The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

  It’s an apartment, but not the kind with a gate or a doorman. I park and walk in, climbing stairs and looking for the number. 17A. There’s a light in the window.

  Will she turn me in? Is she one of Them? I knock softly.

  She opens the door, recognizes me, and screams. I grab her face in panic and shove her back inside.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SHE STRUGGLES, FIGHTING AND BACKING AWAY. I keep a firm grip on her jaw with one hand, wrapping my other arm around her shoulders. I knock the door closed with my foot; she kicks and flails her fists.

  “Don’t scream,” I say. “I’m not here to hurt you, I just don’t want you to scream.”

  She bites my hand, and I try not to howl. My grip goes loose and she stumbles away from me, falling; she goes for her purse, leaping across the couch.

  “They told me this would happen; they told me not to talk to crazy people.”

  I dive after her, knocking the purse from her hand; a can of mace goes spinning across the floor. She kicks me again, a solid blow to the chest, knocking away my breath. I choke on the sudden void and she runs to a small counter separating her living room and kitchen. She’s unfolding a cell phone.

  How does she know?

  I gasp for air, sucking in a sudden burst, and run forward just in time to slam my hands down on hers. She shrieks and drops the phone, her fingers red from the impact. I snatch up the cell phone and bend it backward, moving it too far, snapping it in half. She cries and runs for the door but I grab her arm and yank her back. She falls, sobbing. I let go gingerly and block the door with my body.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I say again. She’s crying. “I didn’t come here to attack you, or hurt you, or anything, I just want to talk.”

  “I think you broke my fingers, you bastard.”

  “I’m sorry—you scared me, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let you shock me.”

  “Shock you?”

  “The phone,” I say, gesturing toward the fragments. “You were trying to attack me with your phone.”

  “I was calling the police, you idiot.” Her face is a mask of hurt and fear.

  I’ve ruined everything.

  “They said you weren’t likely to come after me in person,” she says, rubbing tears from her eye with the palm of her hand. “I guess they can tell that to my raped and mutilated corpse, now, huh?”

  “I already told you I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You attacked me!”

  “You screamed!” I say. “I panicked! There’s a lot of people looking for me, and I can’t afford to attract any more attention.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “Because I need help.” I crouch down, still guarding the door but getting closer to her eye-line. “I can’t do this on my own. There’s something big going on, and I have some of the pieces and you have others, and together we might be able to learn enough to stop it.”

  “You’re talking about the killings.”

  “I’m talking about everything: the Red Line, the Faceless Men, the Children of the Earth—they’re all connected somehow, they’re all part of a bigger picture—”

  “You are crazy.” She rubs her eyes. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  “Look,” I say, pulling out the paper, “I can prove it to you. The janitor at Powell attacked me last night, all alone, when everyone else was asleep. He even knocked out the night nurse. He was carrying this.”

  I hold out the paper. She looks at it cautiously, as if I were handing her a snake.

  “What is it?”

  “Look at it.”

  She doesn’t move. “Drop it, and back away.”

  “Whatever you want.” I toss the paper gently toward her, then raise my hands and press back into the door. She picks up the paper.

  I’m holding my breath. Some part of me is still terrified the paper isn’t real—that it’s blank, or a cleaning schedule, or something else that has nothing to do with me. She looks at it carefully, pursing her lips.

  “What is this?”

  “You tell me.”

  She stares at it, eyes flicking back and forth. She’s reading it.

  What is she reading?

  “It’s your whole life,” she says, looking up at me. “It’s everywhere you’ve ever lived or worked or went to school.”

  I collapse against the corner, clutching my face in relief, gasping and sobbing. “It’s real,” I say, “it’s real. This is actually happening.”

  “You say the janitor had this?”

  “It’s real,” I mumble again. I sink to the floor, leaning on the door in exhaustion. “I’m not crazy.”

  “Did he have anything else? Anything on the other patients?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing—just that and a ring of keys. And a Post-it note with the gate code.”

  “And you’re sure it was the night janitor?” she asks. “You’re sure it wasn’t some other guy who’d snuck in?”

  “I’m positive.”

  She raises herself to her knees. “Could you recognize his face if I showed you some pictures?”

  “He didn’t have a face.”

  She stops, mouth open, then shakes her head. “Not this again.”

  “It’s true,” I say, “or maybe he had a face, but I couldn’t see it—it was like there was a … field or something, like a blur around his head. His hair was there, but his face was just a … nothing.”

  “You’re hallucinating.”

  “No,” I say firmly. “I mean, sometimes yes, but this was real. I promise it was real. I was still on my drugs.”

  “Are you still on them now?”

  “Yes. Different ones, I mean, but they still work.”

  She sighs. “Listen to yourself, Michael. How can you recognize the janitor if you couldn’t even see his face?”

  “But I…” I stop, and I realize that I’ve never seen the janitor’s face—I’d never seen him at all before last night, but I’d heard him, and I’d … felt him. Somehow I’d always known who he was, and where he was, and I’d known it even through the wall and the closed door. “I just knew,” I say. “It’s like I had a … another sense, like sight or scent or something, but different, like a new one that was totally … natural.”

  She rubs her eyes, pulling herself up to sit in a chair. “Do you hear how crazy you sound? Can you understand how wrong this all sounds? You’re living in a fantasy world, Michael—none of this is real.”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” I say. “I know it sounds stupid and ridiculous and … and … listen, I’m not good at talking. I never do it, not with anyone real. So I don’t know how to make you believe me, but I know that you have to. Okay? The Faceless Men are real, and they have a plan, and we have to stop them.”

  “Then what’s their plan?”

  “I … don’t know yet.”

  She closes her eyes and falls back in the chair. “I can’t believe this.”

  “But it’s real,” I say, “I swear it’s real. It has something to do with ChemCom. You have to trust me.”

  “But I can’t trust you,” she says. “You are sick; you are delusional. I don’t know how you can even trust yourself.”

  I shake my head, trying to control my breathing. Don’t get nervous. Don’t freak out. “You saw the paper,” I say. I hold my forehead, sucking in a long, slow draught of air. “What about the paper?”

  “I don’t know about the paper,” she says. “It could be anything.”

  “What could it be that isn’t horribly suspicious?”

  She stares at me, jaw clenched, then throws up her hands. “I don’t know! I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m not a … I don’t know why you came here in the first place.”

  “Because you’ve studied them,” I say. “The Red Line Killer and the Children of the Earth; I came because you know what they’re doing, and who they are, and everything.”

  “I don’t know anything,” she says, “nobody does. I’m not even on tha
t story anymore.”

  “You gave up?”

  “My editor killed it.”

  “And that doesn’t sound like a cover-up to you?”

  “He pulled the story because there was nothing to it,” she says, “no leads, no witnesses, no evidence. If the police have more info about the killings they’re not sharing it, and the Children of the Earth are a black hole: they won’t talk to anyone, no one ever defects, and the last reporter to go into their commune never came out.” She stiffens, her eyes tearing up again. “She was a friend of mine.”

  “Has anyone gone in after her?” I ask. “Her family, the police, anyone?”

  “She had to join the cult, officially, or they wouldn’t let her in,” says Kelly. “She signed a hundred waivers and legal papers and who knows what else, just to get through the door, and now no one can touch her.” She sits back, tired and defeated. “I guess she thought she could handle it, but … she’s been brainwashed, I know it.”

  I nod, trying to sort through the facts. It’s just like Agent Leonard said about the other kidnapped children—they went straight to the cult, fully converted, and nothing anyone said could convince them to leave. It sounds like brainwashing, sure, but those kids were brainwashed before they even joined the cult. They did it when we were infants—implants, maybe, though that doesn’t make any sense for an anti-technology cult. Whatever they did, somehow it didn’t work right on me.

  I look at Kelly. “Is there any evidence,” I say, speaking slowly, “any sign at all, that the cultists might have something…” I pause, praying that she’ll take me seriously, “… implanted in their heads?”

  Kelly peers closer, eyes narrow and focused. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I’ve been telling people for months now that I think there’s something implanted in my head, ever since the schizophrenia came on, but now I think it might actually be true.” I look at her closely; her eyes are wider. “This isn’t the first time you’ve heard this, is it? Do you know something?”

  She leans back. “It’s just that…” She stops, sighs, and runs her fingers through her hair. “It’s just that it’s weird you would say that, because just today—literally, just a few hours ago—this other writer and I were talking about the case, and about the Red Line Killer, and how the evidence made it look like he was…” She looks up. “See, he doesn’t just bash them in, he doesn’t just break them. Our source in the coroner’s office said that he…” She grimaces. “He pokes the face. He prods it, like he’s studying it. He cracks into the nasal cavity, and into the sinuses, and it’s totally like he’s just … looking for something.”

  My heart beats faster. This is the information I’ve been looking for. “Don’t you see what this means? There’s a real link now between the Killer and the Children and the Faceless Men. And me.”

  “How does this link anything to you?”

  “The Children of the Earth kidnapped pregnant women,” I say, “including my mom, but they didn’t want the women, they wanted us—they wanted the babies. No one has ever figured out why they wanted us, but maybe this is it. Did you know that every one of those kidnapped kids has gone back to join the cult?”

  She frowns. “All of them?”

  “Every one but me,” I say. “An agent from the FBI came to visit me at Powell, he said they’d been watching me for years to see if I did the same thing.”

  “How can you be sure the FBI guy was real?”

  “He talked to Dr. Little,” I say. “You talked to Dr. Little, right?” She nods again. “Then either the agent is real or all three of you are fake.”

  “And you think that this … implant, whatever it is, brought them all back to the cult when they grew up.”

  I nod eagerly, standing and pacing. “It controls their minds somehow; it takes them over so they’re not even themselves anymore. The implant explains everything. It creates some kind of electric field—the same thing that blurs out their faces when I try to look at them, and the same thing that lets me recognize them and see them for who they are when no one else can. I know who they are without even seeing them, and that’s how I must be doing it—I’m … using my field to feel their field. And that’s why other electrical fields hurt me, because they’re conflicting with the field that’s already in my head.” I swallow. “And that’s why I have schizophrenia, because my implant is broken, and it’s throwing my whole brain into chaos.”

  She watches me. Her eyes are wet with tears. She purses her lips. “I’m so sorry for you,” she whispers. “I don’t know how to help you.”

  “You can tell me where I was,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before the police found me, before you and I met in the hospital, I was somewhere else—I don’t know where, or why, because I lost my memory. But if I can go back there, back to where I was, then maybe I can remember. Whatever they have—whatever they’re doing—the answer is there.”

  She shakes her head. “That’s crazy.”

  “So am I.” I crouch down, meeting her eyes. “You wanted to know their plan? I am their plan; me, and the other kids, and that reporter who won’t come out, and God only knows how many other people. They put something in us—they change who we are. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, and I don’t know how far they’re going to take it, but I know we have to stop them. We have to do something.” I put my hand on the arm of her chair. “You have to help me find them.”

  She looks at me, staring intently, studying my face like she’s looking for something—some visible sign of whatever the Faceless Men have stashed inside my head. She says nothing, simply watching. What is she thinking?

  She takes a deep breath and nods. “It’s on my computer. I’ll go look it up.”

  I nod, backing away, and she stands up and rubs her smashed fingers. She goes into the back room and I collapse into a chair, exhausted and drained. I need to sleep. I need more food. I drag myself back to my feet and go around the counter into the kitchen, opening the fridge. A soft musical trill wafts out of the back room, a computer loading up, and soon I hear typing. I’ve never liked computers, and I’ve rarely ever used one, even before the schizophrenia. If I have something in my head that reacts to them, I guess it makes sense that it would have been there my whole life. She has a Styrofoam box in the fridge—half a smothered burrito and some refried beans. I pull it out and start eating it cold; I’ve never liked microwaves either.

  More typing. What does she need to type? If she’s searching for information that’s already on her computer, couldn’t she just do it with a mouse? It sounds like she’s typing a whole novel—

  Or an email. I drop the box and sprint down the hall, charging into the room to see an open email program lighting up the screen. She curses and grabs the mouse, and I barrel into her at full speed, knocking her from the chair. She clutches at the mouse and keyboard, yanking them off the desk as she falls. I look at the screen. The email’s already been sent.

  “You lied to me!”

  “You need help,” she says, crouching on the floor. “You are sick, and delusional, and you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

  I shout again, an angry roar. “You lied to me! Get out of the way.” I rip the keyboard from her hands, setting it back on the desk, then reach for the mouse. “Give it to me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to find where I was.”

  “You need help.”

  “Give me the mouse!”

  She hands it over and I set it gently on the desk, untangling the cords. I pull the chair upright and sit down, still an arm’s length away from the computer. I can use it, but I know it’s going to hurt. I don’t have a choice. I grit my teeth and slide the chair forward, feeling my head press into the electrical field like a pool of charged water. It buzzes like a raw current.

  The speakers chirp—a short, syncopated rhythm.

  I scoot back instantly, breathing heavily. “What was that?”

/>   “It was the speakers.”

  I remember that sound from Powell, from Dr. Little’s experiments with the speakers and the cell phone. “Do you have another cell phone?”

  “You broke my phone, that’s why I had to send an email.”

  “That sound—audio speakers make that sound when a cell phone signal passes through them. What do you have here that’s sending a signal?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then you’ve been bugged,” I say, “or tapped or something, because it has to be coming from somewhere. That sound only happens when one field disrupts another—” I stop. The thing in my head—if my theory is right, it creates a field of its own. I lean forward, bracing myself for the static prickling. My head enters the field around the speakers; it dances through me, sick and painful.

  The speakers chirp again.

  “Listen,” I whisper.

  “I can hear it.”

  “No,” I say, “inside it. Can you hear it?” I stare, gritting my teeth at the pain, listening as hard as I can to a soft something in the white noise. “Buried in the signal there’s a … something. I swear I’ve heard it somewhere before.”

  We listen, the electric fields crossing and blending, the speaker chirping and buzzing, and for one brief moment the white noise coalesces into a single word.

  “Michael.”

  We stagger back in unison, gasping for breath.

  “Did you hear that?”

  She nods. “What the hell is going on?”

  “It was talking to me.”

  “The thing in your head?”

  I nod, swallowing. I almost don’t dare to say it. “It’s intelligent.”

  She steps away, watching me closely, her face a mask of terror. “Get out of here.”

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “I don’t want to be a part of this, just get out of here now.”

  “Give me the address and I’ll go.”

  “I don’t know how much time you have,” she says, pressing back against the wall. “I emailed a friend of mine, told her to call the police—I don’t know if she’s even read it yet.”