The Secret Life of Sam Holloway

by Rhys Thomas

  Sarah looked over the top of her cup at him, the steam rising between them.

  Sam tried to smile, but through the ache he found it hard.

  “Do you want to stay with me today? We can do something.”

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t. I’ve taken an extra shift at the library. It’ll take my mind off things, I guess.” Her energy had flatlined. “I’d better go,” she said, setting her tea down. “I’m gonna be late otherwise.”

  “Can I call you later? And you know, if you want to stay over here, to get away...the spare room’s made up.”

  She smiled with a heartbreaking sadness and stood up. Hooking her bag over her shoulder, she made for the hallway. Sam sat there for a second, his mind churning. Then he stood up too.

  “Sarah,” he said.

  She stopped in the doorway.

  “About what I said, in your flat.” He made a decision. “I lied. I can’t be happier without you. You’ve turned me inside out with how amazing you are.”

  The silence in the room had its own gravity.

  “You are a good person. And you should know this.”

  She turned to him. He had to tell her.

  “Whatever happens, you’ve made me want to live again.”

  * * *

  It was misty enough to go out without being spotted. Everything felt unreal. He passed the video shop he’d worked in as a kid, and which had closed down years ago.

  Having Zac ruin his life was one thing, but what he was doing to Sarah was so much worse. He tried to imagine the circumstances in which he’d got her to do what she did. It just wasn’t Sarah. He had deliberately turned her into that person with his poison over however many years. What kind of man would even want to film someone he was supposed to care about doing that? And then let her just end up on the streets. It was so much information that it seemed almost impossible, like it could never have happened.

  As ever, when he was in trouble, he gravitated toward the old housing estate. He turned off the main street and went down the hill until he came at last, inevitably, to his parents’ house. In the mist churned a deep nostalgia for the old days, when the world was still wonderful.

  He walked for a long time around the estate, down the intersecting alleys he’d cycled as a nine-year-old, around the square patches of communal lawn. On one of the lawns there were three mature chestnut trees. Back in the day, this had all been farmland and between two of the farmhouses had been a tree-lined carriageway. These chestnuts were the remnants of that path, a straight line with the smallest of holloways running alongside—you could see it if you looked closely; the dent of history never really goes away, the past never completely disappears.

  What would the Sam of his childhood have made of this Sam now? What would his parents think of him? Constantly hiding behind the force field of his childhood memories. He looked up into the canopy of one of the old chestnut trees and watched a robin hop along a branch and fly away into the sky, a receding black speck. He knew exactly what they’d think.

  But there was a solution to this. He needed to get the phone that had the video on it. Then she could get on with her life.

  All he needed was the courage.

  THE PHANTASM #014

  Candles in the Dark

  Only in darkness can a hero be born. What happens when good men do nothing? The world burns. He pulls the armor down over his chest, the gloves over his hands, the elbow guards, straps on his pack and utility belt. In the mirror he pulls on the mask and descends through the house.

  Strip lights flicker and hum. It gleams. The Black Phantom, his trusty steed, gleams in the sterile white lights. Engines fire, gas is revved, remote-control garage door button is depressed. And he is out, away, into the night.

  Nothing matters anymore. He knows that he is going to do this and runs through the plan once more in his mind. A knock on the door. If there’s a peephole, stand to one side. When the door is opened, he will mace the target in the eyes with the UK-legal pepper spray alternative he bought from eBay. It’s a tough line, but if he doesn’t hit hard he will get hit back and the plan will fail. Act on the agent. He doesn’t care. This hood has pushed too far, and at this point the well of mercy has dried up. Mace in the eyes so he’s disabled, then call the number. When the phone rings, grab it, make quick his getaway, delete every file from Google Photos, cancel account, remove SIM card, smash phone and SIM card into pieces with hammer, burn phone and SIM card separately. Simple enough. He will reimburse money for the phone at a later date, when the waters have settled—he is not a criminal.

  Lights out, he rolls to a silent stop and peers up at the apartment window, on the top floor of the block. The familiar flicker of candlelight. Can’t be safe for someone like him to own so many candles. He pictures him, the target, beyond the wall. Soon the hero will be in there, doing right—and be damned with the consequences. He cares not. In the mask he is invincible. He is immortal.

  Out the car. He jogs to the building, light and nimble on his feet as he navigates the splashes of light from the streetlamps. Into the cavernous maw and onto the urine-stench stairs. He trots lightly, his physical fitness supreme. It is as if gravity does not exist for the first few floors. The next few floors and it’s trickier. By the time he reaches the eighth, the top, he is breathless.

  A quick toke on his asthma pump.

  There is one final flight of steps that lead up to a rooftop fire exit, where he can regain his breath in secret. He ascends these steps, disappearing into the shadows, and lets himself out into the night and onto a surprisingly pretty community garden, with benches and potted plants and garden gnomes and, out of place, a stone statue of a deer. He briefly considers the oxygen mask in his pack. No.

  Overhead, the stars shine bright—the mist has gone.

  His door is the penultimate one on the corridor. Two weak lights illuminate the dingy passageway, one of which flickers and hums. Slowly he pads down the length of the corridor, making no sound. And then he is at the door. He stands there a moment and looses the mace from his utility belt. In his other hand is a smoke bomb, just in case.

  Beyond the door he hears voices. A fracas. Zac’s voice, deep and indecipherable. And then a second voice. But this one he recognizes. It is shot through with anger. He pauses and a million thoughts crash through his mind. It is her. His shoulders slump, and he leans his brow against the wooden door. Slowly, his hand reaches up. It is time. Finally, he knows it is time. He takes his mask in his fist and, without hesitating for a second, pulls it off his face.

  36

  HOLD STEADY YOUR COURSE, his father used to say. Every breath was hard. He was so scared of what he was doing. Doing as himself. But through it all he saw his fist rise up in front of him and thump the door.

  The arguing stopped.

  “Sarah? It’s Sam.”

  There were a few seconds of silence and then he heard Zac’s voice.

  “Do not touch that fucking door. I’m serious.”

  It swung open.

  Tiny droplets of moisture had formed on the lower half of the inside of her glasses where she’d been crying. Her face changed when she saw him standing there in his costume, with his mask off. He stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind him. There were five thick slide locks screwed into the jamb and he thought, Imagine living like this.

  “Oh fucking hell, here he is,” said Zac, a smirk spreading across his face, “come to save the world. Will you fucking take a look at yourself?”

  The wind outside was getting up and rattled the window frame. They were single-glazed in aluminium frames and some air crept through and blew the candle flames sideways for a second.

  “Look at the state of him, Sar. Have you seriously fucked him?” he scoffed.

  “He’s ten times the man you are,” she snapped, wiping the smile off his face.

 
Zac shook his head violently, like a dog pulling meat off a bone, and Sam realized he was high as a kite.

  “Zac, it’s over,” said Sam. “Give her the phone and leave her alone.”

  As Zac bobbed from foot to foot, danger flooded the air. Sam glanced across to Sarah.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered.

  “I had to.”

  Zac skipped across the room and Sam hated himself for flinching. But Zac went straight past him and pulled the door open.

  “I’m going to tell you once. Get out.”

  “I can’t,” Sam mouthed, but the words were lost somewhere in his throat.

  Zac shook his head in dismay. His pupils were huge.

  “You’re a stubborn little fucker, eh.”

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Her voice was shrill.

  They both turned to her, her fists clenched at her sides.

  “I’m moving on, Zac. I’m not that person anymore.”

  Sam turned slowly back to Zac, who was propping himself up on the door handle.

  “Don’t say this,” he said. “I love you.”

  “You’ve ruined my life. You want me to come back to you? And you threaten me with some stupid mistake I made. Don’t you get it? I hate you, Zac.”

  He came back into the room, pacing like an animal in a zoo, holding his head, and Sam didn’t know what to do. He’d never been in a situation anywhere near as volatile as this. Part of him just wanted to go, but that part of him, the coward, was shrinking.

  “You can do the right thing,” he said.

  Zac’s head snapped up to him, his puffy eyes wild.

  He rushed Sam before he could react, raised his fist and slammed it with so much force into the side of Sam’s face that he felt his own cheekbone give. All sensation dropped from his legs and he stumbled backward, some far-off realization that he was falling, back out into the hallway, the sound of a scream, and then nothing.

  When he came to, the door was shut. The pain in his head was extraordinary, not like anything he’d ever felt, both sharp and numb at the same time. He still had his mask in his hand. He banged the door with the flat of his bad fist. Pain shot up his arm.

  “Sam, go,” he heard Sarah call.

  But how could he? He went for his Phantfone to call the police and closed his eyes in dismay when he remembered it had smashed when he jumped off the truck. He put his hands over his eyes and pain lightning-bolted across his face. He remembered how powerless and small he was, how powerless he’d felt all his life, in school, in work, at all times.

  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 realized they were pointing upward, toward 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. The building was on fire.

  37

  THE PEOPLE GATHERED in their groups turned away from the fire and toward Sam, in his costume, and slowly directed their phones away from the blaze and onto him, onto 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 onto 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 pajamas, 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 dead bolts. 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 neighbors in their pajamas with their phones. He pushed past them, telling them to get out, and leaped 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, which 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 favorite song, her final gift.

  He hopped onto 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 turn
ed toward 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 gray 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, headfirst, 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, feetfirst, toward the direct center 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.