The Hollow City (32 page)

My father barks: “Answer me!”

I shake my head, steeling my courage. “No, Dad, it’s your turn to talk. You gave me your car, then you called the police and told them where to find me.” I pause, frowning. “And you wanted them to find me here, or near here. You told me to take this road. Is this is a setup?”

“You watch your mouth, boy.”

“You planted your cell phone in the car with me—if you’re the Red Line Killer, that’s evidence.”

“I told you to answer me!”

I stare at his gun, terrified and liberated at the same time. I’ve never stood up to him; I’ve never had the courage. But now I’ve seen something even scarier, and he’s only a man with a gun. “What else did you plant in the car, Dad? I didn’t check the trunk—is there more evidence in there? The gun you used to kill them, or the knife you used to cut off their faces?”

His expression is flat and emotionless; his mouth a thin, tight line. “The police wanted you anyway, so I figured you could take the blame for me, too; take some of the heat and let me keep working.”

“But what were you doing?”

“I was trying to find what they were,” he says. “You saw her die just now—there’s something in their heads, something behind their faces. I could never find what it was.”

I swallow. “Do you want to know?”

He tightens his grip on the shotgun. “I want to know how to kill them.”

“But we don’t have to kill them. You just shot one ringleader, and the other is trapped in…,” I stop myself, eyeing the shotgun. “He’s trapped. They’re the ones behind all the bad stuff. The rest are innocent. They’re practically children, just like their name.”

His voice is firm and heartless. “Tell me how to kill them.”

“We’re already killing them! Everything we do, everything we have, we’re strangling them right out of existence.” I look at Vanek. “The man on the council said what, two more generations? That’s not very many people—eight hundred maybe, in their entire species. In their entire form of life. We should be trying to save them.”

“I won’t hear that talk from you!” he shouts. “I won’t hear that talk from her son!”

I straighten, standing as tall as I can. “You saw the people out there—they’re scared, and they’re lost, and all they want to do is live. They’re not the people who killed Mom.”

He takes a step forward. “Your mother was the best thing that ever happened to me, and now I am making them pay. I thought maybe I’d done the wrong thing, letting her only son go down for my crimes.” He pauses, swallowing his tears, and when he speaks again his voice is cracked and husky. “But if her son has joined her killers, I swear to God I will end you.” He steps forward. “Prove it now, or die where you stand.”

“You can’t win,” says Vanek, watching me. “You join us and he kills you, or you join him and commit genocide.”

I shake my head. “There’s another way.” I point at the pit, and look desperately at my father. “I think I can end this without killing anyone.”

He glances down, steps back, then looks back at me, keeping the gun level. “What’s down there?”

“The thing that destroyed our lives.” I walk toward the bed. “I was born in this room—they put me in that pit, and through it they put something into my mind. And now I’m going back in.”

Lucy puts a hand on my arm. “You think Vanek can get out?”

“I’m not going to get him out, I’m going to trap the rest of them in here with him.”

“No!” cries Vanek, and Lucy grabs my arm.

“They’ll destroy you,” she says. “With that many minds in one head you won’t even be able to move!”

“Then neither will they. They’ll be sucked in—I’ll pull them in if I can—and they’ll be trapped.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” shouts Vanek.

“I’ve lived with a false reality my whole life,” I say, pointing at him, “but you and the others will be trapped and helpless.”

“You’re insane!” my father growls.

I whirl to face him. “I’m insane but I’m right. And that makes me the perfect prison.”

Vanek lunges at me, shoving Lucy aside and punching me square in the face. I reel backward. My father cries out and Lucy tackles Vanek, trying to pull him off, but he’s too strong; he comes at me again, pounding my head against the floor.

“Michael,” my father shouts, “what are you doing to yourself!”

“Grab me!”

Vanek kicks me in the chest, knocking the wind out of me. I struggle for air, gasping desperately as soon as I can breathe again. “It’s not me, just—hold me down!”

My father reaches for me, fending off a flurry of kicks and punches from Vanek, and then he has me by the leg; he’s dragging me across the floor; he’s pulling me toward the pit. He catches both my feet, holds them tightly, and suddenly Vanek can’t hurt him anymore—he simply stands to the side, seething with rage.

“You can’t do this!” Vanek shouts. “Even if you trap them all in your mind, there’s hundreds more outside! You can never stop us!”

“I don’t need to stop them,” I say. “Without you or Ellie the others will change their minds—some of them already have. They won’t destroy a species they’ve become a part of.”

Vanek lunges, but my father clutches my feet tighter, holding me in place, and Vanek can’t hurt him.

I look at Lucy. “I don’t know what this is going to do to me, but…” I pause. “I love you.”

Her eyes are wet with tears. “I’m not even real.”

“You’re real to me.” I stare at her a moment longer, not daring to pull my eyes away.

My father holds my twitching feet in an iron embrace. “I can’t strap you down with you fighting like this.”

I look at the edge of the pit. I look up, seeing the room and the farm and the great city beyond—teeming with life and light, only to be snuffed out and left empty. A monument to a lost world. It’s the only way to stop it. “You’ll have to throw me.” I’ll be broken, but I’ll be alive.

“It’s okay,” says Lucy, kneeling next to me. “We’ll do this together.”

I keep my eyes on hers; she holds me tightly, and I clutch her hands in mine. “I’m ready,” I say calmly. “Throw me in.”

My father heaves, Vanek roars, and I fall into the deep black pit.

EPILOGUE

THE HOUSE IS ENORMOUS—
a mansion, really. Lucy calls it a palace, but it doesn’t really have the appearance. I think she just likes to think of herself as a princess. She sits across from me at a long, narrow table and raises her glass.

“Dinner looks delicious.”

“It does.”

I smile. There are footsteps in the room above us, slow and ponderous, but I ignore them. I ignore everyone in the house these days, keeping most of the doors closed so that Lucy and I can enjoy our solitude. Most of the others are too lost to find us anyway. It is, as I said, a very big house.

Even Vanek can’t find his way out.

I pick up my spoon—polished silver, intricately carved—and scoop up a bite from the delicate china bowl. Oatmeal. It seems like oatmeal is all we get anymore, though sometimes there are other things: applesauce. Jell-O. Cream soups if it’s a special occasion. I’m never sure what the special occasions are, but I don’t mind. I have a luxurious mansion, the food is delicious and free, and my best friend is the woman of my dreams. We’ve spent our lives this way for … I lose track. A very long time. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

A shape walks past the door, dark and half-formed. I watch the empty doorway, waiting, and a moment later the shape returns. Its voice is dull and distant.

“Who are you?”

I glance at Lucy, then back at the shape in the door. “I am the master of this house.”

It stands silently, doing nothing; it is a shadow made real, its outline fading at the edges. It raises a black, translucent limb. “Who am I?”

“You are my guest,” I say softly. “You may go anywhere you wish, but you may not leave this house.”

“Then you are a jailer.”

“In a sense.”

“And what is my crime?”

I set down my spoon. “When you have discovered that,” I say, “return to me, and we will discuss it.”

The shape turns, wisps of unreality trailing as it moves. It leaves without farewell, and I turn back to my food.

“They’re learning,” says Lucy.

“They are.”

“And they’re getting braver. More forward.”

I say nothing. I stare at the table, playing with my fork.

“Dessert is here.” She holds up a silver tray and gracefully removes the lid. “Peaches.”

I smile. “I love peaches.” I pierce one with a silver fork, watching the juices run. I place it in my mouth.

It is delicious.

TOR BOOKS BY DAN WELLS

I Am Not a Serial Killer

Mr. Monster

I Don’t Want to Kill You

The Hollow City

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Wells lives in Orem, Utah, with his wife, Dawn, and their five young children. Visit Dan at
www.fearfulsymmetry.net
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE HOLLOW CITY

Copyright © 2012 by Dan Wells

All rights reserved.

Cover photograph by Dennis Flaherty/Photonica/Getty Images

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-3170-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781429950619 (e-book)

First Edition: July 2012