The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

  Brody stares at me, eyes narrow. “Show me the key.”

  I try to look firm. “Drugs first.”

  Suddenly Jimmy is holding a gun. “You want to do business, you follow our rules.”

  I nod, my eyes never leaving the gun, and slowly pull out the ring of keys. “They’re all right here: exterior doors, service hallways, medical cabinets, everything.” I don’t actually know what any of the keys do, but I try to sound convincing.

  “Now we’re talking,” says Jimmy. He looks at Brody. “This could work.”

  A train whistles nearby, shrill and piercing.

  Brody starts driving. “Take off the uniform.”

  “And you’ll give me the Seroquel?”

  “He said take off the uniform,” Jimmy snarls, gesturing with the gun.

  “We had a deal.”

  “Money is a deal,” says Brody. “All you have is a handful of keys. How do we know they even work?”

  “Why would I lie to a man with a gun?”

  “Because you’re a junkie,” says Jimmy, “and junkies are stupid.”

  The train whistles again. I look at the gun, then at Jimmy’s face. We’re in a residential neighborhood now, the houses grim and cracked. I need the drugs—I can’t leave here without them. I lick my teeth, feeling my chest grow cold and hollow. I hold up the keys.

  And toss them straight into Jimmy’s eyes.

  “What the—”

  He flinches and raises his hands to cover his face, and as soon as the gun isn’t pointed at me I lunge forward, grabbing his wrist with one hand and pounding him in the face with the other.

  “Holy—!” Brody shouts. The car swerves wildly as he first looks back and then overcorrects to regain control. “Shoot him, you idiot!”

  Jimmy tries to point the gun at me but I’m too strong—strong enough to attack a whole room full of doctors; strong enough to accidentally kill a man with a chair. He fires one panicked shot into the roof, and I punch him again, feeling the crunch as his nose breaks and sprays us both with blood. The car lurches awkwardly to a stop as Brody slams on the brakes and stumbles out of the car, sprinting for the nearest side street. Jimmy and I lose our balance, nearly falling into the foot well, and I wrench the gun from his hand as he clutches feebly at his face.

  I have the gun. The car is moving slowly again, drifting diagonally toward the side of the road. The train whistles loudly again, deafening and painful. I thrust the gun into Jimmy’s face.

  “Give me the Seroquel.”

  “Are you crazy, man?”

  “I didn’t want to do this,” I say, “but there are bigger things I have to deal with. I am helping you, but I need Seroquel to do it.”

  “We’re going to kill you, you know. Me and Brody and everyone else—we’re going to hunt you down and kill you.”

  “Brody ran away,” I say. “You’re alone.” The train whistles again, a jagged blade of sound, and I grimace and cover my ears. “Why is that train so loud?”

  “What train?”

  It whistles again. “That train!”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  I look up: there is no train. We’re in a tiny residential neighborhood, old houses and old cars, without a railroad for miles. I look back at Jimmy and he has no face, and I scream along with the blare of the train.

  “We’re going to kill you,” says the Faceless Man. “All of us. You’re a dead man and you don’t even know it—”

  The gun goes off.

  Jimmy gasps, falling back against the door, a puckered hole in his chest spilling deep red blood. He grits his teeth and wheezes, eyes screwed shut in pain, his entire face a clenched, rigid mask.

  His entire … face. He has a face.

  I fumble the car door open and run.

  EIGHTEEN

  A WOMAN IS SCREAMING. I look down and see the gun in my hand, black and inert. Can anyone else see it? Brody’s car is still moving, creeping slowly toward the side of the street until it bumps a car with a soft metallic crunch. A woman screams again, not in terror or anger but simply a scream. Inarticulate.

  I look at the gun again. I shot a man—he had no face, and I shot him, and then his face was back, just like that. Was it real? Is he hiding his true nature, or did I kill an innocent man?

  I run as fast as I can, arms and legs pumping like a cartoon. My chest is cold in the wind. The gun is in my right hand, and I don’t know where to put my finger. Will it go off? How should I hold it? I reach up with my other hand, slowly, awkwardly, and flip the gun down so I’m holding the barrel. I wrap my fingers around the outside of the trigger guard. Everyone can see it, up and down, up and down, waving like a flag as I run. I need to hide it. I need to run.

  I need to get hold of myself.

  I’m in a wide street, with short, dirty houses stretching endlessly in every direction. Two men on a porch stare at me as I go by. A little girl on a bike pedals fearfully away around the corner. I drop to the curb in the shadow of a garbage can, crouching in the gutter. What do I do? I should throw the gun away, tip it into this can and be gone … but those men, that girl, who knows how many people peeking through their windows—they all saw me. They’ll know where I dropped it, and when they tell the police they’ll find it and they’ll catch me. I can’t leave it here.

  And what if Brody comes looking for me? Or more Faceless Men?

  I shake my head, struggling to breathe evenly. Was Jimmy really one of Them? I saw him, not two feet away, as faceless as the man from the hospital. But in the hospital, the drugs were still working—now it’s been too long, and I don’t know if the hallucinations are coming back or not. There was a train whistle that only I could hear: is that because it was fake, or because he was too terrified to notice it? And why did his face come back when the janitor’s didn’t?

  Focus. Whatever Jimmy was, he’s not coming after me now. Brody’s the immediate threat, and the cops. They’ll come for me—I can’t throw away my only defense. I look at the gun, hefting it, then glance around at the neighborhood. The men I saw earlier are gone, probably hiding inside, probably calling the police. I look down at myself, filthy with dirt and dust, my jumpsuit crusted with dried rainwater. I run my fingers through my hair, greasy and wild. I can’t stay out here like this. I have to find clothes, and I have to hide the gun.

  The gun is small enough to fit in my pocket, but I don’t know if I trust it. What if it goes off? I already fired it, so that should mean the safety’s off, right? Unless I bumped it while I was shifting it around in my hands. I find what I think is a safety switch, but it’s not labeled. I flick it, then flick it again, off and on—or on and off. Back and forth. I pick one and leave it there, placing the gun gingerly in my pocket.

  I glance around again. Someone’s watching me through a gap in the drapes of the nearest house; I recoil not from the person, but from the TV glaring brightly behind her. Is it watching me? I suppress a shiver, duck my head, and run.

  The light is fading, and I hear a distant siren—coming for me? Coming for Jimmy? I reach a major street, wait anxiously for a gap in the traffic, then dart across into a cluster of commercial buildings beyond. A mechanic’s garage. A hair salon with window ads in a language I don’t recognize. A pawn shop; a butcher shop; a sex shop. The buildings grow taller as the light fades, and I run past the long wall of a storage center. At the far end is a small office building, just two stories high, the windows dark. I duck behind it and find a small parking lot sandwiched between the offices and the back of another building, really more of an alley, the narrow space almost completely filled by three dented Dumpsters. I slip between two of them and lean against the wall, covering my nose against the smell.

  When Jimmy got shot his face reappeared, but the janitor’s last night didn’t. Does that mean Jimmy wasn’t really a Faceless Man, or that the janitor, somehow, didn’t actually die? Did I check his breathing, or was the electric buzz around his face too strong? Did I check his pulse? I don’t remember.<
br />
  If the janitor didn’t die, the police might not be looking for me—the hospital will have told them to keep an eye out for me, but that doesn’t mean there’s an active search. And Brody almost certainly didn’t call 911—the car and Jimmy’s body are probably both filled with drugs—

  Drugs. I didn’t get the Seroquel. That was the whole point of finding dealers in the first place, but I got so scared I ran away. I need to find more somewhere, especially if the hallucinations are already coming back.

  So I might be okay, at least for now. I still look like a criminal, though, and this jumpsuit only makes me easier to identify, especially if the people on the street called in a report about a dangerous, gun-waving lunatic. I need new clothes. I have my patient pajamas under the jumpsuit, but that’s even more recognizable. Where am I going, anyway? What’s my plan? I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down. I’m smarter than this—I’m just spooked by the shooting. Calm down.

  I need clothes, and I need medicine, and I can get both at home. If Dad hasn’t thrown it away I have some Klonopin in my room—whole bottles of it, maybe hundreds of pills that I picked up and never took. They’re not as strong as the Seroquel, but they’ll help. If I can find a train station I can look at a map—just enough to see where I am, and where I need to go.

  Home, and then … to wherever I was before. Like Vanek said.

  Something shifts in the alley and I leap to my feet; it sounds like garbage, I think, a bag of it knocked over and spilled across the ground. I pull out the gun.

  A wet, smacking sound, like a mouth. Chewing, maybe, or drinking.

  I peer at the gun in the near-dark, fumbling with the safety switch. Which is on and which is off? The garbage shifts again, an erratic rhythm of scrapes and thuds and the sound of fallen bottles skittering and clinking across the asphalt. A low screech of metal. A wet, heavy slap. I grip the pistol tightly and step to the edge of the Dumpsters.

  There’s no light in the alley, just the distant blue-white glow from a streetlight beyond the wall.

  More sounds, closer this time, and I step out from the Dumpsters and turn to face them. A soda can falls from a pile of garbage bags, half-crushed, and then a low, wet shape appears behind it—a giant maggot, skin rippling and slick, inching toward me through the pile of trash. My breath catches and I stagger back three steps, my hands trembling on the gun.

  I struggle to breathe. “What do you want?”

  It snorts and whiffles, nosing at garbage with its ringed, toothy mouth.

  My hands are shaking. “What do you want?”

  Its body contracts, a single thick muscle under a thin white membrane, and it pulls itself closer. The gun is right here, right in my hand, already pointed at the monster just seven feet away. All I have to do is move my finger. Will that be enough? Is the safety really off?

  Is it really a monster?

  I shot Jimmy, not because he was a drug dealer, not because he wanted to kill me, and not because I had to defend myself. He could barely move. I shot him because I thought he was one of the monsters in my head, and then he wasn’t, but it was too late. Can I do the same thing again? The maggot shuffles closer, swelling and lengthening, its mouth opening and closing, tasting the air.

  “Say something.” It might be a bum, or a homeless mother looking for food. It might be a lost child, or a sick man, or a dog. My eyes feel wet. “Tell me who you are.”

  Five feet away. I stumble backward, the gun still trained on the nightmare before me. I scream in frustration—I don’t know what to do! I can’t trust my own head! I know the Faceless Men are real, but I know at least some of them are fake; I have to fight back, but I have no way of knowing if the visions I’m fighting are real. I roar again, gritting my teeth.

  “Say something!”

  I can’t take the chance. I wheel around, drop the gun in the Dumpster, and sprint out of the alley. I glance back when I reach the street, watching the maggot shuffle slowly toward me. A horn blares from the intersection, a blur of head- and taillights, and I turn and run.

  I reach a bigger street and I slow to a jog, trying not to look like I’m running from something. The street here is crowded, full of shops and restaurants and people.

  “Why did you pick this direction?”

  I swallow and keep jogging. “Brody’s car is back that way.”

  “You think there’s a train station this way?”

  “I hope there is. Eventually there’s got to be, if I go far enough.”

  She nods. “A train station will have maps, but it’ll also have security cameras.”

  I stop and close my eyes, panting. “I don’t need the ride, I need the map. I need to know where I am.”

  “Keep going,” she says, urging me forward. “It’s not safe to stop yet.”

  “Keep going where?”

  “To my place—I can hide you there.”

  “Lucy.” I turn to face her, and she’s gone. I close my eyes again, straining at my mind as if it were a muscle I could flex. Lucy isn’t real. Stop hearing her.

  A train station will have a map and a name, and I’ll get a better fix on where I am. I start jogging again, and then I hear a siren and I dive against the wall.

  Nothing here but shops and lights—I can’t go in. I need an alley. I look for the police car, see nothing, and take off at a run again. Lucy sees the gap in the wall just as I do.

  “In there!”

  I follow her, sprinting the last few seconds, barely registering the surprised faces of the people on the street as we run past them. We dive into a big, black opening and find it to be the driveway of a private garage, probably an office building; the path extends up a short ramp, maybe ten feet deep, and stops at a wide metal door. I press up into the corner, my back to the bricks, and take a few deep breaths. Lucy crouches next to me, scanning the street with dark eyes.

  “You think they’re looking for us?”

  I shake my head. “For me, yes. You’re not real.”

  NINETEEN

  “OF COURSE I’M REAL,” says Lucy. She glances up at me and raises an eyebrow. “I’m a real hallucination.”

  “That’s the same thing as not being real.”

  “You’ve got bigger problems to deal with right now, Michael.” She turns back to the street, watching intently. “How are you going to get home?”

  “How do you know I’m going home?”

  “I live in your head, Michael. If you think it, I know it.”

  “Then why are you asking me anything? Just … read my mind.”

  “I’m trying to get you to think, Michael—I’m trying to help, and that’s pretty much all I can do. It’s easier to sort through a problem when you have someone to talk to, so here I am: talk to me.”

  “I’m trying to overcome my delusions, Lucy, not feed them.”

  “You’re trying to survive,” she insists. “Your delusions aren’t going to matter if you get arrested for murder. Get home, get the drugs, and then we can talk about what is and isn’t real.”

  I pause, watching the street, then slide down against the wall and sit on the pavement. It’s cool and dry, though the air around us is still hot. “I don’t know how to get home. Give me time to think.”

  “You’ve been running for too long,” she says, “you’re stressed out. Just take a minute to breathe; I’ll keep watch.”

  I close my eyes and crane my neck back, stretching it. Thank goodness Lucy’s here to watch—

  I snap my eyes open and look back at the street. “You’re not really here, Lucy, how are you going to watch the street?”

  She pauses, saying nothing, then shakes her head. “I don’t know. Subconscious cues? Drawing attention to sights and sounds you sense in your periphery without immediately flagging them as dangerous?”

  I frown. “Is that possible?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “Then let me keep watch. You think.”

  “I thought I wasn’t real.”

&n
bsp; “All my thoughts are your thoughts—anything I can think, you can think. And probably better, since you’re apparently the fabrication of an idealized woman.”

  She smiles. “That’s sweet of you, Michael.” She stands. “We need a way home.…”

  “We need to know where we are first.”

  “So where are we?”

  I shake my head, still watching the street. “I don’t know.” Cars and people pass the mouth of the garage in a constant stream, occasionally glancing in at us, but no one stops or points. It’s a normal night, just a crazy guy talking to himself in the city. Nothing to see here. “I don’t think we’re downtown, but that’s all I’ve got.”

  “We’re definitely not downtown,” says Lucy, “I live there. The only time I ever come out this far is to visit … you.” She grabs my shoulder, and though I can’t feel it I’m aware of it, the knowledge of her touch completely replacing the evidence against it. “I’ve passed this street before, on my way to visit you! I know this neighborhood!”

  “You can’t know it unless I know it.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” she says. “You’ve been here before, at least long enough to figure out that this is a major road into the heart of the city; your subconscious mind knows where this street goes, and now I know it.”

  “Great,” I say, “so which way do we go from here?”

  She walks to the edge of the garage, looks around, then gestures impatiently for me to join her. “I can’t actually look around without you, you know.”

  I stand and join her, glancing furtively up and down the street. She smiles and pats me on the shoulder; her fingers are soft and cool.

  “This way.” She heads out onto the sidewalk, going back the way we came.

  “That’s getting closer to…” I stop, not wanting to say the place where I shot a guy in a crowded street. I lower my voice. “You know.”

  “We’re only backtracking a couple of blocks,” she says, “and then we’ll be pulling away again.”