The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

  “He cuts it away bit by bit,” says one, “slicing the membranes under the skin so it all comes off in one bloody piece.”

  “It feels so good to crush a skull, just banging and banging until there’s nothing left.”

  “All your troubles go away and there’s nobody left to bother you—”

  “No!” I stand up, plugging my ears and screaming. “Stop talking!”

  “Holy—!” The policemen spin around, facing me with their guns drawn. “Michael Shipman, drop your weapon!”

  “Hit them! Kill them!”

  “Stop talking!”

  “Michael, drop it now!”

  “Kill them!”

  I drop the pipe and it clangs loudly against the cement.

  “Now put your hands in the air!”

  “Everyone just back off for a second,” I say, stepping backward. The cops step forward in unison, their guns never wavering. “Just give me a minute to think.”

  “Put your hands in the air!”

  I look up, waving my hand to silence the voice shouting Kill! Something’s wrong—where are all the other cops? Where’s the helicopter and the dogs? Why aren’t they calling for backup?

  One of the cops puts a hand on the radio clipped to his shirt. “Dispatch, this is Officer Kopecky, we have found Michael Shipman; repeat, we have found Michael Shipman at his residence. Request immediate backup.”

  “Put your hands in the air,” says the other cop.

  “Kill them…,” the voice whispers.

  I shake my head. “Where’s the helicopter?”

  “It’s on its way,” says the cop, but I hear nothing. “Put your hands in the air!”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, Michael! Tell me why you killed Jimmy.”

  I raise my arms. Is this what cops are really like? I’ve met some, but this is the first time I’ve ever been arrested—I didn’t expect it to be so … clichéd. They’ve done everything but read me my rights.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” says the cop. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—”

  “You’re not real, are you?” I stare at the cops in shock. They’re doing everything I think a cop would, as soon as I think of it—the radio, the rights, even the way they’re standing. “You’re just in my head.”

  “You have the right to an attorney.”

  “Then what comes next!” I shout. “If you’re a real cop, then what comes next? I don’t know, so you can’t know either!”

  “If you do not…” He stops, glancing in confusion at his companion. “If you choose to … to waive this right, an attorney will be … provided for you.”

  “Is that it?” I ask.

  “Yes that’s it, now get down on the ground!”

  I look at them, back and forth between the policemen, between their guns. Are they real? Do I risk it?

  I remember Lucy’s hands, strong and solid only when I’d accepted the illusion; when she’d first arrived tonight they’d felt wrong, intangible, like I could pass right through them. She was only real when I let her be real. I don’t have to let these cops be real.

  I lower my arms. This is it.

  “Get out of my way.”

  “Get your hands back up and turn around,” says the cop.

  “I’m going inside now,” I say, swallowing nervously. “If you think you can stop me, go ahead and try.” I take a step forward.

  “Stay where you are.”

  I step forward again.

  “I’m warning you, Michael, we will shoot. Turn around and put your hands in the air.”

  I stare at the guns, cold metal gleaming in the moonlight, black barrels like soulless eyes. They could be real. They could kill me right here. I step forward again.

  They step aside.

  “Don’t go in there, Michael. You’re not going to like it.”

  “Go away,” I say, taking another step past them. “I’m done with you.”

  They shout behind me. “We’re going to report this!”

  I stop, staring nervously ahead. “To who?”

  Their voices are hollow. “You know who.”

  I pause a moment, trembling, then continue walking. It doesn’t mean anything—they’re just trying to scare me. When I reach the back of the house, I turn to see them, but they’re gone.

  I climb the few steps to the back door and try the handle; it’s unlocked. I open the door and walk in. My father stands in the hall, a shotgun in his hands.

  “They told me you might be coming back here.” He cocks the shotgun. “I told them you were just stupid enough to try it.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I STAND IN THE DOORWAY, staring at my father. He levels the shotgun calmly, almost casually, as if the fact that it’s inches from my chest is the most normal thing in the world.

  He scratches his head. “I was kind of thinking I’d never see you again.”

  I shift nervously, eyes glued to the shotgun. “Thinking or hoping?”

  “Your doctor told me you were nuts,” he says. “Said you needed some kind of new medicine that would either cure you or kill you. I said, ‘Go for it. Gets him out of my life either way.’”

  I nod. “I’m leaving.”

  His grip tightens, just slightly. “You didn’t come here just to say good-bye.”

  “I need my pills.”

  “You need your…” He stops, staring at me, then shakes his head and snarls. “You need your damn pills—that’s all you ever care about.” He raises the shotgun abruptly, sighting it straight into my face. “I told you before, I don’t want a homeless crackhead son running around here.”

  “It’s not crack,” I say, “it’s medicine. I have a prescription—it’s going to make me better.”

  “You can’t get better!” he barks. “You’ve been screwed up since you were born, since before you were born for all I know. I’ve been paying for your medicine and your doctors and your everything else for your whole life, Michael, and it’s never done anything! You’re twenty years old and you can’t hold a job; you live here with me; you flunked out of school, now you’ve flunked out of the nuthouse. You give me one good reason not to pull this trigger and flunk you out of the whole damn world.”

  I stare at the gun, too terrified to speak, too certain that anything I say—anything at all—will set off any one of a hundred different triggers in his mind. I’ve lived here too long, spent too much time listening to him and hiding from him and nursing the bruises he gave me. If I cry, I’m a disgrace; if I agree, I’m weak; if I fight back, I’m an ungrateful, disrespectful punk. If I say I need the pills, it means I’m a crazy retard and a shame to my mother; if I say I don’t, it means I’m a liar and a waste of money and a shame to my mother again. I can’t win. I’ve never won.

  I stare down the shotgun, dark and deep and terrifyingly real. My father’s never pulled a gun on me before—does he really want me dead? Is he going to call the hospital, or maybe the police? I can’t think clearly—I can’t sort through my thoughts and come up with anything remotely useful. Why is he doing this? Why am I here? I know why I came, but now it doesn’t make sense anymore and all I want to do is run. I need my pills; I can’t think without my pills.

  I try to force myself to be calm, reciting mantras and numbers and anything I can think of to clear my head. He wants to get rid of me—I can help him with that. Better I leave on my own than make him clean up a dead body, right? He doesn’t want to shoot me—or at least I hope he doesn’t; maybe he does. But he doesn’t want the hassles that come with it, that I know for sure. He hates anything that disrupts his routine.

  I look my father in the face, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m leaving,” I say again. “I’m going away, and you’ll never see me again.”

  He snorts. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  “I’m serious,” I say, trying to keep calm. Do I dare to tell him why I�
��m here? If I ask him for help—for anything at all—will I die before I even finish the sentence? “I…” Just ask him! “I need some clothes.” I grit my teeth, bracing myself for the shotgun blast in my face. “And I need my pills.”

  He doesn’t shoot. I watch his eyes, deep and brown, laced with a web of bloodshot red. After a moment he speaks. “Where you going?”

  “Away. Nowhere. Out of state somewhere.”

  He pauses again, shifting his hands on the shotgun. Finally he nods, gesturing at me in derision. “How you gonna live? You never held a job more than five months.”

  “I’ll get by.”

  “You gonna steal?” He steps closer, dropping the shotgun slightly to reveal a furious scowl. “You gonna sell those drugs, Michael?”

  “I’ll get a job,” I say quickly. “I’ll do … something. But I’m not going to sell the drugs or break the law. I just need my pills; I can’t do this without them.”

  “You’re a disgrace.”

  I say nothing.

  He pauses a moment longer, then lowers the shotgun a little farther. “How you gonna get there?”

  “Where?”

  “Wherever the hell you’re going—how am I supposed to know?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  He watches me a moment longer, then drops the shotgun to his side, dangling it by his leg. He raises his chin.

  “You promise you’re never coming back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then take the car.” He pauses, then shouts angrily. “Well go on, then, dammit! Go get your clothes!”

  “You’re giving me your car?”

  “I said get your clothes and your pills and get out of my house.”

  “I…” I nod. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, just go!” He waves his arm brusquely and turns around. “And I don’t want to ever see you again, you hear me?” I nod again and walk down the hall to my room.

  The Klonopin is under my bed, in a shoebox half-full of empty bottles. I have five bottles, about a year’s worth of mental clarity—if they work. I open one with shaking hands and swallow two pills without waiting for water. It will take a while before I feel an effect, but I feel safer just having them in my hand, just knowing that I have some in my system. I scrounge through the bottom of the box, looking for more, and when I find nothing I go through every drawer of my nightstand, looking for every loose pill I can find. It seems so stupid that I used to hate these—that I ever refused to take them. Didn’t I know what they meant to me? Didn’t I know what it was like to live without them? That’s the problem with depression—it discourages its own treatment. It’s like a virus, almost, perfectly adapted against its only natural predator.

  I look at the pile of pills on my bed, counting them over and over in my head. Why is my father giving me his car? He doesn’t like me—he was ready to kill me just a few minutes ago. He’s never done a nice thing for me in my life. I guess he gave me this room. I look around at the bare walls and the half-empty closet. Why did—

  My room has been searched. It hasn’t been ransacked—nothing’s tipped over or torn apart—but I can see some things that are definitely moved. A lamp, a comb, a book on my nightstand. Was Dad looking for something, or was it someone else—the police, maybe, or the hospital, or Them? The only thing I have worth stealing is the Klonopin, and it’s still here. What were they searching for? I imagine Agent Leonard of the FBI, looking for secret messages from the Children of the Earth; maybe other agents too, scouring my room for evidence of the Red Line killings.

  “Your father’s going to betray you,” said a voice. “You need to kill him now, while his guard is down.”

  I ignore the voice and open my dresser, talking out loud to drown it out: “It doesn’t matter why they searched my room. I’m leaving. I’m going to take off these clothes and put on some new ones, and I’m…” I pull on a clean shirt and the feel of it stops me: deliciously clean, like an embrace. When was the last time anyone embraced me, or gave me any kind of friendly human contact? I hug myself, pressing the shirt against my skin, closing my eyes and trying to conjure Lucy from the depths of my brain. She’s gone. I wipe my eyes. “No time. Keep moving.” I shove a handful of shirts and socks and underwear into a backpack, then cram in the five bottles of pills.

  Only one thing left to do. I walk back down the hall; my father is outside, doing something with the car. Taking his stuff out, I guess. I find the phone book and flip it open: Fillmore, Finch, Fischer. There’s a Kelly Fischer on Holiday Street. I write down the address and put the phone book away.

  My father comes in the back door, the shotgun replaced by a single key held tightly in his fingers. He holds it out. “You never come back.”

  I nod. “I never come back.”

  “You never call, you never write, I never hear from you or about you ever again.”

  “I’ll even change my name.”

  He drops the key in my hand. “Take Highway 34. It’s your quickest shot out of the city, and from there you’re on your own.”

  I stare at him, not knowing what to say. The words are out before I can stop them. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  “I’m not doing it for you.”

  I nod. For my mother. Always my mother.

  “Now leave, before I call the police.”

  I pause, saying nothing, then turn and push open the door. He doesn’t follow me out. I throw my bag and the old clothes into the car and climb in after them, staring at the dashboard like a sleeping enemy. When I turn it on I’ll feel it—it doesn’t send a signal, the way a phone does, but it does create an electric field. I’ll feel it vibrating through me like a seizure. But it’s the quickest way to Kelly, and to the answers she’s got to have.

  I put the key in the ignition. If I leave the radio off I should be fine—a little pain, maybe, but nothing terrible. I hope.

  I turn the key, and the engine roars to life, and I feel my feet prickle like a wave of static electricity. It stings, but it doesn’t cripple me. I shift into drive, whispering a silent thanks that my father only drives automatics; I haven’t driven a car in almost three years, and I don’t think I could get a stick shift out of the driveway. I pull onto the street, glancing back one last time at the house. My father is watching from the window.

  He closes the curtains. I drive away.

  I drive slowly, scanning the streets for cops. I don’t know how many of the ones I saw before are even real, if any were real at all, but—

  There’s one. I turn my head, trying to look inconspicuous, and he drives past.

  Holiday is on the far side of town. I turn at the next intersection, weaving through narrow residential streets, then turn again. It’s not until I get to the first big cross street that I realize how terrified I am to drive in real traffic. I wait for a gap in the cars and pull onto the big street, keeping in the right lane and driving slowly. Speeding trucks honk and pull around me, rocking my car with bursts of wind as they speed past. The noise and the lights are too much, and I pull back off on the next street. It feels safer on the smaller roads, but I can’t just hide like this—I need to keep moving. I wander through the back streets for a while, psyching myself up, and stop at the corner of another big street. This one’s calmer than the other, with fewer cars and slower traffic. I take a deep breath, and duck my head as another cop drives past. My head is down, nearly on the seat.

  There’s a red blink in the passenger’s foot well.

  I lean down further and see a small, rectangular outline—a little plastic brick. The light blinks again, and I recognize it as a cell phone. I recoil in terror, like I’d just seen a snake; my foot comes off the brake and the car rolls forward, then lurches to a stop when I get my foot back down. A cell phone! Is someone tracking me? Did my father forget it? If I hadn’t been looking in just the right place, at just the right time, I wouldn’t have even seen it—if my father had dropped it during the day, when the red light wasn’t as vis
ible, he might never have seen it either.

  I can’t just leave it there. I put the car in park and lean over slowly, reaching out gingerly. What if it chirps or buzzes? What if it shocks me or attacks me? I feel like I’m reaching for a bomb. I have to pick it up—it’s better to do it now, when I’m thinking about it, than have it go off while I’m driving. I pause, my hand hovering over it. It blinks again. I growl and pick it up, yanking it back to my seat and flipping it open as fast as I can. The screen blinds me as it lights up, and I squint against pain as I search for an off switch. I don’t see one; I’ve never used a cell phone, I don’t even know how they work. I jam the buttons, careful not to push anything that might start a call, all the while terrified that a call will come in at any second. Nothing’s working—why isn’t there an off switch? I flip the phone over and look at the back: the batteries. I pop open the door and yank out what looks like a little black battery pack. The screen goes blank and the red light stops blinking.

  I slump back in my seat, breathing heavily. It’s dead now. I roll down the window and throw out the phone—but wait. What if they find it—what if they use it to trace my path? They might know that I left home, but they won’t know where I went; finding the cell phone would tell them my direction and help them follow me. I don’t know if I can dare throw anything away—the phone, my old clothes, not anything—until I can destroy them completely. I get out, collect the phone and the battery pack, and drop them into the cup holder. As long as I keep the battery out, they can’t use it to trace me. I put the car back into drive and stare at the busy street. Linda covered a lot of life skills in my therapy, but driving wasn’t one of them; the controls feel loose and alien, like it’s designed for a different body. I can’t do this.

  I have to do this. The tingling in my feet and legs feels strange and painful, but it’s not debilitating, and I’m getting better at ignoring it. The traffic is faster than I’d like, but I can drive in it. I can even see a highway sign—it’s 88, not 34, but it will get me to Holiday Street. I merge over, trying to keep up with traffic, and pull up onto the highway. It’s easier on a highway—faster, but with no stops or turns or cross traffic. I grip the wheel with hard, white knuckles. Head- and taillights pass me like beams of solid color. I find the exit; I find the street; I find the building.