The Unseen

by Hines

  IT WAS IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT, IN THE MIDST OF A GROUP OF buildings likely built sometime in the 1950s and ’60s. Lucas immediately knew this because the architecture featured speckled granite offset by large turquoise panels. Every building erected in the fifties and sixties, it seemed, was required to use those turquoise panels, be they schools, hospitals, or office towers.

  This one wasn’t exactly an office tower; it was only three stories high. But it was obviously an office building of some kind. Or had been.

  Lucas started with a walk around the perimeter. He pulled a small spotting scope from his backpack of tricks and examined the front doors from a distance. It was starting to get dark, but he could clearly see the chains barring all the doors. A realty sign hung in the window of one.

  Next he scanned the front of the building, then walked around the back and checked the rear.

  Off the alley he saw three small basement windows, one of which looked to be open a crack. He paused a few minutes to watch for activity, then quickly walked to the window. Just above the window, he saw a symbol he’d seen at the Creep Club Web site: a large M with rounded tops, looking much like a McDonald’s logo.

  He leaned down to push the window open, and now, as he was leaning into the window and looking at the M sideways, he realized it wasn’t an M at all. It was two capital Cs, turned on their sides. CC. Creep Club. Evidently, the folks in the Creep Club believed in signing in—leaving marks for other infiltrators to see.

  Hearing or seeing no activity on the other side of the window, Lucas pushed it open and slipped inside. He dropped to the basement floor without a sound.

  He pushed the window closed behind him again, lit his flashlight, and began walking.

  Everything in the building smelled like mothballs, although he doubted mothballs had ever been used here. That would mean someone cared about something in here, wanted to preserve it, and that obviously wasn’t the case. Maybe he was just smelling mold and rot.

  He fell into a regular pattern. Ten steps, stop and listen, ten steps, stop and listen. Soon his light swept over an elevator shaft and, to the left of it, crumbling stone steps.

  Lucas went up the first two sets of stairs to the propped-open door of the main floor. No activity. He continued to the second floor and checked. Down a long corridor, light spilled out of a room. Voices, and occasional laughter, filtered toward him.

  After memorizing the location of the room, he went up the next two sets of steps to the third floor. The floors were solid poured concrete, so he had no worries about creaking or groaning boards as he walked down the hallway until he came to the room directly above the one the Creep Club occupied on the second floor.

  Some of the windows in this room were broken, and the weather had seeped in. Dark rust stains smeared the walls by the broken windows. Lucas checked the room. No utility chase attached. Not that he’d expected one. A water fountain out in the hallway; he could maybe work with that, hear some of what they were saying, if he had to. But he was hoping for something more promising. He didn’t bother to lie on the floor and try to listen; a couple feet of concrete would insulate the sound too much.

  Okay, he’d have to try an adjacent room on the second floor.

  He retreated down the stairs again and walked quietly down the tiled hallway toward the room where light came spilling out. As he approached, the sounds of the voices grew louder.

  They were meeting in room 227; the door on room 225, just to the south of them, gaped open. Good.

  He crept into 225 and looked around. No broken windows or leakage in this room, but that was about the best you could say for it. A couple of rickety old wooden chairs, a steel desk, some papers littering the floor. Above him the familiar acoustic tile. Whoever invented that stuff must be retired in the Bahamas, living off billions of dollars of income.

  He grabbed one of the chairs and set it by the wall adjacent to room 227. Because this was a poured concrete building, with several beams supporting the weight of each floor, he knew this wall wouldn’t be load-bearing. That meant it probably didn’t even go all the way to the ceiling; instead, it was most likely a partition built of two-byfour framing.

  As Lucas pushed aside the tile, he saw exactly what he wanted: the wall stopped about eight inches from the subfloor of the next story. Some electrical wiring and cables snaked across the space.

  He kept a roll of duct tape in his backpack, and he pulled off a length of it, looped it around his hand, then stretched across the top of the wall to an acoustic panel on the adjacent room. When the tape stuck, he lifted it ever so slightly, being careful not to shake loose any dust. No good. It was wedged tight.

  So be it. He’d just have to listen.

  Right now, he only heard one woman speaking, sotto voce, at odd intervals. As if she were whispering a secret conversation on a phone.

  “Huh? Of course he’s here,” the voice said. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  Pause.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Another pause, then a stifled giggle.

  “Okay, okay. Just this once. I’ll tell him . . . I’ll tell him I’m running to the store for milk.”

  Lucas heard a click and saw cracks of light coming up through pinholes and cracks in the acoustic tile. Someone had turned on the overhead fluorescents.

  Now a man’s voice spoke, much clearer and louder. “And that is the latest chapter in the Kiernan family saga.”

  Scattered chuckles, followed by applause.

  Lucas realized that they had been watching a taped phone conversation. On a TV, maybe? Or a projector? That’s why the lights had come on after the woman finished speaking.

  “Yeah, Hoffman,” the man’s voice said below.

  “What’d you shoot that with?”

  “I knew you’d ask that.” A few more chuckles. “I shot it with an M10 Minicam, using night vision settings. It’s tiny, and it shoots well in low light. Adds some grain, but I think that goes nicely with the story line, don’t you?”

  What was this? The Creep Club was screening foreign movies or something? They were an amateur video club? A group of America’s Funniest Home Videos enthusiasts?

  A new voice. “Okay, thanks, Hondo. Next is Clarice, who’s working on an interesting project up in Georgetown.”

  Clarice began to speak, and Lucas realized, finally, what he was listening to. These weren’t just your garden variety creepers who broke into public buildings and office spaces. They’d taken it a dangerous step further, creeping into private homes. And on top of that, they were recording the residents of those homes, then sharing the recordings with other members of the group.

  Lucas shuddered. “Creep” Club suddenly seemed all too accurate.

  And yet.

  As repulsive as it was, it was somehow also fascinating. Even now, part of him wanted to be in the room below, vicariously creeping into the homes of others with the assembled group watching. The unquestioned line that had always been drawn in his own mind was now wavering like a mirage. What did that say about his code of ethics, that he suddenly had this thirst for something he’d always found unthinkable before? He was like a pacifist who had killed for the first time and found he liked the sight of blood.

  Lucas shuddered.

  Suddenly he needed very much to get away, far away from this place. He backed out of the ceiling, off the chair, and quietly slipped down the hallway and stairs into the fresh air outside.

  He took a couple deep breaths, feeling as if he’d just barely escaped being swallowed by something gigantic and terrifying. And yet, he longed to be swallowed.

  He needed more answers, but he couldn’t be this close to the Creep Club right now; it was radioactive, at once exciting and dangerous, and he wasn’t equipped to handle it.

  Without consciously deciding, he began moving toward the Metro, planning a return trip to Donavan’s apartment.

  FIVE

  THE YOUNG BOY FEELS THE STRAPS ON HIS WRISTS AND ANKLES AS
HEawakes, but he makes no effort to free himself. It’s useless, he knows, as he lies still with his eyes closed. More than once he’s managed to work his way free, but always finds himself unable to escape the large room of steel. There is a seam on the wall where a door opens into his room, but no handle of any kind; the door has to be opened from the outside.

  And the giant mirror on the adjacent wall is there too. Behind that mirror, he knows, are eyes that are always watching him. Studying him.

  Knowing this, the boy lies quietly. Waiting. Listening. Trying to sift his mind for memories of his earlier childhood. It’s something he always does, this attempt to remember. He never finds anything. Every fiber of his existence, it seems, is tied to this giant room; his only past recollections involve long sessions listening to odd sounds and sequences played on a brand-new record player while images from a slide projector play on the mirrored wall in front of him, grueling tests filled with odd questions and statements followed by shocks he can feel in his brain and his bones.

  And, of course, the needles.

  The needles have been a constant companion for so very long. He’s been injected everywhere: his arms, stomach, thighs. He’s been subjected to liquids of every color inside those large syringes.

  He hears the steel door whisk open and a person enter the room.

  “How did you sleep?” a voice asks him. It’s the voice of the man who calls himself Raven, the only real, live person the boy has seen or heard for . . . he doesn’t know how long. Certainly he must have seen other people, talked to other people, sometime before. A mother and father, at least. But he can only remember Raven. Raven has always been his entire universe.

  The young boy refuses to answer. He doesn’t feel like talking. Instead he listens as Raven returns to the door, knocks, then wheels in the metal cart holding the syringes. The young boy doesn’t need to see this to know what’s going on, because he’s seen it so many times before.

  After a few moments he feels a pinprick, this one in the bottom of his bare foot. Without meaning to, he speaks. “A bee,” he says, not quite realizing he’s said it out loud.

  “What’s that?” Raven asks him.

  The young boy opens his eyes, stares at the man injecting a purple liquid into his foot. “The needle. It feels like a bee sting.”

  A smile creases Raven’s face, the horrible smile the young boy has seen too often. “Funny you should say that,” Raven says, returning his attention to the syringe.

  “Why?”

  Finished, Raven pulls the needle out of the boy’s foot, sets down the syringe.

  “Because this medicine,” Raven says, “is something like bee venom. More of a wasp venom, a synthetic version we’ve been able to produce in the lab.”

  Raven pauses, smiles again as he pats the top of the young boy’s foot. “But of course, you don’t need to know all that. You only need to know it’s medicine that will make you feel better.”

  The boy watches in silence as Raven wheels the cart back to the door and knocks again. Raven always tells him the injections are medicine to make him feel better, but he knows this is a lie.

  He knows, because he never gets better.

  SIX

  AN HOUR LATER, LUCAS WAS BACK AT DONAVAN’S APARTMENT. AFTER letting himself in the front door, he went into the kitchen, checked the phone messages (nothing new), and spent a few more minutes exploring the apartment. Surely there was more to be discovered here, and it would probably be another hour at least until Donavan was back; Lucas had left while they were in the middle of the meeting. As he searched the apartment he thought about the Creep Club, the pull he was feeling from two directions. Was the Creep Club dangerous, unsavory, deadly? Yes. Was it exciting, enticing, intoxicating? Yes.

  As he pondered, he heard the deadbolt of Donavan’s front door turning for the second time that day. He froze in the middle of the living room. Quickly, he looked around; no immediate hiding spots.

  Donavan had returned from his meeting, and Lucas was about to be discovered. He listened as the door swung open, then shut again.

  The deadbolt slid back into place.

  He could hear Donavan humming; obviously he had his iPod cranked once more. That meant he couldn’t hear. Lucas could slip down the hall, get into the back bedroom—

  But then Donavan strolled around the corner, a bag of chips in his hand. He looked up as he entered the living room and flipped on the lights—

  And saw Lucas, prompting him to drop the chips.

  Lucas smiled as Donavan popped out his earbuds. A few moments of silence, then Lucas nodded toward the bag on the floor. “Those things will kill you.”

  Donavan stood, staring and speechless. His eyes darted around the room for a few seconds before they held Lucas’s gaze again. “I think you’re what’s gonna kill me. What, do you make it your mission to pop out of dark places and scare people?”

  “One of my missions.”

  “What are you doing here?” Donavan bent down to pick up his bag of chips, then moved slowly to a chair opposite the sofa.

  “Tell me about Creep Club.”

  Donavan took a handful of chips, stuffed them in his mouth.

  “Creep Club? Hmmm, doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “Rings a few bells on your computer. You seem to visit the forums quite a bit. How was the meeting, by the way? Lovely space, that Stranahan Building.”

  Donavan slowly munched his chips, studying Lucas. After a few moments, his shoulders slumped and his body relaxed. Lucas could tell he was going to come clean. Or at least pretend to.

  “Snake said some bad juju was gonna happen. You bad juju?”

  “Nah. I’m Humpty, remember?”

  Donavan started to dig around in his teeth with his tongue, trying to dislodge food stuck there. Lucas had to admit, the man made a quick recovery; he didn’t seem too surprised or flustered to have a stranger sitting in his living room.

  Donavan held out the bag of chips, offering some to Lucas. Lucas shook his head, but continued to stare. Waiting.

  Donavan sucked air between his teeth a few times, dislodging more food, before speaking again. “How much do you know?”

  “How much is there to know? Let’s start with Snake. Who is he?”

  “He’s kind of the de facto head of the . . . um . . . organization, I guess. Pulled the original members together. Recruited me a few years ago. Well, didn’t really recruit me, but let me in.” He paused. “Guess it’s like a family, because we understand each other. Most of us, we’ve been doing this for years. Since we were kids. I bet you did too.”

  Lucas ignored the remark. “What about Hondo, Clarice, Hoffman, Boomer?” he said, reciting all the names he’d picked up online and in the meeting.

  Donavan did a better job of hiding his shock, but Lucas saw a flash of it. “Man, you got the membership roll memorized?”

  Lucas thought of the contact list he’d found on Donavan’s computer. A membership roll.

  “They’re all members, but Snake’s the one you gotta talk to if you want in. The Creep Club was kinda his idea. A way for us to trade techniques, stories, ideas. A way for us to get inside places we never been inside of, you see? I can creep into a lot of places on my own, but I can creep into a lot more places with the others in the club. You know, live it through their eyes.”

  “So it’s a support group. A twelve-step program for Peeping Toms.”

  Donavan made a sour face. “Please. You creeping into spaces so you can get a peek at women changing their bras? This is . . . this is a way of life, man.”

  “I don’t infiltrate homes. Just public buildings.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why you broke into my apartment, and you’re quizzing me about the club. You’re not interested at all, huh?”

  Lucas stayed silent.

  “Well,” Donavan continued, “we do the public places. I mean—you saw me in the steam tunnel, didn’t you? Trying to do a bit of old school, and look what it got me.” Donavan shook his h
ead, leaned back in his chair, getting more comfortable.

  “Look, after a while, you need a bit more of a rush. There’s something . . . I don’t know . . . magic about being in someone’s house. On the opposite side of the wall, listening to a husband and wife argue about finances. Overhearing little Johnny at the dinner table, talking about the game he pitched. So much of this”—Donavan swept his arm around the room—“this stuff around us is fake. Fake ads, fake news, fake lives lived in the public. I’m fake, and you’re fake when we know we’re around other people. But in their homes. That’s when people are real.”

  Lucas understood what Donavan was saying. Understood it a little too much to be comfortable.

  “You get hungry for reality. And then, once you taste it, you get addicted to it.”

  Despite his effort at aloofness and coolness, things that usually came to him so naturally, Lucas felt himself being drawn in by the pep talk. He’d felt these things inside his own mind, inside his own body, but never allowed himself to acknowledge them. The public buildings . . . the thrill wasn’t exactly wearing off, but he’d been hungering for something different. Something more. He just didn’t know what. Until now.

  And now that he knew, he wished he didn’t.

  Donavan grinned. “Yeah. You know just what I’m talking about. I can see it in your eyes. You gotta join us.”

  “I’m not part of any club. I work alone.”

  Donavan picked up his bag of chips again, rummaged round in them, stuffed a few into his mouth. “No, seriously. I saw that stuff you did in the steam tunnel—the parkour moves. You’re, like, ten times better than anyone else in the club. You’d kill, man. Everyone would be asking you to show them how to do your stuff.”

  Lucas pondered. Parkour. A cousin of free running, both of them dedicated to moving through urban environments as quickly as possible. He wasn’t into parkour or free running any more than he was officially a creeper, but he identified with the people who were. In an odd way, Donavan’s offer sounded . . . enticing. It would be nice to be appreciated by someone for this thing he’d never been able to share with anyone else. When he noticed Donavan staring at him expectantly, he shook his head and leaned back in his seat.