I Am Phantom Read online

  The reality of what I had done hit me then. I had just pummeled another human being. What would Sonam have thought of that?

  “Sorry! Sorry!” I said to the men’s crumpled forms. “Oh man! Are you—oh man! I’m so, so sorry!” Cody was sitting up and looking at me like I was crazy.

  “Come on, Drabe. That was fine.” Then to the woman still cowering near the car. “He’s a little bit sheltered is all.” I went over and helped Matt get Cody to his feet.

  “I’b fine! I’b fine!” Cody said, fighting a very bloody nose as Matt shelled out fistfuls of tissues from his pocket. “Dickwad got a lucky shot.” He flipped a bloody finger at the thugs’ groaning forms.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Matt, grab his arm.”

  “I can walg,” Cody protested. “Let’s just geb back to the dormb.” He got up and I ran ahead to check on the couple we had just saved. The woman was helping the man in to their car. I ducked under one of his arms and helped her ease him into the passenger’s seat.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” she said, gulping back more tears. “If you hadn’t come along—”

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked. The man’s chest rose and fell, but he looked in bad shape.

  The woman wiped her eyes. “I’m going to the hospital right now.” She leapt in the car and drove off.

  “Drake…” I looked back at Cody and Matt, Cody still holding tissues to his face. I glanced at the prone figures nearby. “We’d better go.”

  I nodded.

  The adrenaline wore off just as we got into Cody’s dorm room. My chest tightened. Breathing was so hard now I could barely stand, but instead leaned heavily on a chair.

  “Drabe? What wrob, man?”

  The pain was catching up to my hand. The feeling of skin giving way under my fist, the gristly crunch of the bone as it snapped, the intense pain on the man’s face. “What—what did I just do?”

  “Drabe, calm down. You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re all here and you did nothing wrong.” Cody looked uncertain, glancing at Matt for help. “Panic attack?”

  “This isn’t me,” I managed. The air came easier now. “that—that wasn’t supposed to happen. I just lost it. That’s not what I was taught.”

  “You reacted,” Matt said. “A perfectly reasonable defense response.”

  “There was nothing reasonable about that, Matt.” I pushed myself up and paced the room. Cody and Matt watched me, unsure of what to do. Cody had stopped bleeding. I was grateful for that. My insides screamed that I had done something wrong. Hadn’t I?

  “Can’t be right,” I muttered, face in my hands. “I can’t just hurt people like that.”

  Cody stopped my pacing. His face was horribly swollen and purple, tinged with red under the eyes. “Except when they hib you. You want to blambe someone? Blambe them. They attacked. You protected. It’s not bad to defend something. Don’t feelb bad for doing the right thing.”

  Was that the same thing? “I hurt someone, Cody. Really bad.”

  “But he deserved it. And you were protecting sombeone. You were protecting us. There’s a big difference. You don’t punch everybody you see.” His eyes crinkled as he tried to smile. A horrible, cracked, smile. “You’re good.”

  “You look like crap,” I said.

  “Welb at least I’m not whining like a baby after saving someone.”

  “So…I guess I did do some good, right?”

  Cody snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Bingo. Crap, there it goes again. Matt, you have any more tissues?”

  Chapter Five

  Of Monsters and Me

  A month passed a lot faster than I thought it would. Nights I didn’t spend hanging out with Cody, Matt and, surprisingly enough, Melanie (apparently she wasn’t totally thrown off by Matt’s demeanor), or sparring with Liz I spent free running through Queensbury. There were plenty of high places to climb and leap off of buildings when people weren’t looking, and the maze of piping, fire escapes and ledges made for a jungle gym free running paradise.

  As I grew more used to the ebb and flow of city life, I started to look forward to my outings. There were places to avoid, sure. Places with shady characters, where I barely saw any police. But what was blocked off for others was a challenge for me. Balanced above the dank streets like a hawk, I had full view of everything. I was separate yet more connected to what was going on below than I had ever felt to one place.

  With everything putting right along I had nearly forgotten about the letter and L.S.. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know where I had gotten my abilities from, but here they were still hidden, and here I was accepted. I was liked, not feared. I would look for the author of the letter later.

  Until my Psychology professor announced a surprise field trip. Surprise as in, ‘surprise, more work’.

  “We have been given permission by both the president of Queensbury University and Dr. Cadel of the Monstaff State Mental Health Institute to tour their facility,” he announced in class. “This will be a rare opportunity for us to see how a facility runs. Now,” he said hurriedly as whispering erupted among the rows of students. “We will not see any patients there. Monstaff takes the privacy of their patients’ recovery with the upmost seriousness. We are simply there to tour the facility and get a feel for one aspect of the Psychology field. The patients have their own part of the ward and their treatment is a very private affair.”

  Everybody had stopped listening by now, including me. Honestly, I really hoped to see a crazy person.

  “Sounds interesting,” Cody mused, watching a pair of guys a few seats down reenact their favorite scene from a horror movie. I assumed a mentally unstable person was involved.

  “People!” Our professor yelled, raising his hands. “Calm down or I will rethink about accepting the offer!” That eventually shut everybody up.

  The rest of the class the professor showed us a slideshow of the facility we were going to tour, which didn’t have much of a point since we were going to tour it.

  Blah, blah, state of the art facility with high tech security and electronic lockdown, blah, blah, best care available. Seriously, this guy sounded like he was selling real estate:

  Monstaff State Mental Health Institute. Located on 90 beautiful acres with your own private view. Just don’t mind the neighbors.

  When the class ended I nudged Cody awake and we walked across the windy campus to the Lab. “At least we’re finally doing something in the class,” Cody said, swiping his card and letting us into the building. We crossed the spacious, cold-tiled lobby, past the manned front desk and to the elevator set off to the side. Cody pressed the button for up.

  “All the theories and all the th-th-thinking.” He failed to stifle a huge yawn. “I commend you for working in it.”

  Matt wasn’t in the lab but a giant sticky note was posted on the water materializer:

  DON’T TOUCH

  -MATT

  Cody ripped the note off and spun the materializer around. “I don’t know what he thinks I’m supposed to be working on. I need the credit too.”

  I glanced up as the door slid open and Melanie came in. She had stopped worrying about me being in the Lab since most of the staff thought I belonged anyway. She lurched over to one of the chairs and slumped into it.

  “Rough day?” I asked.

  “For a Lab that only accepts the smartest of the smart, there sure are a lot of dumb kids here. For example, a gas leak in one of the lab rooms is not a ‘small hindrance’ to your work. Especially if your project is making a less combustible form of fuel.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Somebody was doing that?”

  She gave me a look that said, can you believe it? “Was. Thankfully I sniffed it out before he could light the match. And I thought they were all brilliant.”

  “Book smart, not street smart,” Cody said from the other side of the materializer.

  Melanie looked at what he was doing. “Didn’t Matt say not to touch that?” She said
. Cody waved a dismissive hand.

  “I’m not going to do anything major to it without him here. I just need to get the credit.”

  “Whatever you want to do,” Melanie said, turning to me. “And anything exciting happen to you?”

  “Class field trip on Friday in Psychology,” I said. “We’re touring Monstaff State Mental Health Institute.”

  “Wait, you don’t mean the one I heard about on the news?”

  Cody glanced up from behind the materializer. “Why would a mental health institute be on the news?”

  Melanie tapped her temple, trying to remember. “I think they recently caught a famous serial killer. Sykes something. Larry Sykes or …Lucius Sykes! That’s it.”

  The room felt as if it had just dropped fifty degrees. My legs grew weak. I turned to Melanie. “Lucius Sykes?” No, it couldn’t be L.S.. There was no way whoever had sent me the note could be the same person.

  “Yeah, I think that’s who it was.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “I heard he killed a lot of people. He’s been on the run forever but they just caught him and stuck him in Monstaff until his trial.”

  “Hold up,” I said. “What has this guy done, again?”

  Cody put down his tool, wiped his hands on a towel and typed something into his computer. After a moment he said, “Destruction of property, murder, lots of murder and then more murder—”

  My mouth went dry.

  “Weapons assembly and distribution—”

  “Thanks, Cody—”

  “First, second and third degree murder and, oh look, more murde—Holy cow this guy’s killed a lot of peo—”

  “So he’s bad,” I said loudly. I was starting to grow sick again. This was the man who claimed to be like me?

  “Melanie’s right, they caught him pretty recently,” Cody said. “It said he only came back to the U.S. a year ago. You’d think a guy as wanted as he is would be a bit more careful.”

  Melanie was looking concernedly at me. “Do you need to sit down, Drake? You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m…fine.” I was definitely not fine. The chances of Lucius Sykes, a serial killer of all people, being the same as me had to be a bad joke.

  Cody snapped his computer shut. “Great. So we’re going to be in the same facility that’s housing a madman. Doesn’t that just tickle your fancy, Drake?”

  It took me a moment to answer. “Sure does,” I said. It did, actually. There was no way L.S. was Lucius Sykes, and I would find out for sure when we went to Monstaff. If I was careful, it wouldn’t take long to sneak into the back, find Sykes, easily figure out that he wasn’t the one who sent me the note, and then I could forget all about him. No problem.

  “Melanie’s right, Drake, you don’t look too good.”

  “I’m fine,” I repeated. And I was.

  The entrance to Monstaff…did not look the part of the creepy, drab building Cody and I had thought it would be. The cheery sign was framed by neat bushes and ornamental flowers. It looked downright cheerful.

  Then we hit the actual facility.

  Now that looked like what we’d imagined. Gloom seemed to radiate from the complex itself. Paled white and grey brick held barred windows that looked like narrowed eyes. A forest of dead trees collapsed in on the road and squeezed against the building. I honestly thought it looked nicer than some of the dorms at Queensbury, but I could be biased.

  The bus pulled into the semi-circle and we got out and were greeted by a doctor in a freshly pressed suit and a clipboard hanging at his side.

  “Greetings, everybody!” He said, grinning broadly and opening his arms. “Yes, yes, come closer! My name is Dr. Cadel and I’ll be your guide today.”

  Cody nudged me. “You think this guy went a little loopy working here?”

  Dr. Cadel was saying something about staying together in our groups and asked if there were any questions. When there were none he continued.

  “Lastly, your professor has told me some of you have expressed concerns about the patients. Let me assure you that you are perfectly safe. We take our job very seriously at Monstaff to maintain the upmost safety for visitors and patients. Okay?” He stood there, staring at all of us until he decided nobody was going to speak up. “Right, let’s get a move on then.”

  “He shouldn’t have said that,” I said as we passed through the front doors into a sterile white waiting room. “Now I know something bad is going to happen.”

  “Yeah, we’d better watch our backs,” Cody said, chuckling. But I saw him glance behind us when he thought I wasn’t looking.

  We walked down a hallway lined with offices and filled with the sound of clicking keyboards and people talking on phones. It looked extremely professional but the neatness and formality of it all made my skin crawl. Despite this, most of the doctors smiled or waved. Some shut their doors when we walked by. I kept my eyes peeled for any opening I could use to sneak away. I of course hadn’t told Cody about my plan to get into the back. Surely, with all these kids around, there would be a quick chance.

  One doctor in the hallway ahead of us caught sight of Dr. Cadel and walked purposefully towards him. He didn’t even ask to speak to him, but interrupted Dr. Cadel’s talk on patient treatment to whisper in his ear. As he spoke, Dr. Cadel’s smile stayed but grew more forced.

  “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.” He shot another wide smile to distract us then turned and muttered something into a radio from his pocket.

  “Wonder if those are some of the patients.” I nodded out one of the office windows to a green, open courtyard enclosed by the high walls of the facility. A few men shambled back and forth, every now and then glancing up at the grey stone around them.

  “They look normal,” Cody said. “Maybe they’re gardeners. One of them has clipping shears.”

  “Sorry about that, everybody,” Dr. Cadel said, returning to us. He looked disgruntled and a little annoyed now. “Just a little problem. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Sykes,” Cody mouthed.

  I couldn’t manage to say anything back.

  “Though we treat convicted criminals here at Monstaff,” Dr. Cadel said as we stepped into another hallway with no windows and blank white walls, “we don’t see them as all bad, but as sick. They are people that need our help but committed serious crimes as a result of their sickness.”

  “Do you have anybody really dangerous here?” A student in the front asked. Dr. Cadel’s neck swiveled until his eyes locked on the guy who had asked the question.

  “I’m not entirely sure what you mean, young man. There are some patients who, yes, require more…preventative measures than others. I suppose to a certain extent they are all dangerous, but more to themselves than to anyone else.”

  “But is there anybody here we may have heard of?” The guy pressed.

  “I believe I answered your question,” Dr. Cadel said coldly. “And I ask that you keep future questions related to serious matters, instead of treating our patients like some sort of celebrities. Now, we’re moving into the basic treatment area—”

  The lights wavered and died.

  Somebody screamed and Dr. Cadel yelled, “Don’t panic! I was told we were having issues with the main generator. The backup generator is—ah, here it is.”

  The lights flickered on again. I saw wide eyes and a couple of girls clutching each other. I guess there aren’t many worse places to have a scare than a mental health institute with a mentally deranged killer somewhere inside.

  I glanced through the double doors to the treatment area where a few doctors hurried back and forth, speaking into radios. They didn’t look calm. Most carried flashlights like they were expecting the generator to die again.

  Dr. Cadel was trying to speak over the throng of uneasy muttering, but it looked like a lost cause.

  “Can we go now?” One guy yelled and a few people agreed.

  “Move back towards the front, please,” Dr. Cadel yelled. “Please move—”

  The ligh
ts died again. And this time people really freaked.

  Let me tell you, I thought college was for adults. But when it went dark people panicked like little kids scared of the Boogeyman under their beds. Maybe it was because the backup generator had just failed, which wasn’t supposed to happen, or maybe it was because the doctors, who were supposed to be professionals, weren’t acting all professional and were in about as much disarray as the students.

  Either way, chaos ensued.

  The huge group pushed against me in one big wave fleeing from the darkness and I tried to resist getting swept away.

  Cody yelled at everybody to go forward. “Get out of the way! Man, you are all are stupid! We have to go the other—watch my eyes!”

  Somebody stumbled in front of me and a hand shoved me back through the now open doors to the treatment area. I slipped on the ground and smashed my elbow against the floor. From somewhere way ahead of me I heard Cody say, “Drake! Where’d you go?”

  I scrambled on my hands and knees but only managed to slam my head against the wall. Hard. The darkness was impenetrable. And the lack of windows wasn’t helping. Cody’s voice was growing more faint as if the whole tour group moved away, back towards the front.

  I stood and tried to orient myself, but things had gotten so quiet now I wasn’t sure if they were still there. The wall ended at another set of electronic sliding doors, open just a bit. I couldn’t tell if they were the ones I had come through or not. Obviously they were useless now with the generators off so it was easy to pull them open and slip through.

  It was even darker, if that was possible. I moved painfully slow, partly to make sure I didn’t hit my head and partly because any second I expected a pair of arms to shoot out of the shadows and strangle me. That last thought was a real downer.

  My feet caught something and nearly tripped me up. I bent down and picked up a flashlight and swept the powerful beam around me. Now, where was Sykes being held?

  The place was deathly silent. That creeped me out. You’d think there’d be somebody back here, like some doctors or orderlies.