by Rhys Thomas
He’d never stood up for himself. And even when he had, he still failed.
The wind was strong down on the street, litter blowing along in front of a row of graffitied shop shutters.
He went to the boot of his car and fetched his own phone to call the police when he noticed people gathering in small groups. They were animated by something. It seemed like slow motion as he realised they were pointing upwards, towards the tower block.
His mind stopped, just for a second, reaching, calculating. The air fell out of his body and he was completely weightless.
Zac’s window. His mind somersaulted The building was on fire.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The people gathered in their groups turned away from the fire and towards Sam, in his costume, and slowly directed their phones away from the blaze and on to him, on to the costume.
One of them had called 999 and was giving the address.
He flew up the stairs, rounding the last corner, shoulder into the wall, and on to the top floor. Smoke was coming out from under Zac’s door and he could hardly see. People were banging on the door. Sam pushed past them and they stared at him.
There were two little kids in pyjamas, a boy and a girl.
‘Get everyone out,’ he said to the father. ‘I’ve got this.’
‘Dad, is that the Phantasm?’ he heard the boy whisper.
‘Come on,’ their mother said, and she put her hand on Sam’s shoulder.
He looked down at the hand, a tattoo just showing under her sleeve, of a green lizard with a red stripe running up its back. And then she was gone.
He slammed the door with his fists.
‘Zac!’ he shouted. Discordance in his voice.
He pounded again but nothing happened. Taking a step back, he thrust his weight into the heavy door but it didn’t budge. The deadbolts. He used his legs to kick off the wall opposite, throwing everything he could into it, but the door didn’t give an inch.
His mind tripped, refusing to accept it. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t possible. This wasn’t possible.
The devil is a code that runs through us all.
He pounded on the door. ‘Zac! Don’t do this. Please.’
God, how long had they been in there? The panic leaked everywhere inside him. He barged the door, again and again, but nothing happened, and nothing would happen. His brain wasn’t working right. He thought he was going to collapse.
‘Sarah!’
His voice split. He kicked the door hard with the sole of his boot but it didn’t even shake. Every second lost was a nightmare. Oh God, he was too late. It was happening all over again. He put his back to the door, slid down to the ground and closed his eyes. His mind swirled with chaos, he was losing control as the passageway filled with more smoke.
There had to be something.
Then, through the darkness, he remembered something he’d been told once. Not by his father this time, but by his mother. He saw her, saw her sitting at the table in the back garden in the sun. She was smiling: You can do anything you want, Sam, anything at all.
Eyes open. He pulled on his mask.
More people were coming up the stairs but it wasn’t the fire crew, it was more neighbours in their pyjamas with their phones. He pushed past them, telling them to get out, and leapt up the steps to the fire exit. He shouldered through the door and across the little garden to the edge of the building, where he looked over the neck-high wall at the orange glow coming from the window.
There was a heavy wooden bench that he dragged over.
‘Help me,’ he called to the people who’d followed him up.
Two tall youths came to him, pushing the bench across the gravel and at right-angles to the wall. Sam took his length of rope from his pack and tied two knots, one to the leg and one to the armrest. He tried the rope. It held.
A weird sense drove him on; the chaos you feel when the edge of a cliff calls you closer. He thought: what if I’d never played that song on the jukebox? His mother’s favourite song, her final gift.
He hopped on to the bench again and looked over the wall, checking distances. It was a long way down to the people with their phones tilted up at the burning building. He wrapped the other end of the rope around his gloves, praying the length was right. This had to work. He could have done nothing for his family; it was just an accident. This was different.
He felt electric, invincible, so much more than a frightened man; like he really could do anything. The wind whipped and made the sky a madness. He took a deep breath and checked his grip, his fingers tapping the rope. He thought of Sarah. He stood on the far end of the bench.
‘Mate, you should wait for the firemen,’ he heard someone say.
‘Nah, go for it, mate, you legend,’ the other youth said.
The costume would protect him. He thought of Sarah again and briefly closed his eyes.
Images of his life flashed before him, just like they say they do, images as on a deck of cards being fanned, a new image on each card. His office desk with the bonsai tree, Sally sitting at a small table in his bedroom as he revised for exams, the swimming pool next door with the brilliant-blue sky, the climb up to his old Batcave, Sarah drinking Guinness reading her book, Sarah sleeping on her back with her face turned towards him, Sarah’s face when they’d been running to get out of the rain and the way her glasses were dappled with raindrops, his friends sitting in the fire glow of the pub, Mr Okamatsu sitting on his porch with his Japanese garden before him, his mum and dad at the kitchen table checking bills, sitting there talking, Steve and Sally lying on a blanket on the living-room floor just after they’d been born, Sarah eating salad, Sarah reading a book, watching TV, dancing, singing, smiling, and then, finally, his mum and dad at the edge of the magical pool on the side of the mountain, standing there in the sunbeam. All of this happened in a nanosecond.
When he opened his eyes he could see for miles. Far away on the horizon a thundercloud wall was moving in, deep grey and so charged you could almost see the electricity dance. A crack of blue lightning cut down through the sky and the wind whipped.
The future can be as good as the past.
All sound fell away, the audience of his life held their breath . . .
Be brave.
Sam ran for the wall, along the length of the bench, and launched himself over the edge, head first, horizontal, flying. He opened his eyes and saw the ground hundreds of feet below him, tiny matchstick men, people in stasis. Gravity reached out and brought him down, he braced for the rope jolt, and when it came he felt the muscles tear in his arms and across his chest, and pain flashed from his hand across his body, but he held on. His trajectory was torn from its vector and he was heading now back to the building, swinging in, feet first, towards the direct centre of the single-glazed shitty window of the high-rise. He hit it hard, turned his face away and closed his eyes as the window gave. His body kept going, sliding through the shattered glass, the pads and guards of his costume and mask taking the brunt.
And then, he was in.
Landing hard on his hip, he took in the room with a sense of despair as a tongue of flame flew out the smashed window above him.
The flat was thick with smoke, which followed the fire out the window. There was fire everywhere. The heat was crazy.
There were two bodies lying on the floor, Zac in the centre of the room, face down, and then Sarah, his Sarah, slumped against the wall near the radiator. Alone. There was a shudder in his heart. Her head lolled to one side, her glasses halfway down her nose. The shock of sadness amplified inside him. He was on his feet and over to her, by her side, sliding on his knees, resting her head on his shoulder. He tried to stir her but she was already gone.
‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’
A craziness in his mind almost made him sit next to her so they could drift away together but his other half told him about the oxygen mask in his pack. He tried it on himself, taking two plentiful breaths.
He
sat Sarah up and put the mask over her.
The heat was immense but there was a clear path to the door between the flames. He was across the room before he knew it, stopping at Zac and fishing the phone out of his pocket, then sliding the locks across, opening the door. The flames, galvanised by the new oxygen, whooshed across the open space.
‘Get him out,’ he called to the people outside the door, pointing at Zac.
There were now flames between him and Sarah but he ran through them, covering his face. There was the taste of blood in his mouth and when he put his hand to his face it came away red. He put her jaw into the palm of his hand.
‘Come back,’ he said.
But she couldn’t hear him. She was dead. Everyone was dead again.
He hugged her tight and he started to cry, no numbness, no protection, he started to cry. Great waves flowed out of him and he felt his body grow light, and then he stopped and breathed and watched the movement in the room, the flames dancing, something wonderful in the way they moved, the way the curtains being blown by the wind were like rainbows of thick magma.
Without effort he picked her up and powered through the wall of fire that he was sure he felt move aside as he passed, and he went out into the passageway just as the fire crew pushed past him, and he took her up to the little roof garden, where he laid her on the gravel.
‘You have to come back.’ He spoke low, almost inaudibly, his voice thick with tears. ‘Please,’ he said, into her ear. ‘Come back.’
The world was motion and force. CPR. He needed to do CPR. All the faces of the people stared at him with so much sorrow, he thought he would melt. And then he watched their faces change, and felt the stirring in his arms.
Look at Sarah, said a higher Sam.
And Sarah was looking back at him. His chest fell into his gut and he pulled her so tight he thought he might snap her.
She pulled the oxygen mask off her face. He felt her shake and there were tears in her eyes when she saw him. He helped her up and somebody wrapped a blanket around her. Then, just hard enough to make itself known, there was a little quake in his heart.
She was alive. At last he could see it now, the arrow of the future. Others still encircled them on the little rooftop garden and her warmth flowed right through him.
Every past was once a future.
He held her tight, as the world went crazy all around them.
The Phantasm #015
Some Years Later
Whatever Happened to the Dark Defender?
He lies in wait. It is not night but a bright day in late August, the kind of long summer day that seems like it’ll never end. Being out in daylight is alien, but needs must. He watches the back garden from the bushes. There is not a hint of breeze and in the costume he is stifling. A paddling pool is in the centre of a messy lawn, a tricycle is turned sideways. The patio doors at the back of the house are open, and yet the place appears deserted.
It is time to move.
Slowly, he emerges from the bushes. Over to the patio doors. A kitchen lies beyond. Not as neat as he’d like to see, but kitchens become this way when true life is being lived. His ears prick up. There is a rustling in the hallway. Quiet voices chatter, a flash of movement. Immediately he gives chase. His costume, honed over many years, is light and mobility is easy.
Out in the hallway he sees a trailing leg disappear into the living room. But he knows the layout of this house. Next to the kitchen, through a set of double doors, is a dining room. The house is a loop and he can cut them off coming the other way.
It all happens so fast.
‘Baaaa!’ he shouts.
The evil twins scream, turn, and run the other way. No need to give chase. Notorious trouble-makers, the twins, but not the brightest. He waits behind the double doors and, soon enough, they run in. And just as they do, he pounces, tackling them both to the ground.
‘Got you!’
They scream and thrash but it is no good. They cannot escape his superhuman strength. Because they are only four.
‘Get off, Dad!’ calls the boy, though he is laughing.
‘This is no laughing matter. I’m taking you both to jail.’
‘No!’ the girl squeals. ‘Please, Phantasm.’
‘Jail. For first-degree ice cream theft.’
‘But you gave us the ice cream.’
‘The law says you may not eat ice cream until after your dinner.’
‘It’s not fair,’ they say in unison, something that happens a lot.
‘I was testing you. And you failed.’
They all stop. The sound of a car pulling into the driveway.
‘Let’s hide and jump out on her!’
It is a great plan from the boy.
‘Let’s hide in the garden and throw her in the pool,’ says the girl.
Funny. These kids are funny. His pride swells. The key is in the latch. The paddling pool idea will have to wait. They all scurry into the living room and each twin grabs one of their father’s legs, and he can feel their body warmth. The front door opens and in the mirror at the end of the hallway he watches her come into the house, carrying a shopping bag in one hand, pushing her glasses up her nose with the other. Her hair falls across her face and she blows it away.
He calls her his sidekick. But she says it’s the other way round.
She sees him in the mirror and stops. He puts his finger to his lips, and she smiles. When she does this, the door swings wider and a thick sunbeam falls across her; he feels it burn hard into his memory and, for some reason, today, thoughts of the intervening years stream through his mind in one mass, the good times and the bad, the tough and the not so tough, all the peaks and troughs a life through the world must take, the highs and lows and ebbs and flows. He loves so much the way her skin crinkles at the corner of her eyes when she smiles now, each crease a disappointment, every line a joy. Slowly she moves down the hallway.
He’s patrolling tonight but it’s his turn to cook. Sausage, beans and chips. The kids love it (and so does he). She’ll tell him about her day, he’ll tell her about his. Mr Okamatsu is over from Japan and he’s coming to the twins’ fifth birthday party on Saturday. Probably Denny was late for his shift at the library today, she’ll say, meaning Sarah had to go on lunch late again. As she tells him this, there will be a moment, just a small moment, when her words fall away and he will see her for all that she is, this incredible force of life that puts an excitement in him every day, because he is lucky, in a way, gifted a unique perspective where he is able to perceive how good life is. Then the moment will fall away again, her words will come back in, and she’ll tell him to be careful tonight and come home safe.
The Phantasm looks down at the twins, who look back up at him. He holds up three fingers.
A countdown.
Three.
He folds down one finger.
Two.
They stifle laughter, and it’s like a friendly ghost passing through him when he sees their faces illuminated like this. A little quake of the heart. It is such a beautiful day today.
One . . .
Acknowledgements
Thanks so much to everyone at Wildfire for your extraordinary help: Alex Clarke, Ella Gordon, Nathaniel Alcaraz-Stapleton, Jason Bartholomew, Shan Morley Jones, Siobhan Hooper for the beautiful cover, Mary Chamberlain, and everyone else involved with the production of this book. And especially to my truly superb editor, Kate Stephenson; I quite literally couldn’t have done this without you. Thanks for being so talented.
Thanks to my early readers: Ian Worgan, Richard Jones, Chyrelle Anstee, Margaret Pearce. Thanks to Nick Bush for all your help. And thanks as ever to my wonderful parents, my two brothers, one sister-in-law and three nephews. And to my sister, Anna: the bravest person I know, and my hero.
Thank you to my agent and friend, Laura Morris. I don’t need to tell you how much you mean to me but I will anyway: a lot!
Finally, and most importantly, thank you to Amy, the love of my
life.
Rhys Thomas lives in Cardiff with his long-term girlfriend and two cats, Henry VIII and Sheldon Tilllikum Cooper. The Unlikely Heroics of Sam Holloway is his third novel.
