The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I am, and that means you are too. Come on.”

  I adjust my dirty jumpsuit, feeling self-conscious, but I step into the crowd and start walking. Lucy picks up her speed, weaving effortlessly through the press of people, and I hurry to catch up. After several blocks the crowd thins as we leave the entertainment district behind; restaurants and specialty shops give way to pawn shops and locksmiths and liquor stores. As the pedestrian traffic dwindles, the car traffic picks up, and soon the road becomes a major thoroughfare. I jog from shadow to shadow, my eyes jumping back and forth between the buildings and the cars and the lampposts, streetlights buzzing with angry electrons. We come to a major intersection, traffic lights blazing like lidless eyes, and Lucy runs ahead to the corner.

  “We cross here, and go right.”

  I hang back, in the shadow of a dark building.

  “Come on, Michael, let’s go.”

  I shake my head. “The traffic lights are watching.”

  “What?” She sighs. “Nothing is watching you, Michael, wake up. Snap out of it.”

  “I can’t just snap out of it, Lucy—there are traffic cameras over the lights. I’ll be on them. They will be watching.”

  “The police aren’t watching for you on the traffic cameras.”

  “Not the police. Lucy, the…” We’re the only people on foot, but I hesitate to say it out loud. She cocks her head, stepping closer to hear.

  “The what?”

  “The Faceless Men!” I grab her arm and pull her into the shadow with me. “They’re watching me—that’s what we’re running away from.”

  “I thought we were running from the police?”

  My brain feels thick, like sludge. “We’re running from both … listen, Lucy, I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before, but all of these traffic lights are just one more opportunity for Them to see me. I don’t know how many we’ve already passed, but—”

  “You didn’t think about it because it is a delusion,” she says, enunciating the final word with gripping finality. “Your drugs are wearing off—that’s why I’m here, right? It’s getting worse, and all of your old symptoms are coming back, but you have to trust me: none of it is real.” She tries to pull me toward the street, but I hold her back.

  “No,” I say, “the Faceless Men are real. I saw one in the hospital, under full effect of the drugs, and it was real.”

  “You thought Jimmy was real too, and look what happened to him.”

  “I know!” I shout, then pause and try to calm myself. Every headlight from the street feels like a searching eye, and I pull back farther into the shadows. “Listen, you have to trust me. You say that anything I know, you know, so you have to know this.”

  “You are hallucinating,” she says slowly. “You are trying to explain your reality to a hallucination. Do you see how crazy that sounds? How can you even trust yourself? Jimmy is the proof that—”

  “Jimmy proves nothing,” I say harshly. “Look, Lucy, I know you’re not real—you were the perfect girlfriend, but I created you in my head, and I know that now. But that doesn’t mean every girlfriend is fake, right? One imaginary girlfriend does not invalidate the entire concept of girlfriends—they exist, they are everywhere.” I clench my fingers, trying to keep my breathing steady. “The Faceless Men are the same way—just because Jimmy was a fake doesn’t mean they’re all fake. I thought he was one of Them, and I was wrong, but that doesn’t mean They don’t exist.”

  Lucy rubs her forehead. “I am your subconscious mind telling you that they’re not real—”

  “You are my subconscious fears telling me that I’m wrong, just like the entire world has trained me to think I’m wrong for my entire life. But I’m right this time, Lucy. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “But—”

  “If you love me,” I say, gripping her hands, “you will trust me.”

  She stares at me, gripping me back—solid and reassuring, her eyes reflecting tiny points of light. She nods.

  “I trust you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And if you love me, you’ll cross this street.”

  “What?”

  She pulls me out from the shadow, her grip stronger than I expected. “You have to cross this street,” she says. “We’re about six blocks away from the bakery where you work—I met you there for lunch a few times, remember? From there it’s only a mile or two to your house. But first you have to cross the street.”

  I pull back, intensely afraid—irrationally afraid—of the cameras on the traffic lights. Of the traffic lights themselves. Every headlight, every car, every faceless driver; in my mind the street is a raging torrent of steel predators, howling past at breakneck speed, all searching for me, all ready to swerve and crush me like a hail of meteors, car after car after car slamming into a massive pile with me at the bottom. I miss a step, losing my balance, and Lucy catches me, steadies me with her firm, gentle hands.

  “Look at me, Michael.”

  “I can’t go out there.…”

  “Look at me,” she repeats. “Look at me. Look at my eyes.”

  I look up slowly, see the curve of her cheek, the dark wave of her hair, the faint reflection of her eyes. I stare into her eyes—eyes I’ve stared into so many times before, eyes that I’ve loved since before I even saw them. I start to cry.

  “You’re just a dream, Lucy.”

  “Do you love me?”

  I sob again. “Yes.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter. We are going to cross this street, and we are going to be fine, and we are going to be together. Nothing will happen.”

  “They’ll see me—” I say, looking toward the traffic lights, but she turns my face back to hers.

  “Look at me,” she says softly, “only at me.” She steps backward, pulling me with her hands, and I follow slowly, focusing on her eyes. We leave the shadow; we approach the curb; we wait on the edge of the street. On the edges of my vision I see the lights change, and I start to shake in fear at the sight of them, my chest seizing up, but Lucy pulls my eyes back to hers and we step into the street. Left foot, right foot. Inch by inch. Cars rush past us and I push them out of my mind, pushing out everything but Lucy’s deep brown eyes.

  Halfway.

  Three more lanes of cars, lined up at the intersection like a swarm of bright, crystalline beetles. Their headlights watch us like eyes, anxious soldiers in rumbling formation. They’re too close and I start to falter, taking small side steps away toward the perpendicular traffic. Lucy pulls me back.

  “Look at me, Michael. Don’t look at anything but me.”

  The green glare on the pavement turns red, and in the corner of my eye a red light turns green, and now the rumbling beetles begin shrieking and blaring in anger. I try to hurry, but my nervousness slows me down even further. I pass the second lane, and the cars roar to life behind me, leaping past me with a snarl. I feel like I can’t breathe.

  “I’m right here, Michael. Stay with me.”

  I step onto the curb and the dam breaks behind me, a thousand cars tumbling past in a furious blur. I clutch Lucy’s arm and she walks beside me now, hurrying me away from the intersection, but a car behind us turns at the corner and pulls up next to us, driving slowly. Police. My heart beats harder, and I can feel sweat dripping down my back.

  “Stay calm,” says Lucy.

  A window rolls down. “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “Just keep walking,” Lucy whispers. “Tell them you’re fine.”

  “I’m too scared.”

  She turns to the cops. “I’m fine, thanks. Just out for a walk.”

  I glance at her through the corner of my eye. “You can’t talk to people.”

  “I just did.”

  “Did he hear you?”

  “He heard you,” she says, “now be quiet, he’s still watching us.”

  “Are you alright, sir? Have you been drinking?”

  “They’re he
re because you’re walking unsteadily,” says Lucy, “not because they recognize you. They don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m just…” I swallow, keeping my face forward. The back of my mind is screaming Look at them–they have no faces! But I refuse to look; I refuse to let my hallucinations take over. “I’m just going home. I’ll be fine.”

  “You look a little unsteady,” says the officer.

  “See?” says Lucy.

  “Have you been drinking?” he asks again. “Are you in pain?”

  “He thinks you’re on drugs,” says Lucy.

  I laugh hollowly, still shuffling forward. “I wish.”

  We turn at the next corner, and the police car turns to follow us. It’s a smaller street, just two lanes, and another car approaches slowly on the far side. The policeman leans farther out of his window, trying to get a better view. “Where’s the jumpsuit from?”

  “They know,” I hiss.

  “Just keep going,” says Lucy, letting go of my arm. “I’ll take care of them.”

  “Let’s take a look at you, sir,” says the policeman, and they pull forward a few feet, preparing to stop and head me off. Lucy moves away suddenly, running behind them and into the street. I lunge a few steps after her, then scream as I realize what she’s doing.

  She’s charging straight at the oncoming car.

  I wave my hands wildly, diving off the curb to chase her. “Lucy, no!” The officer driving the police car sees me run, sees Lucy just as the oncoming driver does; the second driver swerves and the policeman loses control for a split second—just long enough to swerve left. The two cars crunch lightly into each other, headlights shattering, and I scream again.

  “Lucy!” She’s right in the middle of them—

  She’s nowhere.

  I spin around, looking for Lucy in the shadows. “Lucy, where are you?” Lucy’s gone, like she never existed.

  Lucy never existed.

  The cars slam on their brakes, and the driver of the police car leaps out angrily.

  “Watch where you’re going!”

  “There was something in the road!”

  They saw her—she isn’t real but they saw her, they swerved to miss her. What’s going on?

  “I…” The policeman stops, staring at the road and pointing. “He was shouting at someone right here.”

  The other officer gets out of the car, slamming the door angrily. “What kind of idiot rams a parked police car?”

  No one’s watching me; they’re too caught up in their argument. I run for the side of the road and dash down a narrow driveway, vaulting the wooden fence at the end and sprinting through a parking lot to the next street. How long before they notice I’m gone? Lucy was right about the neighborhood—I do recognize it now. I can find my way home from here. How could she know that?

  What is real?

  TWENTY

  I RUN THROUGH BACK ALLEYS and side streets, hiding from every car and listening for sirens. I hear a train whistle, though I know there are still no tracks nearby. At least I thought I knew it. Maybe the sound is real, and my memories are the delusion.

  There’s the bakery where I used to work, closed and dark. Mr. Mueller closes early so he can get up early and start baking—four in the morning most days, earlier when he has a special order. Now the ovens are off, cold and dead and empty.

  I remember something empty—an empty city. What does it mean?

  A helicopter passes overhead, a dark, thundering hole in the sky. I’m in a residential neighborhood now, and I cling to the trunk of a tree. Is the helicopter looking for me? It flies away and I run for the next street, hiding under a carport. A dog barks, first distant, then closer. I run to the next house on the street, pelting across the lawn at top speed, the helicopter searchlight just inches behind me the whole way. It doesn’t see me.

  More dogs. I peek around the car in the driveway and look at the backyard—no gate, and no dog; the dogs must be somewhere else. Search dogs? I run into the backyard, leap at the wooden fence, and pull myself over it. The dogs are getting louder, but they’re still behind me. I run out to the street and race the full length of the block. A police car crosses, two blocks ahead, and is gone. The searchlight plays over the houses behind me, and I run to the far side of the street.

  I can smell the dogs now—heavy, sweaty animals growling at the air and straining against their leashes. If I can smell them, the wind is in my favor; they won’t be able to smell me until it shifts. There’s a golf course near here, with a small stream; I might be able to hide my scent in there. I run another block to the right, ducking under the latched metal bar that blocks off the parking lot and slipping past the tiny pro shop to the greens beyond. The air is sweeter here, though the musk of the dogs is still thick in my nose. I pause at the edge of a tree line, wait for the noise of the helicopter to pass, and sprint across the open ground. The stream isn’t much, but I slog through it desperately, watching over my shoulder for pursuers. No one’s seen me yet. I follow the stream until it meets the far fence, then run along it until I find a gap. The houses on the other side are run-down and small; I’m only half a mile from home now.

  I can’t smell the dogs anymore, which makes me worried that the wind has changed, but I can’t hear them either—maybe I actually lost them in the stream. I watch from a bush as a police car drives down the next street, and when it passes I run in the other direction. I hear footsteps and shouting from behind a high wall, and I pick up speed. I’m almost there.

  If the police are searching my neighborhood, they must know I’m heading home. They’ll be waiting for me. How am I going to get past them? The air explodes in a rush of wind and noise, and suddenly the helicopter is right above me, searchlight jerking back and forth across the lawns. I run for a shed in the nearest yard; it’s dark and cluttered inside, but it hides me from the light. The helicopter moves on, and the deafening roar of the rotors gives way to the baying of dogs. They’ve found me. I scramble with my hands on the floor of the shed, looking for anything I can use as a weapon, and come up with a heavy jack—too heavy, I think. I set it back down and keep looking, discarding a short shovel, a pair of garden shears, and a wobbly saw blade before finally finding a thick metal pipe; it’s about eighteen inches long, solid and heavy in my hands. I peek out of the shed, watching a black silhouette walk past on the far side of the street. It goes, and I creep out and around into the backyard. I’m very close now—if I hop a few fences I can come up behind my house, maybe sneak in the back without anyone knowing. Only a few houses away.

  I climb the first fence, pipe clenched awkwardly in my hand. I drop down into the next yard—nothing. The noise of the dogs gets louder, and I can hear the helicopter coming closer above us. I run across the grass and hop the next fence, struggling with the pipe before finally throwing it over and climbing up after it. Another empty yard. I pick up the pipe and run for the last fence, freezing at the sound of voices. More police.

  “You sure he’s coming here?”

  They’re already here. They’re in my own driveway.

  “That’s what the chief says.” A second voice. At least two of them. I walk slowly across the last few feet of lawn, leaning as close to the wooden fence as I can without touching it. A radio squawks.

  “Suspect has been spotted by two officers off of Damen Street, say again Michael Shipman has been spotted. Suspect fled the scene, may be headed home. Suspect is not armed, say again not armed; whereabouts of the gun are unknown.”

  I heft the pipe in my hand: if they think I’m not armed, that gives me an advantage. How many are waiting in my driveway? Could I take them out before they called for help? Before they drew a gun?

  I think about Jimmy, and the maggot in the alley. Do I dare attack anyone at all?

  “Can you believe what he did to that guy?” asks one of the cops. “Point-blank in the chest, boom! No provocation at all. Kid was just sitting there, trying to talk him down, and suddenly he shoots him out of nowhere, l
ike it was nothing.”

  “It’s kind of weird,” says the other cop. “Don’t you think?”

  I creep closer, headed for the edge of the fence to get a closer look.

  “Weird?”

  “I mean, yeah, it’s cold-blooded and everything, but it’s nothing like the rest of his attacks.”

  I freeze again, listening. I hit the janitor, but he said “attacks,” plural. What attacks is he talking about?

  “Thank goodness,” says the other cop.

  “Yeah,” says the first, “but I mean, why? Why do you cut off ten faces and then all of a sudden you just shoot someone? And then leave?”

  They think I’m the Red Line Killer—but I can’t be, because Agent Leonard said there was a cell phone. But no, he said he thought there was a cell phone. It was all conjecture. I clutch the pipe tightly, my knuckles white. What do I do now?

  “Do you remember that one in the warehouse?” the cop continues, “where he hung it from those hooks?”

  “Come on,” says the other cop, “why are you talking about this? Waiting here for him is spooky enough as it is.”

  “That’s why I’m talking about it,” says the first cop, “because it is scary—this is a knock-down, drag-out, scary dude. I’ve trained with my gun for hours on the range, but I’ve never actually shot anyone, let alone killed anyone—he’s killed a couple dozen. What if he comes here? He has all the advantage. Do you want to end up scalped and flayed and hanging on a hook?”

  “Kill them,” whispers a voice in my ear. I turn in shock, but nobody’s there. “Go now, while they’re alone and distracted. Kill them now before they kill you.”

  I scream silently: You’re not real!

  “You know how he gets the faces off?” says the cop. “He uses a scalpel—takes him hours, inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter, peeling it away from your head. It’s like he’s looking for something. Felix says they’re still alive when he does it—alive and awake.”

  “Bash in their brains,” says the voice, louder now. Can they hear it? “Use the pipe and cave in their skulls—it’s as easy as crushing an egg.”

  I come around the fence and I can see them now, two cops, alone in the dark, faces lost in shadow.