. And yet we go about our lives without ever thinking of the people working whole lifetimes on coffee plantations, living awful hand-to-mouth existences in the hope things will be better for their kids, but they never are, and all so that we may enjoy sugar-free gingerbread one-shot skinny decaf lattes with a sprinkling of cinnamon in lovely coffee shops who falsely proclaim ethical perfection. Or how we are able to afford enormous televisions with pixels so dense they’re too crisp for the human eye to fully decode, all thanks to Chinese workers toiling in city-sized factories under whose roofs they work, live, breed, ail and die. Our clothes stitched by slave hands, our food drawn from land so decimated by over-farming and chemicals that it will eventually lift and blow into the sea. Businesses competing hard and, instead of it being healthy, it’s become a driving down of human standards, a race to the bottom with those already there so pulverised they become the sort of men who will head down into a sinking ship instead of up. These were the tumbling thoughts in Sam’s mind. We’re just tiny organisms scuttling across the surface of a small planet, existing for a mere flicker of time, and yet we spend so much of that time in a state of struggle. There were Romanians within fifty feet of him he’d never seen and who would spend a month of their precious lives – a whole month – slotting tubes of metal through cardboard slits because a safety inspector had to make stricter and stricter regulations so he could get paid more money, the ultimate effect being tighter deadlines, things being rushed, not safer, corners cut, ships sinking, lower pay for the lower workers because people still want their motorcars to be affordable.
He feared he might start crying, and it wasn’t all because of the state of the world. The voice of reason was now telling him he hadn’t recovered from the Event at all, he had just hidden everything away and become a stupid, childish superhero instead. But if he was going to meet Sarah and make progress, why did he feel so awful? He checked the clock. Ten to five. He wasn’t staying late tonight. He packed up his things, washed his face in the Gents, and left.
On the way home he called into a florist’s and bought a large bunch of colourful flowers. He found the colours of their petals unspeakably lovely in their innocence. But they weren’t for Sarah. It was dark now and ornate Narnian lamp posts lighted the way through the graveyard. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d been here.
Small pellets of rain were tossed on the wind as he placed the flowers on his parents’ grave. He’d spent years as a virtual recluse, had made no new friends since the Event, had felt a rage in him so deep and powerful it surely couldn’t exist in other people. It weighed so heavily on him something vital had snapped to drive him to the person he now was, a lonely man in his mid-twenties dressing up as a superhero. He was so far from normal the idea of something normal befalling him, something like a girlfriend, was terrifying.
Staring at the grave, he felt the numbness in which he had submerged himself all those years calling to him. He could happily curl up on the gravestone and stay there for ever. But it was impossible because Sam had to go home, go home and get ready, get ready for the future. Whatever that was.
He showered, shaved, and stood in front of his clothes, which were laid neatly on the bed. He checked the time. Outside, rain clicked at the windows. Nerves. He pulled on his clothes and imagined Sarah sitting in her flat above the abandoned shop, waiting for him.
He remembered the feeling, all those months ago, when he’d stood in front of the mirror in his costume, how insane he’d felt. What would she think when she found out about the Phantasm? The possibility of burning everything crossed his mind, and yet he knew he could do no such thing. It was too much a part of him now. He’d kept it secret from the world this long; one more person wouldn’t hurt.
‘What are you doing?’ he said out loud to his reflection.
His heart raced. In front of the mirror he painted around his eyes with eyeliner and went back to the bed, where he pulled on his vest, clipped on his belt and donned the mask. In the mirror, he nodded, and pictured Sarah again, staring at her watch, expecting him any second, and how she was going to feel when he didn’t arrive. The Phantasm stared back at him from beyond the mirror and smiled. And then left the house.
The Phantasm #006
The Lonely Traveller
A great man once said, ‘Never judge a person by how they treat their friends – being nice to friends is easy – judge them by how they treat strangers.’ Good advice. Sometimes one must make the ultimate decision: have courage, and step out of the shadows.
Or cycle out of the shadows on a lightweight, sprayed-black-as-night bicycle if that is the preferred mode of transport for the evening. Which,
on this night, it is. All thoughts of the man behind the mask are gone; the only thing that matters is the mission. And this is good. The mask removes all complications.
The registration plate on the huge artic lorry is Polish, with the letters PL set beneath the circle of yellow stars on a blue background that denotes the European Union. The lorry driver, obese, moustachioed, lost, is standing outside his truck, his faithful steed, consulting a road map in the light of the orange street lamp. A cigarette hangs loosely from his lips.
Little does he know that a phantom of justice watches from the shadows, eagle-eyed. Time to roll out. Setting his right foot on the pedal, the mountain bike wheels from the darkness and towards the stricken traveller. St Christopher would be proud.
The lorry driver glances up casually, sees the dark entity cycling towards him, then looks back at his map. Then he looks up again quickly and the cigarette falls out of his mouth on to the map. Orange sparks go everywhere, like fireflies, and the cigarette rolls on to his ample belly, making him panic, as he swipes it off into the bushes at the side of the road.
‘Friend!’ says the Phantasm, braking. He puts a hand on his chest and says, gently, ‘Friend.’
The driver stares at him for a moment and then says something in a foreign language. Hmm.
‘English?’ he says.
The driver shakes his head.
The Phantasm smiles kindly and holds out his hands, nodding at the map. ‘Lost? Are. You. Lost?’
He steps slowly towards the driver, as a veterinarian might approach a frightened dog. The man has bags under his eyes and is clearly exhausted. He seems confused by the costume.
‘I. Help. You,’ says the avenging force, very slowly, holding his hands out further again towards the map. Poor old-timer’s probably never heard of sat nav.
This time, the man of the road comprehends and starts nodding. The Phantasm nods back, enthusiastically, making the Polish man nod even more enthusiastically again. This is a superb coup for international relations!
The driver goes into his pocket and, with genuine glee on his face, pulls out a scrap of paper. On it is an address. The masked hero takes the scrap in his glove and reads it, and nods once more. The glow of a newly formed friendship warms the air.
‘You,’ he says, pointing. ‘Follow. Me.’ And he jabs his thumb back at himself, miming the motion of cycling to demonstrate his intention of leading the gentleman to his destination, which just so happens to be a factory less than a mile away.
The Pole holds out his hand and they shake on it. He is smiling, his face an expression of joy and relief.
The hero turns the bicycle around so that it is facing downhill, and he looks over his shoulder as the lorry driver climbs aboard his mighty vehicle.
The Phantasm holds an arm aloft, readying himself. The engine roars to life behind him, he is lit up by a set of powerful headlights, he drops his arm and, together, they speed off into the night. Carried away in the moment the wind sings against his face as he descends the hill.
The black bike zips under the old railway bridge and round the corner. He should have the driver to the factory in less than ten minutes. He pictures the scene: a tiny bicycle leading a huge articulated eight-wheeler to safety, just as a little tugboat might steer a colossal cargo tanker through a treacherous harbour.
He can hear the tyres of his bike grip the blacktop. Strange. Where’s the rumble of the engine?
He glances over his shoulder. The truck is not there. Tracking back on himself, the Phantasm investigates. Then he realises something. Isn’t the old railway bridge a low bridge? Consulting his memory, he is sure there are black-and-yellow hazard markings on it . . .
Yes, it is a low bridge. The Phantasm tries to imagine the scene in his mind. The driver, alone in his cab late at night. A friendly face come to help. He follows. A low bridge. But what happened next? He must have panicked and made a disastrous error of judgement because, as the Phantasm comes back around the bend, he sees the main body of the truck is well and truly wedged under the bridge. Cars are building up in the area, from both directions. The road is blocked: the truck’s cab has veered into the opposite lane, making both ways impassable. Many, many car horns are tooting. And there he is, the traveller from a far-off land, his head popping out the window, his arms waving.
‘Hey!’ the driver calls.
The hero’s eyes meet those of the traveller. He is very, very angry. The scene is chaos. There are too many people around. Sometimes you must lose the battle to win the war. With this thought in mind, the masked vigilante turns the bicycle around, hoping the driver won’t mind too much. He imagines the view from the cab, of the hero who almost saved him but who is now undertaking a U-turn in the open road and heading in the opposite direction, around the corner, out of sight.
He retrieves his phone from his utility belt. The least he can do is call 999.
Chapter Nine
When he was fifteen years old, Sam’s parents announced his mother’s new pregnancy. A little brother or sister would be arriving, and how did he feel about that? Sam was overjoyed. The prospect of a new sibling he could take on adventures and hang around the house with was one that filled him with excitement. He helped his parents decorate the spare room, went shopping on weekends for baby clothes and even managed to find his first part-time job, at the local video shop, which he absolutely loved. With his wages he opened a Post Office savings account for the new arrival, depositing one pound of his wages each week, which wasn’t much, but because Sam intended the fund to mature on his brother or sister’s seventh birthday he could present them with a cheque for the huge amount of £364 plus interest.
He needn’t have worried about it being a boy or a girl because, as it transpired, he got one of each. The twins were born one chilly December morning: Steven Paul (after his grandfathers) and Sally Jean (after her grandmothers). There was something odd at first about calling a small baby Steve but it soon became natural.
The babies were a delight. They were born at the perfect time, nearing the end of school’s Michaelmas term, affording Sam a great deal of time to spend with them over the Christmas holidays. With their arrival came a new type of warmth to the family home, which Sam enjoyed immensely – for, apart from his small group of friends, school was still proving difficult.
Around that time he was immersing himself in comic lore. His new job in the video shop gave him money to buy expensive graphic novels that he had hitherto been unable to afford. He started off with Batman cycles and discovered darker writers like Grant Morrison and Frank Miller, but it was following the discovery of the Preacher comics that he really became aware of the power graphic novels can impart. Here was a story of fallen angels and the destruction of Heaven, blended with the adventures of humans trying to make their way in the world. And it was very, very violent. Its quality was so high that, when he finished, he craved more. And that was when he discovered Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, arguably the greatest set of comics ever written, a series that encapsulated almost every conceivable human emotion and behaviour. He found it hard to believe that stories could operate at such high levels with hardly anyone seeming to know about them.
At the same time he loved watching the personalities emerge in Steve and Sally and would sit with them for hours in the evenings, giving his parents some downtime. They were a lot older than when they had Sam, nearing their forties, and bringing up twins at any age is always difficult. Because of the age gap he couldn’t help but wonder if the twins were an accident, and this led him to a much more awful thought. Maybe he was the mistake and they had the twins because the time was finally right. Had he ruined their lives?
School was better when he got to sixth form. Most of the jocks and tougher kids had left for the nearby college, leaving space for Sam to grow into. He got contacts for his eyes, and when his braces came off he became more confident, he started smiling again, and this made him happier. He talked more to girls, though mainly in the capacity of friend rathe
r than potential lover. He fell in love with a girl named Alexi Richardson, but his feelings were desperately unrequited. He started going to the pub, where underage drinking was more or less permitted, and though he spent most of his time in a dark corner with Tango and Blotchy, he did on one drunken occasion, with the wind in his sails, kiss a girl in the alleyway where they kept the bins.
The twins learned to crawl, walk and talk. Big Steve, as Sam’s friends called him, because he had grown more quickly than Sally, was boisterous, a big character who would have overwhelmed Sally were it not for her being, like her older brother, naturally introverted. When Sam was studying for his ‘A’ Levels Sally was old enough and quiet enough to accompany him to his room, where she would sit silently flicking through books with cardboard pages.
Hormonally, acne notwithstanding, Sam was relatively unaffected by late adolescence. His love for Alexi Richardson was powerful, but not so powerful as to throw him off his schoolwork, as it did with Tango, who fell head over heels for a girl two years his junior. During those months leading up to their final exams, Tango complained of not being able to revise because his heart was too full, even though he and Eliza had not exchanged a single word. As a result of this he got a C, an E and a U in Sociology, English and Computer Science, respectively. But Sam, even through the fog of love, managed A, B, C and was accepted to read Geography at Warwick University. His life was writing itself. Soon, he would move away from everything he loved, and take a step into the big wide world.
When he got home he checked his phone. There were two missed calls and two texts from Sarah. The texts just asked where he was, nothing more. The last one was at 8:15. They weren’t angry, and the lack of anger just made Sam feel worse. He pictured her dressed up and ready to go, her coat on, checking her watch, and the terrible familiarity of regret crunched into him. Usually, after getting back from a patrol, the adrenaline buzz would keep him buoyant but this time all that lift was gone as soon as he climbed out of the costume.
