by Dan Wells
I pull out my change: nine quarters left. I think about dialing her again, but I know she won’t answer. I dial Vanek’s number instead.
Ring.
“Ambrose Vanek.”
“It’s me.”
“Bloody idiot,” he curses, “what on Earth possessed you to run? And to kill someone!”
“They’ve already told you?”
“Of course they already told me—I was the first one they called, because they knew I’d be the first person you called.”
“So they’re listening,” I say. “I’ll be careful—”
“Of course they’re not listening,” says Vanek, “there hasn’t been time for anything like that—”
“Not for the normal police, no, but the Faceless Men have resources you haven’t dreamed of.”
“They’re not real, Michael. Has your medicine worn off this quickly?”
Medicine—dammit, I need that too, I forgot. There’s too much to do, and I feel myself slipping under.
“They are real, Vanek, I’ve seen them—one of them, the janitor I killed. I was fully dosed on Clozaril and I saw him anyway. He had a paper—I still have it.” I unzipped my janitor coverall and pulled out the crumpled paper. I held it close to my body, shielded from the rain. “It’s still here, Vanek—a full dossier on who I am, where I’ve lived, what I’ve done, everything. Why would a janitor have this?”
“It could be another hallucination,” said Vanek. “Your mind remembered what it created last night and it’s reproducing it now to protect you from the realization that it’s false.”
“I have it right here,” I say. “You can see it for yourself.”
“Oh no,” he says, “I can’t get anywhere near you, Michael—you’re a wanted man, and I could go to jail just for talking to you. The last thing I want to do is meet you in person.”
“There’s something going on,” I say. “I know you don’t believe me, but there’s a real conspiracy and they are trying to … I don’t know yet. One of the Children of the Earth was working in a chemical company—why? The FBI said the cult is completely self-sufficient, so he didn’t need the money, so why was he there?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because he also said they’re like Luddites, completely antitechnology, so why leave the farm at all? Why go into a huge city full of technology you hate to get a job you don’t need? It has to mean something.”
“The cult hates technology?”
“That’s what Agent Leonard said.”
“As much as you do?”
“I don’t—” I freeze, catching his meaning. “It’s not like that. It’s completely different.”
“You don’t know that,” he says. “Dr. Little told me about the man who died at ChemCom—Agent Leonard said he had the same sudden headache attack that you have. Maybe they avoid technology because it hurts them, the same way it hurts you.”
“Because there’s something in my head.”
“You need to find them.”
“I’m not going to find them,” I snarl. “They’re evil—they have some kind of Plan, some horrible thing they’re doing, and I’ve got to stop them. Maybe that’s … maybe that’s what the Red Line Killer is doing too. He knows about the Plan and he’s trying to stop them.”
“Are you sympathizing with the murderer now? Because this conversation is already about as dangerous as it can possibly be. Doctor-patient confidentiality is completely out the window now.”
“Then tell the police,” I say, “but I need medicine first.”
He growls, scoffing.
“I’m serious,” I tell him. “I can’t fight them with my brain screwed up. I need to stay lucid, and you’re the only one I know who can help me.”
“I’m not going to buy you drugs.”
“Just a prescription! Just a piece of paper with your office and your name so I can go somewhere and buy them myself.”
“I could get arrested, Michael. I could lose my license and go to jail.”
My voice is desperate and ragged. “You have to help me.”
“I’ve helped you too much already, Michael. I…” He stops. “You need to go back.”
“I’m never going back.”
“Not to the hospital,” he whispers, his voice growing soft and urgent, “but to wherever you were before that. Maybe something there will trigger your memory, and you’ll remember the time you lost.”
“Will that help?”
“I’m going to tell the police that you contacted me,” he says, “because I don’t want to be an accessory to murder or drug trafficking, but I won’t tell them where you’re going. That’s all I can give you. Don’t call me again.” He hangs up.
I swallow, nodding, and put the phone back on the hook. Go back to where I was? I don’t know where I was—all I remember is an empty city, and I don’t even know what that means. An empty city and a deep, black pit. How do I know if they’re even real?
I need Kelly Fischer. Maybe if I … I look at the paper in my hands, then carefully tuck it back into my coverall. Maybe if I show her the paper she’ll believe me. It proves someone’s after me—even if she won’t believe anything else, the paper will show her that. Then with all the information she’s collected, maybe some small shred of it can lead me to the next step. I have to try.
But Vanek was right about my medicine wearing off—it hasn’t happened yet, but it will, and when it does my brain will crumble back into nothing and the hallucinations will return and I’ll be a useless wreck again. I can’t risk losing my lucidity. I don’t dare go to a pharmacy or a hospital; I need to find drugs somewhere else. On the street, I guess. Dr. Little said that Seroquel was a recreational drug, so I know it’s out there.
I start walking.
SEVENTEEN
I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM. I walk to the nearest corner and look at the street signs, but I don’t recognize either of the names. I jog to the next street, much bigger than the last, but there’s still not a name I recognize. I turn slowly, examining the skyline, trying to find a fix for my location—where’s north?—but I find nothing. The morning is light enough that I know the sun has risen, but it’s too overcast to actually see it; instead of sky and sunbeams I see only mist and clouds, infused from behind with a soft, directionless light. I watch the traffic, nearly even in both directions; I can’t even guess a direction by watching the flow. I pick a direction at random and start walking.
I fall easily back into the patterns of homelessness, always watching for cops and dogs and any scrap of food or money. I pass a train stop and keep my eyes down, my face obscured from the cameras. My hair is thick and wet, plastered to my skull with grease and old rain. I pass a man in a suit, hurrying past me to the train station, and before I’m aware of it I ask him for change. The words leave my mouth like a reflex. He ignores me, just as naturally, and we pass and are gone. I keep walking.
I try to piece together the little I know of the Faceless Men—so little because I don’t know how much of it I know for sure, and how much is the lingering delusions of a broken mind. They have chased me forever, I think, but Dr. Little says my schizophrenia is only eight months old. Before that I had depression and anxiety, which the Klonopin was intended to help. If I’d taken it then, would the schizophrenia have developed anyway? If I don’t treat the schizophrenia now, will something worse come tomorrow?
The Faceless Men—try to remember the Faceless Men. How long have they been watching me? More than a year, I’m sure of it. The man from the FBI, Agent Leonard, said the government had been keeping tabs on me since early adolescence. Are they connected to the Faceless Men? Could the hospital be under Their control without the government’s help? But no, I don’t know that for sure: I don’t know if Powell was under Their control or not. That was the paranoia talking. Let me look at the facts.
One: Nick, the night janitor, was a Faceless Man. I confirmed this by sight and by touch, while firmly under the influence of antipsychotic medicine
. He had a paper with my information, and I still have it, and it still says today what it said last night. My hallucinations are rarely ever that consistent.
Two: Before the janitor, I saw more Faceless Men, watching me from a distance, though no one else ever seemed to see Them. Either the hospital was part of the conspiracy and helping to cover it up, or I was the only one who saw Them. I was still hallucinating back then; they probably weren’t even real.
I stop walking, gripped with a sudden realization. The hospital found the janitor and told Vanek, but they didn’t say anything about his face. They could be hiding it, true, but what if they just didn’t see it? What if I see Faceless Men not because I’m crazy, but because somehow I can see Them as they really are? Somehow everyone else sees normal, everyday people, and I see their true nature.
But no—that’s the schizophrenic narcissism again, telling me I’m different and better and more important than everyone else. It makes more sense to say I’m hallucinating than to say I have some kind of superhuman awareness. And yet … I have the proof. I have the janitor’s paper. I get it out again, desperate to see it, to touch it, to know that I’m not crazy. It’s still there; it’s still my dossier. I touch it reverently and tuck it back inside.
There’s one more fact I haven’t considered: the nurse was unconscious. If the Faceless janitor was coming for me, and if the hospital was in on it, why was the nurse unconscious? And where was the guard? It makes more sense that the janitor was acting alone, observing me for months and then finally, when the time came, incapacitating the nearby witnesses to hide his actions. But what was he going to do? I searched his clothes and his equipment—he didn’t have any drugs or surgical tools or anything else suspicious. Only the paper and the gate code. Was he going to talk to me?
Was he going to take me?
I hear a siren in the distance, short and clipped. A cop just pulled someone over. The sky is brighter now, and I realize I need to get off the street. If the cops are looking for me I should keep to the back roads and out of sight. I’m too conspicuous in this coverall. I turn down the next alley, hiding in the narrow space between two fat brick buildings.
I need new clothes. Drugs and clothes and money. I could go home, I guess; there’re clothes there, and the old Klonopin I never took, but it’s too risky. The police are sure to be watching it. Even if they’re not, my father would sell me out in a heartbeat. I can’t go home. But then where?
Where can you even buy drugs on the street? High schools, probably, but I couldn’t get in to one of those looking like this. Maybe the parking lot behind one? I see a bank with a large electric sign. Eight in the morning; school’s already started. Is the sign watching me? I shake my head and keep walking.
It feels like I walk for hours before I find a school. It’s a brown brick high-rise, set in among a forest of smaller buildings; the block across the street is a fenced-in field covered with dying yellow grass. The parking lot is small, and the swarm of parked cars spills out to fill the curbs in every direction. I don’t see any cops, but I assume they’re close by; my own high school was always filled with them, and this one’s just as ghetto. I’ve seen drugs, and drug deals, but I’ve never bought them myself before. I don’t know what to do. I walk down the street slowly, taking in every detail. There are people here and there in the shadows, some in the cars and some on the front steps of the neighboring houses; some are kids, some are adults. I’m too scared to approach them. What will I even pay with? Maybe I can just find out the price, and come back later. What if I get arrested, or shot? What am I doing here?
I walk around the block, trudging slowly, running through my approaches in my mind. Do I want to look confident, or will that make me look too aggressive? If I try to stay quiet and nonthreatening, will I come off as too weak? It doesn’t matter if they try to rob me—I don’t have anything to steal. I should leave. I circle the block again, slowly, watching the people as I pass but never making eye contact. The dealers I saw in high school were usually older, sometimes much older—thirties or forties. Old pros who’ve been doing this for years. I walk past without talking to anyone. I feel the anxiety rise in my chest, fluttering like a trapped, angry bird. I can’t do this.
I’m hungry; I haven’t eaten breakfast. I walk until I find a diner and carefully count out my change.
“What can I get for $2.25?”
“Cup of soup.”
“Thanks.” The waitress brings me clam chowder and I sip it slowly, trying not to burn my tongue. There are a handful of other patrons in the diner, but none of them look like cops or drug dealers. Are any of them Faceless Men? If they can hide from others, can they hide from me? Could anyone I see be one of them, wearing a face like an insidious mask? I’d have no way of knowing. I leave the diner and walk back to the school, always moving, always watching. There’s an old man in a window; there’s a little girl on the steps. Who’s watching me?
The school is surrounded by students, talking and eating and smoking through the eleven o’clock lunch break. Half of them are talking or texting, and I turn down a side street, away from their phones.
The city is alive with energy, sharp fields of electromagnetics crossing back and forth through the air—TVs, radios, cell phones, wireless modems, buzzing and humming and prickling at the edges of my consciousness. They are formless pain. They are barbed tentacles of thought. They are voices from beyond the world.
It is nearly three o’clock when I return to the school, bone tired and sweating from exertion and heat. The clouds have cleared and the sun is hot and bright. School hasn’t let out yet. I walk in a slow circuit around the edge of the school.
“You looking for something?”
I stop; it’s not an old man like I’d hoped, but a young kid, maybe fifteen at the most. I recognize him from my walks this morning, still in the same car.
I look back, not sure what to say. I want to buy drugs is too simple, too forward. He could be a narc, or there could be one nearby. I shrug. “Yeah.”
“You homeless?”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t walk around a high school like this, man, people think you’re a perv. You got money?”
I hesitate. He’ll turn me away if I say no. I nod. “Yeah.”
He smiles. “Then what you need, my man, is some soup. I know a great soup kitchen, get you fixed right up, maybe find you a place to sleep and get you out of those stank-bag clothes. Get in.”
“I’m not really looking for soup—”
“Get in, dammit.” His face is hard. I nod, catching on too late to his pretense; I’m more tired and hungry than I think. I open the back door and sit down.
“Geez, Brody, this guy smells like a urinal!” There’s a young man in the backseat next to me. “What’d you go bringing him in here for?” I don’t remember seeing him before—is he actually there? Have the drugs worn off that much? He leans closer and sniffs. “You sleep outside last night?”
I don’t dare answer him; the other kid will throw me out if he thinks I’m crazy.
The driver, Brody, starts his car and pulls away from the curb. “You don’t want no soup, huh? You think I care if you want any damn soup? When I say get in the car you get in the car.”
“I’m in the car now.”
“What you looking for?” asks the man in the backseat. I look at Brody, still too scared to answer the other man out loud.
“Answer him, trashman—what are you looking for?”
I sigh softly, relieved to have the man confirmed by a third party. I swallow. “I need neuroleptics,” I say carefully. “Clozaril works best, but Seroquel can do in a pinch—”
“You want some Suzy Q?” asks Brody. “We can do that. How much?” He’s driving slowly, aimlessly, cruising the streets while we make our deal.
I frown and swallow again, nervous and scared. “How much does it cost?”
“That’s not how this works,” says the kid in the backseat. “You tell us how much you want to pay
, and we tell you how much that’ll get you.”
“I…” I stop. “Can I get a … sample, first?”
Brody laughs. “You hear that, Jimmy? He wants a free sample.”
Brody’s voice is hard. “This ain’t no ice cream shop, junkie. You addicted to this stuff?”
“I need it for a medical condition.”
“He’s addicted,” Jimmy laughs.
“How much do you want?” Brody asks again.
I have nothing—no money, not even the $2.25 I spent on lunch. My pockets are completely empty, except for the paper and—
—and a small ring of keys. The janitor’s.
I touch my pocket, feeling the keys through the fabric. “I need to make kind of an unorthodox deal with you guys,” I say. “I don’t have any money.”
Jimmy and Brody curse in unison. Brody pulls over and swears again. “Get out.”
“Listen to me—”
“No,” shouts Brody, “you listen to me! You don’t come into our place of business and waste our time, and I don’t care what kind of deal you’re trying to make because if it doesn’t involve money I am not interested, end of story. Now get out of this car while that’s still the worst thing that’s going to happen to you.”
“I work in a hospital,” I say desperately. “See this logo on my coverall? It says Powell Psychiatric, I’m a janitor there. Half of the drugs you sell, that’s where they come from.”
“Then why are you buying them from us?”
“Because I lost my job, and I can’t get back in, but I can get you in and you can take all the drugs you want.”
The car is silent.
Brody shakes his head. “These places change the pass codes every time they fire someone.”
“I have metal keys,” I say quickly. “They change the pass codes but not the locks.”
Silence.
“It could work,” says Jimmy.
“It’s dumb as hell,” says Brody.
“Look,” I say, “if you get me a change of clothes I’ll even throw in the uniform. Clean it up and you can walk all through the halls without batting an eyelash. They know my face but they don’t know yours.”
