The Hollowed

by Jay Caselberg

  At long last, his patience and fascination were rewarded. A white van slowed in front of the doorway and stopped. Chris leaned forward, trying to catch a good look between the passing pedestrians. There were two men in the van. They looked like workers from some benevolent society or mission: neat haircuts, clean-shaven, clean unremarkable features. They walked over to the building and bent down in front of the man slumped in the doorway. There were a few moments of consultation between the two, then one of the men crossed to the van and opened the rear doors before returning. Together, one on each side, they got a grip under the man’s armpits and hoisted him to his feet. He sort of half walked, almost stumbling, a few paces between them. Slowly, they steered him across the pavement, up into the back of the van, then closed the doors and drove away. That was it. They were gone. The rest of the world strode past, uncaring.

  Chris leaned back against the store window, staring thoughtfully at the place where the man had sat. Somehow, these guys in the van, they’d known he was there…

  That would have been the end of it. He had his answer about where they went, in part. It didn’t matter how those faceless others knew. There was someone who came and took them away. That truly would have been the end of it, except that he saw the man from the doorway three days later.

  He was dressed just as Chris had seen him and he walked past him in the street, semi-blankness on his face. Chris stopped and stared after him, tracking him through the crowd, uncertain. People flowed around Chris as he stood in the middle of the rush-hour throng. Finally, Chris shook his head and went on his way. He must have been imagining it.

  Chapter Two

  Visitors

  A couple of days later, Chris had his true confirmation. There was a small café he frequented on the way to work and he’d stopped for a cup of coffee. He was casually scanning the other patrons when he noticed her. It was his girl from the bus shelter. He’d been close when he’d seen her then—right up close. He remembered her hair and her pale white features touched with pink. He remembered the flaxen trees falling across her cheek. There was no mistaking her for someone else

  She was in an animated discussion with a friend at the next table over. He stopped with his cup halfway to his lips and stared. After a few moments, she caught his gaze, frowned, and leaned closer to her friend to say something. The friend looked over her shoulder and gave him a look filled with hostility. Carefully, Chris placed his cup back down. They were leaning close together, still talking in low tones. The young woman, his girl, shot a brief glance in his direction and frowned again.

  He debated; then, plucking up his courage, he pushed back his chair, stood and walked over to their table.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked. “The other day at the bus shelter.”

  She looked up, her face hard and unfriendly.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she said. “I don’t know you. Now leave us alone.”

  It was the same girl, all right. He thought perhaps that mention of the bus shelter would have sparked something.

  “Are you still here?” said the girl’s friend.

  Chris mumbled apologies and backed away. He knew it was the same girl. He sat and watched until eventually his continued scrutiny became too much for them and they left. She sneered and gave a toss of her head as she walked out the door, half-glancing in his direction. As the pair walked up the street, their heads were close together. He could almost hear her saying, “Can you believe that guy?”

  For the first time in weeks, he felt as if something mattered. Suddenly, here was something he could hold onto and do something about. He had to find out what was happening with these people.

  He chewed it over for two days before he decided he’d broach the subject with Stase. He had to talk to someone. They’d talked about things in the past. He waited until they were both sitting quietly in front of some cop show in the middle of an ad break.

  “Stase?” he said.

  “What is it now?”

  “You know that girl I saw at the bus shelter a couple of weeks ago…”

  “Yes…that again.”

  “Well, I saw her today.”

  “And…”

  “There was nothing wrong with her.”

  “So?” She crossed her arms and stared at the screen as the ad light flickered across her face. Comedic music and a cleaning product washed across his awareness with a man standing there wearing a stupid grin on his face.

  He grabbed the remote and killed the sound. “Will you listen to me?”

  She sighed and looked over. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Well, there’s definitely something strange going on.”

  “The only thing strange going on is you.” She stood, and started walking past him, back to the bedroom. He pushed himself up from the chair and grabbed her arm.

  “Just listen to me,” he said.

  She wrenched her arm free of his grip. “I don’t care about what’s going on in that fucked-up head of yours,” she said. “Now let me go, will you?”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “You’re my problem,” she said flatly. “We’ve got nothing to say to each other.” The truth of what she was saying slammed into him, then exploded into anger and resentment.

  “If you feel like that, why don’t you just get out?” he yelled.

  “Yeah, right,” she spat back. “Why don’t you?” He could see the hollowness there, the lack of feeling. She pushed past and strode into the kitchen, away from him. Chris followed, spinning her round to face him in the middle of the small kitchen.

  “Why are you doing this? Jesus, you’re just so fucking stupid sometimes,” he muttered between tight lips.

  “I am not stupid!”

  Her hand flashed towards his face, nails curled, and he reacted. Chris pulled back his arm as if to strike, but something stopped him. Everything faded into slow motion. He watched her hand approach his cheek. Her lips were slightly parted, the tip of her tongue resting wetly in the corner of her mouth. A slight contact of her fingers, but no more. The ends of her nails rested on his skin, claws in the dust of what they had become. What was she waiting for? Her breath came in short shallow gasps, then nothing. Blankness filled her eyes and she crumpled to the floor.

  He stood over her, his arm still half-raised, prepared to force the blow that would never come, his anger transferring into shame. He stood like that for almost a minute, wondering at this new game she’d invented.

  “Stase,” he said. “Cut it out.”

  She lay there, not moving, her eyes staring straight ahead across the lines of wooden floorboards.

  “Stase?”

  She wasn’t breathing. He lowered his arm and stared. He stooped and gently pushed her shoulder. When that brought no reaction, he crouched in front of her.

  “Stase?”

  He reached for her neck and felt for a pulse. It was there, low and slow.

  He’d seen that look, that lack of being, before—at least three times over the past few weeks. Strangely, he couldn’t feel anything. Slowly, Chris lifted himself to a chair. He sat like that for the rest of the night, just watching. From time to time he’d crouch down in front of her to look, reach out to touch the warmth of her face, then ease himself back up into the chair. He didn’t even think to call anyone.

  He was still sitting there the next morning, numb and staring, as the world grew lighter outside the window. He barely noticed when the doorbell rang. The second time it rang, it was long and insistent. He shook himself and stood, tearing his gaze away from Stase’s still form and stumbled to the door. Two men, clean-cut, smiling, stood there.

  “Yes?” he asked, barely registering what was happening.

  One nodded and gently pushed past him into the house.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Chris asked.

  The other man gently took his shoulders and moved him out of the way, then also stepped past and disappeared inside. />
  A mix of emotions ran through him, but somehow dulled. It never got to outrage. He mentally shook himself and followed them inside.

  “What do you think you’re doing? Excuse me?” he called from the kitchen door.

  They stood in the room’s center, Stase’s still form between them at their feet, staring down at her. One of them glanced at Chris, held the look, then looked over to his companion and gave a brief nod. The look he gave Chris, though it was full of nothing, pinned him there in the doorway, any further questions driven from him, powerless. He didn’t understand. How could the guy do that? It was just a look. It was as if Chris had lost all will to move.

  Still without a word, they stooped, lifted Stase from the kitchen floor and carried her out between them.

  Just before they lifted her, there was a moment of hesitation. They looked at Chris again and then at each other, an unspoken consultation passing between them. Then one of them shook his head. His companion gave a slight nod and stooped to help with lifting Stase’s still, quiet shape. The second man looked at Chris long and hard as they maneuvered past him and carried her out the door.

  He stood at the front door watching as they shut the rear doors of their big white van, clambered up front, and then drove away. The guy in the passenger’s seat was still watching him from the window as they pulled away and he stood there staring after them.

  Chapter Three

  The Dead Actress

  Chris stood at the doorway, looking out onto the street. He turned, closed the door and went back inside the house. He stood in the center of the living room for about ten minutes, just staring into nothing, feeling like crap. He’d been up all night for some reason, he had a full eight hours of work ahead of him and he didn’t quite know how he was going to get through the day. His eyes were sensitive and watery, his back ached and he was feeling kind of strung out, thoughts skittering across the surface of his brain with no real form or substance to them. What he needed was a shower and a cup of coffee, not necessarily in that order. He thought about switching on the news but couldn’t be bothered. He decided he didn’t really need the noise right now. Every morning they had the breakfast news program, chirpy happy faces as they gave words to what was going on in the world, however grave. It was part of Stase’s ritual, and she’d clearly already left for work without saying a word. Not that that was so unusual these days.

  Briefly, he considered calling in sick, but they had a current project that really needed his attention; despite the state he was in, it would be better to be there, in among the semi-friends and colleagues you accumulate in the workplace—the little faux community. Glancing at the clock, he realized he had maybe enough time to get ready, but only if he hurried. The shower and coffee would have to be quick.

  Both coffee and shower done with, in that order, he headed to work. The habitual walk along familiar suburban streets, squinting through the morning sun, his shoulder already aching with the weight of his bag, and a few minutes later, he reached the bus stop. A line of fellow commuters already stood waiting, and he grimaced. Normally, he tried to get in a lot earlier to avoid the crowds. That way he could be assured of a seat and the vague chance of immersing himself in a couple of chapters before having to wrench himself back to the day-to-day mundane. That was the good thing about books—the magic. You could immerse yourself in another world, painting the details, filling in the blanks with your imagination, rather than having it all thrust at you without really participating. Books were different. They allowed you to create your own world. No such luck that morning, though.

  The bus finally shuddered to a halt in front of them, they the sheep, with a sigh and hiss of brakes, and they filed dutifully inside, Chris along with them. He ended up about a third of the way down the aisle, pressed firmly against the hard metal frame of a seat edge. The bus was crowded, sweaty, and full of the smell of bodies and something else. The buses always smelled old, musty and damp after a period of heavy rain like they’d had over the last couple of nights. Or had they? Chris couldn’t remember. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog. Had it been raining or hadn’t it? The bus took off and he quickly threw out a hand for support, cursing under his breath.

  An old guy sat in front of where he stood, his neck sprouting grizzled hair, a label sticking out from underneath his cap announcing to the world that his head was large. Beside him sat a middle-aged woman, dyed brown hair showing white at the roots, lying lacquered in fulsome waves. On the other side, another pair was talking loudly, oblivious to those around them. Just for a moment, he drifted into their conversation.

  “She’s not very intelligent—like mentally—you know what I mean? She’s my mother, and I love her and everything, but you have to be tactful with her. That’s just the way I am. You know what I mean? It’s harder to get through to her these days, the poor dear.”

  Her companion nodded.

  “Will you look at that?” the woman who had spoken said, pointing out the window. “Why someone can’t do something to get all the spongers and beggars off the street, I don’t know.”

  Her friend nodded again without saying anything.

  Chris sighed and drifted away again. Were there so many beggars on the street? He hadn’t really noticed.

  Somewhere up the back, a phone rang. He waited for the inevitable and gritted his teeth in anticipation. “Yeah, I’m on a bus. On my way into work.”

  Why did he care? Why did anyone care? People seemed to lose all consciousness of where they were when they were on the phone.

  The bus growled protesting up a hill, outside, buildings and traffic and shops, inside, the commuter crush. He would have tried to watch the passing streets, but the bus was too tightly packed to get a proper view. He had no real option but to turn his thoughts back inside.

  Chris really didn’t understand how Stase and he had arrived where they were. Where was that anyway? He gripped the top of the seat beside him more tightly, a frown growing on his face, as he thought about that, turning the shape of it over and over. The bus lurched, someone jolted against him, and he looked up at them, still frowning. The man held up his hand in fleeting apology and Chris looked away again with a scowl.

  Stase and he had been so good in the beginning. They had swept into one another like passing winds, swirling into each other’s existence and into an apartness from the rest of the world where there had been nothing before. They were totally caught up in the both of them, uncaring about the rest of the humanity except how it affected them together; in their tiny windstorm, they swept everything before them. That passing glance, the lightest touch filled with import, every little gesture and nuance had ruled their waking moments. And then there were the hopes and the dreams. Where had all that gone? It was as if it had simply trickled away while they weren’t paying attention. They’d loved each other once, hadn’t they? Maybe they still did, really, but that certainty was overlaid with a hollow feeling in his guts telling him it wasn’t really true.

  The bus drew into a stop and he was forced to press himself up harder against the seat edge as an apologetic someone wormed past. He stooped to look out the window, trying to see exactly where they were. A line of people stood at the bus stop staring blankly out into the road while they waited for whatever bus they were catching. His own bus pulled out, and there was barely a flicker from any of them. He saw the same old blank disinterested nothingness day after day after day. He straightened, saw with relief that the seat next to him was vacant and sat gratefully, positioning his computer bag on his lap. Only three stops to go now. Already the start of a headache was creeping up the inside of his skull to nestle firmly behind his eyes. It was promising to turn into a simply wonderful day.

  They finally drew into his stop, and he shuffle-stepped off with the last of the remaining passengers. They’d reached the end of the line. How prophetic was that? There was still something out of place, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was just a sort of unease working inside him, an edgy,
bottomless feeling as if he were standing on unstable ground, but he didn’t know what was causing it. He shook the thought away and wrote it off to lack of sleep.

  Here, in the middle of town, noise, dust, motion, everything in sharp contrast to the relatively protected suburban quiet where they existed, Stase and Chris. Chris and Stase. Sub-urban. Was it really below? Beneath the urban sprawl in some sort of ranking. As he decided whether he was going to grab a coffee or not, he glanced up at a billboard. It had just rolled over to a new ad. Once upon a time, they’d been fixed, one single advertisement pasted into place in vast sheets, but now they rolled, four or five in the one hoarding, barely giving you time to take it all in. Or on slit strips that turned, reforming with new images as they repositioned. The one on view now was for an upcoming cinema release. It took Chris a few moments to work out what struck him as out of place, and by the time he did, the poster was rolling out of view to be replaced by a beer ad. What was wrong was that the actress, larger than life in all the sensual imagery of the poster, was dead. She’d been killed in a plane crash some months earlier. But that was just wrong. Her picture was up there as if nothing had happened. His brow creased as he pondered the wrongness. It was relevant somehow. There were things in what he was seeing that meant something. What were they? Field of vision, depth of view, sleight of hand?

  He really did need that coffee. He headed for one of the multitude of coffee bars that had sprung up over the last couple of years, breathing deeply of the warm aroma, waiting patiently in line until it came his turn to order. Considering the time, he couldn’t afford to sit with his coffee, so he ordered it to go.

  The office awaited, pristine in its carpeted blue, white walls and glass, somehow sanitized from the outside world, a capsule of its own reality and in that, a kind of escape. The fluorescent artificiality, stark and unforgiving in its definition, made everything almost hyper-real. Being in no proper mood for conversation, he could have done with his own office, but the open-planned corporate wisdom gave nowhere to hide. He headed for his pod, large cardboard takeaway cup held firmly in one hand.