“Sorry, but I have no interest,” Crisk said sharply.
“Please reconsider. No need to be hasty. Think about it. I’ll call you back tomorrow or whenever is convenient. You see it’s not possible for you to phone us, it’s against protocol.”
“Do not call again. How did you obtain my number at home? Intrusion of privacy: will advise telephone company of this outrage. . .”
“Let me be frank with you, Mr Crisk. We checked. We know that what you said about your friends coming to take you from the seminar was just a monologue you’d created. You see we have lists of your calls; the Phone Company understood it was for your own good. Their managers and employees found a recent Glyphotech seminar of great use in reconstructing their . . .”
Crisk hung up. Then he dialled the operator’s number.
“Hello operator?” He said. “I am Franklyn Crisk, calling from phone 456 67304. I wish to report unwelcome intrusion of privacy by Glyphotech Recon . . .”
“Of course, Sir,” a dull voice cut in; “I’ll transfer you to the appropriate department.”
But the number he was transferred to just rang and rang without ever being answered. And when he spoke to the operator for a second time all that happened was that he was transferred nearly immediately to the unanswered line again, without even being given the opportunity to finish uttering a complete sentence. After the seventh attempt he gave up.
A scant two days later Crisk realised that what he had at first taken for amused condescension on the part of O’Hara and his office colleagues was the primary stage of tactical psychological warfare. Crisk suspected that he had initially been given the benefit of the doubt. Their self-belief in the validity of Glyphotech’s reconstruction seminar made them think that he would eventually come to embrace its tenets, despite his faltering start and refusal to co-operate. But as the days passed and he was still clearly as antagonistic to the idea as he had been when he’d walked out of the seminar in front of everyone, their attitude changed slightly. Although never outwardly hostile it became obtrusive. Scarcely an hour would pass without some employee making a remark about how Glyphotech’s technology had improved their lives beyond recognition, how much happier they were in their work, or how much they were looking forward to socialising with their fellow seminar attendees. These comments were made deliberately within Crisk’s earshot, presumably with the intention of making him feel left out, peculiar or downright freakish in not having realised its benefits.
John Collins, or some other Glyphotech devotee, still telephoned him at his flat, sometimes three or four times an evening, but Crisk would cut the conversation short by slamming down the receiver the moment he recognised the voice. That they had resorted to using a rota of individuals so that he was off-guard when he answered almost drove him to distraction. And Crisk’s attempts to contact the Phone Company and have the matter dealt with proved as futile as before. He was beginning to believe it really was just another branch of the Glyphotech phenomenon.
Although these developments were unnerving enough in themselves, they were not as unnerving as the fact that Crisk discovered he was being watched. A Glyphotech Reconstruction Company van had parked itself on the street directly opposite the building in which his flat was situated. In the evenings, when Crisk glanced out of his window, it was always there, a dirty green vehicle with white-faced operatives clearly visible through the windscreen, who peered up at him with eyes like dark smudges.
Another week passed. Crisk had given the Mare Publishing Company no excuse to terminate his employment, since he ensured that his work and time keeping were beyond reproach. O’Hara and his colleagues became increasingly resentful of his intransigence and their former cheerfulness seemed somehow brittle, as if his own presence was a factor in their discomfort. Whether this was the case or not, he was sure they would never dare admit to it. He began to suspect that the persons who had completed the seminar and who claimed to have got the most from it harboured a real sense of dread at letting Glyphotech down by admitting any tiny doubt as to the success of their psychological reconstruction. All of them were now paying considerable amounts of money in order to attend advanced courses. The Mare Publishing Company gave interest-free loans to those who could not afford to pay so that their continued participation was ensured.
The effect the stress had upon Crisk was that he suffered episodes of insomnia. Still, he felt some comfort, at least, from the fact that the Glyphotech rota of phone callers had finally ceased their campaign to persuade him to change his mind. However, when at work, and when walking home to his flat from the office, he thought he detected unusually intense and hate-filled stares from passers-by. Moreover, he could not rid himself of the persistent notion that he saw alarming physiognomic alterations in large numbers of the people whom he encountered. Those who stared at him for too long seemed to be developing black smudged eyes that were sinking back into their sockets, whilst their hands, digits and fingernails were of a horribly abnormal length.
An open-top lorry carrying scaffolding equipment had recently joined the van parked outside Crisk’s flat. The lorry also bore the Glyphotech logo emblazoned across both its sides. Crisk had noticed that the company had recently added scaffolding to its ever-growing list of enterprises. It made some vague sense, seeing as they had, he’d read in a newspaper, secured contracts to refurbish a large number of buildings throughout the city. The latticed scaffolding structures and plastic-sheeted fronts with their logo were becoming evident almost everywhere one looked.
Although Crisk hoped that this new activity might, at least, divert some of their energies away from their bogus psychological reprogramming of the populace, he tried to avoid passing buildings fronted by the Glyphotech scaffolding as much as possible. From behind the sheets of opaque white plastic attached to the poles and clamps, he clearly heard the sound of scratching, as if dozens of long fingernails were clawing over and over again at glass, brick and concrete.
In order to calm his nerves after his fractious working day, Crisk would often pass a couple of hours drinking in a bar in a back street close to the Mare Publishing Company’s offices. None of the other employees spent time at this bar anymore; teetotalism being Glyphotech protocol. It was a quiet, dark place, and good for quiet reflection.
As he sat there sipping a pint of beer, a man whose head was wrapped in bandages entered. Crisk tried not to stare but couldn’t help pity the fellow. He must have been involved in quite a nasty accident. Instead of going up to the counter, however, the stranger made straight for Crisk and slumped in the seat directly opposite him.
“How are you, Crisk?” he said in a voice that, though croaky, Crisk recognised as belonging to the former Mare employee David Hogg.
“I have troubles,” Crisk replied, “but none to compare to your own, I think. You have met with an accident, I suppose. It is very unfortunate, especially coming after your dismissal.”
Hogg’s eyes, staring out through holes in the bandages, were watery. Beneath the wrappings there seemed to be neither a nose nor cheeks, only deep hollows. He spoke again:
“I thought that those at Mare who didn’t succumb to the Glyphotech brainwashing might come in here now and again for a drink. The converts hate the stuff of course. But I admit that I didn’t think you personally would reject the seminar, seeing as you were such a loyal company man.”
Crisk wasn’t certain whether Hogg was complimenting or denigrating him, perhaps a mixture of both.
“Glyphotech repulsive organisation,” Crisk said, “attack free thought, harasses ones who speak against it. Any honourable man who understands duty would do as I did.”
“Could you buy me a drink, Crisk? I’m sorry to ask. But I have no money, and I need one rather badly. In return I’ll give you some advice. It’s a small price to pay in exchange, believe me.”
“Advice? Explain please.”
“After the drink.” Hogg responded.
Crisk returned to the table with another beer fo
r himself and a double Scotch and soda for Hogg. He guzzled the amber fluid rapidly through the mouth-slit in his wrappings, spilling a few drops onto the bandage around his chin.
“How far into the seminar did you get?” Hogg asked, putting the half-empty glass down.
“First day, about five hours. Left when . . .”
“I did the whole day,” Hogg cut in, “and most of the next. They nearly got me. That was back before I joined Mare. I left my previous job because I saw what the Glyphotech seminar did to the company. But Glyphotech wouldn’t let me reject what it was offering. They kept phoning me at home, and then my office colleagues ostracised me for not enrolling, since they themselves had all done so. By now, you must be experiencing something similar.”
Crisk nodded. He felt a deep sense of shame at having badly misjudged Hogg.
“They no longer ring me,” Crisk responded.
Hogg seemed to be agitated rather than soothed by the news.
“You realise they don’t actually have a working centre of operations, don’t you?” Hogg continued. “I mean, they say they do. But it’s just an empty old office somewhere with a desk and a telephone and no one around to answer it. The calls they harass you with don’t come from there. I don’t even know if that swine Ebbon has ever been to the office. It’s against protocol to ask about the place.”
The bandaged man reached for the remains of his Scotch and soda and downed it with a single gulp.
“Another, how about?” Crisk asked him.
“Get the bottle,” Hogg replied; coughing a little as the alcohol made his throat tighten.
The two men drank heavily.
“You know,” Hogg said, his voice slightly slurred by the booze, “what happens on day two? They tell you about the core of their mental technology. The bastards repeat their propaganda over and over again, until it begins to make sense, until, as they say – you reach the understanding. It’s called the suicide-resolution. Funny isn’t it, in a grim way? The suicide-resolution. When you accept that final piece of the jigsaw, you belong to them, utterly and totally. I didn’t. What they tell attendees is that the suicide-resolution is the secret of extracting the maximum joy from life, living each day like your last: because soon it really will be. And everyone, by then, is so brainwashed they believe it.”
“Too fantastic: ask people to kill themselves?” Crisk responded, “such things cannot be, except in trashy horror tales of the worst type. Why not inform the police?”
“You don’t understand, they RUN everything.” Hogg spluttered, “Anyway, you didn’t get as far into it as I did. By day two you’ll swallow all they say. Brainwashing only works when the victims refuse to accept they’ve been brainwashed. The suicide-resolution is bad enough, but it’s what comes after that’s even worse. Things don’t end there; suicide’s just the beginning. The technology somehow works on parts of the brain we don’t normally use. It ensures you come back afterwards so that they can carry on with the reconstruction process, carry on with it even after you’re dead. Glyphotech never let go. Never, ever.”
Crisk suspected Hogg had gone mad. He was pointing to the bandages in which his head was swathed.
“I’m telling you, they nearly had me, Crisk! Leave while you still can. Don’t hang around like I did. Those ghouls managed to get to my face before I . . .”
Crisk stumbled to his feet. He didn’t care whether Hogg was telling the truth or not: he could take no more, and left the bar without looking back.
“. . . get out of the city, Crisk,” Hogg cried behind him. “When they stop calling you it means they’ll take more drastic measures.”
The next day Crisk left the Mare Publishing Company for good. What Hogg had told him the previous night made a horrible kind of sense, even if he could not accept every word of it as literal truth.
He had, however, noted the same physiognomic mutations occurring in his office colleagues that he’d observed develop in the people on the streets. Perhaps it was some disease, but he was baffled at the fact no one had commented upon its having been allowed to spread unchecked.
He would quit his job without giving notice, go home, pack some of his belongings in a couple of suitcases and leave the city by the first available train out. Unless he took this decisive action he felt he might well trip over the edge of reason and go completely insane, as Hogg had done. He told no one of his plans and walked out of the Mare Publishing Company at 6pm as usual.
Only O’Hara saw him depart and, to Crisk’s horror, his boss raised a hand with abnormally long digits and nails and gave him a mock-ironic farewell wave. There was a horrible knowing smile beneath his smudgy eyes.
It was a 10-minute walk, at a leisurely pace, from the office to Crisk’s flat. But he covered the distance in half that time, breaking into a trot as often as he could and only slowing to a normal pace when breathless. Already he was going over in his mind what he would take with him: the bare essentials, cash he’d saved for an emergency, some clothing, toiletries and perhaps one or two treasured items he’d brought back from Kyoto; his tea-set and sake bowls. Yes, they had “wabi” and could not be left behind.
Crisk tried to avoid looking at the people he passed in the street and at the buildings. He knew the way almost by instinct in any case. When, however, he finally reached his flat he saw, with a jolt of panic, that Glyphotech scaffolding covered the front of the building all the way to the top. On the other side of the street the truck with the poles was no longer there, though the other vehicle, the dirty green van, remained. However there didn’t seem to be any Glyphotech operatives inside.
Had he not needed the cash he’d put away in the drawer of his bureau for the train-fare, he would have abandoned any notion of going up to his flat, deeming the risk too great. Instead, he stood out on the street and then cautiously moved towards the sheets and poles, straining his ears to detect noise from within the structure. He waited for several minutes, but heard nothing. Perhaps, if he were quick, he might get in and out without being noticed. Crisk always bolted his windows from the inside and was confident that any break-in would have aroused too much attention, so he doubted that intruders were lying in wait for him within the flat itself.
He let himself in through the front door, passed along the hallway and ascended the stairs. The light bulbs had blown on the second floor, so he had to pass through a pool of darkness before reaching the third where his own flat was situated. Unlocking it quietly, he opened the door halfway, reached in and turned on the light switch just to the right of the entrance. Then he entered.
Everything was as he’d left it that morning and he saw, with relief, that the windows were still bolted and closed. The scaffold platform and its opaque plastic sheeting closed off the usual view. But there was no one out there. He left the door slightly ajar behind him for a quick exit should it prove necessary.
After removing the cash from his bureau and transferring it to his wallet, he took two suitcases from underneath his bed and began packing them as swiftly as he was able. The tea-set and sake bowls were the most troublesome, as they were quite delicate and required careful wrapping in layers of newspaper.
Then he heard loud scuffling noises. Several people seemed to be frantically climbing the ladders that led from one platform of the scaffolding to the next. They were headed in his direction; there could be no doubt about it. Crisk spun around to the door, his only escape route, and saw a horribly long hand snaking around the edge, as if someone were about to push it open and enter his flat. He dashed across the room in and tried to jam the door shut, trapping the hand. It was attenuated and spider-like, and the fingers twitched convulsively as Crisk put all his weight into his shoulder, ultimately succeeding in forcing the door shut. As it closed tight, the digits on the hand squashed and broke off as if made from damp putty.
Directly behind him Crisk heard the sound of fingernails scratching upon the window-pane. He turned and saw half a dozen deathly-white faces leering through the glass. The thin
gs were all clawing idiotically at the surface.
Crisk picked up the telephone and frantically dialled the operator. He was transferred to another line at once, without saying a word, and heard the familiar ringing tone begin. Perhaps if he could get through to Glyphotech, he hoped, if he could persuade them he’d changed his mind, there might still be a chance.
“Answer it,” he mumbled to himself, “answer it, answer it . . .”
Just before the window shattered and the things crawled over the sill towards him, raking their hellish fingernails across everything they touched, Crisk thought of the dusty and empty office, long disused, where an unattended telephone rang and rang.
HOLLY PHILLIPS
One of the Hungry Ones
HOLLY PHILLIPS LIVES AND WRITES in a crooked little house overlooking the Columbia River in the mountains of western Canada.
She is the author of the critically acclaimed story collection In the Palace of Repose and the dark fantasy novel The Burning Girl, both published by Prime Books, as well as many stories and poems which have been appeared in such diverse magazines as The New Quarterly and Asimov’s. This is her first appearance in print outside the North American continent.
The author is currently revising a fantasy novel called The Engine’s Child whilst simultaneously researching her next book, a slipstream novel entitled Before the Age of Miracles.
“I wrote ‘One of the Hungry Ones’ over a couple of grey and rainy days in June 2002,” recalls Phillips. “My dear cat Calypso, who had shared my home for seven years, had disappeared, and although the people and events in the story are wholly imaginary, I think the sense of loneliness was very real to me that summer. As was the idea of hunting and being hunted, perhaps, since I have always supposed that Calypso, a talented mouser, became a larger predator’s prey. Although we seldom saw the coyotes, bobcats and cougars prowling the hills behind the house, we always knew they were there.”
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