I Am Phantom Read online

  “Oh, uh, okay…Absolutely!” Our professor scurried out of the way. Ryans put his arms behind his back and faced us. He stood solid and unwavering, his presence indicating a man in complete control.

  “Though you may not know me,” Ryans began and at once his eyes shot to me as though he had scouted out where I’d been before he came in. Which, with what little I knew about him after our first meeting, was perfectly possible. “Or perhaps some of you do. I am a part of the reason why you all can enjoy relative safety, why you sleep soundly in your beds at night and why you can enjoy the luxuries you most likely take for granted at Queensbury University.

  “The un-oblivious ones among you have probably noticed the increased police patrols on your commute to campus this morning. That’s because earlier this week there was a mass breakout at a nearby mental health institution.”

  The few students who hadn’t heard this news before gasped. Ryans’ face twisted in displeasure.

  “Quiet. I am here to tell you that one convict did escape and is currently on the run. We have no reason to believe he will come to Queensbury, but the safety of the students is paramount.” The last sentence made him look like he was sucking a lemon.

  “This man is extremely dangerous. He is not to be approached and most certainly not to be helped. If you see him, you run. Anybody who knows anything will tell me.” He paused as if to say, ‘or else’.

  He looked around the room, as if searching for any condemnation. “Your cooperation is appreciated and you have nothing to worry about.”

  And without another word, he left the room. I had to hand it to the guy; he knew how to make an entrance. And exit. And make an entire class hate him. The room was silent until our professor realized Ryans was gone and he was allowed to continue teaching.

  “Right then, let’s go on…”

  Ryans found me the second I stepped out of class.

  “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “You already did. A few days ago in case you forgot. I have to go to my next class.”

  He got up next to me real close (What was it with him and stepping in my bubble?), his authority and assured power reminding me a little of my encounter with Sykes. “I’m not risking the safety of my citizens because one witness has to get to class.”

  “Back off, pal!” Cody and Matt came from behind and Cody pulled me away from Ryans.

  “It’s okay, guys,” I said before Ryans could break them in half, which is what it looked like he was about to do. “I’ll meet you later. Seriously.”

  Cody didn’t look like he believed me. Matt looked more than happy to leave.

  “Don’t you have a job besides harassing students?” Cody shot at Ryans as he walked away.

  “This is my job. Scram,” Ryans said. Cody and Matt left and Ryans turned back to me. “We weren’t finished. I’m not convinced you simply wandered into the back and stumbled into Lucius Sykes.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. That’s exactly what I did—” Ryans grabbed my arm and hauled me to the corner of the lobby, beneath a picture of some wildflowers.

  Ryans’ lowered his voice. “Cut the crap, Drake. You don’t look like the stupid type so I’ll give the information to you straight. Sykes is a catalyst. He will kill someone. Not if, when, and when, how hard, until we’re standing in the ashes of what he’s done wondering what the hell just happened. We’re dealing with a man of absolutes.”

  “The police searches weren’t anywhere near Monstaff—”

  “That’s right, clever boy, you keep up with the news.” He stepped back. Hopefully he finally realized that manhandling somebody you needed information from wasn’t the best tactic. “I need to know if Sykes said anything to you?”

  “He didn’t say anything to me.”

  Ryans was staring at me with a look that said ‘I don’t believe you’. It was a look I was growing used to.

  “Fine. Since you don’t want to tell me anything we’re going to talk again unless this Sykes case clears up. You may have nothing to do with it but believe it or not you’re involved.” He whipped out a small card and wrote something on it. “You remember, you tell me. You don’t tell me—” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t want me as your enemy, Drake. We’re friends.”

  He patted me on the arm as if that sealed our newly blossomed friendship and shoved through the double doors and out to the sidewalk teeming with students.

  The guy was absolutely out of line. There was a bitter taste in my mouth and I wondered if I should be more worried about Sykes, or police chief Kenneth Ryans.

  Chapter Seven

  Forging Phantom

  As we moved into October the leaves changed into even more vibrant colors, tossed around by the colder, snappier air. Dorm doors were plastered with all kinds of Autumn decorations; real leaves and creative crafts on the girls’ and crappy computer pictures of pumpkins on the few guys’ who actually tried.

  The campus was as lively as ever even though Lucius Sykes still hadn’t been caught. Three weeks had passed and his escape had been nearly forgotten. I was relieved. The few times I’d gone out to look for any sign of him had been halfhearted. I knew it had been pointless but I had to try. It was also getting harder to sneak around without drawing suspicion. I had already been stopped and questioned by the police a couple times, asking what I was doing out and why I wasn’t on campus. If going on any more nightly escapades then I would need to find a more incognito way to do it.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said when we were all sitting around in the food court between classes. “We dress up in costumes, and go around asking for candy? And this is normal?”

  We had never celebrated Halloween in Bhutan. Somehow I don’t think the monks would have appreciated us stomping around the monastery in costumes.

  “We don’t go trick or treating anymore, that’s kid stuff,” Cody said.

  “Doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Liz mumbled, scribbling something in her notebook.

  “Have you ever celebrated Halloween?” Melanie asked across from me. She was battling to keep an ice cream cone from dripping on her while Cody shelled out napkins as fast as he could.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “It wasn’t really a big deal in Bhutan. Besides, there wasn’t anybody to celebrate it with.”

  “Well, I think you should dress up at least once. Not for trick or treating,” she added when she saw my face. “My friend’s having a Halloween party, costumes and everything.”

  “Everything?” Cody pressed. Melanie cocked an eyebrow at his suggestive tone and Liz grinned wryly.

  “Yes, everything, Cody. There will be alcohol.”

  Cody faked acting shocked. “Melanie! You have a devious side underneath that authoritative scientific exterior.” Melanie swatted him and Cody laughed.

  “Not my party,” she said. “I can’t control what does or doesn’t happen. Just don’t be stupid about it.” Melanie looked at me. “Want to go?”

  “Sure. But I don’t have a costume.”

  “Me either,” Melanie said. “I’m not sure what I’m going to be but you have a couple of days. What’re you going as, Cody?”

  Cody pointed to his nose and upper lip. His face was almost completely healed apart from his upper lip and cheek, which were slightly tinted purple “Are you kidding? Look at this face! I’m going to be Quasimodo.”

  “Your face could be perfectly normal and still pull that off,” I said.

  “Shut up, Drake. Maybe if you’d let those guys hit me a little more it would have made the effect better.”

  “Don’t say that,” Melanie said seriously and Liz nodded furiously in agreement. “That’s not funny. What they did was horrible. Thank you for stopping it, Drake.” What guilt had been from that day was nearly gone, replaced by an overwhelming sense of rightness. It felt good to help someone.

  “No problem,” I said. Melanie looked at me. Like really, unnervingly, looked at me.

  “You’re sure you’r
e okay? I know you did something you think is bad but you were protecting people you cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “That’s what I told him,” Cody said proudly. “Maybe it wasn’t as clear as that. I had a busted nose after all.”

  “Your face is fine there, Quasimodo,” Melanie said. Then to Liz, “You’re more than welcome to come if you want, Liz.” I turned expectantly to her.

  “I’d love to, really,” she said sadly. “But I already promised a friend I’d go to her party at her place.” She flashed me an apologetic grin.

  “Hey, no problem,” I said. I hoped the disappointment wasn’t too obvious in my voice.

  “Maybe next time,” Melanie said. She stood and cleared her stuff off the table, waving a casual goodbye. “Class time. I’ll see you two at the party.”

  I was screwed. I had been searching my room for what seemed like an hour, trying to find something that might work as a costume. What the heck did people dress up to be scary on Halloween? Monsters? Murderers? Government workers?

  All sounded terrifying. I poked again through my scant clothing, looking for something that could pass as a costume. My foot hit the red monk’s robe Sonam had given me. I picked it up and unraveled it. I’d barely looked at it since I had arrived. Had Sonam expected me to wear it for day-to-day life?

  I could go as a martial arts master or something. That was a thing here, right? The robe was doing nothing for me in the closet except painfully reminding me of back home, to my old life. And it was the perfect shade of red, with long and flowing fabric that stopped at my ankles because I was so tall.

  My cellphone buzzed in my pocket. I’d gotten it a week ago as recommended by my exchange student advisor. Bad recommendation. Useful, sure, but way annoying when you’re trying to sleep or do anything else and people won’t stop texting you. I kept it off most of the time.

  I flipped it open:

  U find anything?

  Cody

  Decision made, I slipped on the monk’s robe and adjusted it over my shirt. I gently pushed Sonam’s possible (probable) disdain from my mind and went next door to Cody’s room.

  Matt answered the door. He appraised my costume, shrugged and retreated back to his room.

  As I had expected, Cody’s room lay in disarray. He was sunken into one of the chairs in front of his T.V., clicking the remote.

  “Dude!” He heaved himself up. “What are you wearing?”

  “I’m going as a martial arts master,” I said.

  Cody felt the fabric. “This thing is cool. Did you get it from Bhutan?”

  “The monks I lived with gave it to me,” I said.

  “It looks good and all, but for a martial arts master you need—” he dove into his drawer and tossed me a pair of fingerless gloves. “My skinny butt gets cold all the time. Put those on.”

  “I don’t think martial arts masters wear gloves.”

  “They do when they spend their time punching through brick walls.” I put them both on and stood in front of his bathroom mirror. The robe fit a little tight around the chest, and was too short. But it was the best I was going to be able to do right now.

  Cody patted me on the back. “Looks good, Drake buddy. Almost like a real master.”

  “Yeah,” I said, still absentmindedly recalling back home. “Yeah, it sure does.”

  The party was within walking distance of the dorm. It was being held at Melanie’s friends’ house, tucked away on one of the many streets lined with student houses surrounding campus, filled with people still in school or those who, for some reason, hadn’t wanted to leave.

  We could hear the music almost a block off.

  Oh, how to describe it? It was like a cat trying to cough up a hairball into a microphone with some vague musical tones thrown in.

  Kids dressed in all kinds of costumes crowded in the yard, some on the porch and others clogging the door. I saw firemen, Batman, a couple of ninjas. Most were standing around talking and drinking out of some red cups. Some guys beat each other with rubbery swords. Another raised his drink at us.

  “Awesome! Karate kid! And dude, nice makeup!”

  Cody grinned and we threaded our way past the crowd at the front door and into the house where the music was even louder and my eardrums started bleeding. The air itself seemed charged with throbbing bodies swaying back and forth. Pulsing lights placed on the edges of the living room threw everything into sharp focus. Magic wands and ninja swords knocked into each other as people pushed past.

  “So, what do we do?” I yelled after we had stood at the entrance for a couple of minutes, unsure of where to go.

  “I don’t know,” Cody yelled back. “Wait, there’s Melanie!” I saw his eyes grow wide as she spotted us and waved. It took her a minute to push through everybody. She wore fox ears and a bushy tail on a red one-piece dress. Whiskers had been painted on her face.

  “What do you think?” She asked. “I couldn’t think of what I wanted to be so my friend suggested it. I’m a vixen.”

  “Yes you are,” Cody heartily agreed before I elbowed him in the ribs. Melanie didn’t hear over the music.

  “Let me introduce you to my friends.” She turned for us to follow.

  Matt stared at Cody. “You’re pathetically hopeless. Even I can see that.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Come on.”

  We followed Melanie to the back of the house where less people stood and the music wasn’t nearly as loud. A couple of heads followed us in as Melanie waved to a small group of people mingling around a table filled with drinks.

  “Who’s this?” A short vampire asked when we walked up.

  I took a quick glance around at their costumes. Three girls were vampires, one witch and a guy werewolf.

  “Original,” Cody commented.

  “Cody, Matt, Drake, these are my friends.” She seemed about to name off all of them, then decided against it.

  “You’ll learn all their names later. I’ll be back.” And she vanished into the crowd. We stood awkwardly for a while. The witch hummed under her breath and swayed. Her eyes were a little out of focus.

  “So,” wolf-boy said. “Some ugly dwarf—”

  “Quasimodo,” Cody said.

  “Right, Quasi a la mode, a mad scientist? And...Jackie Chan, or something.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” a vampire said, feeling the fabric of my sleeve. “Not really scary, but it’s cool.”

  “I thought you could be anything,” I said. “Do you have to be scary?”

  “Um, no, that is definitely not the point,” the swaying witch wonder slurred. “I always dress to be slutty—”

  “Have you tried the punch?” the wolf-boy asked. He pointed to a cauldron on a pumpkin covered table. People were ladling a colored drink into more of those red cups.

  “Try it,” one vampire pressed.

  “Why?” Matt asked. The vampire threw him a dirty look.

  “Because I made it and it’s good, that’s why.”

  “Very good,” the witch agreed, slopping part of her cup onto Cody. I shrugged.

  “Sure, whatever.” I walked over and ladled some out. Cody did too but Matt hung back as though smelling something suspicious. I wondered if he had ever tasted alcohol before. I hadn’t tried any since I was a kid and my parents caught me trying some Arag, the traditional Bhutanese alcoholic beverage, behind a shop when I was supposed to be with Sonam. I had kind of lost my curiosity towards anything alcoholic since then.

  I took a drink. Vampire girl #1 watched me. It wasn’t bad. Tangy and sweet with a unique aftertaste.

  “Good,” I said. Wolf-boy and vampire #2 were talking about somebody dating somebody else, classes they hated, and Sykes escaping. Before I could zero in on that particular piece of the conversation they had returned to talking trash about professors.

  I kept drinking. I glanced at Cody to see what he was doing but he was locked into the conversation and threw in a comment every now and then.

  I
had no idea how long we stood there. I drank absentmindedly. Vampire #1 refilled my cup. The punch was good, I wasn’t kidding about that. But after maybe an hour of listening to stupid stuff and drinking punch I started to feel weird. Dizzy almost. It wasn’t a really bad feeling. Kind of…kind of nice. I looked over at Cody but he seemed farther away than he should have been.

  “You okay there, martial arts man?” Vampire #1 asked. She was grinning slightly, showing her fake fangs.

  I waved my arm. “I’m good.” But my lips were just a tad slow. I could vaguely hear Melanie’s voice as she pushed her way through the pulsing bodies back towards us.

  “Sorry! Sorry! Whew! You would never believe what I had to stop. These two guys took a plastic devil’s pitchfork and were shoving it up—” she stopped as Cody lightly swayed into her. “What—? Drake?” I was still standing all stoic as she looked closely at me.

  “He’s fine,” vampire #1 said. She was right. I was so very fine. Melanie spotted the cup in my hand and rounded on vampire girl.

  “What the hell, Jen? How much did he drink? Cody?” Cody had fallen to a cross-legged position on the floor. I think he’d drank more than I had. Matt had wandered off a while ago, and suddenly wandering off sounded like a good idea. I felt great. I didn’t want to be cooped up inside feeling this great. This needed to be shared.

  When Melanie wasn’t looking (“Do you have any idea how much trouble we can get into if someone from the Lab sees this?”) I slipped past a Star Trek guy and somebody Matt had told me was Captain America before I was free to the street outside. I turned left and walked.

  The fresh air made me feel better. A little bit of the film began to lift from my eyes but my head still spun so I kept going.

  The streets wound and swirled together in a disconcerting mixture of neon lights and empty shop fronts. I was sure I had been on at least some of them before when I was freerunning but they didn’t seem familiar now. I saw nobody else.

  Geez, how much alcohol had been in the drinks? First I was mad at my vampire #1 for telling us to drink it, then I was mad at myself for listening. Then I was thanking vampire #1 because, to be honest, I did feel pretty good.