The Ruined City

by John Wilson

  “I have found you at last,” the voice in his head said.

  AYLFORD

  ANCIENT CHINESE

  Cate helped Howard to his feet, and they fell into an embrace. Despite his pain and fear, Howard had never been so happy to see anyone in his life.

  “What happened?” he asked when they separated.

  “You cried out, beat the walls a few times with your fists and collapsed.”

  Howard looked down. The backs and knuckles of his hands were seriously scratched—no deep cuts, but enough to bleed and sting. One of his fingernails was broken, and there was dirt under the others.

  Howard noticed his father standing motionless behind them, staring blankly down the corridor. But he also sensed a third person nearby. He looked around and saw a man. That same face! “Who’s that?” he asked quietly.

  “I think he’s the janitor,” Cate explained. “He saw you fall and came along to help.”

  “You had a fit,” the janitor said in a voice that suggested he didn’t particularly care. The man was tall and incredibly skinny. His grubby overalls hung off his frame, and his face looked like a skull with pale, grayish skin pulled tightly over it. “You shouldn’t be down here. This is not your place. There are things here not for your eyes.” He turned away and headed back down the corridor into the boiler room.

  “Creepy guy,” Howard said. “His skin looks so pale, like he never sees sunshine. And what did he mean about things here not for our eyes?”

  “Probably doesn’t want us messing with the furnace or his machinery,” Cate said, shrugging. “He’s not the most charming person I’ve ever met.”

  “I wouldn’t be either if I spent my life down here.” Howard shivered. “But he looks sort of familiar.”

  “You’ve probably seen him around on visits to your dad.”

  “I guess so.” Howard was uncertain.

  Cate was staring at him with an odd expression. Concern dominated, but under that there was something else. Curiosity?

  “What?” he asked.

  “I thought you were dead, but your eyeballs were moving under your lids.”

  “How long was I unconscious?”

  Cate shrugged again. “Not long. Thirty seconds at most. Just enough time for the janitor to come along the corridor.”

  “It seemed much longer.” Howard thought about his journey down the dark slope to the beach. It had seemed endless.

  “Do you remember anything?”

  “Darkness and a long sloping tunnel.” Howard hesitated to give more detail. Something about Cate’s question bothered him. “What made you think I had something to remember? I don’t think people usually remember things after they have a fit.”

  “Your eyeballs were moving like people’s do when they dream.”

  “But I wasn’t asleep,” he said. “I was unconscious or having an attack of some sort. It was too real to be a dream. It doesn’t make sense.” Something else pushed itself into his mind. “I heard words before I came to. Wheee…something?”

  Cate nodded. “Two words—huilai and xinglai.”

  “Chinese again?” Howard guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “What do they mean?”

  Cate took a deep breath. “Huilai means ‘come back,’ and xinglai means ‘wake up.’ ”

  “Why did you say those things, and why in Chinese?”

  Cate looked Howard straight in the eyes. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “What? Who then?”

  “When you collapsed, your father threw his arms wide and said, ‘Huilai! Xinglai!’ He repeated it over and over, like a slogan or a mantra. As soon as you opened your eyes, he stopped, and his arms dropped.”

  They both looked at Howard’s dad, who stood like a statue, totally oblivious to everything around him.

  As Howard stared at his unresponsive father, something else struck him. “What he said down here and what Madison said outside the school—that’s all Chinese, right?”

  Cate nodded.

  “And it’s just like the words my dad was babbling before he came into the AIPC. So why didn’t the Chinese doctor recognize it?”

  “There are many different dialects and languages in China—Mandarin, Wu, Min and so on. Most of them are mutually unintelligible.”

  “But he still would have recognized them, right?”

  “What your dad spoke is not a common language in China. It’s very ancient, and pronunciation is very different. But maybe we should get your dad back to his room before we get into that.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Howard was confused and scared, and his brain was a chaotic muddle of thoughts, ideas, emotions and impressions. Nothing was solidifying enough to help explain what had just happened. “There’s not much point in staying here.”

  “Yes,” Cate agreed. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Honestly? No. My head’s really messed up. I felt dizzy and nauseated when I passed out, but that’s gone now.” He noticed that Cate was chewing her bottom lip, like she was trying to make a tough decision. “What?”

  She blinked, and her face relaxed. She shook her head as if she’d made a choice she was not particularly comfortable with. “Dr. Roe is going to want a detailed report on what happened.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I don’t think we should mention what happened to you.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it, but why not? Maybe he can tell me what’s going on.”

  “I doubt it,” Cate said. “Is there a cafeteria here?”

  “Cafeteria?” Howard was thrown off by the abrupt shift in the conversation. “Yes. In the other wing.”

  “Good. There’s something I need to explain. It might help you understand. Let’s get your dad back to his room, and then I’ll buy you a Coke and fries in the cafeteria.”

  The pair led the unresisting patient back up the stairs and down the hallway to his room. Howard was looking around nervously, examining everything to reassure himself that the world around him was real. He was horribly aware of his peripheral vision, terrified that the blackness would return to hurl him back into the nightmare from which he had just escaped.

  As soon as they had gotten his dad settled back in his bed, and he was staring vacantly at the TV, Dr. Roe showed up.

  “The nurse tells me we had a bit of a breakthrough,” he said, briefly examining Howard’s dad, who paid him no attention whatsoever. “Want to tell me what happened?”

  Together, Howard and Cate related his dad’s reaction to the TV documentary and the walk down to the basement. They kept silent about Howard’s fit.

  “Interesting.” Dr. Roe scratched his chin. “Once patients like your father begin to respond to stimuli, one of the most difficult challenges is working out exactly which ones cause the response. It’s not uncommon for something to trigger a reaction once, but then never again.”

  Dr. Roe went on to explain some of the psychology around his work, but Howard had trouble focusing. He was glad his dad had shown some reactions, but he was confused by their strangeness, and the whole episode was overshadowed by his frightening experience in the basement. He wanted to hear what Cate had to say, hopeful that she would be able to calm his confusions and fears. Maybe even offer some kind of rational explanation and help him toward a decision about what to do next.

  Eventually, Dr. Roe drew his monologue to a close. “Well, at the very least, we know there’s something that can trigger a response in your dad. I’ll see if I can chase up a copy of that documentary. Maybe it’ll provoke a reaction again. In the meantime, I think we should let him rest.”

  AYLFORD

  CAFETERIA CONFESSIONS #1

  The cafeteria was designed like a large 1950s diner. A curving stainless-steel counter, complete with gleaming soda fountain, ran along one wall. Red-leather-topped stools lined the counter, and booths were set against the other walls and clustered in groups in the center. A huge jukebox sat in solitary splendor beside the door.

  Howard
and Cate ordered two drinks and a side of fries from the bored woman behind the counter, paid and chose a booth by the wall. The only other customers were a pair of doctors and a table of four nurses. When Howard’s dad had first been admitted, the young man who took Howard and his mom on a tour of the facility explained that the retro cafeteria was meant to represent a different world—somewhere staff members and patients’ families could escape their stress for a short time. It seemed to work: Howard began to relax in the comforting setting. He dipped a fry in ketchup, almost ready to believe that the world was normal again. Then Cate started talking.

  “What do you remember?” she asked, grabbing a couple of fries for herself.

  Howard wanted to forget, not remember, so his first instinct was to pass the question off with some flippant comment. But Cate looked far too serious for that. Besides, she was the only person in the world he could talk to about this. On the walk to the cafeteria, he’d considered his decision to seek professional help. A part of him thought that doctors would be of no more use to him than they had been to his dad. At least Cate would understand something of what had gone on. She’d been there in the corridor and seen Howard’s attack and his father’s strange reaction.

  “I was in a black tunnel,” Howard began. Once he’d started, he found it impossible to stop. He told Cate about everything: the impenetrable blackness of the disgusting sloping tunnel, the slick beach, the island with its ruins and arch, the ship, the monsters and Madison’s sudden appearance. He described the confusion and horror he’d felt.

  “Did Madison say anything?” Cate interrupted.

  “Yeah. It sounded Chinese, like what she said outside the school.” He tried to remember. “Chungo gong men, or something like that.”

  “Chuanguo gongmen,” Cate said.

  “That’s it. What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘go through the arch.’ What else happened?”

  Howard finished telling Cate about his conversation with Madison and her insistence that she was going back to Leon’s party. As he talked, he realized he had been a lot more worried about what was happening to him than he’d been prepared to admit to himself. It was a huge relief to be able to talk to someone he trusted. Throughout, Cate sat in silence, demolishing the rest of the fries.

  “I’m terrified that I’m going crazy like my dad,” Howard admitted. “And you know, the thing that worries me most is what my dad had to do with it all. That weird TV show did something to him. He led us down to the basement, and he brought me back by chanting those Chinese words. What does that have to do with what happened? Why is everyone speaking some ancient version of Chinese? Why is Madison telling me these things? What book was she talking about? And why did she want me going through that arch?”

  “It’s complicated,” Cate said. She smiled and slurped down the last of her drink. “First off,” she said, “you’re not going crazy—at least, not in the way you think you are.” Howard didn’t find that particularly encouraging, but he said nothing. “What I’m going to tell you will seem really strange and complex. You won’t understand it all, but I don’t either. Just try to keep an open mind, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” Howard agreed. He was prepared to work hard at anything that might explain what was happening to him.

  “Okay. Some of it is easy to explain. That TV show was a documentary about a real place. It’s called Sanxingdui now, but it’s had many names over the centuries. You mentioned that your dad had been to China. Did he go to Sanxingdui?”

  “I don’t know. He went to some high-powered conference at a place called Cheng…something.”

  “Chengdu?” Cate suggested.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Chengdu. He was really thrilled about going, said all the top names in archaeology would be there.” Howard took a sip of his Coke, and Cate waited for him to go on. “Dad would come back from those trips all excited. He would tell Mom and me these cool stories about the digs he’d been on and show us photographs of the stuff that had been found.” Howard smiled. “He could be a bit of a geek. I guess it runs in the family.”

  Cate smiled encouragement, and Howard continued. “But when he came back from Chengdu, he said very little about what he’d done. He told us about the great food and about visiting a panda research sanctuary, but he said nothing about the archaeological work he’d done there. Odd, huh?”

  “Especially since Sanxingdui is one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites in the world, and it’s only an hour’s drive from Chengdu.”

  “So he recognized Sanxingdui in the documentary?”

  Cate nodded. “He must have gone there.”

  “But why did he never talk about it? And why did he have such a reaction to seeing it again? Is Sanxingdui a part of this? If it’s so famous that they’re making documentaries about it, thousands of people must visit it every day. Are they all going crazy?”

  “Sanxingdui is the key, but not the Sanxingdui of today. It’s about something that happened there long ago.”

  “If it happened long ago, how can it have an effect now, and why only on my dad?”

  “It’s not only on your dad. What happened at Sanxingdui is having an impact on you as well.”

  “So I am going mad.”

  “No.” Cate reached across the table and took Howard’s hand. “But what I’m going to tell you might make you wish you were. It’s a long story, and if you believe it, it will take you places where madness will seem like a hoped-for escape. Should I go on?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not if you want to understand.”

  Howard nodded his agreement.

  “We humans like to think that we’re rational and in control of our world. Sure, there are earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions—many natural, sometimes deadly events that we can’t control—but we think we’re in charge of most of what shapes the world and our place in it. We think we’re important, but we’re very, very wrong.”

  Cate paused as if expecting a response.

  “But we do have some control,” Howard said. “We can mess up the world through deforestation, pollution, climate change and wars, or we can make it better through recycling, reforestation and peacekeeping. My mom says the world is a living thing, and we’re placed here to be its custodians.” He couldn’t believe he was quoting his flaky mother, but it seemed appropriate.

  Cate didn’t agree.

  “You and your mother are both wrong. You both think like humans.”

  “How can we not? We are humans.”

  “The trouble with being human is that we can only talk to ourselves, and that’s never a healthy thing to do. We can’t communicate with other species. If you could have a conversation with a whale, for example, you would have a very different view of the world. And what if we could talk to a dinosaur or a trilobite? Creatures from times in the earth’s geological history—they would have told you that they were in control.”

  Howard had no idea what a trilobite was, but he doubted that was important. “But we’re in control now,” he pointed out.

  “To some degree,” Cate acknowledged. “But what if there’s something else? Something that we—or the whales, dinosaurs and trilobites—can’t imagine. Something so powerful that it makes our idea of being in charge seem as stupid as an ant in your backyard thinking it is controlling you.”

  “God?”

  “Not in the way you mean,” Cate said, shaking her head. “Imagine you’re an ant, happily helping your colony build tunnels, look after eggs and collect food. You comfortably believe that you are in charge of your world. One day you’re out dragging back a bit of dead fly. It’s a nice summer afternoon, so the human owner of the backyard comes out to have a barbecue on the patio. They notice your colony and go back inside to put the kettle on. While you’re still struggling with the dead fly and wondering what it all means, a torrent of boiling water descends on your colony and wipes out your world and everyone you have ever known, from the queen on down to the l
owliest worker. As you recoil in horror, desperately trying to hold on to your sanity, the world darkens as the sole of a shoe descends. In the last second of your existence, you realize that you live in a universe of immeasurable, uncaring forces, populated by beings of incalculable power and malignancy who dwarf anything you could ever have imagined.”

  “Whoa,” Howard said, his brow furrowing. “The ant story’s cool, and I’ll never step on one again, but…”

  He waited as Cate stared down at the tabletop. When she looked up, her eyes were hard. “What if we’re the ants?”

  It took Howard a moment to work out what she was saying. “You mean, there’s something out there much more powerful than us? Something that doesn’t care about us and could destroy our world?”

  Cate nodded slowly.

  “So why don’t we know about it?” Howard asked, vaguely wondering if his new friend was as crazy as his dad.

  “Perhaps because it hasn’t come out on the patio yet.” Cate smiled, but Howard didn’t feel like responding in kind. “Look,” she went on, “we know the world only through our five limited senses. To many creatures, the world appears radically different—ants can ‘taste’ chemicals in the air, snakes can ‘see’ heat, some insects can detect ultraviolet light, dogs smell a world we know nothing about. And we’re not even getting into what other senses there might be.”

  “So you’re saying there are monsters out there that we can’t see?” All hope he’d had of Cate providing a rational explanation for what had happened was fast disappearing.

  “If they only reflected ultraviolet light, we would never see them.” She hurried on before Howard could point out that they could still bump into them. “But the real problem is that we cannot see what we cannot imagine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you ever lost your phone?”

  “Sure. Everybody has,” Howard said, instinctively feeling in his pocket to make sure it was there.

  “Okay, so you can’t find your phone. You usually put it on your bedside table, so you go look—not there. Then you remember you went to brush your teeth, so you go look in the bathroom—not there. You were watching TV, so you look on the couch—not there. It must be on the bedside table. You look again, and this time you search the floor in case it fell off—not there.”