The Hollow City (18 page)

I can’t risk public transit; I need to find the nearest freeway and hitch a ride out of town. Get out, get gone, and never look back. The farther I go the better. The Faceless Men are real—I’m still reeling from the discovery. I have to go as far and as fast as I can. Whatever they were trying to do to me, I’ve escaped, and I can’t ever let them find me again.

I come to an intersection and wait, turning up my collar against the rain. The street is full of cars, even in the middle of the night; dark blurs and streaks of reflected light. The city is alive with light, teeming with light, neon and halogen and phosphorus screaming electrified photons in every direction. Even the pavement glows, gleaming back colored lights from puddles and gutters. The traffic lights snap from red to green; the flow of traffic shifts and I move with it across the street. There’s a camera hanging over each traffic light, and I keep my eyes down. They’ll have access to those too. I need to get somewhere safe.

Powell Psychiatric Hospital is in a relatively expensive part of town, a business district with office buildings and trees and storefronts. I walk another couple of blocks and the taller buildings fade away into gas stations and car dealerships, shorter and brighter. The sky is sectioned by tall poles and skeins of wire. I’m not the only person out in the rain, and I wonder what the others are running from. I keep going, moving away from the traffic cameras into the back-streets of an industrial district: block walls and barbed wire and long, lonely warehouses. I pass security gates with more cameras. My clothes are wet and my legs are tired and sluggish. I wipe rain from my eyes and keep walking.

The freeway, and then out of town. It’s my only chance.

I walk past old dry cleaners and pawn shops, through slums and alleys and business parks, until at last I reach a freeway ramp. I stand and rub my hands together, stamping with cold. A car passes, and I stick out my thumb. Nothing. A minute later another; traffic out of the city is practically nothing this time of night. I hold out my thumb to ask for a ride and the car drives past without slowing. Minutes pass, and the sky grows slowly lighter. Three more cars, then four more, then nothing.

The tenth car stops.

“Need a ride?”

I shuffle closer. “Where you going?”

“Manteno. That far enough?”

“Sure.” I reach for the door. I stop.

The man gestures at the door. “Hop in.”

I don’t move. For the second time, faced with an open escape, I know that I can’t take it. There are too many others—other victims, other children. Other corpses. The Faceless Men are real, and it’s not enough to free myself when there are so many people still trapped in the Plan.

I still don’t know what the Plan is.

“Hey buddy, you coming?”

I look up and catch his eyes. “Do you have a newspaper?”

“What?”

Dr. Little told me there was a girl there to see me, and then I was visited by two. Lucy turned out to be a hallucination … which means the reporter was real. “The
Sun-Times
,” I say. “Do you have a copy?”

“No I don’t. You want a ride or not?”

“No thank you. I have to find a paper.”

“Whatever, man.” He rolls up his window and drives away. I walk back the way I came and find a garbage can on the sidewalk, dark and hooded and bolted to a streetlight. I walk forward slowly, conscious of the stark yellow glow above me, and pull back the hinged metal lid. The can stinks like old food and overflows with trash. I root through it gingerly, avoiding the worst of the sludge, and pull out a folded newspaper. The morning is brighter now, weak sunlight filtering through the night’s gray. I find Kelly’s name on the seventh page of the paper, on a story about an accidental shooting.
Kelly Fischer.
She’s real. She’s a crime reporter, just like she said. I refold the paper and look for a number in the masthead—some contact info of any kind—and find a tip line. I walk another block to find a pay phone—the only safe kind, with the signals curled into shielded cords instead of buzzing sharply through the air. Still frightening, but not as painful. I drop in a quarter and dial.

Ring.

A machine answers with a list of business hours; I hang up in a rush, breathing heavily. Machines are bad enough when they don’t try to talk to me.

I look at the slowly graying sky. It’s still early; I can rest now and call again when she gets there for work. I find a place to curl up out of the rain—the entrance to a parking garage. I drape the paper over my head and try to sleep.

I dream of a hollow city, filled with hollow, shambling people.

*   *   *

RING.

“Sun-Times.”

“I need to talk to one of your reporters,” I say. “Kelly Fischer.”

“Who’s calling?”

I hesitate. I don’t want to give them my name. “Ambrose Vanek.”

“One moment.”

The phone clicks, dead, and I wait. The phone clicks again and I hear the reporter’s voice.

“This is Kelly Fischer.”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Mr.… Vanek? I’m afraid I don’t recall the name.”

“No,” I say, looking around, “it’s me.” I pause, waiting, but she doesn’t speak. “Michael.”

“Michael,” she says slowly, then abruptly her voice changes. “Michael Shipman? I didn’t know they let you use the phone in there.”

“I’m not in there anymore. Can I meet you somewhere?”

“Congratulations on being released, that’s great. There’s no need to meet, though. That story … took a different direction. Thank you, though.”

“This is important. There are things I didn’t tell you before.”

“I don’t doubt it, but really, we don’t need to meet. Thank you—”

“Don’t hang up!” I shout, desperate to keep her on the line. “Listen, this is very important, but we can’t discuss it over the phone—I don’t know if They’re listening or not. You have to believe me—”

The line goes dead.

I shake my head—I’ve got to get Kelly to believe me. Something’s going on here, not just with Powell and the Faceless Men but with the Red Line Killer and the Children of the Earth and who knows what else. They’re all connected, and Kelly is the only one I can talk to—the only one who’s done all the research to figure it out. I need her information. I need her.

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.