The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

  I stop reading. November was eight months ago, right about the time that I stopped going to therapy. Right about the time that I stopped taking Klonopin.

  Right about the time that the Red Line started killing.

  “Freeze!” shouts the security guard, and suddenly he’s right there, filling the door, his Taser in my face. I step away and raise my hands, but as soon as my right arm gets free it flies out, flexing and twitching, and the security guard fires.

  NINE

  EVERY MUSCLE IN MY BODY betrays me, some contracting into rigid bricks, others melting into loose, useless jelly. I fall against something and hit the floor in the flurry of papers and books.

  “It’s a patient! I think it’s the one from 404—holy crap!”

  My arm twitches again, flying across me in a wide arc. I try to get my bearings, but my eyes are still adjusting to the light, and my body is still too stunned to tell up from down. I can’t seem to move anything on purpose.

  “He’s still moving!”

  “You shocked him?” The second voice is softer, more feminine, and dripping with worry. Shauna. I manage to roll my head a few inches to the side. “What happened?”

  “He swung at me. I couldn’t even see who it was.”

  “How did he get out here?”

  I try to speak, gurgle helplessly, and manage to raise my head. Almost instantly someone grabs me from behind, locking me in a security hold that keeps me fully immobile.

  “Call Dr. Little—tell him one of his patients broke into his office.” Footsteps cross the floor, a phone rattles in its housing.

  My tongue is looser now, and my head is clearing up. “I need…”

  “Easy, man,” says the guard. “How’s your legs, can you walk?”

  “I need to get out of here.” Click click click click. My teeth again.

  “Just answer the question: can you walk? Can we stand up?”

  “Hello, Dr. Little,” says Shauna. “I’m sorry to call you at this hour but we have a situation.” The guard pulls me to my knees, pauses a minute while I gain my balance, then pulls me to my feet. “One of the patients in lockdown escaped,” says Shauna. “No, he didn’t get far, but he went straight for your office. It’s Michael Shipman.”

  I get to my feet and look at Shauna, but it’s not Shauna—it’s the other nurse, the heavy one from the office. She’s older, mid-fifties maybe, with thick arms and permed, graying hair.

  “Where’s Shauna?”

  The guard tightens his grip. “Who’s Shauna?”

  “The night nurse,” I say. “She’s here every night.” I stare at the other nurse, confused. “Who are you?”

  The nurse looks at me, but speaks into the phone. “He seems very disoriented, Doctor. Yes, we will. All right, we’ll see you in a bit.” She hangs up.

  “Where’s Shauna?” I’m scared now—a sick, vertiginous feeling in my gut, like I’m about to fall through the floor into a vast, bottomless nothing. “Why are these pictures in here? What’s going on?”

  “Easy, Michael,” says the guard. “Let’s get you back into your room, okay?”

  “Maybe Shauna’s that girl he keeps talking about,” says the nurse.

  “Shauna is the night nurse!” I shout. “What have you done with her?”

  The nurse glances at the guard behind me, worry etched into her face. “I’m the night nurse, Michael. My name is Sharon. Do you remember me?”

  I stare at her, remembering a face in the dark. Remembering peaches that didn’t taste like peaches. “What’s going on?”

  “Let’s get him back to his room.”

  * * *

  THERE ARE MORE GUARDS NOW, and they strap me into my bed with thick leather restraints, just like before, ignoring my cries for help and information. They stop acknowledging me altogether, speaking as if I wasn’t even in the room.

  “How do you think he got out?”

  “Came straight at me with his fist—I had to stun him.”

  “We should never have let him out of these straps in the first place.”

  “Don’t tell them anything.”

  I jerk my head up, looking at the door, but all I see are guards and nurses. The photos from the office flash through my mind like a gruesome slide show. The nervous speculation of the guards mirrors my own thoughts:

  What if I really am a killer?

  Someone is killing people I hate, turning them into the image I’m obsessed with. I feel my body shaking: a shiver, as if I was cold, but I’m sweating with heat.

  What was I doing before they found me?

  That day in the hospital, I bit a man on the arm trying to escape—I literally tore into him with my teeth. What kind of person does that? And if I’m willing to do that, how much further will I go? Is it possible that I, cornered by one of Them, would lash out fiercely enough to kill? Could I have done it to so many times? It almost seems impossible—after I’d killed one or two they would have started coming after me with bigger numbers and stronger force.

  Unless they weren’t coming after me at all. Maybe it was me going after them.

  Kelly said there were ten victims, maybe more. Nobody kills ten people in self-defense—not that messily, and never in such a specific, consistent way. There’s nothing defensive about the way their faces were torn off. Those people had been executed, or punished. Maybe I’d gotten sick of running, and I took the fight to them.

  How many did I kill?

  Click click click click.

  “How did you get through the gate?” The security guard is standing by my bed; other guards and nurses move through the background, both in my room and out in the hall, talking and searching and scurrying around. It’s the middle of the night, but I’ve stirred up a beehive.

  I look at the guard. “The gate was open.”

  “Did someone leave it open for you? Is it … what’s her name … Shauna? Did she help you escape?”

  “Nobody helped me.”

  “Who is Shauna?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I say. “How many night nurses are there?”

  The guard frowns. “We’re checking the security cameras now, so if someone helped you we will find her. What were you looking for in Dr. Little’s office?”

  “I ducked in there to hide from you.”

  “Your own doctor’s office,” he says derisively, “with all of your files and information and everything—and you were there completely by accident.”

  “Listen,” I say, “I don’t know who’s on Their side and who’s not—I don’t even know if I can trust you—but something is going on here, and we are all caught in the middle of it. Okay? There’s something very big, and very weird, and if I can’t figure it out I don’t know what’s going to happen—to any of us.”

  Dr. Little walks into the room, talking to another security guard. He looks hastily dressed, and his thin hair floats over his head in an unkempt cloud. They probably woke him up. He’s talking to another guard as he walks. “And no one else was in the hallway?”

  “No one,” says the other guard. “Just Dave and Sharon and the patient. The night janitor hadn’t even come yet.”

  “All right, thank you for showing me.” Dr. Little turns to me, pastes that broad, patronizing smile across his face, and walks to the bed. “Good evening, Michael. How are you feeling?”

  “I didn’t know it was your office,” I say quickly. “I was just trying to get out. I didn’t mean to do anything.”

  “He can’t have been in your office long, Doctor,” says the guard. “He’s pretty confused.”

  “Yes, thank you,” says Dr. Little, patting the guard on the arm. “I’ll take it from here, thank you.”

  The guard looks at me, looks at my restraints, then nods. “Thank you, Doctor.” He leaves the room, and Dr. Little pulls up the lone chair and sits.

  “You were going through my files, Michael,” he says. “What were you looking for?”

  “Just stairs, that’s all. A way out.
”

  “You were headed for the stairs, but you turned around. They showed me the security footage.”

  “I…” And now I’m caught again. If I tell him what I was really looking for—a key to the conspiracy—he’ll think I’m either crazy or too close to the truth. I waver back and forth; I have to trust somebody eventually, right? But not him. Why hasn’t Lucy come back, or the reporter? I can’t do this alone. I close my eyes and decide to say nothing. “I couldn’t go that way.”

  “Were you worried about being seen?” he asks. “And yet by doubling back you had to pass by the two people who were already alert and suspicious. It makes no sense to…” He stops, cocks his head to the side, and smiles. “Aha. The cafeteria.”

  “What?”

  “Your fear of electronics. You stopped and turned around when you got to the cafeteria—an entire room packed full of cords and transmitters and electromagnetic fields. You couldn’t bring yourself to go past it.”

  I stay silent, cursing him in my head. How am I supposed to deceive the man being paid to psychoanalyze me? At least he still doesn’t know what I’m looking for.

  “That explains a lot,” he says, rubbing his chin. “The security tape does, indeed, look like you ducked into my office to hide. I don’t know how you got the gate code, but that’s easy enough to fix. What I’m far more curious about, Michael, are the involuntary muscle movements: how long have they been that bad?”

  My arm twitches against the restraint, and I shake my head and laugh; it sounds bitter and hollow. “Are you honestly going to tell me you don’t know anything about that?”

  “Of course I know about it, Michael, and I’ll do what I can, but I need to know how long it’s been that bad.”

  “So you admit it?” I lean forward in disbelief. “You just admit, just like that, that you’re a part of this?”

  “A part of what?”

  “You’re controlling me! You and the Faceless Men—you’re working for them, you’re getting into my head and taking over my body.” Click click click click click. “Dammit, I can barely talk!”

  “Please, Michael,” he says, reaching out with his hand, “please stay calm. I assure you that no one is trying to control your movements.”

  My arm twitches. “How can you say that? Look at me!”

  “What you’re experiencing is called tardive dyskinesia,” he says, “and it’s a common side effect of Loxitane. You’re up to sixty milligrams a day, and a reaction like this is not unheard of, though it does seem to have developed awfully quickly.”

  “You’re saying this is a drug reaction?”

  “Precisely: involuntary movements, like the way you’re nodding right now, and the way your arm was swinging so wildly on the tape. I apologize for not explaining the possible side effects earlier, but we didn’t want to frighten you unnecessarily and we really had no idea that anything would develop this quickly. Your body may have a certain susceptibility to drugs. Anyway, dyskinesia is not debilitating, but it is bad, and I’m afraid we’ll have to discontinue the Loxitane altogether.”

  “Well thank goodness for that.”

  “It’s our only choice, really—your delusions and hallucinations are still fully present, so the Loxitane is clearly not working, and we obviously can’t raise the dose.”

  “Wait!” I jerk forward as far as the restraints will let me. “I’m not hallucinating, Doctor; you have to believe me. If I was that messed up in the head, how could I have gotten out of here?”

  “You’re delusional, Michael, but you’re not stupid. You’re actually very intelligent—most schizophrenics are. But you are sick, and we are trying to cure you, and medication is the only way—”

  “You’re giving me more drugs?”

  “We’ll be starting you on Seroquel, which in some ways is—”

  “Your drugs are making me lose control of my own body, so you’re giving me more? What are you trying to do to me?”

  “Loxitane worked on your brain’s dopamine receptors,” he says calmly. “The Seroquel will affect both dopamine and serotonin, so it should be more effective.”

  “Why didn’t you just start with that one, then?”

  “Because the side effects are potentially worse, so we don’t like to use it if we don’t have to. We tried Loxitane first to—”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head, “absolutely not. Do you have any idea what this is doing to my brain?”

  “It’s fixing it.”

  “It’s frying it right in my skull! I won’t even have a brain left by the time you’re done. I’ll be a vegetable.”

  “The mechanism of this drug is completely different from the last one, so there will be no overlap in effect or risk; we’ll start at the minimum dose and work up until we see a positive result.”

  “Or until it kills me.”

  “The potential side effects of Seroquel are annoying but completely nonlethal,” he says, dismissing the idea with a wave of his hand. “There is some small risk of tardive dyskinesia again, but, as I said, the mechanism is different and they shouldn’t overlap—plus, we’ll be watching you much more closely now that we’ve seen how sensitive you can be. If there’s the slightest hint of it, we’ll discontinue treatment.”

  “And what else? You said it was worse than the first drug.”

  “Seroquel doubles as a powerful sedative,” he says. “Some people even use it recreationally.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “A very powerful sedative,” he says. “You’ll sleep like a rock, but you’ll wake up with the worst hangover you’ve ever had. We can alleviate that somewhat with other drugs, but I want to observe you first to see precisely how it affects you.”

  “No,” I say again, shaking my head. “I won’t let you do it.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Michael.” He waves to the door, and three large male nurses come in. One of them hands Dr. Little a small plastic cup. “We’re doing this for your own good, Michael.” They grab me, and I try to wriggle free, but the bed restraints hold me tightly in place. “We’re only trying to help you.” The nurses hold me down, forcing my head back until my face points up at the ceiling. Dr. Little sighs. “If you insist, we’re perfectly prepared to do this the hard way.”

  I clamp my mouth shut, but he sets down the pill and picks up a syringe. The nurses hold me in place, my muscles rigid with the effort to break free. I feel a prick in my shoulder, a lance of solid pain that holds for five, six, seven seconds, and then fades to a dull ache. The nurses let go and I jerk forward, thrashing and coughing.

  “No!”

  Dr. Little smiles.

  “Very good,” he says. “I trust that in the future you’ll be much more cooperative, but rest assured that we can do this every time if we have to.” He smiles again, and they begin to file out. “The sedative will likely kick in very quickly—sleep well, and I’ll see you again in the morning.”

  They turn out the lights, but I can see dim shapes and outlines from the faint illumination down the hall. I sit in bed, panting, trying to decide what to do, but there’s nothing—I’m trapped, physically and mentally. I can already feel my head grow heavier as the sedative goes to work. I scream. The world dims.

  There’s a shuffling sound from the hall; a thick, wet slapping, like a mop. A snuffling, slurping sound. I fight the sedation and lift my head, forcing my eyes to focus on the door, and a low shadow coalesces into a solid form—slick white skin reflecting the distant lights from the end of the hall. It turns at the door, a translucent membrane stretched tight over grotesque muscles—a giant white worm, like a maggot or a grub, almost two feet thick and stretching far back into the hall. Its head is a horrid ring of teeth and slime, more of a hole than a mouth; it raises up, as if tasting the air; I hold my breath, still as stone, helpless in my restraints. Will it come in or move on? My eyes are dimming. The thing crawls into the room, wriggling horridly, and I fight to stay awake. Do I scream? I don’t think I can; my throat f
eels thick and heavy.

  The thing gets closer. My head buzzes and deforms; my eyes tear and burn and blacken. I can hear it inching closer, slick skin slapping the floor.

  Then I hear nothing.

  TEN

  DARKNESS. SILENCE. ALL SENSE IS GONE, replaced with something else—some kind of deeper feeling, a knowing. The Earth shifts and groans; currents of energy ripple and flow. I am free and trapped at once. I am ancient and powerful, a thing beyond time. But I have nowhere to go, and nowhere left to hide.

  Sound is the first to return, a deep, distant reverberation. I plunge into it like an ocean, hearing for the very first time, exploring each new sound, but too quickly the sounds grow harsh and violent—high shrieks, piercing cracks, unintelligible howls of mindless, braying beasts. Physical sensations come next, heat and cold and pressure, pokes and jabs and scrapes and scratches that threaten to tear me apart. What are they doing to me? Before the question has time to form I’m assaulted by sight—burning lights and waves of devastating color. I receive sight merely to be blinded. I blink at the pain and realize I have something to blink. Where am I? What am I doing?

  I am being squeezed into a ball. The world bites me with jagged teeth. I have become …

  I’m in a cave—a deep, dark pit. I will rise up and come into a world of … of empty houses. Long streets of nothing, of hollow homes where no one lives. I struggle to open my eyes, bracing myself for the shock of light, and through my tears a wall swims into view—gray and bare. That’s not right. It should be wood. I’m in a room, tied to a bed. I’m in a … What’s the word? Hospital. I’m in a hospital.

  My name is Michael Shipman. I’m in Powell Psychiatric. I am hurt and tired and cold.

  Dr. Little—I remember the name now—gave me some kind of drug. Sero … something. Serotonin? Somebody said that word. My own thoughts assault me, pushing through my brain like blood through swollen muscle. I try to grab my head, but my arms are tied. There was something in here, something I was afraid of—