I Am Phantom

by Sean Fletcher

  I AM PHANTOM

  Sean Fletcher

  The setting, characters and story used in this book are completely fictitious and come from the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and are not intended by the author.

  © 2015 Sean Fletcher

  All rights reserved

  First edition published July 2015

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the author, except in the context of reviews.

  Cover Design: Audrey Mackaman

  To my mom, for her eagle editing eye.

  To my dad, who doesn’t read fiction, but always reads mine

  To my brother, who did absolutely nothing on this book, but never lets me take my serious writing too seriously. Seriously

  To all the phantoms behind the scenes who made this book the best it could be

  And to everyone who didn’t get a dedication, cool your jets. I’ve got more books to write. Chocolate might help, too. Just saying

  Table of Contents

  Part 1 – Rising Shadow

  Chapter One- Leaving the Nest

  Chapter Two- Brave New World

  Chapter Three- The Lab

  Chapter Four- Queensbury

  Chapter Five- Of Monsters and Me

  Chapter Six- Project Midnight

  Chapter Seven- Forging Phantom

  Part 2 – Falling Star

  Chapter Eight- Reflections of the Past

  Chapter Nine- Trains, and Other Things that Go Off Track

  Chapter Ten- The Date

  Chapter Eleven- Christmas Break

  Chapter Twelve- The Story of Sykes

  Chapter Thirteen- Tightening the Noose

  Chapter Fourteen- Lockdown

  Chapter Fifteen- Phantom’s Fall

  Chapter Sixteen- Endgame

  Chapter Seventeen- Pride and Reconciliation

  Chapter Eighteen- Moving On

  Part 1

  Rising Shadow

  Chapter One

  Leaving the Nest

  My day really began when I jumped off the cliff.

  To set the record straight, it wasn’t my idea.

  I just happened to be out on a morning trail run, some sheer cliffs to my left, when the cart ahead of me busted a wheel and threw the driver over the edge. Without thinking, I leapt after him. With one hand I grabbed him in midair and with the other dug my fingers into the side of the rock wall to stop our fall. He would definitely die if I let go. So, like anybody else would’ve done, I gripped him tighter.

  The wind pounded me against the cliff and I heard the man yell in fright. I had no fear of heights. I climbed without safety equipment all the time, but there was still a thousand feet of air between me and ker-splatting on the canyon floor.

  Just another day for me in Bhutan.

  I readjusted my hold on his arm and gently tossed him the twenty or so feet back to the top. To any normal person that may have seemed amazing.

  But I wasn’t normal.

  I heard gravel crunch as the man scrambled away from the edge and back to his family.

  One of the rocks I held crumbled and I slid farther down the cliff. The monastery bells in town rang.

  Crap. I was so late.

  My foot caught the lip of a rock. I braced myself, and in one move leapt straight back up the cliff and onto the path.

  The man I saved hurriedly pushed his family away from me, muttering something in Dzongkha, the main language in Bhutan. I didn’t need to hear him to guess what he was saying. They all said the same thing behind my back: Monster. Demon. Phantom.

  My life for the past four years.

  They were fine now, so I continued running down the narrow rocky path. I vaulted over a boulder and leapt across a small ravine, ignoring the perfectly good footpath just beside me. Some called it Parkour. Free running. Finding the most efficient way to move, envisioning new ways to use space. Fun, I called it.

  For those not geographically inclined, Bhutan’s a country stuck right below Tibet. I’m not originally from Bhutan. I’m far too white for that. And tall. And my hair is too curly, even for me.

  My parents met in the UK, moved to America, had yours truly, Drake Sinclair, and then promptly moved to Bhutan for missionary work. That was eighteen years ago. If you ask me, I don’t belong anywhere. The only ‘friends’ I have are the summer missionary kids from America who leave before school starts, and the only reason they’re my friends is because they don’t know me well enough to know I’m a freak and don’t know the local dialect so they can’t hear what the villagers say behind my back. I’m culturally cut off, lacking in the friends department, speak two languages and don’t have much of an accent, which sucks because I heard girls love accents.

  But the worst thing was some people’s fear of me. And frankly, sometimes I was scared too.

  When I was fourteen…things started happening. And I don’t mean puberty, geez. No, something far stranger. And having gone through puberty that’s saying a lot.

  One day I woke up and my world had changed. My vision was sharper, colors more vibrant than they’d ever been before. Walking had almost become difficult because my muscles were so strong. I could leap farther, jump higher, move things that normal humans would find impossible. And my speed…that was probably the main reason everyone was so afraid. It must have been unnerving seeing only a blur and then having me appear by their side. By the time I learned to keep that in check it was too late, and some of the people in the town we lived near had already grown fearful. That’s when they began calling me a spirit…a phantom.

  Had I questioned why I had my abilities? Heck yes. Who wouldn’t? My parents didn’t have them. What time I’d had on the Internet hadn’t come up with anything either. So I had been forced to sit and come up with explanations on my own. Which led me from thinking I was adopted, to some kind of alien. Really encouraging stuff for a fourteen-year-old who’s trying to figure out hormonal changes without freaking out the general populace with his crazy powers he can barely control. Maybe there was something in the water. Or the air. The village I lived in was a little more secluded than others, but then, nobody else had anything like this.

  I probably would have continued coming up with crazy theories if the note hadn’t arrived.

  The cliffs I wasn’t supposed to be running beside (sorry Mom and Dad) faded away and dense trees and a dusty led the way to the town and the monastery.

  I hurtled through the open-air market, deftly dodging stalls and tossed fruit, sliding between carts scraping by each other in the street. A few vendors shot me furtive glances but I avoided them, as they did me. A couple of men in front of me stepped way out of their way to go around. I tried to ignore them too.

  My parents waited outside the monastery doors. My mom had one of her finer dresses on. She looked very pretty with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. There weren’t many events to wear nice clothes for so she was making the most of my “graduation”.

  My stocky dad had not dressed up. The work shirt he wore when he helped the villagers showed off his muscles and tan.

  I easily caught my breath but continued panting to make it seem like I was winded. When all of the weirdness first started happening I tried talking with my parents, but they chalked it up to “My body’s natural changes” and left it at that. When I subtly hinted that maybe being able to jump ten feet straight up wasn’t how normal kids went through puberty, they only seemed more confused. They loved me, but I hadn’t brought it up since, choosing instead to disguise any instances of abnormality.

  “Being late isn’t the best first impression for your final test,” my dad said, clapping a meaty hand on my shoulder. But he was smiling, sadl
y though. My mom was too.

  “Are you ready?” she asked. I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s not like it’s an official thing,” I said. “It was Sonam’s idea for a going away test, not mine.”

  “It’s symbolic, Drake, and very important to Sonam. Remember to thank him.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  They both hugged me, my dad holding on a little longer than necessary (how would he cope with tomorrow when I left for school?) and I walked past them, through the doors and into the monastery courtyard.

  Memories hit me. I had run through, laughed in, played around this place a hundred times before. Now it would be the last time for a long while. Maybe forever.

  Sonam, the head monk and our family’s closest friend, stood waiting in the middle. I removed my shoes and stepped across the cold cobblestones. The courtyard was so quiet I could hear the muffled pad of my bare feet off the high, discolored walls and rosy red doors leading to the rest of the monastery. Nothing seemed quite as big as it once had. Even still, the mystery and wonder was not quite gone. It just waited for me elsewhere. I saw a couple of the younger monks poking their shaved heads out from the windows.

  I stepped in front of Sonam and bowed. He returned it, brushing aside his deep red monk’s robe as he stood again.

  “Barely late, as usual, Drake.”

  “Consistency is my best quality,” I said.

  Sonam’s worn lines on his face crinkled into a smile that seemed to light up his whole body. He hugged me and I awkwardly returned it. It wasn’t that I minded hugging him—he was like a second father to me—but because I was so much taller than him I had to stoop way over. Sonam took a step back. He beckoned me with one robed arm. “Come, walk with me. We will talk before your test.”

  I slowed my long strides to match his. Sonam held his arms out in front. I snuck a glance at him. His eyes were closed.

  The urge to fidget tempted me. “So the test…”

  “Eighteen years, Drake. That’s when your parents arrived. And not too long after a hyperactive child burst into our courtyard and demanded that he, too, be allowed to learn the art of Shaolin Kung Fu.”

  My face grew hot. Sonam had a lovely way of embarrassing me without trying. He was almost as good as my mom.

  “Ah…such enthusiasm. Now we are on your final test. But I feel that this test, though only ceremonial, is not the greatest press on your mind.”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “They’re letting you go?”

  “They were never going to stop me. They were only concerned.”

  “As is natural. You are their only son. College in America is a big step. Are you as worried as they are?”

  “Pssh! No way! It’s not a big deal. Really.”

  Sonam didn’t even have to look at me to make me feel silly. I ran my hand along the wall we walked beside. Each brick was solid and stable. Each brick had its place. I did not.

  “I need to go,” I said. Sonam finally opened his eyes.

  “Why is that?”

  My hand dropped to my side. “I don’t know, Sonam. It’s like…not that I don’t fit in here, this place is my home, and yet it’s not. These are my people, and yet they’re not. I need to find something that’s me. Or at least try to find out where I should be. Make something for myself.”

  Sonam eyed me. I suspected he had noticed the way the villagers and children in the monastery had started acting around me. But it was Sonam. He didn’t care about any of that. Outcast or not, I was still Drake Sinclair to him. “You’re eighteen. Of course you feel that way. You are closer to your parents than many children. Now you learn to leave.” I frowned at him.

  “Would it kill you to not talk so sagely all the time?”

  “Yes,” Sonam said.

  I shrugged. “Anyway, there’s that. I’m excited. And nervous.”

  “What have you decided to study?”

  “Psychology,” I said. “At Queensbury University in North Carolina.”

  Sonam laughed warmly. The monks were the few people I knew that could laugh and truly look and sound like it was the funniest thing in the universe. He readjusted his sleeve.

  “A subject of the mind. Wherever did you get your interest for that? Surely not our teachings?”

  “Could have been,” I said, laughing with him.

  We turned at the next wall, almost completing our circle around the courtyard.

  Sonam spoke again, and this time his tone had suddenly dulled.

  “You are wise to seek knowledge, for knowledge leads to wisdom and wisdom is the source of goodness.” He paused for a heavy beat. “But all your life you have lived in Bhutan and though you have learned many things, you still have much to learn. There is darkness in the world, and hate. Many things we try to remove ourselves from here.”

  Yeah, I’d only ever lived in Bhutan, yeah you could even call me sheltered, but I wasn’t blind and I wasn’t stupid. I knew how the world worked.

  Besides, how much more could Sonam know than me? He’d spent most of his life living in one monastery.

  I opened my mouth to say that, but Sonam spoke again.

  “It is not the change I worry about, for change is a part of life.” At this he turned and looked right at me. “Your morals are strong, and though you stumble as we all do, your intentions are good. Not everyone is like that. Not everyone views the gift of life as you do. Are you ready to be tested?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Kung Fu test or…college? School tests? How was meeting people unlike me a test?

  “I’m ready,” I said. “It’s all a part of moving away, right? All this learning and defining who I am and whatnot. No worries, I’ll get it.”

  Sonam didn’t stop looking at me for a little while, in that gentle, kind way he always did. Then he returned to the center of the courtyard. I followed.

  “Ready?”

  I crouched in my first stance.

  “Start with your basic forms,” Sonam said.

  I flowed into the movements that were second nature to me. That had been at least one perk of my…gifts. One morning I woke up and had mastered Kung Fu. Beginning moves or advanced, it didn’t matter. I could do all of them flawlessly. Not a bad side effect.

  Tiger, Crane, Dragon, Mantis, knife strike, cannon punch, smashing punch.

  Sonam circled around me as I moved. He made no sound except to call out a new form or pose for me to perform. Minutes passed. I wasn’t tired at all.

  “Stop,” Sonam said. I curled my arms in and returned to the start. Sonam turned to face me.

  I held my breath for what he would say. His head was down, his eyes closed. Finally, he looked me in the eye.

  “Now, you will fight me.”

  I lost my focus and stepped back. “What?”

  Sonam crouched and brought his hands up. He took a deep breath. “Fight me.”

  “No way. I am not fighting you, Sonam.”

  “You will fight. You will fight or you will fail.”

  I took another nervous step back. I heard the brush of cloth and ducked into a defensive pose as Sonam’s fist missed.

  “No one is here but us and a few students. Not your friends. Not your parents. They will not always be by your side when you are in trouble. It must be you, and only you, that defends yourself and what you love.”

  I had no choice but to fight as his attacks continued.

  Sonam’s movements were perfect, his strikes fast, his face a mask of serenity. My brain kicked into overdrive as I blocked.

  I caught his arm in a cross block and spun away. He followed, sweeping my legs. I leapt, flipped, just out of reach of his next attack. My Parkour was naturally working its way into my movements.

  “Good. Adapt!” Sonam encouraged. “Do not think. Let what is natural take over.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw some more monks appear. Most of them had confused, somewhat excited looks. They had probably never seen an actual fight before, and especially not
between Sonam and me.

  Sonam shoved me back. My eyes followed each of his movements, adjusting my body accordingly, finding the best way to block, strike, to close the space between us and counter. Dust kicked up into the air as our feet slid around one another.

  I counted the times I could have won, edging my way in and getting a strike off. There were too many openings. But I wasn’t about to do that to Sonam. Not to the man who still saw me as normal instead of some freak. Not even if it meant failing in his eyes.

  Sonam’s arms were a whirlwind as I dodged right. Back and forth we went. Upper block, snake technique, lean back and strike. It was almost like a dance. I concentrated on breathing, hearing only the slap of fists and the snap of cloth against the backdrop of the high monastery walls.

  Suddenly I surged forward. Sonam bent backwards to dodge my punch until his back almost touched the floor. He struck my stomach and I fell on my back, my breath coming in short gasps.

  What a pretty sky.

  Sonam’s wise face appeared over me. Not the serious Sonam that had just destroyed me, but the aged, kind and patient one who had put up with my antics and talked with me and counseled me almost as much as my parents.

  “I lost,” I said. Sonam pulled me up. I saw a little disappointment in his eyes. He knew I hadn’t tried my hardest.

  “You have triumphed,” he finally said.

  “But I lost.”

  “But you stood strong under the circumstances. How could you foresee that a peaceful monk wanted to fight? You cannot always see the true intentions of others. You didn’t have a choice. You won’t always have a choice. Sometimes you see an injustice and you must do something about it, though you don’t always know why you feel that way. You may face an opponent you cannot beat. But still, you stand strong. That is all a man can do, physically or not, he can stand his ground.”

  He closed his eyes and stood like a statue.

  I rubbed my stomach. “So…” I said. “Did I pass?”

  The smile crept back on Sonam’s stoic face. “What do you think?”