The Unlikely Heroics of Sam Holloway

by Rhys Thomas

  He went to scroll down again and horror smashed him. He stopped. Oh God. No.

  He’d liked one of the photos.

  His finger had meant to scroll but had jabbed the screen too hard, right where the ‘like’ button was, and now it was pressed. His mind was working horrifyingly fast. Zac was going to get a notification saying Sarah had liked a photo from eighteen months ago. The photo was of them standing together with his arm around her in a fairground, both with thick winter coats and Sarah holding a stick of shocking-pink candyfloss. In Zac’s mind, Sarah would have been scrolling through very old photos and liked an old favourite, a special memory. This was bad. Instinctively Sam unliked the photo immediately. Oh no. When the original notification popped up on Zac’s phone what would he think? It was obvious: Sarah was sending a hidden message – she remembered the good times. Then Sam realised that when Zac clicked on the notification Sarah’s like would no longer be on there because he’d just unliked it. He threw his face upwards and closed his eyes. Then he liked the photo a second time. A second notification would arrive at Zac’s phone but maybe he would think it was a glitch because it was the same photo liked twice. This was so complicated. He felt sick. Sam quickly got everything on the phone back to the point he’d started at, so that Sarah wouldn’t think anything was up. It was in the lap of the gods now.

  Upstairs, the shower stopped hissing.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was when the phrase ‘sixty thousand pounds’ slammed him that the nausea would return. In work the next day he awaited the emails from his clients. Nobody would phone, of course. Nobody did that any more. Having decided to mute the American woman, he sat there stewing, unable to concentrate, until the bold black letters of new emails arrived.

  He clicked the first one and held his breath. Refusing to pay. And the next one. All morning they came in – all refused to pay. Sixty thousand pounds. At the same time the fear of Sarah finding out about what he’d done on Facebook got churned into the mix, which in turn set off further anxiety with the wider problem of her discovering he was the Phantasm.

  It took nearly three hours and lots of trips to the toilet and the warehouse to finally get up the courage to go over to Rebecca’s desk and ask if he could have a private word in the meeting room.

  ‘Everything OK?’ she said, as they took seats facing each other across the beech-effect surface.

  ‘Yeah, great,’ said Sam. ‘Actually, not really.’

  He spat out the information, unable to make eye contact, choosing instead to fixate on the notepad in front of Rebecca. The clock on the wall ticked, in the warehouse you could hear the forklift telescoping. When he did eventually look up Rebecca was smiling, smiling so he could see her teeth, top and bottom rows touching. Her eyes were open in a kind of manic wideness.

  ‘So you’ve got the authorisation forms,’ she stated.

  ‘No.’

  Rebecca did a series of rapid blinks. ‘And how much did you say the shipments came to?’

  Sam scrunched up his shoulders like he was wincing. ‘Sixty thousand pounds?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I sent them the emails though,’ he said. ‘They knew what was going to happen.’

  ‘But their argument is going to be they didn’t sign off on the shipments.’ Fast blinking again.

  ‘But they didn’t stop them either. It was better to air ship than go on line stop,’ Sam offered.

  ‘Yes, but . . . Sam, you’ve got to get things signed. That’s why we have the forms.’ The tension in her chest appeared in her voice.

  ‘It’s OK. I mean, my accounts alone make three hundred thousand pounds profit a year.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve got a thirty per cent profit margin.’

  ‘That’s just the cost of the part and the shipping cost from Japan.’

  ‘And the cost of shipping out. That’s included too.’

  Rebecca’s eyes fluttered again.

  ‘You can’t seriously think it’s as simple as that. Do you know how big our wage bill is? Our rent? Our rates? Insurance? Office costs? All the different tax bills and PAYE contributions? We’re barely breaking even across the whole UK branch, Sam. We’re hanging on by the skin of our teeth because the Czech branch has taken all the business.’

  Sam felt cold.

  ‘I’ll have to speak to Mr Okamatsu about this.’

  ‘Of course, yeah, absolutely.’

  And his relationship with Mr Okamatsu had been going so well.

  ‘You should have done it properly. This is so unlike you.’

  He went back to his desk, about halfway down the main office. Mr Okamatsu sat in the desk at the far end, his back to the meeting-room wall, surveying his kingdom. Because Sam worked with his back to Okamatsu he could only listen as Rebecca approached him.

  ‘Could I have a word with you please?’ he heard her say, quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘In the meeting room?’

  There was the sense of everybody listening now.

  ‘Here,’ said Mr Okamatsu, shortly.

  Sam felt Rebecca’s hesitation. A tiny leaf dropped off his bonsai tree. Rebecca lowered her voice to an inaudible level as she told Okamatsu about the air shipments.

  ‘Huh?’ he said.

  She whispered something else. And then silence. The image of a giant black hole in some distant part of the universe arrived in Sam’s head, a galaxy of swirling debris slowly consuming everything in its influence. He could feel Mr Okamatsu’s eyes burning laser holes in his back from behind those light-sensitive glasses and he felt paralysed. Up until now the situation had been too big to fully comprehend, but now he realised he was in huge trouble.

  Mr Okamatsu appeared at Sam’s desk in absolute silence.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  He closed the meeting-room door behind him and Sam felt like the whole world had just been closed off. Mr Okamatsu sat down and offered Sam to do the same. He was drinking black coffee from his Pebble Beach golfing mug.

  ‘Why didn’t you get the forms signed?’ he said, outright.

  Sam’s eyes fell to the desk.

  ‘Because they wouldn’t respond to my emails and if I left it any later production lines would have stopped.’

  He thought again about how what he’d done might be a criminal act in some way.

  ‘But why didn’t you get the forms signed?’

  Sam was unsure how to proceed. Hadn’t he just answered that question?

  ‘You tell me,’ Mr Okamatsu insisted. Suddenly, he was no longer the pantomime villain of Sam’s mind but a genuinely dangerous force. He was sweating just beneath the hairline.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sam.

  ‘You bring me the invoices. Shipping invoices.’

  Sam hated it and considered going to his car and driving off, but then he was back in the meeting room handing over the documents. Okamatsu sifted through them, a slight tremor in his right hand. Sam’s fear was turning to sorrow. How was Okamatsu going to explain this to head office? His mouth went dry. Mr Okamatsu tutted, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He placed the papers gently on the table.

  ‘You must tell me why you didn’t get the forms signed.’

  ‘Mr Okamatsu, I . . . they wouldn’t sign them. It was because of the ship. In the Suez Canal. It’s—’

  Sam jumped with shock. Mr Okamatsu had punched the table with so much force it shook Sam’s chair. The room emptied of air.

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’ he said, calmly

  ‘Because . . .’ But he couldn’t say anything.

  ‘Go away,’ said Okamatsu, turning his face away.

  He then raised his hand to dismiss Sam with a flick of his wrist. Sam couldn’t move. Mr Okamatsu waved his hand again, more urgently this time, his signet ring glimmering in the fluorescent light. It was hard to tell if Sam had ever felt this humiliated before. A part of him hated Mr Okamatsu for being so rude but the other half was acc
epting of the behaviour being dished out. Whatever happened to Sam, it was going to be far worse for his boss. At last, he stood.

  ‘You must not speak of this to anyone,’ said Mr Okamatsu. He removed the ring from his finger and placed it on top of the papers, then leaned forward with his head in his hands.

  Sam stared at the signet ring. It was emblazoned with an insignia of a lizard.

  The clock on the wall said it was 3:33.

  At home he stared at the costume laid out on the bed. All he had to do was make a little bonfire and throw everything on top of it. Forget about the Phantasm, and focus completely on Sarah. But why did that idea feel so terrible, make him feel such a strong surge of emptiness?

  He thought of all the times he’d been patrolling in the last few months – all the things he’d done, the good things, coupled with the awesome feeling of invincibility the mask brought. The costume made him whole. Whatever had been missing, he’d found the answer in that other person. He knew about functioning addicts and wondered if this was similar to how they feel, the dirtiness of the secret measured out against the serenity of the high.

  He lifted the utility belt and held it up to the light. If he didn’t go out tonight, he knew – through some other sense, he knew – that all the pressures piling in would crush him . . .

  The Phantasm #012

  Rivers of Asphalt

  It feels good. It feels right. He nods to himself. Yes.

  Revellers on a Thursday night, a small cluster of office workers staying late at the flat-roofed hostelry of the industrial estate gather in the car park. They shout and laugh, and this is acceptable to the entity that espies them from the shadowy grass bank on the far side of the road. Lying on his front, propped up on his elbows, he watches and waits unseen.

  It feels better, being in the costume. It is a clarifying lens and brings with it a sense of freedom. At last he feels at home. The grand mystery of belonging is solved. In the suit he belongs. These streets are his.

  And he’ll be damned if someone thinks they can destroy those streets with crime. A man is being pushy with a woman at the edge of the car park. Overbearing. He’s seen it a thousand times, how guys grind girls into submission. He checks the time: 01:46. He is warm in his suit. He feels invincible. Jerk is trying it on hard with Girl. She has her hands in front of her face and he is cradling each of her elbows. The great persuading tactic: begging. What is going through Girl’s mind? She is perhaps twenty-four, a few pounds overweight. She is making a cawing sound: laughter. Cabs arrive from the night, a caravan of them, headlight cones carving out the darkness. Our champion ensures no innocent pedestrians are in peril and when he returns his gaze to the couple they are kissing in an appalling way. Jerk’s hands wander drunkenly and brazenly.

  The cabs come and the cabs go and he is alone with the night. He lies there, on the top of the grassy bank in the shadow of a tree, and it no longer seems insane to be here in the mask, because this is good.

  It is so quiet. He needs to move, to find action. From down the street a large artic truck pulls out of its depot and trundles along, probably heading back towards town. Don’t mind if I do. He hops on to the back as it passes.

  Not like in the movies.

  There is nothing to grab on to – his fingers fold at a right-angle around the back corner. The ledge he’s on is only three inches wide but the truck’s going too fast to jump off just yet, and it’s not so hard, holding on. The truck heads to town; he can jump off when he gets there. Beats walking, and what’s wrong with a little danger? It’s good for the soul. The wind in his face is an elixir. But boy is this thing moving.

  There’s a left turn ahead, the route into town; the truck will slow and, like a cat, he will jump clear and land at a run, returning to the shadows from whence he came.

  No, not a left turn but straight ahead. Towards the motorway. Should’ve known, really; a truck this size isn’t delivering milk to Spar. Panic does not rise in our hero. There are traffic lights and roundabouts on the long road to the mayhem and certain death of the motorway; he will save himself when they slow down.

  The first traffic light approaches. Safety is not far away but perhaps it won’t come immediately as he sees red, then amber, then green. The truck storms past, really getting up a head of steam. A car is coming the other way down the dual carriageway. It draws close, its headlights bright, a beacon of opportunity.

  ‘Help me!’ he wails, and for a second the driver of the car – male, mid-fifties – and the masked avenger lock eyes. The man looks away, then quickly looks back. That’s right, a superhero is in peril, good citizen, hurtling as he is on the back of a truck; please help!

  Though how he might help is unknown as he’s already disappeared back into the night. Ah, the sweet tang of fear in the throat. The speed of the road thrashing beneath him. Terror blasting his eyes.

  ‘Help!’ he cries once more, to nobody.

  At the roundabout there are no other cars and the truck hardly slows at all. Speed limits are there for a reason and this guy isn’t playing ball. Only two more sets of lights now and they’ll be at the motorway. The first set is green and they flash through, the speed of the lorry now truly petrifying. Our hero considers his life and its termination. Is this really all there is?

  One set of traffic lights to go and, were the driver to glance in his mirror, he would see a masked vigilante peering out to check what lies ahead. Green, with a good distance to go. It will switch by the time he reaches the lights. Using every neuron of his brain, he wills the light to change. He closes his eyes and . . . yes! Amber. Just relax now and wait for the truck to . . . speed up?

  The lights. They have spurred the driver into a game of cat and mouse, and the only winner here is going to be the cat. The driver. The light turns red and a law-abiding citizen would have stopped, but this driver is not interested in the law. They power towards the river of speed and steel. If the driver heads west he will have to circulate the large traffic-light-strewn roundabout. East will carry him directly to the motorway. The hero crouches. His hands are freezing, his legs are seizing, he just wants to have a nice stretch. Head west, head west, head west.

  Heading east. No deceleration is picked up by his keen senses. This is it. Soon he will be hurtling at seventy miles an hour London bound. At least, the truck will be. Our hero will be thrown clear and destroyed.

  Think. Quick.

  No solutions present themselves. He looks at the river of rock. It is moving so, so fast.

  ‘Aaaagh!’ he war cries. And jumps. The Phantasm is airborne. For a second the wind seems to lift him and hurl him backwards but, of course, nothing is happening save for Newtonian physics – and what goes up must come down. He considers those Newtonian laws. If he pedals his legs in the air, when he lands will he be able to run to an elegant stop? The answer is no. His legs hit concrete and he face-plants the deck, his body like a toy, bouncing down the slip road, round and round like a washing machine. There is a kind of awful bliss in the chaos. He is aware of things flying from his utility belt each time he lands. Then he is rolling through long grass. His mind tells him: You are not dead. He braces for each impact and wonders when it will stop, and thinks that maybe he’ll never stop. He spies the receding tail lights of the truck as it continues on its way, and then, at last, all is still.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The car arrived and he saw the neon signs of the Services in the windscreen. He guessed nothing was broken, as he’d managed to crawl through the grass to the slip road, and to the payphone to make a reverse charges call, because his Phantfone was smashed to pieces all over the road.

  ‘Sam? Is that you, my love? What’s the matter?’ Blotchy’s mum had said in a sleepy voice.

  By the time Blotchy arrived Sam had tried countless times to remove his mask but it was stuck to his face with blood, and too painful to move. Slumped against a brick wall away from the main building, Sam raised a hand to wave. A bolt of pain shot up his arm.

&
nbsp; Blotchy came over, wearing a bathrobe on top of his pyjamas and his deerstalker hat, and the look of shock on his face was frightening.

  ‘Sam?’ he said.

  Sam imagined being in Blotchy’s head, seeing his friend dressed like this, hurt like this.

  ‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ he said.

  They stared at each other, Blotchy crouched before him.

  ‘You’re the Phantasm?’

  Through one eye Sam could see the cogs of thought turning.

  ‘I’m calling an ambulance,’ he said.

  ‘No.’ Sam shook his head.

  ‘You do know you’re bleeding, right?’

  Sam nodded. The sticky feeling of blood covered half his face and he could feel it sticking his clothes to his skin.

  ‘Can you move?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

  He groaned as he tried to lift himself. Blotchy came forward and helped him up and put him into the car. He was surprisingly tender.

  The road was clear and the white lines moved under the car in a hypnotic rhythm. It was weird how quickly his friend had become good at driving.

  ‘What were you doing?’ Blotchy said, at last.

  ‘Trying to . . . I don’t know.’

  Sam laid his head against the window and told Blotchy the story of the truck. When he moved there was blood all over the glass. Hands ten to two on the wheel, Blotchy considered the information.

  ‘I meant why are you dressed like that?’

  Sam put his head back against the window.

  ‘I don’t know that, either,’ he said.