Chapter 9: Devils

9. Devils

 

“How did you even find us?” I asked the driver. “And who are you?”

“Erika called. I owe her. Who are you?” 

“I’m Fri�"I’m Clark. Clark Horton, what’s your name?”

“Call me Guts.” Black hair in tight cornrows jutting out the back of his bandana, shotgun resting haphazardly between us. “I’m a delivery driver.”

“So, what now?”

“Hide, I guess.  I was hoping you had an idea.  That was the extent of my heroics back there,” he said, rubbing his face with a big hand.

“I don’t even know if we can hide,” I said.  “Can you really stay clear of them?  Can’t they find us?  And we have to save Erika.”

Guts shook his head. “There are gangs out there, and there are tribes�"old military units, police forces that lost their paychecks and their patriotism. Every now and then, I meet someone who will talk about the Strangers, but no one f***s with them. They raid cities, they attack barracks. It’s an army.”

Guts plowed over decrepit super highways with cracks and fissures in the concrete as wide as my fist. His heavy steel-plated vehicle shuddered and groaned as the suspension bitched about every contour.   

We were heading in the general direction of downtown Banlo Bay. The thick smog the metropolis emitted reflected the gangly mass of lights like some deep-sea organism that was its own sun. 

“I have a place,” Guts said.  “We’ll be safe there, at least for a while.  What do the Strangers want from you anyway?”

“Footage,” I replied.  “I don’t even have it, and I don’t know where it is.”

Erika might have known where to find it, but I wasn't about to tell Guts that.  The less people knew, the safer she’d be. 

We closed in on one of the inner loops of Banlo Bay. At last, Guts exited into a parking garage and hid his car in a back corner on the lowest level, as far away from human eyes as possible.  We stepped out of the garage and into the dingy outdoor halls of the apartment complex Guts apparently called home.

As we approached the door, he halted and put his hand out to stop me. Guts ducked down, grunting as he threw himself onto the floor.  I gawked as he dodged, and barely saw the small blue object hurtling through the air on a collision course with my face.

“F**k!” I yelped as the hard plastic block bounced off the side of my head. My vision blurred, skull pulsed with pain. 

“Did you see who threw that?” Guts asked.

“No! I didn’t see… I mean, s**t. Ow! What the hell?”

The hard plastic block started ringing.  While rubbing my head, I stretched down to pick up the cell phone. “Hello?” I asked, uncertain.

“Clark Horton?” the voice on the other end asked.

“Yeah? Hey, why’d you throw this phone at me?”

“That was only my courier.  I need you to listen very carefully. We don’t have much time.  I need to guarantee you are who you say you are.”

“I’m a little bit busy actually,” I said. 

Guts had picked himself up from the floor and was examining the letter nailed to his door.

“I know all about the Secret Society of Strangers, and I know about Escher," the Voice on the Other End said. "I know you have something he wants, and  I can help you… but first you have to prove you are who you say you are�"that you are, in fact, Clark Horton.”

“How’d you know I’d be here?” I asked.

“I keep an eye on things,” he said. “I work for the good guys, for order.” 

I stopped doing everything except listening to the phone.  I couldn’t turn down any potential help. I was doomed without it.

“So prove yourself,” the Voice commanded.

“You prove yourself first,” I rebutted. 

“War is to man as motherhood is to woman.  It’s something we say around here.” 

My heart jumped�"I’d heard that before. The detective in Tasumec Tower!  Who is this guy? 

“My name is Clark Horton.  I’m five-foot-five and 130 pounds. I have brown hair.  I have type-B blood, I am allergic to dogs, and I’ve never had the measles.  I am�"or, was�"a member of the security staff in Tasumec Tower, in the city of Banlo Bay,” I said to the phone, hoping one of these facts would be enough. 

There was a pause.  On the other end, I heard keys being tapped. In the background, another voice said, "Yep, it all checks out." 

“Wait, how many of you are there?  Who are�"?” 

 “Not important,” the Voice said, silencing me.  “If you want to live, you’ll answer my questions quickly and directly.  You were captured by the Strangers, correct?”

“Yes, and I just escaped.  They’re going to be coming for me. You’ve got to help me.”

“Tell me where they are camped out,” the Voice said. 

“Yeah, sure. My friend is there too, she’s still a hostage. You’ve got to rescue her. Guts, can you tell this guy where you found us?”

I handed the phone to Guts, and he relayed the location.

“I believe you then,” came The Voice’s response as Guts handed the phone back to me. 

Guts stared at me while pointing at the letter on his door.  “You should read this,” he whispered.  “I don’t think it’s safe here.”

 “The cell phone you are holding has enough battery life for one day.  If I don’t save you within twenty-four hours, you’re dead.”

I looked at the face of the phone. There were two out of five bars left of the charge.  The little port where a plug would normally go was filled with glue. 

 “There’s a letter here for me,” I said, “on the door of my friend’s apartment.  Should I read it?”

“Yes. And, who is that with you?” the Voice asked.

“He calls himself ‘Guts’.  He rescued me from the Strangers.” 

The click-clack of more typing.  Next, I heard a chorus of voices, barely audible through the phone.  Quite a production.

“Well, go on then. The more time you waste, the quicker you’ll die.  Read the note,” the Voice said, more irritated now.

I began to read: 

            What I give form to in the day light is only one percent of what I have seen in darkness.

 “That’s it,” I said to the Voice.

“Usual cryptic Escher nonsense. So, where are these hard drives with the footage he’s after?”  the Voice asked. 

“Don’t you mean what are the hard drives?  How would you know all this?” I asked.

“Just…" The Voice snapped and then paused to regain his composure.  “Look, here is how this is going to work.  Escher knows where you are. He knows because he knows pretty much anything he wants to know, one way or another. You are already surrounded by Strangers. They’ll probably force you to lead them to the footage they’re after and then kill you.”

“And what alternative are you offering?” I asked.

“You give me those hard drives instead. I’ll deliver you from evil.”

“Why does everyone want them so bad?”

“Because those are the only recorded images of the man you call Escher. All others have been erased. If I can record his face, I can trace his past. If I can trace his past, I can prove to him that he’s not God and that we are not all figments of his imagination. If I can prove that, then maybe I can stop his disruption of reality.”

“You’re both crazy. How do I know this isn’t a trap, that you're not working with them?”

“You know as well as I do that no one would have to work this hard to trap you, Clark.  Walk to the edge of the fire escape and look out over it.”

I motioned to Guts and stepped out onto the fire escape. 

“Do something,” the Voice said.

“What?”

“Just do something�"anything.” 

I waved my arm, feeling a bit foolish.

“You just waved your right arm into the air,” the Voice said.  A chill passed over me. “You are just a twinkle in my all-seeing eye.  If you don’t believe me by now, I may as well hang up and�"” 

“No, don’t,” I interrupted.  I took a deep breath.  “I’ll tell you.  I can get the footage,” I lied.  That hard drive was my only bargaining chip, at least for as long as they thought I had it.

“Well, then let’s get that hard drive.  Like Escher, I am after it as well.  If you can deliver it to me, I can guarantee your safety.” 

“That isn’t enough,” I said.  “You have to save Erika too.” 

“I’ll do my best,” he said, not sounding so pleased. I had the feeling he wasn’t used to being bargained with. 

Guts snatched the phone from me. “You get nothing unless you can guarantee her safety.”

I heard murmurs from the phone but couldn’t make out what the Voice was saying.  Guts looked ashen for a moment and returned the phone to my hands.

“I’ll do my best,” the Voice repeated.  From the shocked look on my friend’s face, that wasn’t at all he’d told him.  “Let’s try and remember that we’re on a real time constraint here.  You’re both going to be dead if you don’t start running.  Put me on speaker phone.”

I clicked the button.  Guts huddled close to the phone as well, sharing in the conversation.

“You’ve both wasted too much time here doubting me.  Strangers are coming.  Where are the hard drives?” the Voice asked.

“I hid them in Tasumec Tower,” I said shakily.  “Where do we go?”

“Where in the Tower?” The Voice asked.

“I see one!” Guts shouted.  He had opened up the fire escape door and was peering down at the ground.  “I see one of them down there.” 

“Somewhere only I can find them,” I said.  I only needed to fool the Voice long enough to get to the center of Banlo Bay; I’d be safe there.

 “Fine,” the Voice said.  “Now both of you, run! Down the fire escape, as soon as you hit the ground, I need you to cover two blocks straight out from front of the apartment complex.  There’s a bus stop there, and a bus will be waiting on you.” 

Guts and I stopped, looked at each other.

“Go!” the phone commanded.

I ran. Guts trailed behind.

“There’s not going to be a bus! It's three in the f*****g morning!” I shouted even as I was bounding down the metal fire escape.  I tried to ignore the fact that I was four stories in the air.  If the Voice responded, I didn’t hear it.

I was leading the charge down the third, second, and first floors.  The fire-escape ladder leading to the ground was up; I kicked it downwards, and it struck the ground with a clank.  I flew down the ladder and landed soft.

I turned back for a moment to see if I had been followed.  Deep in the murky black of night, I thought I saw a large figure just across the street. This was all I needed to send my brain into terror overload.  Guts hit the ground with a thud next to me, but I was already charging across the front of the lawn and into the first street I had to cross. 

“They’re all around you, closing in,” the Voice chirped from my hand.  Apparently, he knew just what to say to keep me running.  “Jump the fence to your right�"now�"and run across the complex until you come across another street.  There will be a bus waiting for you there.  Run as fast as you possibly can and don’t stop until you’re inside.”

As the Voice promised, a bus waited across the street. Looked empty, out of place in the night.

As I crossed over to the second street; something caught my eye.  It almost looked like a statue or the trunk of a tree, but a closer inspection made me freeze.  A figure cloaked in a charcoal-colored trench coat and wearing a hat with a long, circular brim.  The moment I saw him, he moved toward me, cloak billowing. Seconds to act, and I only froze.

 “Let’s go,” Guts said.  His thick fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled me into motion. 

We began running together across the grassy lawn to the street when I became aware that the shadows in the darkness behind me were twisting.  I was grappled and wrenched out of Gut’s grip and onto the ground; my attacker took me by surprise.  So focused on getting past the Stranger in front of me I hadn’t seen the trap lying in wait.  I was thrown onto the grass so hard that for a moment, the night sky spun above me.

The phone fell into the grass.  I struggled to crawl over and reach it as my attacker pulled at my legs.

“Give it up, kid! Come on.  You’ve got places to go.  You don’t want to keep Him waiting.”

I kicked my feet helplessly, never connecting with anything but heavy fabric.  I may as well have struggled against cretin curtains.  The bus began to pull away.  Guts reached the edge of the street and only now turned to realize I wasn’t with him. 

The first Stranger intercepted Guts, and he too wrestled with an amorphous fabric assailant. I watched him struggle just as a fist struck the side of my head, dizzying me with the spinning sky once again.  

Then blue and red lights shaded the green lawn and disrupted the darkness.  My attacker froze, as did I.  A police cruiser crawled down the street. The bus stopped suddenly, waiting for the officers to pass. 

I lunged for the cell phone and felt relief as I gripped its cool plastic body.  It was my only chance at survival.

The Stranger who was grappling with me let go of my legs and took a few steps backward, sinking into the shadows.  I waved for the cruiser to come to me as I staggered to my feet, relieved by my luck.  I could see two officers inside; they opened the doors and stepped out in unison.

“Do you see the police?  I did that.  Try to get on the bus. It won’t work for long.”  Only the sound of the phone pierced the silence, meeping pitifully into the eerie quiet.  The entire battle had frozen; I could see that Guts was free as well and was twisting about to find the Stranger who attacked him.

The police stopped as something caught their eye.  I turned and looked down the street where a lone figure stood, his feet on either side of the double yellow lines of the pavement.

It was Him in a burgundy jacket, big aviator glasses, and a short-cropped beard.  He held a cigarette between his fingers like a conductor’s wand.  Escher stood perfectly still, blocking the policemen’s path.

The two cops looked like rabbits in his headlights.  They ducked slowly back into their cruiser.  Apparently afraid, they turned off their warning lights and pulled a U-turn to leave in the direction from which they came.

As soon as the vehicle turned, time snapped back into motion.  My attacker lunged at me again, and I was barely ahead of him. I ran for the bus, which was empty save a lone driver.  I shouted to Guts to stop trying to fight and follow me, as I flew past him into the buses’ waiting door.

I climbed on.  My pursuers did not enter the bus.  Never been happier to see the camera mounted at its rear, recording the passengers getting on and off. These signs of civilization were gateways to the Voice’s power, and the Strangers must fear them.   

Out the window, Guts punched and kicked a large flowing figure.  It was impossible to tell where the cloak ended and the body inside it began, so all of his frantic blows seemed to hit only empty air. Another Stranger approached from behind him. 

I banged on the glass of the bus.  Guts twirled his head, dreadlocks spinning.  This seemed to break his bloodlust, and he turned to charge into the bus.  The Stranger launched himself at Guts’s waist, and even as he latched on, it was clear the large delivery driver wasn’t stopping.  He dragged the Stranger a few feet before at last his attacker let go, and Guts was on the bus. The moment he stepped inside, the vehicle accelerated, sending him stumbling down the aisle.

Escher blew a ring of smoke at the bus as it spun past him. 

 “I… I saw Escher,” I managed to breathe heavily into the phone after I had ducked safely down into a rear seat.  “He was there.” 

“I know,” said the Voice.

“How did you get the police to come so quickly?”

“Because I run Banlo Bay. This bus will take you downtown in good time.”

“Why did the police just leave like that?”

“They were afraid of Escher.”

“Well, why didn’t the Strangers follow me onto the bus? It's not like them to back off.”

“They were afraid of me.”

“Afraid of you?  Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“I will tell you this�"it is extremely rare that I take a personal interest in something.  You don’t know how lucky you are,” the Voice said, somewhere between a smirk and a sneer.

“Trust me, I appreciate it.  So… what’s the next step?”

“Right now, hundreds of policemen are attacking the camp of Strangers from which you escaped,” he said. 

“Wait,” I said.  “Are you Illuminati?”

“Ah, so you’ve found me out,” the Voice said.  “I am Illuminati, I am Bilderberg, I am NWO, I am Skull and Bones, I am the Freemasons. All and one.”

“How is that possible?  I thought the Illuminati hated the Bilderbergers for causing the Great Collapse?” My personal theories on the Collapse I’d survived.

“You’ve only scratched the surface, Clark.  There is an entire world operating underneath and above your own.  Previous to now, you were only a resource to be controlled. You’ve been given a glimpse at how it operates.”  

“So why are we running from Escher then?” I asked.

There was silence on the other end.  I turned to Guts, who was panting and clutching his side in the seat across from me.

“Who is Escher really?” I asked.

“I don’t know who he really is. I hope to capture that footage, use our facial recognition software to answer that question. He thinks he is a reincarnation of the famous twentieth-century graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, somehow alive in our time due to his painting of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. As a result, the man calling himself Escher thinks this is all a dream he’s having as the artist. He believes reality is only a figment of his imagination.”

“So if he’s insane, why’s he so hard to catch?”

“Because reality actually seems to do what he wants it to do.”

“That’s impossible.”
            “Yes, it is. But I’ve seen bullets stop in front of him, seen doorways appear out of nowhere. I’ve seen him escaped locked vaults without opening the doors. He knows things he couldn’t know, and events always seem to unfold perfectly in his favor. I have no other explanation. My only hope is to convince him he’s not Escher, and to do that I have to find where he really came from.”

“What if he’s really Escher and we’re all in his head?”

“Then when I kill him, we’ll all cease to exist,” the Voice said. “Now, the bus is going to circle the city until morning, when we’ll enter downtown and take advantage of rush hour to confuse the Strangers. I’ll call again when the sun comes up.”

*

The bus bounced on the road, and I realized I’d been asleep.  The early morning sun was rising, and I’d be reaching downtown at the same time I would if I’d been going to work like a regular human being�"like the kind of human being I’d hoped to be, at least before I met Erika. 

Dawn rose on a pack of wild dogs roaming the fields of rubble and overgrown grass just outside of the feeder road of the highway, migrating toward an old warehouse that’d been swallowed by ivy.  

The highways were the tracks in a house of haunted horrors; you were fine as long as you didn't get off the ride. 

As the bus pulled into the outskirts of downtown Banlo Bay, I watched the throngs of people walking into the metropolitan center.  Some were homeless�"just waking up, beginning their daylong search for food.  Many were marked with the effects of rubella or small pox, polio contorting their bodies like melting wax museum figurines.

The phone buzzed in my lap.  I fumbled with it for a moment and answered.

“There will be Strangers waiting for you at every bus stop in the city,” the Voice said.

“So you're saying I’m fucked?”