Andrew Klavan - Nightmare City

Tom gasped—and then his breath came out of him unsteadily. He recognized that half-seen face. It was the Lying Man.

I’m not only traveling with you—I’m waiting for you wherever you go .

“Tom! This way! Hurry!”

With another start, Tom turned toward the whisper. It sounded like Lisa again. And again, there she was—or the ghost of her—standing still and dim in the hall’s far shadows.

He took another glance at the principal’s window, but it was black again. If the Lying Man was in there, Tom couldn’t see him. All the same, he was glad to get away from that place. He moved down the hall toward the figure of Lisa, calling out to her as he went.

“Lisa, is that you? Wait for me.”

But she didn’t answer him. She stood eerily silent. And eerily, she did the mirage thing again, fading away into the shadows before he could reach her.

Tom’s heart was rabbiting inside him. He felt like he was in a haunted house. A school full of phantoms. It was almost more frightening than the fog full of monsters. And the thunder and lightning outside didn’t help any either.

“Tommeeee.”

Lisa’s ghostly whisper drifted to him again, but this time when he looked into the dark, he couldn’t see her.

“Tommmeeeeee.”

He moved toward the sound. He reached the end of the hallway. There were stairs there, a broad flight going down into the basement.

“Tommmeee.”

That’s where her voice was coming from.

Was she trying to get him to come down to the Sentinel ’s office? To get the address he’d left there, the address of the woman in the white blouse? But why haunt him like this? That’s where he was headed anyway.

“Tommy, come down,” she whispered from the darkness below.

This was just plain creepy now. It reminded him of the time he’d met Hank in the parking garage. He didn’t know what he was walking into.

“Come down, Tommy.”

He had to do it. He had to get that address. He had to find the woman in the white blouse. He had to remember what he had forgotten—who shot him and why—if he was ever going to get out of his coma. If he was ever going to learn the truth. If he was ever going to make it home alive.

Tom heard the low thunder outside—or was it just the Lying Man’s laughter? He knew there was no going back—not for him, not with the need to know that beat inside him like his own pulse. He had to move.

He started down the stairs. Every nerve in him seemed to be standing on edge. He was listening for any noise, any threat. He reached the bottom and stepped down into yet another dark corridor. He paused, staring into the deep shadows, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

“Tommeee.”

He held his breath. Lisa’s whisper. And wait… someone else now.

“…just for a little while…”

Who was that? He wasn’t sure.

“I don’t like it…” Yet a third voice, a third whisper.

And then more:

“This way, Tom.”

“Go to the monastery.”

“Why did you do it?”

“…ruin everything…”

Tom finally breathed out, quivering. The corridor was full of whispers, full of ghostly voices.

“He’s not your friend.”

“The monastery.”

“This way, Tommy.”

As Tom stared, he thought he saw movements in the shadows, but the fleeting figures were so faint he wasn’t sure they were really there.

Clutching his baseball bat in one hand, he started to edge forward—moving with slow care, barely lifting his feet as he shuffled along.

“Go to the monastery.”

“I don’t like it.”

“It’s just for a little while.”

“This way.”

Tom moved deeper down the hall, deeper into the darkness. He felt a breath of air on his face as something rushed past him. But when he turned to look—nothing—there was nothing there. Only the whispers.

“Tommmeee.”

“He’s not your friend…”

There was another movement. And another. Each time, when Tom looked, there was no one, nothing. And yet the whispers went on as he shuffled slowly forward. It was so bizarre that words finally burst out of him: “Is anyone there? Is anyone… ?”

For a moment after he spoke, there was silence. Then—something new. A snap and crackle. A flicker of light. Not lightning—not down here. Instead, it was the wavering purple glow of a fluorescent bulb trying to come on but not quite making it. It was coming through a doorway just ahead to his right, lighting the rectangle of the entrance. Tom knew what room it was. The Sentinel ’s office. The light flickered again. He moved toward it.

The whispers around him seemed to dim. The movements grew more distant. He reached the open doorway where the light was flickering and stepped through. He reached for the wall. Found the light switch. Pushed it. To his enormous relief, the fluorescents in the ceiling flickered on and stayed on.

The Sentinel ’s office was empty.

Tom let out a sigh. It was comforting to be back in the familiar place, the cramped little cubicle of a room with the desks jammed into it and papers littering the desktops and the walls. He had spent a lot of happy hours here, sitting with Lisa, working with Lisa, talking over stories with her and just, really, gossiping about stuff. They were some of the best times he’d ever had.

He wove quickly between the desks. Went to the front of his own desk. He leaned the Warrior bat against it. Started pawing through the papers scattered around the base of his computer, searching for a page with the address on it. There were Post-its, notebooks, notices, printouts of articles he’d been writing. Paper clips. Pens. A dead-tree phone book. A syllabus, ditto. But no address. Where was it? Tom began to feel hollow inside. Was it possible he had figured this all wrong? Was it possible he had left his house and braved the fog and the malevolents for nothing? He pawed through the papers more quickly, more frantically. No address.

He stopped. He straightened. He tried to think. The haunted school was silent all around him.

Then, suddenly, that silence was shattered. The phone rang—not the cell in his pocket, but the phone on the desk. The noise was so loud and unexpected he nearly jumped out of his own skin.

He picked up the handset. Spoke uncertainly, “Hello?”

A voice came over the line—also uncertain: “Is this… is this the Sentinel ?”

It was her! It was the woman in the white blouse. The same voice that had tried to speak to him before through the alien static. There was no static now. The voice was clear as a bell.

“Uh… yeah. Yeah, this is the Sentinel ,” said Tom.

“I want to speak with Tom Harding.”

“This is Tom,” he said.

“I need to talk to you. It’s very important,” said the woman. Her voice was low, as if she was afraid of being overheard.

“All right,” said Tom, “I’m listening. Go ahead.”

As he spoke the words, Tom had a powerful sense of déjà vu, a powerful sense that he had had this conversation before, lived through this moment before. He felt as if everything that was going to be said now had already been said. More than that. He had the strangest feeling that the script of the conversation had already been written, and that he could not speak any other words but the words that he would speak.

She’s about to tell me that she can’t talk over the phone , he thought. That it’s too dangerous .

“Not now,” said the woman. “I can’t talk over the phone. It’s too dangerous. You have to come to my place. Tomorrow. In person. Alone. I have information you’re going to want to hear.”

“What kind of information?” said Tom—the words just came out of him. He knew he couldn’t say anything else. The script was already written.