The Truth Collector (16 page)

“I bet one of the boys is acting up again,” one of the girls said above them.

The others hissed at her, told her to hush. All of the chatter from before dried up and disappeared.

They hid under the table for a long time – so long that Malcolm started to wonder if every girl up there had slipped into Carol's brain-dead state. His limbs began to ache and go numb.

Then there was a jingling sound.

It was loud, and unmistakable.

Someone – or something – was walking with a giant ring of keys. The acoustics in the room magnified every movement. That constant jingle filled Malcolm's ears, joining the piano tune still playing there. It was hard to say which one was worse.

The thing with the keys moved slowly. It pounded one foot then shuffled the other. Not on the grass, but on one of the paved paths between all the green space. It grew louder, and Malcolm felt the girls' legs stiffen.

All quiet now… except for the ringing keys and the step-shuffle-step.

Those feet reached the end of the pavement and struggled across the grass. “Hello, girls.” Its voice was almost human, but Malcolm couldn't discern its gender. The sounds those vocal cords made didn't register either way…

But they were somehow familiar.

“Hello, sir,” the girls said. They did this dutifully, all the passion sucked out of their voices. That thing came closer. Its steps circled around the table in a wide arc. A few girls gasped, unable to contain themselves at whatever horror approached. Then that thing's arc was narrowing, narrowing until its steps bent the grass next to Malcolm's exposed feet.

The thing stopped moving. “What are we up to over here?”

“We were just about to have a tea party,” said one of the girls. A few others murmured in agreement.

“Is that so?” The bass in those words vibrated the table. Then the thing's feet lifted, hovered above Malcolm's, and touched the grass on the other side. Malcolm didn't dare move – didn't dare breathe. All he could do was listen with his limbs frozen beneath the table. Nora's words echoed in his ears:
The bad man is coming. He's going to find you
.

“It's time to go back to your rooms,” it said, raising its voice so it echoed off the walls. “Playtime's over for today. Master and mistress will expect you to be all washed up and ready to eat when they get back.”

“Where did they go?” said the tan girl with the coloring book.

The thing's body jerked, back arched like a bolt of lighting ripped through its spine. It cleared its throat and smacked its lips. “They went to find you some more friends to play with.”

“Did they take Monica?” another girl said. “Mistress said we're supposed to share a room. But when I woke up she was gone.”

“Time to go wash up. Now.”

One by one they left the table, removing shoes from Malcolm's ribs to join the big cluster of girls heading for the edge of the room. Nora got up too and pulled Carol from her seat. She looked down for a second like she was going to whisper something, but snapped her head up when that thing clapped its hands. They walked away in choppy, little steps. Once they were back in those bedrooms behind closed doors… once he had them locked in…

Malcolm and Paul watched helplessly as the little girl and her friend disappeared into the pack. The shuffle-step began again, fading as the bad man worked around other tables to round up stragglers. His legs were impossibly thin. A pair of dark slacks covered them, sagging off his body like little sails. Once he returned to the middle of the tables his legs stiffened. Then, after the key ring on his hip stopped jingling, the bad man
sniffed
the air around him.

Paul's face – only a few inches from Malcolm's – stretched taut.

Malcolm pulled his exposed ankles under the table, balled himself up until his knees met his ribcage. Tighter. Smaller and smaller and smaller.

But the bad man was still sniffing.

He turned around abruptly, legs lost in whipping fabric. He inhaled, held his breath, and let it out. Savoring whatever it was he smelled. Standing in perfect stillness lest he break the spell. He breathed in again, and the sound seemed louder than his voice had ever been. The girls were gone. Now it was just Malcolm and Paul and that thing and its nose.

It let out a scream and charged.

Malcolm untangled his limbs and tried to breathe, but the air flew from his lungs just as the table flew from the ground. He and Paul scrambled over plastic chairs and toys strewn across the grass. Onto their feet now...

The man was on them.

He grabbed them by their collars, thrusting them into the air amid an orchestra of ripping fabric. He held them off the ground and let them swing from side to side. The bad man's eyes followed, crossed themselves to track Malcolm and Paul's movements. His sniffing had turned into growls and occasional fits of laughter.

Malcolm's limbs dangled uselessly at his sides. He almost couldn't look at that horror holding him with such otherworldly strength. But he had to. He had to see the thing responsible for ending his life. He lowered his eyes.

Then the bad man almost lost his balance, doubled over from laughter. He dumped Paul onto the ground and pinned him there effortlessly with the sole of his dress shoe. The bad man grabbed Malcolm under his armpits and held him up like a jeweler inspecting a diamond under the light.

Their eyes met. There he was – that same terrible thing that tossed them in the river – or at least a version of him. He laughed and laughed until chills tickled Malcolm's scalp.

“Fielder...”

The mark on the man's cheek pulsed. He winced as if burned. “Don't address me in that manner ever again,” he said, choosing each syllable with care. “You knew me by my old name, but I've moved past that. Master and mistress call me Cog. I'm just a little part in a
big
machine.”

“Put me down,” Malcolm said.

The thing laughed, and flipped him into the air before catching him by the ankles. Paul's face was right below him now, bright red from the shoe on his sternum. Malcolm found the bad man's legs in front of him. The left one pointed almost completely to the side, kneecap jarred loose by some kind of terrible impact.

Craig – the thing that had been Craig – started jumping up and down. Sometimes he let his shoe land on Paul's stomach, and sometimes he'd stop it an inch away. He shook Malcolm like a wet umbrella, slamming his head into the grass. They screamed and struggled. That just made him laugh even harder.

“You wanted the girl,” he said, breathless. “You… wanted her so bad you came all the way...” His words broke off in a series of snorts and laughter. “You came all this way to find her. Well here she is pals and guess what? You can't have her!” He laughed so hard he began to cry. “I should thank you gentlemen. Really. I was mad at you before. I wouldn't have been in that mess if you just let the girl be.” He dropped Malcolm to the ground, laughing when he hit the grass. He clapped his hands and sent a giant echo around the room. “Now I should thank you. When master and mistress get back – now I can show them what a good servant I am. That's all I want to be.” He touched the mark on his face, then pulled away his hand. “That's all I
can
be.”

He jumped up again and landed with his shoes inches away from their faces. Then he started cackling again.

“Stop,” Paul said, holding up his hands. “We just need the girl.”

Cog stuck out his tongue at him. “Absolutely not. Not until they're done with her.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What are they doing to her and all these girls?”

Cog cocked his head to the side and smiled. “The same thing they're probably going to do to you. Here, I'll show you.”

He jumped.

Malcolm watched the man's eyes – mad, bloodshot – sail off the ground, peak, and descend. He tried to scramble away. But his arms and feet moved in slow motion, churning and getting bogged down in the grass. When he looked up he found Cog above him.

Grinning.

Hurtling back to the earth.

Then the world went black.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Consciousness teased him.

Never too close, but never too far away either. Malcolm slipped out for a single delicious second, only to be slammed back in just before his mind went blank. Cog was dragging him. Malcolm watched it unfold in jump cuts. One moment there was blackness, and the next a collage of pavement and grass and children's toys hovered in front of him. He looked to the side and found Paul hanging beside him with lifeless limbs. The gods down here had been good to him. He was out cold.

Then the idyllic playground fell away behind them. Now they were on a patch of packed dirt. Cog dragged them across it without slowing his pace. Then, once Malcolm's lungs were full of dust, he stopped and leaned them against something metal. Cog slapped Paul across the face until he stirred. He kept slapping until the poor bastard opened his eyes. “This is my post,” he said. “Master and mistress keep me here to watch over the little ones. In the beginning they said I'd be a housekeeper, but I'm too clumsy.” He dangled his mangled leg for them to see, laughing.

Malcolm's eyes drifted upward past the lunatic's face. Charlotte was still up there, looking down at them from her pinhole in the ceiling. She kept her lips tight and her eyes pressed close to the mirror.

Cog started screaming in his face. “The
least
you can do is give me your undivided attention. We're going to spend a lot of time together. And I've found colleague relationships work best on a foundation of mutual respect. Don't you agree?”

Malcolm blinked at the man without replying. It was the first time he'd gotten a good look at his face. The eyes were the same as the man's whose photo he stole from the law firm. But those and the dimpled chin were the only identifying features. Everything else had been rearranged as if by a child sculptor. Jawbone stretched out here and there. Chunks of cheek flesh removed. Eyebrows pulled together, a centipede that rested on his protruding brow. Something had sucked the skin tight at his temples and pulled in. The patchwork clumps of white hair from before had fallen out, leaving behind a pale, misshapen scalp.

“Don't you agree?” Cog repeated. When he opened his mouth the bottom row of teeth was gone, and the top had been twisted aside. Canines and molars sprouted off in every direction like grenade shrapnel.

“Yeah,” Malcolm said. “Why not? Now, since we have this level of mutual respect, why don't you start out by telling us what happened to you.”

Cog laughed, pounded his fist against the metal cylinder supporting Malcolm and Paul's weight.

“The ground happened to me.” He paused and rubbed his brow. “That's not quite right – I guess you could say the highway happened to me. You know that overpass out at High Street?”

Paul nodded. “Sure. I drive people to the airport that way all the time."

“The boys in blue followed me there from my house. Not big-city uglies, but townies from Tattersall. Boy, that hick sheriff wanted to lock me away for good. Thought he had me too. They put on quite a show with their lights and guns and radios. Even called out a helicopter for me. Can you imagine?"

“They killed you?” Paul said.

Cog laughed again. “
I
killed me. Or the ground did, to be precise. They blocked me on that overpass and told me to put my hands up and that's exactly what I did, baby. I put my hands up and flew away like a bird.”

“You jumped,” Paul said.

“Hell yeah I jumped. I didn't want their rules and handcuffs and I...” He looked around and lowered his voice. “I didn't want to see Miranda anymore. What I did – what happened to her – it kept coming back to me in these horrible little flashes. So I took the easy way out. At least I thought it was the easy way out until I woke up in that little cave. Master and mistress said they'd been expecting me. They told me since I was marked and I offed myself now I'd serve for eternity.” He fixed his face into a wide grin. “Isn't life great?”

"That doesn't make any sense," Malcolm said. "We didn't tell Broyles about you until the morning after it happened. You were still alive when we came down that well. You had to be.”

Cog shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. Time's funny here. I feel like I've been down here forever. You could have been on that river nearly just as long."

“Let us have the girl,” Malcolm said. “We know someone on the other side. She might be able to bring you back.”

Cog pointed to the ceiling. “You mean her?” He snapped his fingers, and Charlotte and the pinhole of light disappeared. “She's nothing compared to master and mistress. Neither am I, to be honest. I just watch over the children. No one comes or goes unless master or mistress says so. Excuse me.”

He stepped away from the metal cylinder and walked over to a row of glass tanks. Malcolm hadn't noticed them before, but now he couldn't take his eyes off them. In those tanks rested bodies. Bodies like the ones they'd fought off in the water and the boat that brought them here. One in each tank. There were probably a dozen or so, their inhabitants floating in some type of clear gelatinous ooze. Unlike the things in the water, these bodies rested still. Cog stopped at a black box in front of the tanks and flipped a switch. A humming sound – another thing Malcolm hadn't noticed in all the chaos – ceased. One by one Cog reached up and unscrewed the lids like manhole covers. Their occupants' eyes flew open as soon as air hit the inside of the tanks.

Girls of different shapes and sizes, emerging from the liquid like Russian nesting dolls.

Their reactions were all the same.

First came the wide-eyed horror. Panic seized their bodies and sent them kicking and screaming at the glass. Inevitably they'd inhale some of the fluid and Cog would pull them out, pound their backs until they coughed it up, and wrap a fresh towel around them.

Then their eyes would go dead and they'd stagger aimlessly until Cog guided them to the ground. They sat shivering in their clothes with their hair stuck together from the tank fluid. None of them spoke. None of them showed any emotion at all beyond a vacant longing. Their eyes closed, and they returned to the sleep state which had consumed them when they were in the tanks.

Once all the tanks were empty, Cog pulled everyone to their feet and whispered in their ears. He pointed to an edge of the great chamber. They went without a word. One after another they left. They walked along in a trance, not stopping until they disappeared into little cracks in the walls.

Cog put his hands on his hips and watched until the last child disappeared. Then he came back over to Malcolm and Paul and smiled. “Sorry about that.”

“What did you do to them?” Malcolm said. He didn't expect an answer. But the more time Cog spent talking, the more time he'd have to come up with a way to escape this twisted playground.

Cog ignored him. He charged forward and squeezed between where Malcolm and Paul sat. Something started clanging. When Malcolm looked up he found the man climbing a ladder. He and Paul sat at the base of a tower. Ladders covered the sides – some rope, some metal, others a hodgepodge mix of the two. Cog climbed quickly, slowing only to pull himself over the edge.

He disappeared for a moment, then stuck his head back over and looked down at them. He stood at the top of some kind of guard platform. Next to him on a metal swivel rested a spotlight so large it protruded over the edge. “I have to watch,” Cog said. He turned his back to them. “Let's see what the boys are up to.”

Paul grabbed Malcolm's arm and pointed. Beyond the wide dirt patch, groups of children moved amid grasslands and hills. There were faint screams as a cluster of them followed a little ball back and forth across a field end-capped with makeshift goals. Cog watched them play from his guard tower with a hand over his eyes.

That's when Malcolm realized the room surrounding them was a perfect circle. The tower rested in the middle, allowing whoever stood watch to see the full expanse of the room with a turn of the head.

“The
panopticon
,” Cog called down to them. “That's what master calls it. There isn't an easier way to keep track of people as shorthanded as we are. Master's all about efficiency.”

“Who are you talking about?” Paul said. “You keep saying 'master' and 'mistress' like we're supposed to know who they are. They don't let you take your meds down here, huh? I bet they're just voices inside your –”

A shadow fluttered above them.

Malcolm and Paul started to crawl, but that shadow moved faster. It landed right on top of them. When Malcolm opened his eyes the bad man was standing above him. He'd jumped off the edge of that damn tower – a good three or four stories – and landed on his feet. Holes from the impact swallowed up dirt a few inches from their faces. Cog had their backs pinned. He looked at them with casual contempt.

“You think you're funny?” he said.

Paul shook his head and coughed up some dust. “I was just trying to make conversation.”

“How dare you insult master and mistress?”

“I – I don't...”

Cog grabbed Paul's neck with both hands. Malcolm watched the fingernails dig in, and blood started to flow from ten little slits. “Oh, they're real all right. Sometimes they talk to me. Sometimes they do a lot more than that. Sometimes they crawl inside me and drive, baby, drive.” He looked down at his hands, suddenly aware of what they were doing, and eased his grip. “Both of you should know. You saw what happened by the river.”

“Just let us out of here,” Malcolm said.

“I don't think so. You still want the girl? I changed my mind. You can have her.”

“Really?”

Cog laughed. “You can have her… as long as you stay here with us. Master and mistress have the final say of course. But you're able bodied. Strong workers, and certainly persistent.” He took his feet off their backs, leaned down, and jerked them up. “Now come on. We don't have much time before they get back, and I like to keep things tidy.”

He led them over to the tanks. The liquid inside them swirled, gathered together like cotton candy filaments. Occasionally a big air bubble would burst on the surface. Cog went back to the metal box in front of the tanks and pressed a few buttons on a screen there. Then he flipped a switch, starting the same humming sound as before.

“No,” Malcolm said. The liquid in the two left-most tanks began to bubble and churn faster. Cog went over to the first tank. He stood on his tiptoes to unscrew the lid and left it on tank's edge. He dipped a finger in, smiled, and brought it to his lips. The liquid oozed into his greedy mouth. He looked down into the tank like he was about to dunk his entire face in it, but the mark on his cheek pulsed and jarred him from his confusion.

“Perfect,” he said. “Not too hot and not too cold. Just like Goldilocks likes it.” He motioned for Paul to come forward. “It'll be easier if you do this willingly. You won't feel a thing. Promise. The thought of it's the worst part – being stuck there while the goodness in your heart gets sucked out of you like bone marrow.”

“What?” Paul said, his face pale. He looked at Malcolm. He looked around the top of the room too. But Charlotte wasn't there. The hole through which she watched them had been erased with the snap of Cog's fingers.

No moves.

No one there to save them.

Cog lunged for Paul, collared him, and pulled him over to the tank. Malcolm lunged too. Instincts drove him to put his body between Paul and the tank. They knew what his brain didn't: once they got in those tanks, there was no turning back.

Cog shoved him to the ground and laughed. Malcolm watched Paul's rigid body slip into the tank. He struggled at first, yelling and slapping his limbs against the sides. All of that stopped when his face touched the liquid. His eyes shut. The tension in his muscles eased. Malcolm crawled over to the bottom of the tank and pounded on the glass, but no one was home on the other side.

Its occupant floated. Lifeless. Like a corpse.

The machine hummed louder, and something began to
drip drip drip
inside the chamber. Malcolm checked himself for blood, but couldn't find any flowing out of him.

“Relax,” a voice said.

Malcolm froze.

“It's just the pond.” Cog stood over his shoulder. He'd screwed the lid on Paul's tank and stalked up behind Malcolm in a single, fluid motion. He hovered right next to him now, pointing beyond the tanks. “Look.”

Malcolm squinted between the tanks. The ground dropped off there, brown turning to green in a flourish of vegetation. He made out splotches of liquid among lilacs and rosebushes and exotic flowers he'd never seen before. Not water, but beautiful golden liquid. It pooled beneath metal pipes which ran from the tanks. They extended over the pond's surface on support scaffolding, ending in midair.

One of the pipes – the pipe connected to Paul's tank – was dripping. Every few seconds, a golden drop trembled on the edge before falling into the pond.

“Isn't it beautiful?” Cog said.

Malcolm nodded, unable to pull his eyes away from the golden liquid lapping the sides of the pond. It was beautiful – so beautiful every nerve in his body demanded he jump in there and disappear.

“It's almost full,” Cog said. “When that happens...” His voice trailed off, and he put a hand on Malcolm's shoulder to steady himself. Then he began to cry. “Not much longer now. Time to get you in there. Before master and mistress come home.”