Another cold night, frost on the blacktop like glitter. A truck rumbles down the high street and the masked hero smiles. The economy turns, the world of man endures. He pushes recent events on the other side of the mask away – this is what a true champion of the people must do. This is the sacrifice.
Perhaps the driver is heading to one of the nation’s mighty industrial complexes, like Telford, delivering the nuts and bolts and cogs to the myriad factories so machines can be made, brought forth from the countless assembly lines, into the world. And it is all done in darkness, at the aprons.
From his perch atop the flat roof of the public library he reaches into his pack, past the night-vision goggles and HD digital camera, the rope and the handcuffs, until he finds what he’s looking for. A nice flask of coffee. Army issue. He pours himself a cup and drinks. Ah. Not much action tonight. A cat ambles up the empty street, finds a bush and disappears.
There is a moment of satisfaction. Life in the costume is a form of uncomplicated bliss.
Somewhere behind him he hears a noise. A whimpering sound. Behind the library he spies a stack of cardboard boxes. With the stealth of a professional gymnast he slides down the drainpipe to the gravel. His breath is a fog, his shoes crunch the frost as he approaches the boxes. From his utility belt he withdraws a flashlight and the frost in its beam glistens like quartz in a rock face. The whimpering continues. Something in distress. He shines the light across to the boxes. A scratching starts now too. The nervous sense of adventure tingles, and he steps on a branch. It snaps.
Suddenly, all is silence.
The boxes have been stacked in such a way there is a dark alley into the centre. The champion of the night halts. A black line runs down into the alley. Under the light the line turns a brilliant red. The immediacy of the blood puts a thump in his heartbeat. Slowly, he unpacks the boxes in the way a god might undo a world.
Flashlight clenched between his teeth, when his breath is caught in the photons it billows and swirls. One box left until he will see into the heart of the cardboard alleyway. The line of blood shines with freshness. He leans in. Holds his breath. Takes the final box.
And stasis.
If the whole world spins around a central point, to our hero it is this moment.
A pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes stare up at him. It is a baby fox, frozen in the flashlight’s beam, wrapped into a ball but in a strange, unnatural way. He guesses its size: twelve inches from the tip of its black nose to the tip of its white cloud tail. Its head is the size of a squash ball, its snout tiny but perfectly formed, its little triangular ears like sailboat sails covered in a soft orange fur. Two small front paws are splayed in front of it.
A vision of woods, the fox asleep on a soft bed of moss.
Two creatures living in two worlds, the wild and the civil, in a chance encounter. He hears his own voice: ‘It’s a baby fox.’
It twists its body away from the light to reveal a puddle of blood, and its wound. A deep gash at the top of the hind leg. Beneath the brightness of the blood, a line of white bone. Our defender notices a small pool of vomit and considers the act of mercy killing. But it is a sacred thing, to save a life. He thinks of the Event that is his origin story.
‘You will not die today,’ he whispers to his fallen friend.
He unhooks his backpack and finds his sweater, lays it inside one of the boxes and scoops the little fox as gently as he can on to its new bed. It’s too sick to struggle. But just before he releases it, he is swept by a wave of emotion and he brings the creature up. And kisses it on the head.
Time now is of the essence. His automobile, the Black Phantom, is nearly a mile away. That’s six minutes. His digital watch beeps as he starts the stopwatch. He modulates his run to make it as smooth as he possibly can for the stricken creature. He reaches the car in good time, fires up the engine and cruises smoothly along the blacktop towards his secret lair, the baby fox in its box on the passenger seat. Autumn leaves spiral in his wake.
He depresses the automatic garage door opener and sails into safety. Out the car, into the house and up the stairs, to the hidden chest in the closet. Secret compartment. Currency from many countries, but he needs good old-fashioned GBP. Vet’s bills don’t come cheap, he knows. £1,000 ought to do it. Back into the Black Phantom, satnav glows and the voice soothes.
He wipes away a single tear. ‘I’m going to save you.’
In the blink of an eye he reaches the twenty-four-hour veterinary practice. Good people doing good things. He parks away from the building; can’t be too careful with CCTV. The night is freezing and he almost slips. He sets the box down in front of the door and opens the lid. Scribbles a note.
Please help this little tyke. £1,000 enclosed for fees. Send to RSPCA when better.
£500 donation to RSPCA in progress.
He places the envelope of cash in the box, presses the buzzer, and is away into the embracing arms of the night. He finds his way back to the Black Phantom and cruises through the dark, in silence, hands clenched on the wheel, fighting away the tears, the horror of his life, fighting away the darkness of his origin.