Hollow World (4 page)

When they’d reached the futuristic land, Meghan spoke for the first time in almost an hour.

“Let’s ride the PeopleMover. It’s your favorite, Charlie,” she said.

Why? We’ll never get a good spot for the fireworks if we ride the PeopleMover,
he thought, but decided not to push the issue.

He nearly felt physical pain listening to her speak. Her tone was wooden, hollow, and flat, and chilled him to his core. He had never heard his wife speak in such a way. He vowed that, as soon as they got back to their hotel room, he was going to find out what was wrong. He understood that he should give her time, but something was seriously upsetting her and he was determined to figure it out. “Okay,” Charlie replied, glancing at the love of his life, searching her features for clues to this ever-evolving mystery.

The ride was every bit as nostalgic and pleasing as he remembered. The slow-moving train in which they sat was completely empty save for the Walker family. Meghan and the kids sat in a forward-facing seat while Charlie sat alone, across from them in a rear-facing seat. It seemed like an excellent way to relax: the fireworks not far off and the train empty except for his family. He welcomed the serenity and relaxation that the PeopleMover provided. He almost entirely forgot about Meghan’s strange behavior, listening to the narrator speak of the various landmarks dotting Tomorrowland’s sizable skyline.

They were about to enter the dark tunnel that made its way through Space Mountain when, all of a sudden, Meghan leapt toward Charlie, passionately kissing him, arms thrown wildly around his neck.

“I love you, baby,” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “I love you so, so much.”

“I love you too,” Charlie replied with his most reassuring smile.

Just before entering the darkness of the tunnel, the chilling vision of his wife’s face took Charlie’s breath away. She had a look of sheer terror spread across her delicate, beautiful features. Her chest heaved with deep breaths as tears flowed steadily from her eyes.

Charlie leaned his head back on the top of the seat, his heart pounding and his mind spinning with theories about why his wife had been so distraught. The brilliant detective’s mind failed him for the first time in a long while and he clenched his fists to keep himself from screaming. Meghan’s racking sobs were so torturous and so violent that they could even be heard above the sound of the roller coaster cars from deep within Space Mountain.

Just when Charlie felt he could handle no more, the train stopped dead in its tracks and the darkness swallowed them whole.

From a small monitor inside a lavish villa, a lone man in his late sixties watched the feed from night vision cameras as the train containing the four people pulled into the tunnel. He waited until the family made it to the darkest possible place in the structure; a spot where ambient light didn’t even reach during the day.

Yes, this was the spot.

He pressed a few keys on his laptop and the train came to a full and complete stop. The woman was hysterical at this point but, no matter, it would all be over soon enough.

This was far easier than the man had expected and the costs not nearly as high as anticipated. He waited for a few moments, giving the woman time to calm down. This next part required her silence and the woman knew that she must silence herself—and her children—or face the consequences of disobedience. The man watched as the woman put forth a heroic effort to remain calm. The detective still sat with his head leaned back on the seat and his hands clenched into fists.

The time had come.

“Commence.”

He spoke the word into a Bluetooth headset, and leaned back in his custom-made seat to enjoy the show. A few moments later, months of planning began to bear fruit. A growing smile stretched across his meticulously maintained features. He took a sip from an expensive glass bottle of water.
Eighteen dollars a bottle
, he thought.
Worth every damned penny
.

Movement on the monitor caught the man’s eye and his smile grew wider. Three of his men slowly appeared out of darkness and approached the train. He had disabled the sensors along the sides of the track to allow his men unhindered access—free of alarm—and he’d looped the cameras in this section using images of an earlier, similarly occupied train coupled with the current timestamp to deter any curious security personnel who may be watching. He could just make out the small syringes the operatives carried in their hands. Only the best anesthetic would do for a glorious occasion such as this, and the man had spared no expense. Fast-acting and entirely nonlethal, these had become the newest craze in most modern medical establishments and triage units. To its less-savory users, the substance was nothing less than liquid gold.

The man watched, lightly chuckling to himself, as his men passed within inches of the brilliant detective—completely unseen.

They had reached the mother and daughters, and their work was nearly complete; the plan executed flawlessly.

The man heard the villa’s electronic door lock disengage. A large, clean-cut fellow in his late-twenties entered the room and took a seat beside the man. He was powerfully built, with a scar on the left side of his face and tattoos upon his knuckles. He silently watched the events on the screen, and his smile was almost as wide as that of his older companion. Finally, the drama onscreen was finished, and the man turned toward his companion.

“You have done well, Jeremy,” said the man calmly. “The woman has followed your instructions to the letter.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the younger man, graciously and respectfully.

“But....” said the man equally calmly. Jeremy flinched as if he had been struck. The single word was said no less warmly than the way in which grandparents might tell their grandchildren how much they loved them. Nonetheless, Jeremy tried not to recoil and shrink away from his employer.

“B-but what, sir?” asked Jeremy.

“I am always watching. Listening. I see everything and I
know
everything. However, that is irrelevant. Unfortunately, I was observing you. Do you know what I saw? Could you tell me what has me so perturbed? Or, perhaps, you are uncertain as to any transgressions that have occurred on your part?”

“Sir…I…” stammered Jeremy.

“Yes, I know, Jeremy,” he said in a soothing tone, stroking the younger man’s cheek with a gentle hand. “I know you didn’t mean to. I know you were just being young—oh, how I remember youth! Such an adventurous time in a man’s life, is it not?”

Jeremy didn’t answer.

“Is it not, Jeremy?” the man repeated.

“It…is,” he reluctantly agreed.

“It is…what, Jeremy? Has the education system been so cruel that you cannot speak in complete sentences? It is…
what
?”

Again, the man spoke very calmly and politely, with not a drop of malice to be detected in his voice. His tone did not match his words, though, for it was nothing short of cordial and warm. His words, on the other hand, carried more venom than the boy could bear.

“It is an adventurous time…in a man’s life, sir.” Jeremy seemed to be nearly on the verge of tears at this point, so fearful was he of this kind, gentle, elderly man.

“That’s much better!” admitted the man. “We will make a true gentleman out of you yet, Jeremy! Though not before discussing this little issue.”

He paused for a moment, savoring the wave after wave of unmasked fear radiating from the boy. With Jeremy’s athletic physique, the man knew that, should the boy assault him, he would be easily bested. After all, a man of his age—while in excellent shape—could never hope to hold his own against a man in Jeremy’s condition, but the man took comfort in knowing that a man, even with the fewest of physical capabilities, can be
any
man’s intellectual superior. The brain can be a more terrifying weapon than anything a man with three hundred pounds of muscle could ever hope to wield. History has shown, time and time again, that fortune favors the brilliant, and that all men eventually bow before those of a higher intellect. To kill a man is one thing; to destroy him, another. It was the threat of destruction that the man used to his benefit for countless years, awarding him success that grew at an exponential rate.

“Now, Jeremy,” the man cooed. “You have played your part perfectly in gaining the woman’s compliance. I commend you on your performance—truly splendid. However, you committed one grievous error, which could possibly have ruined everything we worked so hard to accomplish. Luckily, the detective was thinking practically, instead of critically, or right now you would be in a Disney holding room waiting for the Orange County sheriff’s department to come for you, and I would be transferring money into a certain law enforcement officer’s account to make sure that you were never heard from again.”

“Sir, I—” started Jeremy, but the man calmly held up his hand for silence and obedience was immediate.

“I will tell you this one time, Jeremy, and one time only. If you must spend your time ogling the asses of other men’s wives, make damn well sure that you choose someone other than the wife of our target.” The man’s calm was eerily absolute as he continued, “As you know, people who commit such appalling acts of selfishness in my presence—especially those in my employ—are fed through the finest wood chipper money can buy.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing; it’ll never happen again…” Jeremy’s apologies trailed off into silence as he waited for the axe to fall.

Never one to miss taking advantage of a dramatic moment, the man waited, calmly glaring at his subordinate. Jeremy was so thoroughly terrified at this point that he had begun to tremble. The man took another sip from his exquisite bottle of water, savoring the taste of the ultra-purified, mineral-enriched substance. Gently clearing his throat, he decided Jeremy’s fate.

“You may go,” he declared.

The boy looked up, his astonishment clear. He knew better than to reply, for a single grammatical error could mean the end of his life. He had seen it happen countless times in the past—as the weapon that had taken those lives. Nodding, Jeremy stood and calmly exited the van.

After another few moments, the man leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a small chuckle at the boy’s expense. How could he waste such a valuable asset by eliminating young Jeremy? The boy did his job well enough. Jeremy was afraid of his employer, and this fear kept the other subordinates in line. Should he lose poor Jeremy, he would have to assert his dominance personally over anyone he employed. That would not do—that would not do, at all. The older man was above these petty obligations; occupying his beautiful mind with such tedious tasks would dull his senses and muddle his extremely valuable and profound thoughts. No, Jeremy would survive and play a key role in the events to come.

Never before had the man known an intellectual equal as that which he found in Detective Charlie Walker. He’d observed the ingenious detective’s methods for many months now and was continually impressed by the results this young man had achieved. Had the older man not been so meticulous and careful in his Detroit endeavors, he had no doubt that young Walker would have discovered his involvement, and the coming battle of the minds would have taken place much sooner. No, the older man was not so easily found. Events that occurred in this life did so on
his
terms, not those of anyone else.

Finally, the time for the man to test the detective’s mettle had come. The game was about to begin. The detective’s prize: his family’s lives. The man’s prizes: the glorious death of the promising young detective and the blissful knowledge that there was not a single man left on the planet who could challenge his masterful mind.

Movement on the monitor had caught his eye, pulling him from his sweet reverie. The time to initiate the next phase of the game had come. Cracking his knuckles and smiling brightly, the man leaned close to his laptop and began tapping keys.

The darkness was absolute around the Walker family. The air conditioning must have been out of order for quite some time, because the oppressive humidity of the day had remained, leaving the tunnel hot and sticky. When the train had halted in the blackness, Charlie had refused to react. He didn’t lift his head; he simply sat in his seat—staring into the empty void above his head—and waited for the ride to commence.

Meghan’s cries had almost become too much to bear, Charlie could still hear them over the loud, echoing racket of the roller coaster cars whizzing past unseen. He nearly felt like sobbing himself as whatever his wife was dealing with was beyond his power to fix; he’d never known her like this before. After a few more moments of hysterical sobbing, Meghan began to calm down; her breathing resuming a more natural rhythm until Charlie could no longer hear her at all. Violet and Katie were silent as well and had not reacted to the train’s sudden halt. Charlie wasn’t surprised by their silence, though. The girls had never been afraid of the dark. They’d been on the PeopleMover in years past when the train had stopped in this exact tunnel; Charlie attributed their lack of reaction to this fact.

After what seemed like hours, but was no more than two or three minutes, the train began its steady forward motion once more through the inky blackness. Charlie closed his eyes, trying to become enraptured again by the sounds and smells of one of his favorite attractions. Serenity began to wash over him for a while, and he enjoyed the cool breeze that he felt as the train exited the tunnel into the night. Charlie decided that now would be as good a time as any to confront Meghan and finally find out what had been bothering her.

Upon opening his eyes, Charlie nearly fainted from an intense attack of vertigo.

Meghan and the girls were no longer seated across from him. They had been just feet from him mere minutes ago: Meghan sobbing, Violet and Katie smiling despite their mother’s dark mood. Never had something so heavily disoriented the detective as much as the abrupt vanishing of his entire family.

Frantically, Charlie spun around to search the other cars, irrationally hoping that this was all just some horrible joke and his girls would be sitting a few cars away smiling and giggling at him. He even went so far as to stand up, just to make sure they weren’t ducking down anywhere. His family had simply ceased to exist. It was impossible. It was unthinkable. And it was happening. One minute the loves of his life were sitting in front of him, the next they were gone.

And in their place sat a manila envelope.

Noticing the parcel, Charlie lunged forward and snapped it up, quickly pulling out his phone to use the glow of the screen to illuminate the front of the small envelope. There was something printed across the front in dark black lettering. He shook his head and frantically tried to wipe away the pooling tears, some pattering onto the envelope. When he finally regained his eyesight, he read two simple words:

Open Me.

Carefully opening the envelope, he removed the small piece of paper from inside and read it several times. The letter read:

Detective Walker. When your journey on the PeopleMover is complete, you will calmly stand, exit the ride and dispose of this envelope, its contents and your cellular phone, using the trash receptacle near bottom of the moving walkway. Next, you will make your way to the Carousel of Progress and, once inside, you will seat yourself in the back row. You will notice a division between the two seats in the center of the row. It is in the left of these two seats that you will sit. During the show, you will be provided further instructions. Failure to comply with these instructions will result in the grotesque disfigurement of one or more of your beautiful angels.

The terrible letter was unsigned. The plainness of the entire package rendered Charlie’s detection skills useless, since the Spartan offering was so barebones that there was nothing which could be used to identify its author. Though not enough to act on, from this purposeful display of neatness and carefulness, Charlie was able to deduce that his adversary was extremely careful. This unknown enemy knew he was dealing with a top-notch detective, so Charlie was certain that all the angles had been covered. Approaching the end of the ride, Charlie knew he had no choice but to comply in the hope that he may be able to offer this person whatever they wanted in exchange for his family.

Charlie did as he was instructed and disposed of the items after exiting the ride. He knew better than to alert a Cast Member or—worse—a security officer. Charlie’s hostage negotiation training had made it abundantly clear that, until the situation could be fully defined, anything but absolute compliance with the captor’s wishes would lead to casualties. He knew better than to rebel and it was clear that his adversary had known this as well since there was no specific instruction to
not
involve outside sources.

Charlie now had a clearer picture of the entity with which he had become entangled. This person was careful, and also observant. He made dangerous assumptions on Charlie’s behalf, which only told Charlie that this person knew him extremely well. He was unconvinced that it was a person that he had known personally, but it was certainly someone who had observed and studied him for some time. This wasn’t the average street criminal with whom he had dealt, so Charlie chose to err on the side of caution and play the game exactly as it was presented to him.

In his professional cases, Charlie had never taken risks that would have endangered the lives of anyone but himself. This creed held especially strong in this case—when his family’s lives were those in danger. That being said, an unfamiliar rage began to boil beneath the detective’s exterior surface of stoic calm. While on his way to the Carousel of Progress, he imagined in the things he would do to this monster if given the chance. The thoughts he had were intense and graphic, not those of a calm and intelligent homicide detective. These more closely resembled the unchecked emotions of the criminals he had spent his career hunting. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down until he was able to think clearly.

Charlie had made all possible deductions about this person that could be made, and he had no choice but to press on and gather more information. So far, he had no idea what this person even wanted. He could think of no clear motive, therefore he forced himself not to theorize before gaining as much information as he possibly could.

Charlie was still performing his skewed form of Zen meditation as he reached the Carousel of Progress. The Cast Member at the entrance removed the chain and opened the doors.

“Made it just in time, sir,” the Cast Member informed him, with a heavy Latin American accent. “Looks like you’re the only person here.”

“You can skip the safety spiel,” Charlie blurted, more forcefully than he’d intended. In an attempt to recover, he told the man, “I mean…I’ve been here a billion times and could recite it by heart.”

“Rules are rules, sir,” said the Cast Member sternly, following him into the auditorium.

Charlie quickly located the seat in which he’d been instructed to sit, and made himself comfortable as the other man began to work the PA system. Charlie did recite the entire spiel under his breath, and sighed with relief as the man finally exited the theater and the lights began to dim.

The welcoming and familiar dialogue began to play from the speakers, but Charlie was far too distracted to notice. He simply sat where he was told and waited for the instructions that he was promised.
There’s nobody in here,
he thought.
How the hell are they going to give me instructions?

Charlie waited through the entire introduction, listening to the cheerful song that he loved so much mock him as the auditorium shifted and he was rotated along to the first scene in the show.
There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, my ass,
he thought. When the auditorium eased to a stop, and the voice of Jean Shepherd began to speak about life in America around the turn of the century, Charlie ignored the Audio-Animatronic and began to worry. He’d been here long enough; why hadn’t they contacted him? He began to think that he’d been sent into this twenty-minute show simply to keep him occupied until his family’s captor could make a clean getaway. Charlie shortly dismissed that thought since his enemy was clearly looking to gain something. Whatever it was, it had to be something within Charlie’s power to provide. Had the object been his family all along, there would have been no note and he’d never have heard from his family or their captor again. No, the instructions would come. They
had
to.

The scene was coming to a close, and Charlie had grown more impatient. As the theater rotated, moving its sole attendant to the next section, Charlie was gripping the armrests of his seat so tightly that he felt and heard his knuckles pop. Why were these people playing these games with him? How much longer did they plan to drag this nonsense out? Charlie felt himself losing control but forced himself to swallow his emotions and remain calm. Logic had always prevailed over emotions; this case would be no different.

On stage, John—the Audio-Animatronic father—was talking about Lindbergh’s proposed flight across the Atlantic, Babe Ruth hitting “that old horsehide” and jazz music being “the cat’s meow.” Charlie was just about to stand up and walk out the emergency exit when—just after Schwartz’s car horn honked from outside the window—he heard his name called. At first, he thought he may have heard wrong, but when John didn’t tell the audience about the electric starter on his new Essex, Charlie knew something was different—something was wrong. Charlie stood and looked to the stage only to find John looking directly at him, waving his Niagara Falls fan. Rover’s head returned to a resting position but John remained silent.

At this point, John should be telling him about their new ability to travel from New York to Los Angeles in only three days, which usually elicits a round of laughter from the audience, but John remained silent. There was no movement aside from the waving of the paper fan.

“What the hell is going on?” Charlie asked aloud, shaking his head slowly and trying to convince himself that he wasn’t losing his mind.

“Why, nothing more than progress, detective!” answered John, the gleeful smile permanently plastered on his robotic face.

Stunned, Charlie locked his vision onto the mechanical humanoid.

“Did you just speak to me?” he asked feeling half crazed, wondering if he was hallucinating.

“Of course! You’re the only one here, Charlie,” replied John cheerfully, still waving his fan.

Charlie was dumbfounded. Clearly, whoever was playing this game had overridden the show’s recorded dialogue and was listening to him through microphones planted
somewhere
, but how in the hell did he get that voice to sound just like Jean Shepherd?—it was uncanny,
impossibly
close. Charlie began to wonder what kind of person he was dealing with; this must have taken an unspeakable amount of resources to achieve.

“Where’s my family?” Charlie asked.

“Safe and currently unharmed,” said John, in a crueler tone, displaying none of the character’s jovial, optimistic charm. “And that is all I can say—for now.”

“What do I do next?”

“You sit down.”

“Sit down?” Charlie asked, incredulously.

“Yes, Charlie. Sit down and enjoy the show.”

Confused, Charlie sat down and within a few seconds, John was resuming his usual narrative. The Fourth of July scene finished as planned, then moved through the Halloween scene without interruption. He let out a long, drawn-out sigh as the Christmas scene began. He’d never thought that one of his favorite attractions could depress him, but it was doing a great job of it so far. First, the song—usually so bright and hopeful—now mocked him, taunted him. The Audio-Animatronics themselves had even begun
talking
to him—it almost seemed like some horrible nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

Charlie sank lower in his seat, not expecting any further interactions. He began to doubt that he would ever see his family again, and he was furious with himself for failing them. His mind was full of irrational thoughts and he kicked himself for not being more attentive on the PeopleMover. If he had sat with the girls, would he have prevented them from being taken—or would he have simply prolonged the inevitable? Suddenly, his train of thought was interrupted by a lack of action on stage.