I Am Phantom

by Sean Fletcher

  I passed through a treatment area. At least I think it was. It looked like a hospital, with clean white beds held in rows on each wall. Dollies were stationed in each corner. I couldn’t help noticing the arm and leg straps on the side.

  “Aghh!”

  My flashlight beam passed over another door in the direction the scream had come from. I carefully pushed the door open and waded into the blackness. I didn’t hear the scream again, but there were howls and dull thumps echoing up and down the hallway, like somebody beating their head against the walls. I couldn’t see farther than ten feet. It would be all too easy to sneak up on me.

  I saw a guard lying unconscious, or dead, in front of me.

  Blood caked his head and stained his uniform but he was breathing. His injury looked superficial. I rolled him onto his back to get a better look.

  The swirling air was my only warning.

  My instincts took over. A chair, or part of a chair, maybe a leg, clubbed the ground with a splintery CRACK where I had been crouched a moment before. I swung the flashlight around and blinded a man holding another chair above his head. He let out a startled yell and shielded his eyes. The number 1146 was stitched on his orange jumpsuit.

  It took him two seconds to recover, spin on me and screech like a brightly colored banshee.

  I did the manliest thing I could think of: ran the other way.

  I heard him stumbling after me. The hallway in front of me was clear and I flicked off the flashlight so the most he could do was bump off the walls behind me. At least I was leading him away from the hurt guard.

  Since it was so dark I had no idea how far I ran. I think the building was a semi circle because I took a lot of right turns. I passed another treatment room and finally stopped when I was sure I was far enough away.

  I heard footsteps through a door to my left. I turned the flashlight on and peeked inside. It was a small room with a single barred cage at the other end. There was a man inside the cage. This room seemed much more prison-like than anything I had seen so far.

  “Hey!” the man said. “You with the flashlight, get over here!” I hesitated. The man was obviously a patient, and I didn’t have time to mess with him. I needed to find Sykes and—

  “Sykes escaped!” I froze, then turned back and shined the flashlight into the cell. It was an orderly, his white uniform practically glowing under my light. “Get that out of my face, idiot! And get me out of here.”

  “I’m looking for Sykes.”

  “What are you doing back here?” He seemed to reconsider. “Whatever, just get me out of here. Sorry to ruin your fun, kid, but Sykes isn’t some monkey to gawk at. He’s a killer.”

  “I’m not here to gawk, I’m here for answers.”

  “Is that right?” The orderly rested his hands against the bars. He seemed to be thinking.

  I looked over the bars of the cell. “How the heck did you get in there in the first place?”

  The guard sighed exasperatedly. “I came in here to check on Sykes.”

  “And he trapped you in there?”

  “Geez, are you the freaking chief of police? We had just given him his medication for the day and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t having a negative reaction to it. It’s potent stuff.” The guard put his hand to his face, like he was almost too embarrassed to admit the next part. “I didn’t see him in here so I opened it to check and…well the door closed on me.”

  I snorted. “Fine. Where do I—”

  “On the wall,” the guard said. He held out a card. “This room has its own power source, but this should unlock it. Hurry up!”

  I found the panel on the wall and swiped the card. There was a small beep and I heard the door slide open.

  Then the lights turned back on. The cage was suddenly empty. The orderly stood inches behind me. A faint smile lay dead on his face as if amused by the whole situation.

  He wasn’t an orderly. It was him. Sykes. The man who had sent me the note; who had claimed to be like me.

  There was a body in the corner of his cell, contorted and twisted like it had been roughly yanked and broken to fit between the bars.

  Sykes’ face was angled like a viper; his eyes never left mine, like a predator’s stare, hypnotizing its prey before it struck. They were as pitiless as a wormhole, sucking in light but letting none out, and every movement, every twitch of his bloodied-meat-pink-tinged skin to his fleshy nostrils gaping open and taking in my smell seemed calculated and prepared. He took off the orderly’s shirt and I gasped.

  His chest looked as though it had been grated over a barbed wire fence a hundred times until there was nothing left but raw, pulpy flesh. But the more I stared I realized the lines had a pattern; they were tallies, though to record so many of what I didn’t want to know.

  “You’re not much to look at,” Sykes said.

  I couldn’t respond. I was too afraid that any sudden movement would make him kill me. I could feel the anticipation his fingers held, twitching as they ran through his smoky hair. Twitching to get around my neck.

  “I can’t believe you actually listened to my note. That’s very brave, or very stupid. Or,” he leaned in closer. Even that simple movement displayed sheer power and litheness, like a cat. Like a hunter. I wasn’t sure, even with my enhanced abilities, that I would be faster than him.

  “Or…You really are the same. You must forgive me. I’ve been waiting so long for someone with my same abilities that I find it a little hard to believe.” He backed away and I finally was able to step back and take a breath.

  “Wait—you sent the note? You’re the one who got me the scholarship to Queensbury?”

  Sykes smiled wickedly.

  There was no way, and yet I couldn’t help asking, “What do you mean you’re like me?”

  Sykes was looking past my shoulder. I heard men yelling from down the corridor. A moment of elation overtook me. But it was quickly squashed. They wouldn’t be able to stop Sykes. And I didn’t want them to. I needed answers and he had them.

  “Hurry up and tell me why we’re the same. You know—you know what’s happening to me?”

  “How naive. You really want to know? Follow the sewer on Rines street East until you reach it. Two days from now. Midnight.” The men were nearly on us.

  Sykes reached back into his cell, his eyes staying locked on me. He grabbed a jacket and slipped it over his torn up chest, then pretended to tip a hat to the body in his cell. “Thanks, Frank. Hope a chiropractor can work out those kinks. And you, kid. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Two days.”

  He walked to the door marked Rec Yard and easily kicked it down.

  Then he was gone.

  And I realized the man who was like me was completely, utterly, bona fide one hundred percent bonkers.

  Blazes of light winked over the doorframe. I hurried out of sight to the side of the door.

  Four orderlies ran in.

  “Frank?” One yelled. Two of them looked outside in the Rec Yard while the other two checked the cell. I didn’t stick around to see when they found Frank.

  I dashed down the corridor, trying to fend off how sick I felt. Sykes was more monstrous than I could have ever imagined. His demeanor, his nonchalant attitude when he thanked the orderly he killed, like the man had simply been a part of some game he was playing, like his life had never really mattered…

  And I had let him go. I’d had every intention of finding him and getting answers, but never this. Never letting the killer free.

  I managed to get almost all the way back to where I’d lost the group before I ran in to a full blown war between the more violent inmates and the orderlies. The battle was very one-sided. There were way more orderlies than patients so it wasn’t fighting so much as roughly getting the patients back under control.

  I made it out the door to another corridor and ran face first into an orderly.

  “Hey! Back it up—!” He froze and looked me over. “What are you doing back here? Aren’t you from that
school group?”

  “Yeah, and you need to go back there! Syk—”

  He roughly grabbed my shoulder and dragged me behind him.

  “Believe it or not I was headed this way,” I said before shaking him off. “And I can walk, thanks.” It didn’t look like there were any more patients around. The part we were walking through was untouched by the mayhem we were leaving behind. For a second I forgot about Sykes. “What happened?”

  “The doors went out. They were linked to the power generator.”

  “Duh. I mean why did the backup generators go out?”

  Somehow we had arrived back at the front entrance. The orderly turned on me. “That’s what I wanted to ask you—”

  “Hey!”

  The orderly instantly snapped rigid as though turned to stone. Another man had burst through the front door, police streaming past him. The orderly looked nervously between the new guy and the mob of police now rushing towards the back of the facility. “Um…I found him in the back, sir. I was just about to ask what he was doing.”

  Mr. New Guy glared at me. “This one’s mine.” He pushed the orderly away. New Guy was sharp, disturbingly sharp. His mustache was sharp, salt and pepper hair rigid as syringes, hard, cold eyes, pointed police uniform. You get the idea. I read his name tag:

  K. Ryans: Police Chief

  “Who are you?” Ryans snapped.

  Geez, this guy didn’t screw around. I was still in a little shock but when I opened my mouth Ryans interrupted.

  “Stuff it, kid. Do you have any idea what kind of fiasco this is? Escaped patients and then you, in the middle of it, wandering around like a three-year-old who’s lost his mommy.”

  Somewhere under my numbness and guilt, I bristled. “Watch who you’re calling—”

  “What are you doing here? Why did that orderly find you in the back?”

  “I was with the school group from Queensbury University. We were touring the facility.”

  “That dense group out front?”

  Apparently this guy was a freaking genius because everyone he talked about was beneath him.

  “That’s them,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now if you’re done—”

  Ryans put a strong hand on my chest and I stumbled back. He didn’t even push but that brief pressure was the kind from a man who was used to being in complete control. A dangerous man.

  “In case you haven’t noticed we had a mass breakout of dangerous patients in a mental health institute. You are a key witness. You will cooperate and answer my questions or I will arrest you and haul your sorry butt to jail so fast you’d think you were in a time warp.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I can, and I will. What were you doing in the back of the facility?” He reminded me of a trap ready to spring on any slip up I made. “That’s what I was trying to tell that orderly. Sykes escaped!” I had to tell him. As much as I hated to give up the one man that had answers, he was a killer of the worst kind. Remorseless, with no conscious. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do something.

  But I couldn’t stop thinking: I needed him.

  “How do you know it was Sykes?” Ryans said. “What did he look like?”

  I quickly described Sykes’ appearance. Ryans sneered. “You saw his picture on the news. Nobody got out, kid.”

  “And his chest? What about his torn chest?”

  Ryans stopped writing. “What?”

  “His chest had tally marks on it. Tally marks of the people he’s killed.” I think. It was the only thing I could think of.

  “How—how did you get that close?” And still be alive, his tone said. Ryans stood frozen for a millisecond. I could see the gears grinding behind his eyes, a battle between whether or not he should believe me. He finally swung around to the other officers behind him.

  “Matthews! Simmons! Gerads! Go check Sykes’ cell. Isolation ward.” The officers all nodded. They had almost gotten through the doors when Ryans said, “Guns, officers.”

  “Sir?” Matthews said.

  “Your guns. Get them out.” They all looked at him, then slowly nodded and un-holstered their weapons before pushing through the doors and sprinting off down the hall.

  “How do you know where he was staying?” I asked.

  Ryans didn’t look at me. “It’s my job.” He grabbed the radio at his shoulder.

  “This is Ryans. All available units I want a wide sweep of Monstaff Mental Health Institute.” He glared at me. “This may be a false alarm but I don’t want to take the risk. Check roads, rivers, ditches, vehicles, everything and everyone. Now. We are looking for Lucius Sykes. You are authorized to kill on sight.”

  Matthews returned, panting. “He’s gone! He killed an orderly and escaped out the Rec Yard!”

  Ryans’ face was emotionless, but without another word he signaled to the remaining officers and then vanished outside.

  Chapter Six

  Project Midnight

  “What really happened?” Cody asked for what had to be the ten billionth and one time.

  He had bombarded me with questions non-stop since I returned to the bus (and my extremely distraught professor) and we had driven back to school.

  Despite Queensbury being over thirty minutes from Monstaff, and having what seemed like half the police force in the state out looking for Sykes, our professor demanded we all head straight home and stay indoors until he was caught.

  “I guess the best part of somebody escaping is they may cancel classes tomorrow,” Cody said, hands in his pockets, slouched forward, as we hurried down the street. Twilight washed the street leading to our dorm in an orange and crimson glow. There was nothing really different about it, but even still, it felt more vacant than usual.

  “They won’t,” I said. “It’s one guy. They probably caught him by now.” And I felt strangely sad. Sure, I might have been a horrible person for thinking like that, but whether I wanted it or not, Sykes was the answer I had been looking for. He had given us a spot to meet, but with practically every police officer in the state hunting him there was no doubt he had been caught by now. I was torn between relief and disappointment. It wasn’t the answer I had hoped for.

  I could feel Cody dying to ask again so I quickly said, “Look, I’ll tell you when we get to Melanie’s.”

  “Sure, sure. But you know who escaped,” Cody said. “Lights go out, you disappear, some of the electronic doors stay on just enough to keep the orderlies out of the back and a crazy person escapes. That’s freakishly elaborate. That’s a planned breakout. And you were back there pretty much by yourself, you can’t tell me you didn’t see anything!”

  “I got caught in the back. That’s it,” I said, trying to make my tone sound like that ended the conversation. I didn’t want to tell him about Sykes until we were all together so I wouldn’t have to explain myself twenty million times.

  We paused at a street corner on campus as the fifth police car in the last fifteen minutes cruised by. He slowed long enough to give us an accusing glance before driving off. The whole city was pulled taut, tense as a rubber band about to snap.

  Cody’s cell phone beeped and he checked it. I mentally reminded myself I still had to get one of those. They appeared to be as vital as breathing to everyone on campus.

  “It’s Melanie,” Cody said. “She wants us to come to her place right away.”

  Her on-campus apartment was not far from our dorm so we made it there quickly before anymore police could glare at us for walking.

  Cody barely got past the first knock before Melanie yanked the door open.

  “About time!” She said. The hint of pumpkin spice hung in the air. We came inside and passed a small kitchenette with homey items placed strategically on the top shelves. Everything was very neat and orderly and the T.V. was turned up to full volume in front of a futon couch in the living room. Melanie managed to not ask any questions until we had all taken a seat. “Drake! What did you do?”

  “That’s what I’
m saying!” Cody said.

  “For the last time—oh, hey, Matt.” Matt sat rigidly in a reclining chair near the window, hands clasping a mug of some steaming beverage in front of him, watching us.

  “Matt came over once he saw the report,” Melanie said.

  Matt tipped his cup toward us. “Ginseng tea, warmed for forty-five seconds with a pinch of ginger,” he said as though we had all just asked for his secret recipe. “And yes, I saw the report and decided I should be here to discuss.”

  My head nearly knocked over a couple of modern art paintings as I took a seat on the couch and looked at the news.

  “….unknown if it was a simple blackout, though it appeared to only affect Monstaff State Mental Health Institute. Officials believe the incident was planned and coordinated by individuals both inside and outside Monstaff.”

  The screen switched to a shaky video like it was shot from a phone. Indiscernible yelling came from behind the person taking it. I saw orderlies and policemen rushing in the front door and to the back and then the camera settled on police chief Ryans and me.

  “I need to comb my hair,” I observed.

  “Lucius Sykes escaped,” Melanie said.

  “That cop looks pissed,” Cody said.

  “Lucius Sykes escaped!” Melanie said louder.

  “I know, I was there,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I ran into him when I was in the back.” If the situation wasn’t so serious, I would have laughed at the expression on Cody and Melanie’s faces.

  “Well…I’m happy he didn’t hurt you,” Melanie said.

  “I’m happy he didn’t kill you,” Cody said.

  “Surprisingly enough, I am too,” I said.

  And so I described the encounter, skimming over Sykes’ abilities and finding the orderly’s body; stuff they didn’t need to know. The more I talked the more chilled I got realizing how close I’d been to him, to death. There was something very, very wrong with that man. Like the way he viewed me as nothing more than a piece to something bigger, like I wasn’t even human.

  “I noticed something different around three o clock when I got out of class,” Melanie said, going to the refrigerator and grabbing a pitcher of lemonade. Her hands were shaking a little bit when she offered us some. “There was barely anyone on campus and a bunch of police were driving around. I tried to go to the Lab but they told me to go home. Everything was shut down. I don’t know how they expect Sykes to get all the way over here, or why, but they aren’t taking any chances.”