The Hollow City (3 page)

“If you’d seen the news, Michael, you’d know: when the Red Line Killer kills someone, he … mutilates the bodies.” He frowns and continues. “He kills them and then he destroys their faces—skin, muscle, bones, everything.”

And there it is. A killer on the loose, a tenuous link, and the floodgates of suspicion break open in a torrent. I’m still the same person, but in their eyes I’ve changed—no longer just a man brought in for a fall, but an unbalanced psycho who might be a murderer.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I say carefully.

“We’re not saying you have.”

“You wouldn’t have brought this up if you didn’t think it was me.” I have to get out now. I have to run before this goes any further.

“We don’t think anything, Michael, no one’s accusing you of any—”

I leap up suddenly, catching them by surprise, but I only get halfway out of the bed before the orderly grabs me; the doctors are only a few steps behind. I fight like a caged animal, kicking wildly with my legs, and feel a horrifying crunch in my foot as one of the doctors grunts and falls backward. They’re screaming now, calling desperately for nurses and sedatives, and all I can think to do is bite the arm wrapped tightly across my chest.

“Where’s the Geodon!”

“Frank, dammit, hold him down!”

Someone lets go and I struggle to my feet, almost clear of the doctors, and then suddenly my arm’s getting twisted around and my shoulder’s nearly popping and I howl at the pain. My legs go limp and I whimper, all of my attention focused desperately on my arm.

The room has more people in it now, and I feel hands picking me up and positioning me back on the bed; there’s a sharp prick in my arm, and I know they’ve given me a shot. A sedative. I don’t have long.

“Please,” I say, “you’ve got to get me out of here. I’m not who you think I am, and They’ll be here any … any minute.” Images swirl in and out of each other, and I squint to catch them before they fade.

“Find Dr. Vanek,” says one of them; Murray, I think. There’s something on my arms, and I try to lift them up to see, but they won’t move. My head weighs a ton, ten tons, but I steel myself for the effort and raise it up, just enough to look down at my body.

“The drugs are hitting quickly—how much did you give him?”

“It’s just the standard dose—it shouldn’t work this fast.”

“He can barely move.”

I squint again, my head as empty as a balloon, my body slipping away down a tunnel. I can feel it drawing out, stretching like putty, but there’s something I have to see, someone standing in the back of the room. I fight my way out of the tunnel, struggling for just one glimpse, and—there it is.

A man with no face.

They’ve found me.

TWO

I WAKE UP WITH A SCREAM
, suddenly, as if I were never asleep and the Faceless Man was still right there, coming for me. He is gone, and the room is empty.

“Whoa,” says a voice, and I shout again. “Are you okay?”

“Who’s there?” I’m still disoriented. I lunge forward, looking for the speaker—a woman—but there’s something on my arms and I stop short, jerked back by heavy leather restraints.

“Calm down,” she says. Is it Lucy? “Just take it easy; looks like you had a nightmare or something.” She steps into my view and she’s not Lucy; she’s young, about the same age, but wearing a sort of suit jacket that Lucy would never wear. “My name is Kelly Fischer, I’m a reporter with the
Sun
. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What do you want?” I slowly grow more centered, as if my higher functions are only just now waking up. I test my restraints subtly; my legs are tied down as firmly as my arms, with just a few inches of give in any direction. The TV is still off, but it looms over the room like a darkened eye.

“I’m writing a piece on the Red Line Killer,” says the woman. “I heard you might know something, and I thought maybe I could ask you some questions.”

I freeze. How does she know who I am? How does she know anything about me? I study her carefully, looking for clues: she has a face, for one thing, and a large handbag slung carefully over her shoulder. Is she one of Them? Does she work for Them?

I narrow my eyes. “How did you find me?”

“One of the nurses is a friend of mine; she tips me off when big stories come through.”

“I’m not a big story.”

“You’re under investigation in connection with the Red Line killings,” she says.

“Great.” I throw my hands up, or try to, but the restraints stop them with a jerk. I close my eyes and growl under my breath. “I need to get out of here.”

“You’re not a suspect,” she says, shaking her head, “or at least you’re not a suspect yet. If you were I’d be breaking the law just being here. As it is…” She glances at the door quickly, nervously. I look at it too, then back to her, realization dawning.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say.

“I can help you,” she says, holding out her hand to quiet me. “Listen, just give me two minutes, and I can try to keep you out of Powell. I don’t have a lot of pull, but—”

“Powell?” My eyes go wide. “They’re sending me back to Powell?”

“You didn’t know?” She glances at the door again, then bolts for the back corner. “Someone’s coming—don’t say anything, I’m
begging
you.” She jogs through the bathroom door, without even time to close it before the hall door opens and a nurse comes in—the big orderly from before, the one named Frank.

“Thought I heard you scream,” he says. He glances at the wall behind me. “You have a nice nap?” There’s a bandage on his forearm that wasn’t there before. He sees me looking at it and raises his eyebrow, all humor gone from his face and voice. “Looking for a repeat? You bite me again and I will make you regret it.”

“I bit you?” The details of the fight are hazy, but I remember kicking someone. “In the … earlier, when everyone tackled me?”

“When you tried to escape,” says Frank. “You bit me and you broke Dr. Sardinha’s nose.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You guys never do.”

“What do you mean, ‘you guys?’”

“I mean ‘mentally divergent,’” says Frank. “Well, technically I mean ‘crazy,’ but I’m required to say ‘mentally divergent’ in front of the crazy people. Makes you feel better.”

“It’s not working.”

“I get that a lot.” He leans forward, resting his forearms on the bed railing. “So listen, you’re gone in a few hours, and I don’t want any trouble between now and then, so let’s make a truce, okay?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“You stop screaming,” he says, ignoring me, “and whatever else you were doing in here, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“You can’t let them take me.”

“I’m not letting them, I’m helping them. I’m doing everything I can to expedite the process.”

“But I’m not crazy!” I say again, my voice rising. “I have depression and some kind of anxiety disorder—you can’t lock me up for either one of those.”

“You’ve been upgraded to schizophrenia,” says Frank, “mostly thanks to the evil face monsters or whatever you said was chasing you. I don’t remember—in two more hours it won’t be my problem anymore.”

I fall back into the pillow, shocked. I’ve heard of schizophrenia before, in passing, and none of it was good; the diagnosis falls like a sentence of execution.

I glance at the bathroom door; if Frank won’t help me escape, maybe the reporter will. “No trouble,” I say, looking back at him. “I don’t bother you, you don’t bother me.”

He stops. “You guys usually put up more of a fight. You planning something?”

“Yes,” I say, nodding firmly. “The evil face monsters are going to cut these restraints off and carry me away in their magical flying car.”

Frank stares at me a moment, then shakes his head and turns to the door. “I don’t know why I even talk to you people.” He stops by the door and shoots me a final look. “No noise, no funny stuff, and in two hours we’ll be out of each other’s way forever.”

I nod. He closes the door and walks away.

The woman peeks out of the bathroom. “He’s kind of an asshat, isn’t he?”

“You said you could help,” I say, and tug on my arm restraints. “Can you get me out of these things?”

“Whoa,” she says, stepping into the room. “That would really be crossing a line.”

“You don’t understand,” I say. “This hospital, and apparently Powell, are run by…” And now we’re back to the same old problem—if I tell anyone the truth, I sound completely crazy. It’s the trickiest part of the Faceless Men’s Plan, to hide themselves so well from the world that no one will ever believe they exist. “I have to get out of here.”

“Let me ask you a few questions first,” she says, “and then I’ll see what I can do about the restraints, okay?”

“Do you promise?”

“I can’t promise I’ll get you out, but I promise to look into it. You’re asking me to break the law, Michael; you’re going to have to trust me first.”

I look at the door to the hallway, then up at the TV. “Fine,” I say, “but make it quick.”

“Great.” She smiles and opens her handbag, pulling out a small black device. I draw back as far as I can and shake my head.

“Get rid of that.”

“It’s my digital recorder,” she says. “I’m just recording the interview.”

“No,” I say more firmly, pressing myself as far back into the pillows as I can. “Put it in the hall, or back in the other room, but it can’t be in here.”

She looks at it, then at me, then shrugs and walks into the bathroom. “I’m leaving it on the sink,” she says, “is that okay?”

“Yes.” I take a deep breath, forcing myself to calm back down. It’s just a recorder—it might not send a signal at all. “If you’ve got a cell phone, leave that in there too.”

“All right,” she says, walking back in with a notebook and a pen. “Let’s get started. The doctors here suspect that you may have witnessed a crime scene related to the Red Line killings. Can you describe that scene for me, please?”

“I don’t remember anything like that.”

She frowns. “But they said you were talking about it.”

“I was talking about … something else,” I say. I don’t dare mention the Faceless Men; I need her to believe me, not think I’m crazy. “I may have seen something, but I don’t remember a crime scene. Certainly not any bodies or anything like that.”

“Okay,” she says slowly, tapping her pen on the notebook. “If you don’t remember a crime scene, maybe you remember something else? They obviously think you saw something or they wouldn’t have called the police.”

“They called the police?”

“Nothing fancy, just a tip. My source placed the call, that’s how I knew to come here. Let’s try to figure this out. I take it you lost some memory?”

“About two weeks,” I say, nodding. “I was in some kind of a fall.”

“Were you pushed?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Where were you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You’re not being very helpful.”

“I remember some kind of a … hollow city,” I say. “Streets full of houses with nobody in them, like an empty skeleton after all the flesh has gone away.”

She jots it down. “That’s creepy, but it’s a start. Can you remember who you were with?”

“I don’t think I was with anybody. Maybe Lucy—definitely Lucy, because I can’t imagine going away without her.” I look up, intense and sincere. “We’re going to get away—get to a small town somewhere, maybe a farm. I think I’d like to live on a farm. The hospital couldn’t find her, though, so I don’t know where she is.” For the first time it occurs to me that something might have happened to her, and my stomach clenches into a knot. “You’ve got to find her: Lucy Briggs.”

“Girlfriend?”

I nod. “I don’t know her phone number, but she works in a Greek place on Grand Avenue. I think something may have happened to her.”

“I’ll find her. Anyone else?”

“No one I can think of.”

“Have you recently associated with any members of the Children of the Earth?”

My heart stops beating—the entire world seems to freeze—and then everything snaps back into place. I stare at her carefully, cautiously, suddenly wary. “What do you know?”

She looks up, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

“Why are you asking about the Children of the Earth?”

She makes a note on her pad. “Is that a problem?”

“How much do you know about me?” I demand. “What’s really going on here?”

“I…,” she stumbles over her words, brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t know anything, why? Are you a member of the Children?”

“The Children of the Earth are a murder cult,” I say. “They kidnapped my mother while she was pregnant, and when I was born they killed her. I wouldn’t associate with them for anything. I’d kill them first.”

Her face goes white. “You did not just say that.”

“What do the Children of the Earth have to do with the Red Line Killer?”

She sucks in a breath. “Almost all of the victims have been members.”

I curse.

“Someone is hunting down the Children of the Earth and cutting off their faces,” she says. “Someone who hates them as much as you do.”

“So they do suspect me,” I say, watching her carefully. “You said they didn’t, but they do.”

“Well, yeah,
now
I know that.” She clicks her pen and drops it in her purse, folding up her notebook and shoving it in after. “I could get in so much trouble for being here.”

“You can’t leave,” I say quickly. “You can’t leave me with them.”

“Listen, Michael.” She stands, glances at the door, then steps toward me and lowers her voice. “I promised I’d look at getting you out of here, and I will—if you’re as innocent as you say I’ll do everything I can to get you out of here. But until then you’ve got to be careful, okay? And please, don’t tell anyone I was here. I’ll try to visit you at Powell, as soon as I’m allowed to, but please—just keep me a secret, okay?”

“You promise you’ll come?”

“I’ll do everything I can, but if you tell anyone I was here I could get cut off completely.”

“I won’t tell.”

“Thanks.” She steps to the door, listens carefully, then cracks it open and slips into the hall.

I sit in silence, staring at the blank TV. It stares back. I hear a voice in the hall, loud and familiar, and look anxiously at the door.