Chapter 5 - Up and Down

5. Up and Down

        She waved me in with a healthy pink smile.

        “Has anyone tried to break in?  Has anyone called?” I asked immediately.

        “What?  No. Nothing, flat, zero.  Just another boring day,” she answered, stepping aside so I could enter my own living room.  “What happened?”

        I told Erika everything.

        “Very interesting,” Erika said in a faux-German accent.  “If I didn’t know you, I’d say it was made up.”

        “It wasn’t made up.  I swear it really happened.  They could be coming here right now.”

        “And you just lost the key to the backup tape that Escher wanted?” she asked. 

        “No one ever looks in there, I swear.”

        “That seems very opportune,” she said wryly.  “So where is it?”

        “On the bus, on the curb somewhere, in this house… I don’t know,” I said miserably.  “He has my wallet, Erika! I can’t believe it.”  I collapsed backwards onto the couch.

        Erika stepped up behind the couch and put her hands on my shoulders.  The feeling was electrifying.  I could feel her long nails digging into my skin as she kneaded my muscles. “And you were worried for me and not yourself?” she asked.  “That’s sweet.”

        “Yeah, I guess so.  I’m God, after all.  I gotta watch out for my disciples.”  Occasionally I played along with her.  I was getting more familiar with the system. 

        “Well…” she said, tracing a finger up and down my shoulder.  This made my face heat up with burning, chemically unstable blood.  “I’m okay, so don’t worry about it.  They won’t come here.”  I was uncomfortable with her standing behind me. I wished she’d get on the couch.

        “I don’t know if I want to go back,” I admitted.

        The phone rang rudely, interrupting us. 

        Erika picked it up from its receiver and immediately pressed it back down, hanging up abruptly. “We don’t need that right now.  But c’mon, it isn’t so bad.  Be tough.  He’s gone. If he wanted to come for you, he’d be here, right? I say stand your ground.  Tough this one out.”

        She had one strong argument. There wasn’t exactly a lot of space to run, and if I upended my life, I’d most likely never get it back.

        “You’ll have to go get your ID alone though. I don’t think I should go back there,” she said, grinning now at the memory of almost shooting up a crowded government building.

        My shoulders slumped.  It seemed unfair, but I stopped arguing because I knew it was only making me look more afraid than I already was.  I was so focused on my confrontation with Escher that I didn’t even notice when Erika started tenderly rubbing my earlobe.  I brushed her hand away reflexively.  There is nothing sexy about thinking you are going to die.

        I could feel my heart stomping against the walls of my chest.  Even though I was safely at home, I felt like I was hiding in some narrow space between the walls as Escher stalked after me, gun in hand.  Every shadow looked like the bulky tree-shaped Strangers with their flowing coats and tall, pointed hats.

        I looked at Erika, chewing on a piece of her hair and doing a crossword puzzle.  She didn’t believe a word of what I’d said. 

        *

        I woke up the next morning still groggy from my fitful sleep.

        I got up in time for work out of habit, even though I still wasn’t set on going.  Stepping foot back in that office bothered me in some profound way; it didn’t feel like the same place anymore. 

        “Fine then,” Erika said suddenly as I sipped the coffee she always had brewing in the kitchen.  “We’ll both go, if you aren’t going to get dressed.”

        “I don’t want to go,” I told her.  “Escher could come back for me.”

        “God is a lot of things,” she said, “but I don’t think God’s supposed to be, y’know, such a p***y.”

        “Is that what you think of me?”

        “Sometimes,” she said plainly.

        “I don’t think you get it.  It’s the goddamn Serengeti out there, and I know I’m a leaf eater.  So how do the herbivores stay alive?  They stay alert, they run, and they don’t take risks.  They see that danger coming a mile away.” 

        “And they stick together,” Erika said.  “So is that how you see yourself?  A gazelle?” 

        “Actually I was thinking rabbit, but that does sound better.”

        “Sorry if that sounded mean,” Erika said.  “I understand.  You grew up in a dangerous time.”

        “I’ve seen a lot,” I said.  “I’ve seen what happens to heroes.  You ever see a heroic gazelle?  That’s what the hyenas want.  And for the record, I think God must be terrified of a lot of things.”

        “As for my Lord, He is what He is.  It is not my place to question what He does, but please go on anyway, sir.”  Her hands were clasped together in her lap as she gazed downwards at my spotless kitchen floor.

        “God must be scared of failure, right?  He must be afraid of what his own creations think of Him.  Otherwise, why would He go through so much trouble to impress?  Why would He make himself known at all?”

        “Perhaps,” Erika said simply.  She looked up and changed tact suddenly. “I picked out some clothes for you, if you want to get dressed.  I’ll go with you. I want to see this bullet hole that you somehow miraculously survived"a real miracle.  Maybe this Escher thinks you’re dead.”

        I brightened a bit at the thought.  He hadn’t really looked to see if he’d missed or not when he shot at me, so maybe he just assumed he’d hit me. It didn’t make me feel completely at ease, but it helped some. 

        I didn’t particularly want Erika to come to work with me, but I wasn’t sure she completely believed my story.  I wanted to show her the bullet hole so she’d have no choice.

        We rode the bus side by side as we left my tidy neighborhood and approached the ever-looming metropolis of downtown Banlo Bay.  The skyscrapers gleamed against the morning sun; the city was a shining testament to mankind’s continued insistence on survival.  The city itself had sprung from where Houston once sat and grown northwest away from the Gulf.  The bay was as forgotten as the marshlands, but the name was as insistent on a proper existence as the rest of the city.

        Policemen had become highwaymen as the Fed had gone bankrupt; schools had no teachers, and prisons had no wardens.  If the water you drank and the food you ate didn’t make you sick, the air would kill you.  To me, it was as though all of the politicians and movers and shakers and honest citizens and good people of America had watched every aspect of their lives turn into a sick satire of itself, and only after the war was lost had they gathered together on the outskirts of downtown Banlo Bay and yelled “Stop!”

        The wealthiest of residents could afford to live in the actual downtown area, but most of us regular folk had to make due living in the area immediately surrounding the central city.  It was unfortunate, because when the gates slammed shut, there was no doubt downtown was all that would be left standing.

        “I hate the city,” Erika said.

        “I love it.  It's so orderly, so clean and shiny.  Makes me feel like the world still exists, you know? I think the world has just changed, that's all.”

        “Not into a world I want to live in,” I sighed.  “I want neighbors, barbecue, and a normal dog.” 

        “You want to live in the 1950s?”

        “Definitely.  You gotta admit, it beats this.”

        “It wouldn’t be the same if I knew it was all going to end,” Erika said sadly.

        “But still"no s**t, no fan.  Sounds dreamy to me.”  

        “Fair enough,” Erika said.  “Is this where you work?”
“This is it,” I said.  We could only see the first few floors from the bus, and the giant charcoal-colored tower took up a full city block.  It was surrounded by dozens of towers just like it, but none stood taller than Tasumec.

        We stepped out into view of the tower and climbed the stairs up to the ground level.  The tower went underground ten stories as well, and I could see people milling about below us. 

        “This is my elevator,” I said, walking her into the cool breeze of the lobby.

        “Is this where the fighting happened?” she asked. 

        “Yeah, right here.  Actually, I think two cops died right over there.”  I splayed my hand out in the direction of the doors we’d just walked through.  “It’s so bizarre. It’s like it never happened.”

        Erika was uncharacteristically silent and only nodded her head.  I wondered if she thought this was all some elaborate ruse to impress her. 

        There was still the bullet hole.

        The elevator doors slid open. 

        The common area was full of security guards on break.  I walked past them with Erika in tow. I wasn’t really planning on doing any work today. I just wanted to show Ms. Bronton around the office.  Afterwards, I’d leave early and just count it as a sick day like I’d never arrived. 

        “So, this is me,” I said.  The door swung open, and I gawked at the unblemished floor.  A small square of patched carpet was the only evidence of my adventure.  “Well, that’s kind of a letdown.  Still, though, check it out"a new patch of carpet.  That’s pretty exciting, right?” I said lamely, my moment robbed. 

        Erika pranced around the small office lovingly, despite the fact that I’d let her down.

        “One minute. I gotta tell my boss I’m not going to be staying today.  Give me a second, and please don’t touch anything.”

        I left the office and walked hurriedly down the hall to find the shift supervisor.  The plain beige halls were empty, even when the tower was fully staffed, and my own footsteps were the only sound I could detect.  Still, I couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling that I was being watched.

        I knew when I was being watched.  It was a finely attuned skill I had; I'd spent my whole life honing it on everyone I’d ever met.

        I made myself ignore the rising terror.  It was difficult for me, but since there was obviously no one else in the narrow hallway, I forced myself to keep going.  I told myself over and over again that it was just my paranoia. 

        I reached my aging supervisor’s office and gave him my message.  He waved me off with a noncommittal “Feel better,” and I was on my way.

        I hurried to where Erika was.  “C’mon,” I said.  “There’s not much else to do here, but I’ll show you where we can get some good dumplings.”

        Erika was spinning around in my chair, her legs extending from her khaki shorts like the stamen of an exotic bloom.  The entire room smelled different when she was there.

        ”I’m sorry about the letdown,” I said, motioning to the floor.

        “It’s alright, Clark.  You don’t need a bullet hole to impress me.” 

        *

        I went to work alone for the rest of the week, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, of waiting for the hatchet to swing down on me.

        The sensation never happened in the same place twice; the feeling seemed to strike at random.  I was eating lunch in the common area once, and I couldn’t shake the sensation until I hid in the bathroom"and only then did I finally feel safe.

        There was no question about it. I was being watched. I kept my mouth shut about it though, knowing nothing I could say would make me seem sane.

        One morning later in the week, I was startled to find that the door to my office was unlocked.  Normally it automatically locked anytime it was closed, necessitating a key for each entry.  As I twisted the knob and prepared to push, I nearly s**t myself when I felt the door being pulled from the inside. 

        I couldn’t see a hand on the door even as it was wrenched out of my hands and pulled fully open.  I felt something brush into me, and suddenly there was a part of a man in front of me.  Despite his only half-visible body, he was the most ordinary looking person I’d ever seen.

        I realized why I felt like I’d been watched all week.  This diminutive man was so normal, so absolutely unnoticeable, that I couldn’t possibly see him until he bumped into me.  Even now, he was only faintly visible. If I stopped concentrating on him, he would begin to fade from my attention, and for a confused moment, I found myself wondering why I was afraid of the door in the first place.

        “Where are the hard drives?” he asked.  Suddenly, he became much more solid; he had a very recognizable, nasally voice. 

        “They’re inside,” I stuttered.  “In the big steel cage.” 

        “They’re not in there,” he said.  “Escher wants them.  You’re hiding them.  You’re in way over your head, Clark.”

        “What does Escher want?  I’ll do anything,” I pleaded.  “Please tell him I’m sorry.”

        “Sorry won’t cut it.”  The man shook his head.  “He hasn’t told me to kill you yet, but I bet the next time I come out here, it’ll be to finish you off.” 

        I gulped. “I don’t know where the hard drives are if they aren’t in there.  I promise.  You have to believe me.”

        “I don’t,” he said.  “So my advice to you is to brace yourself.  Escher is going to cast a plague on you worse than Columbus did America.”

        He stepped out of the doorway of my office and began walking toward the main lobby.  As he reached the area where other people stood milling about, he began to vanish from my view.  I tried to focus on his hand or his shoes, and each time, I’d find my attention diverted to someone’s sparkling watch or the colorful tie of a coworker.  There was nothing noticeable about him.

        I had to sit down at my desk and concentrate on little details before I could even remember that I’d bumped into him at all.  I focused on the moment when he’d threatened my life; this frame was vivid in my memory, and when I focused on it, the rest of the event unfolded in my mind.  Once I had the story straight in my head, I wrote it down so I could study the details and make the whole experience solid in my mind.

        Once I’d separated reality from fiction, I searched the cage.  The Unnoticeable Man had apparently picked the lock, and now the door swung open.  I’d only seen the contents of the cage a handful of times. It was a machine with racks of hard drives and gently glowing green lights.  Above each slot in the rack was a label giving a range of dates, displaying the timeframe for the recordings that were held on each drive.  Just as he’d said, the slot in the machine that should have held the past month of footage was empty. 

        I hadn’t looked inside to check if the machine was actually operating, and I had just assumed it was running.  The problem now was trying to convince Escher, as it was clear he wasn’t going to give up.  It was exactly as I’d feared: He was coming for me. 

        *

        I unlocked my front door and stepped across my threshold. 

        “How was work today?” Erika asked from her place on the couch.  I could see her curly brown hair cascading over the back of a pillow she rested her head on as she lazily flipped through a magazine. 

        There were a thousand things I almost said: 

        We have to leave"NOW.

        Pack your stuff, babe. The leader of a terrorist organization is looking for me.

        Load your gun. We’re going Stranger hunting. 

        “Okay,” I lied instead. 

        Erika kicked her feet out in front of her and admired her own toenails.  “We need to talk,” she said.

        “I agree.” 

        My heart was already racing in my chest, and the promise of a ‘talk’ didn’t help much.  I couldn’t think of a way to breach the subject with Erika.  I could tell she thought I was making all of it up; she was just too nice to tell me.  Maybe she was waiting for a chance to leave me.  Maybe that’s what the conversation was about, and that in itself was as scary as Escher coming for me.

        “Come on and sit down,” Erika said, leaning up and patting the space where her head had lain. 

        I nervously walked over to her and sat down.  The cushion was still warm from her body. 

         “You ever think about getting out more?” Erika asked me from across the couch where we lay sprawled, our feet intertwined and our heads facing each other on opposite ends like some ancient ornate Greek bench.  

        “I think about it,” I said.  This wasn’t an avenue of discussion that I liked.  “I just… don’t.”

        “Why?  Don’t you get lonely?”

        “Not now that I have a psycho killer after me, no.  I feel very wanted, believe me.”

        Erika looked at me skeptically. “You don’t have to … do that.”

        “Do what?” I asked, realizing I was angry.  “Make up the stories so you’ll think I’m exciting?  Isn’t that what this is about? You want out of this deal because I’m so goddamn boring, right?” 

        I wanted to run around the house and check the locks on the doors and windows, maybe prop a chair up against the door.  Erika was asking for it.  There was nowhere I could run.  She’d find out soon enough that I wasn’t lying.

        “I just mean… well, making some more friends.  I don’t find you boring at all.  I just don’t think it’s normal for someone to be so, uh… so solitary,” she said softly.

        “Right.  Well, I used to think about making friends, but I think about people and what being around them means, and the truth is, I just don’t like it.  Just look at the front page there.”  I pointed at the newspaper on my coffee table. “That guy molested his step-daughter.  Statistically, if you know 100 people, you know people who molest children and steal and lie on a regular basis, and who knows what else.  Do you really want to have to deal with that?  I don’t. And not only that, but they also ask you to do things"things I don’t really want to do, y’know?  I’m comfortable where I am.  Things are safe, and they don’t change.  People can’t hurt you if they don’t know you.  I mean, just look at the news.”  I held up the daily newspaper, which sat open-faced on the table in front of us.

        That day, another person afflicted with IED"Intermittent Explosive Disorder"had gone off his meds.  It was becoming more and more common, as though we didn’t have enough to worry about.

        “Why do you think this is a problem?" Erika asked. 

        This particular IED had unloaded a clip of automatic gunfire in a crowded fast-food joint.

        “I heard it happens because we live so close together now, in such cramped conditions.  People become angrier and angrier at the world around them, I guess.  Without medicine, half of the people in the city would probably snap,” I said.

        My voice was shaking.  I was thinking about Escher again.

        “In the wild,” Erika said, “animals control their own population density.  Some animals need a lot of space"each tiger might have ten square miles to herself.  If you tried to fit more tigers in that space, they would kill each other until there was only one left.  Maybe we’re like tigers, Clark.  Maybe they just can’t fit ten million of us into one city.”

        And then I heard it: the sound of cloth on glass"a soft knock against my window.  Erika and I were instantly silent; it wasn’t a natural sound and demanded our complete attention.  It was the sort of sound that only a living thing could make. 

        I studied Erika’s face and realized that until this precise moment, she hadn’t believed a word I’d said about Escher or the Strangers. 

        “They’re coming for me,” I said into my hands as I hid my face in them.  “I was going to tell you, but you wouldn’t have believed me.  The Strangers are coming to kill us.”

        I looked at the window, and all I could see was that giant hat and giant upturned collar upturned. There was no face.  I looked out the front window, and it was the same thing.  I ran into the kitchen"the same thing.  They had surrounded the house. He’d come for me.

        I sat on the couch for what seemed like an eternity of quiet madness as I gripped the cushion beneath me with both hands.  Maybe two or three minutes of just sitting there, knowing I was completely trapped. 

        I turned to check on Erika, who had become pale with fright. A thin layer of sweat shone on her forehead.  My mind was in terror overload.  I couldn’t talk. All I could do was tremble and keep my death grip on the couch.   

        The door came open"softly, even though it was dead-bolted.

        It wasn’t Escher though.  It was the woman, the one I’d seen in the alleyway, the second Stranger who’d been at the tower.  She stalked into the living room, appearing to float over to us.  A small black cat peeked out from one of her sleeves.  It had made its nest alongside her pale, slender arm, which she kept crooked to hold her pet in place. “It’s time,” she said.  “I was told you were warned?”

        I could see more Strangers outside the door.

        “Nice to see you again,” Erika said meekly to Whisper. 

        “It was smart not to run,” she said.

        My mouth wasn’t working.

        “Where are you taking us?” Erika asked.
”You can’t know that,” she said, her voice unruffled and silky. 

        Whisper reached into her robe with her crooked arm and revealed a small amber vial.  She poured a dose of it onto a small handkerchief and offered it to me. “Breathe,” she said.  “I don’t want to have to subdue you forcefully.” 

        I reached my hand up shakily to take the soft white square of cloth.

        “Now,” she said. 

        I couldn’t bring myself to inhale the fumes from the cloth.  I didn’t know what was on it. Is this going to kill me?

        Just as I thought the Stranger was going to say something, Erika leaned over and pressed the cloth into my face for me.  I could feel the heat from her small hand as her fingers cupped the side of my cheek and tickled my jaw line. 

        As the light dimmed around my eyes, I saw Erika hold the rag up to her own face and inhale. 

Author's Note

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Havoc has been cried and the hounds of war are loose in Banlo Bay, the last metropolis in America. You’re either a mouth or a mouthful, and young Clark Horton survives like a squirrel in the Serengeti—during the Great Collapse he spent months diving in dumpsters and drinking from drains.

Now that he’s finally got a roof over his head and doing better than 90% of Americans in 2056, along comes Erika. She’s a vagabond, con artist, and worse, beautiful. She’s inexplicably latched onto Clark, intent on casting him in the star role of one of her elaborate schemes.

Clark has no choice but to trust her as soon both are swept into a war between the city and the Secret Society of Strangers, a terrorist group whose members possess surreal powers inspired by the work of Descartes and Lewis Carroll. This elite team includes a mystical banshee who destroys men’s minds with esoteric truth, a backpacker whose headphones play tunes that can topple towers, and a man so completely boring that he’s invisible.

At the center of the Strangers is Escher, the Red King. The gun-toting psychopath is a solipsist who is convinced all of reality is an invention of his own mind and that everything he sees is a twisted remnant of his past life as mind-bending graphic artist M.C. Escher.

Clark and Erika’s blooming romance is tested by Escher, who is convinced that Clark is destined to become one of his chosen few and has a unique, existential bond with the young man—which might be fine, except Escher has a plan to kill every other person living in Banlo Bay.

It’s up to Clark and Erika to stop Escher from achieving his ultimate goal of obliterating the city—but first they’ll have to decide if that’s the right thing to do.

I'm a young but established novelist with one published novel - 2005's Jimwamba (Flame Books) under my belt. I have recently completed work on my new story, Frightened Boy, and am presently seeking to spread the word and get feedback on the book. Thanks so much for your attention.

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[Willard Schlesinger]

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