The Blue Phantom

Krissy had been at the job about two months when she first heard talk of the Phantom. She laughed a little when she told Eleanor (a girl about six years older than her) about the fragment of the conversation she'd overheard.

“'Phantom's gotten in the traps again,' was what the Big Boss said,” she told the older girl.

Eleanor returned her mild laugh. “Yeah, I've heard talk before about the Phantom. Goldie says if you ever want to hear what it's about you could talk to one of the managers.”

“Have you asked them about it?” the green-haired girl said.

“No. I, uh, don't like talking to management.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause.

“Y'know,” Eleanor said then, “if there was a Phantom here—sorry, I'm assuming from what we've heard it's like a Phantom of the Opera thing—”

“Yeah, I was thinking like Phantom of the Grocery Store,” Krissy interrupted, immediately embarrassed by the crappiness of her joke.

“—and so I have to wonder what this Phantom would do. In the book the Phantom is in a place where there are, y'know, performances. Erik has girls, or at least one, who he teaches singing...” She was blanking on a lot of this, since she hadn't read the novel since middle school and she was never too keen on the movies.

“So does our Phantom hang out waiting for someone to show himself to as 'the Angel of Bagging'? Or 'the Angel of Customer Service'?” Krissy had read the novel much more recently, which was why she was so excited.

“I don't think there is a Phantom,” Eleanor said bleakly.

Krissy wasn't so sure. “How do you spot him if he's around? Supposedly?”

“Well, they call him the Blue Phantom. Supposedly he has these baby-blue eyes that glow in the dark.”

“Oooohhh...”

Time passed. Krissy got used to the job. The customers piled on and each was worse than the last.

At this point she had nearly forgotten the Blue Phantom. In an abstract sense, however, she secretly yearned for a teacher to show her the ways of cashiering. In her youthfulness she believed there was a secret code to it, something to keep baying and moaning and racism at bay. She heard the managers speak no more of the creature they'd briefly mentioned.

There was one night she stayed on nearly till close. She didn't want to stay till midnight, but shifts needed filling, so she ignored the pain and nebulous illegality and took it on. Now she was in the break room, in its awful towers that lorded over the rest of the store. She sipped a thin and noxious coffee as her eyes swept over the meager, lumbering bodies that populated the home of late-night graveyard chills. She shivered, and somehow, that action focused her eyes better. Then she noticed, at the far end of the dairy section—the eyes.

Two cold blue eyes staring out from behind the corner fridge locker. She shook her head, hoping the bizarre vision would clear. She realized she had only been able to notice the eyes because a row of milk cartons had been shifted aside. As she stared at the eyes and they stared back, she waited for the milk to shift again, to prove she wasn't hallucinating. She suddenly had the idea then that the eyes were watching her specifically, but that couldn't be. Not only such a great distance, and through one-way glass. But if he was a Phantom, maybe he had abilities that made those eyes of his stronger than those of others.

Swiftly, as suddenly as it had first shifted, the column of milks came back into view. The blue lights in the darkness were obscured in an instant by the shelf of white plastic bottles.

But. Now she had her first clue. Whoever he was, the Phantom liked hiding in the coolers. Suddenly, this wasn't just a job. It was a quest for discovery.

#

It took a month and a half to transfer from front end to frozen/dairy. It wasn't easy. The frozen was an asshole—an ageist, woman-hating asshole—but now she had complete access to the frozen lockers and the mechanisms behind them.

First of all she knew the Phantom had to have something to protect him from the cold. It was bad enough back here with a jacket, so if he was back there for more than few hours at a time without the right shielding he was committing suicide. She remembered a small detail that she figured might be her next inroad. She tracked down the frozen manager one day, and with a gaze that avoided the sweep of those callous brown eyes, she asked, “Hey Garry, where's the backup coat? Is it gone again?” In those brown eyes was proof that Garry wasn't the Phantom. For one thing, it sounded like the Phantom had been here longer that he'd been alive.

“Is it? Is it gone?”

She smothered a sigh and ignored his tone. “No, it looks like it's gone again.”

“Well, I don't know what to tell you.”

“Normally goes missing on Thursdays, doesn't it?”

It was impossible to tell if Garry was thinking, or just angry. “Y'know, now that you mention it...hmm.”

He walked away before he said anything else, and before her next heartbeat passed Krissy knew he'd forgotten the entire conversation.

No matter. She had no opening and she took it.

Next Thursday she came in early and watched the coat. It was there when she arrived, but she had a hypothesis. The Phantom didn't need the coat until Thursday afternoons when there were the fewest customers of the week. The coolers were opened the least in this time, meaning the freezers were at their coldest. Even the weather-seasoned Phantom would need something a little extra draped over him.

She had perfect luck. The coat was there on her first 15, but gone when she was off. That reduced the window of its disappearance to that 15 minutes. Now it was just a matter of questioning the witnesses.

First to Garry again. “Coat's gone,” she said.

“Well, I didn't see anyone take it.”

“Thanks, that's all I needed to know.”

She strode off confidently, then seeking Cory, the other frozen guy.

“Hey, Cory, have you seen the backup coat?”

“No, I haven't,” he said. “Does Garry have it?”

“He doesn't. But maybe you saw him take it...?”

“Uhhh, I think I did, actually! Someone was carrying it down into the back corner. I assumed it was Garry de-icing that bad gate-lock.”

“The back corner gate-lock? Got it. Thanks!”

And she took off, knowing that she'd soon be catching the Blue Phantom by surprise. “Back corner gate-lock, here I come!” she whispered quietly to herself.

In moments she was feeling her way along the mechanisms that separated the different compartments of the freezer area. Her shivering fingers felt the patch of rust that kept this door from working perfectly—Garry had always claimed he'd tried to reach in and get the rust out, but he'd never been able to reach in far enough with the right tool. Krissy didn't have particularly long or small arms, but she could still reach in and loosen up the mechanism. It wasn't rust, she could tell right away. No, this was a layer of something. It had a give to it.

She tugged as hard as she could, and it slid smoother than she expected—it was like pulling a scab that was ready to flake off. Now she could see what it was...

She stifled a gasp. It had been worn brown over time, but it was a handkerchief, and it was very obviously once a blue handkerchief. A sleek blue one, probably an expensive one. It had to be from days not only where handkerchiefs were sold, but sold commonly enough to have tiers of quality. She slipped it into her pocket as a force of habit. At that moment, she felt as if she had made a terrible mistake—she wondered if the Phantm was going to burst from behind the locker wall now that the gate-lock was fixed. But the wall didn't move, at least not until she moved it. Despite her fear, she still shifted the wall back. There was the smell of dust, rendered pickly somehow, like a bottle of vinegar had broken back there and was never cleaned up. Krissy wondered if Garry or anyone else actually had been back here in months or years. Maybe they'd given up after the handkerchief was wedged in the mechanism. Looking down, she could see that there were some footprint-patches in the dust, deviating from the dust elsewhere, and filling up with a thinner layer of dust over time. She searched at once for any sign of fresh prints, but there were none. She still wasn't beaten. She looked to the stacks of crates, similarly buried in dust, wondering if there were fresh hand prints.

There were. Of course. He had reached out and walked over his hands to prevent leaving footprints.

She followed these hand prints, noticing that he must wear gloves. Made sense with the cold—and it was horribly cold back here. She thought the front end was bad.

She didn't wanted to stay here too long, lest Garry returned. An odd feeling trickled over her then, as she wondered if maybe the Phantom would protect her if Garry got mad at her. So far, though, there was no sign of a Phantom. This place was crowded with boxes, and she didn't even recognize most the brands here.

One of them, Sunshine Banana Pops, stuck out; it certainly had bland box graphics. Was this a store brand, what with the “Sunshine” and all? Impossible to tell. But. There no dust on this box. And there were dust-bunny ridges on the other boxes suggesting they'd been moved.

This was it. Leroux's Phantom was called in Persia “the trap-door lover.” He was a genius architect and he had designed or expanded on the Opera House which he haunted, to make it suitable for his plans. This store had no basement—supposedly. But maybe the Phantom had built one.

Not so easy to build secret lairs these days. There were power and water reroutes to think of—plus working with metal and concrete, not stone and mortar and wood. Unless he was very rich, or a patient immortal, he'd either need a building crew, or he'd need to exploit the natural architecture.

She started moving the boxes, knowing this was her greatest point of vulnerability as far as Garry creeping up on her. Corrosion or seepage of kind left a sticky crust on the bottom of the crates, but it was no harder to shift than the “broken” gate-lock. Now, the outline of a door was exposed—a trap-door. Without thinking, Krissy knelt down and pulled it open.

Inside she saw yawning darkness, and for the first time in this adventure of hers, she felt true terror. She realized at once that anything at all could be down there, but knowing what was down there deepened her fear all the more. However, she was bound to feel even worse in a moment, when she realized, out loud:

“How did he pull the boxes back over the hatch if he went down there?”

Then she realized he wasn't done there at all.

There was a stack of boxes in the corner which she had inspected. Now, from behind those boxes, two blue eyes shone out like will-o-the-wisps, staring at her.

She took a step back. “I'm sorry, Mr. Blue Phantom, sir,” she said at once. “No offense was intended. I, uh, I, uh...”

“Speak honestly, girl.” A soft, gentle voice, like Erik honestly had.

“I just wanted to know if you were real. And also if you could help me with my job?”

There was a long pause. Slowly, the shadow called the Blue Phantom stalked out of the darkness—dark robes cloaked him, as she'd expected, but now she could see that it wasn't just his eyes that shone a haunting ghostly blue. Covering the whole of his face was a mask, though it was infinitely more expressive than Leroux's Phantom's had been. The blue that shone across its surface was paler, and its sleek smoothness seemed to be a product of its metals having been sanded down by long eons. Thus it was a gentle lake around the twin blue fires of those eyes. The long fingers of his hands, which did not reach for her but looked to be as quick as scorpions, were dressed in sleek, white opera gloves.

On and on those eyes stared at her, drilling a hole into her spirit.

Then the Phantom burst out laughing.

“I am assuredly real, girl, though I wonder how I could possibly help you with your job.”

“I—I—”

“Don't be so nervous. I'm only a disfigured man who lives in the basement of a grocery store. I do no harm, though there have been challenges that the management has presented me with. Their enjoyment of my presence is a matter of fashion, and right now tolerating my habitation here is out of vogue. Hence the traps. But I am Lord of Traps—and Trap-Doors. So they never caught me in their spiderwebs.”

“But you don't kill people?”

“By the Muses, no. Killing around here is the work of others. There is a Shade here, with a Death's-Head worse than mine, who is the arbitrator of Death—but let us not speak of him early on in our acquaintance.”

“But what do you do?”

“I steal the food and drink I need to survive, while composing my artistic works below.”

She blinked. “So, just like the literary Phantom. Are—are you him?”

“I am not Leroux's Phantom, nor a relative of his, but one of my ancestors knew him.”

“And...so...to confirm then...he was real?”

“Most assuredly, my child. Leroux himself said in his own book that he based it on a true story. In that same book he briefly describes 'a shadow in a felt hat' who is somehow more terrifying than the murderous Erik, but who also is an affiliate of the Opera. Many have speculated on their identity but they were my ancestor.”

He gestured for her to take a seat, and there was the unspoken understanding that he had much to tell her. The passage of time outside this room became meaningless to her.

“The name of my great-grandfather, the son of the felt-hat shade, was Alonzo Lobrego, and I'm ashamed to say he was a murderer; he had many talents involving his feet and one of them was throwing knives with his feet, which he used to assassinate people. He was driven deeper into madness by love and amputated his own arms in a bizarre plot to win the woman of his dreams.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Yes, it is most strange, but don't interrupt. He died a hated criminal but he had two children. I don't remember if they were twins or half-brothers, but they were one or the other. My granduncle's name was Mircea Gibbs, and he, too, was a killer, singling out literary agents for complicated reasons. But my grandfather was named Ormond Murks, who was an unsteady friend of the supernatural vigilante Bloody Mary—he was a vampire who eventually succumbed to his rising evil.”

“I know you said don't interrupt but you're dropping vampires on me now, and that's not normal,” the green-haired girl said.

“But you have no desire to leave, do you?”

She eagerly shook her no. This was helping her with her job. Somehow, she knew she could believe in the word of this strange man who hid in the freezers.

“May I continue?” he asked.

“Please.”

“Bloody Mary, the vigilante, later met Ormond Murks' son, my father. My grandmother was named Sachs and so when my father became an enemy of evil in a costumed guise he was Dr. Sax. Some say my grandmother was the descendant of Bloody Mary's old enemy Dr. Sean, but in truth she was the daughter of Princess Ming Loy, who was in turn the daughter of the adventurer Qiang Jiantou. In 1964 a series of comic books featuring a previously-extant shadowy pulp vigilante started getting published...my father takes credit for being the subject of those.”

“I see. What company?”

“They publish stories of that immortal youth who lives in Riverdale. In any case, my father ended up meeting a time-traveler of some capacity named Shorter...”

“Wait—immortals?! Time-travelers?”

“Oh, yes—my great-great-grandfather, Qiang Jiantou, was a time-traveler. He was native to the 2010s, but he left them to seek out destinies elsewhere.”

“I can't believe this. Maybe the cold has messed with your head.”

“I never thought I'd hear that sort of criticism from someone with green hair. When I first became old enough to remember the cashiers, they'd be smacked with rulers for even suggesting the idea of dyed hair. But you will believe in this—and in worse—in time.”

“Worse?”

“Yes, my child! I told you of the Death's-Head creature which roams these corridors. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more intimidating obstacle in this place. By telling you of the wonders of my life, I will tell you how to battle the Angel of Death—and strike him down, if need be.”

“The Angel of—?”

“Don't speak his name, my dear! He was born of the most hideous evil, and his mere name can draw him close, like his demonic forebears. He is like a thing from a grimoire, but again, we shall not worry about him until later.”

Now Krissy shifted uncomfortably. She was starting to get cold. “I kinda want to know now if I'm in danger.” Deep down, she knew she already was. Garry would be looking for her and he would yell it her for the...what...ten minutes she'd been gone?

It seemed as though the Phantom read her body language with superhuman precision. “We must meet again later. Next time, you may join me in my lair. I will arrange a circumstance by which you can be detained for the entirety of your shift.”

“Wait, will I get paid?”

“What sort of a question is that? Of course you'll get paid. I'm not your savior, but I can help you. I feel that there games to be played in those old store, games I am now too old to play. Even if I wear the mask of the dead Scandium Conqueror on my grotesquery of a face, I have lost the power to right wrongs.”

“Hey! Krissy, come on!”

“Shit,” Krissy said. She knew that voice, but it seemed the Phantom did as well.

“Don't worry about him,” he said, his voice dropping suddenly to a whisper. “He is temporary, a breeze in the wind. If you truly wish my help, we will walk in the world of monuments.”

She stood and began to exit the freezer. Now she could see the familiar outline of Garry as he stared at her with rage fermenting in his chest. She staggered out of the locker, her legs stiffened by the cold.

“Where the fuck were you?” he sighed.

“A customer wanted me to look in the back if we had something.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“They're gone now, it looks like. Impatient.”

“Well, don't try their patience. Move faster next time. I swear, you millennials, you—”

She wasn't a millennial, she was Gen Z, but she wasn't going to dispute that. However, something told her at once that she wouldn't have to. Garry had stopped, as frozen as the ice in those lockers. He was looking not at Krissy but behind her. She turned slowly.

The lights were out inside the cooler, but there were still sources of illumination. Specifically, there was a certain minute lamp-light around the two blue dots which stared fearsomely from the gloom.

Garry stared at the blue eyes, and at first Krissy wondered if he could stand the pressure.

He couldn't. He broke away, muttering what seemed to be gibberish under his breath. Krissy looked back to thank the source of the blue lights, but they were already gone.

This job had just gotten interesting.