When Charlie awoke, his head pounded fiercely—so fiercely that he actually cried out in surprise. His sight had not yet returned and he had no idea where he was, but he could sense people nearby. Eventually, the fog obscuring his vision cleared and he was able to take stock of his surroundings.
Fortunately, taking stock was unnecessary, for he was in his own room at the Caribbean Beach. Unfortunately, he was not alone. In a chair by the compass-themed table sat a striking elderly man in a dark suit, calmly watching him with an almost clinical air, as if studying a lab rat.
“There’s a bottle of water on the table to your right, detective,” the man spoke smoothly. “Drink no less than eight ounces and the headache will subside shortly. The use of the sedative and subsequent stimulant in so short a time has dehydrated your brain. Do not speak—drink. There will be time for conversation yet.”
Seeing no harm in it, Charlie picked up the bottle of water. It struck him as odd, since it was made of glass and capped with stainless steel. Removing the heavy top and tossing it on the table, he swallowed half the contents in one long draught. He wasn’t sure whether it was an illusion caused by dehydration, but it was quite possibly the best water he’d ever tasted. A second long draught emptied the bottle, and he set it lightly on the bedside table.
As if reading his mind, the man spoke again.
“Purified glacier water imported from Antarctica,” he stated. “Expensive, but it is the single purest, most naturally sweet water on the planet. Perhaps I’ll email you a link to the vendor. Unfortunately, I haven’t come all this way to converse about beverage preferences. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
“First, tell me where my family is,” Charlie demanded, still feeling the effects of the drugs.
“I can’t tell you
that
, detective. What I
can
tell you is that they are perfectly safe, unharmed and—quite frankly—currently in better lodgings than yourself,” he stated, gazing around the small room with a look of disgust on his features.
“How can I be sure—”
The man held up a hand for silence. He reached into his jacket, withdrew a small photograph from his pocket and tossed it to Charlie. The photograph was a grainy surveillance shot of Meghan and the girls sleeping. It was zoomed in too far for Charlie to deduce anything other than that they were on a vaguely familiar-looking couch, and were indeed unharmed so far. It was better quality than the shot of Katie he’d received on the Blackberry earlier in the night, but only fractionally.
“Keep it,” offered the man. “It’ll be a good motivator for you. It was taken an hour ago.”
The man sat in silence for several minutes while Charlie’s eyes remained glued to the photograph. Finally, the young detective looked up.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Now
that
is the right question, detective. My name,” he spoke, pausing for decidedly cheesy dramatic effect, “is Spencer Holloway.”
The sounded
achingly
familiar but Charlie couldn’t place it.
“Haven’t heard of me?” Holloway continued. “No matter. In fact, I should be proud, for it shows that I’ve done my work well. I suppose I can also say the same for you. You are also a man who does his job well—correct?”
“What does my job have to do with any of this?” Charlie asked, defensively. “Did I put your brother in prison or something? Is this your way of getting petty revenge?”
“Not my brother, detective…my son. And you didn’t put him in prison: you put him in the cemetery.”
In an instant, Charlie knew exactly who this man was. Spencer Holloway could only be the father of James Holloway, the only man the detective had ever fired his weapon upon. Instinctively, his hand felt for the scar on his throat. James Holloway had been the one to put the bullet in his neck, though the madman had met a far worse fate.
“James Holloway,” Charlie stated, incredulously. “He was your son.”
“Yes, but only in blood,” Holloway confirmed, dismissing the detective’s concern with a casual wave of a hand. “The boy was nearly useless, his crimes unacceptable for one who had such great potential. Don’t delude yourself with the romance of the situation, Walker; I haven’t come here to avenge my son’s death. What you did to James was a blessing. The world doesn’t need people like him. What the world needs are people like you and I.”
“I’m pretty sure you and I are nothing alike,” Charlie stated.
“I beg to differ, detective. Great minds are often inexplicably drawn to one another, and ultimately these minds seek to prove their dominance. They seek to destroy one another—to challenge themselves by hunting down and crushing others. We might not share the same views, and our goals may differ, but the way in which we approach a problem and devise its solution is one and the same.”
“You’re insane,” stated Charlie.
Holloway seemed to ponder this accusation.
“Oftentimes, true genius is mistaken for insanity; an entertaining notion, considering the accusation is thrown around only by the ignorant. I expected more from you.”
“I guess you set the bar too high,” Charlie countered. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“If the past is any indicator, I should say I haven’t set the bar high
enough.
You come from a rare breed, detective,” said Holloway, calmly. “Your mind chooses logic and reason over passion and emotion. You realize that emotion is nothing but the crutch of the weak and the dimwitted.”
“How can you say that?” Charlie asked. “I’m in this situation because I’m trying to save my family.”
“In your case, you’ve detached your personal life from your professional life, something that most people cannot ever hope to accomplish. This allowed me to use your wife and daughters as leverage. I believe that a great mind is within you, and I have come to test you.”
“You’re wrong—I’m just a normal guy,” Charlie said defiantly, hoping to lessen the false sense of grandeur that Holloway was placing on the moment.
“I’m afraid that is where
you’re
wrong. Modesty is for the weak, detective. Recognize your own strengths; celebrate them—do not deny them. I have seen your prowess. It is the reason that I am here. Think back to all those years ago, when you hunted down and killed my son. Reflect on it, and
then
tell me you’re
just a normal guy
.”
Charlie tried—and failed—not to think about that horrible ordeal in which he’d shot and killed the man the news outlets had dubbed the ‘Hollow Man.’ It wasn’t a very creative nickname but it fit the bill, and the public lived in fear of the Hollow Man for several months. The apparent lack of a soul within James Holloway made the fantastical moniker more fitting than anyone would have liked. The savage criminal was bold; his actual name was publicly known throughout the entire duration of his spree, as he had left a business card in the mouth of every victim. These usually contained a line of obscure poetry and each was different, though all contained the name James Holloway in bold, embossed print. Giving his real name seemed to be a direct insult to the police force since they had their killer’s real identity yet, despite their best efforts, could not apprehend him.
The whole ordeal came rushing back to him in the blink of an eye.
•••
For an entire summer, the citizens of Detroit had feared leaving their houses. Special news broadcasts had advised people against going out at night, urging them to travel in numbers. A total of twenty-three people had disappeared that summer—including children and entire families—only to have their bodies found days later in public places, mutilated beyond recognition and posed in grim and suggestive ways.
A particularly horrifying and brutal display occurred when a family of three—a father, a mother and their young son—were found skinned and hanging from a billboard in broad daylight near an exit of the I-94 freeway. The homeless man who had discovered the bodies claimed that one moment he was going about his business and—next thing he knew—the bodies were there, swaying in the summer breeze beneath the sign. The first responders dismissed the statement as the ramblings of a drunk, but the media took the claim and ran with it. Headlines like “Hollow Man Defies Reality” and “Hollow Man Kills in Broad Daylight” flooded the local papers for the next week, even though neither was true.
Charlie, having only recently become a detective, was not asked to investigate any of the Hollow Man crime scenes—he wasn’t even considered. The senior detectives in the precinct took precedent on high profile crimes. Charlie was shuffled to the bottom of the stack, forced to question homeowners about break-ins and stolen cars. He gave those cases no less effort than he would any major case, and most of the time he helped find these victims some closure, but greater things were waiting for him, and one day, they found him.
One of the department’s most highly regarded senior detectives, Rick Banks, was assigned to the Holloway case after the twenty-second body was found. By this point, the city was in a panic and the killing spree was gaining national media attention. The mayor’s office was leaning heavily on the police to find this monster and shut him down quickly—more negative publicity was the last thing Detroit’s politicians needed. Banks had a great track record, and the higher-ups were optimistic and hopeful that having him on the case would bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.
When a call came in about the abduction of a woman that bore similarities to Holloway’s other instances, the department reacted with haste. Banks’s partner was hospitalized with severe food poisoning, so he made his way to the scene alone—an act generally frowned upon. Parking his unmarked squad car in the driveway, he entered the house, officially the first responder. Carefully turning on the lights in all the rooms, he began a methodical investigation of the home while he waited for others to arrive.
After being in the house for no more than five minutes, Banks began to hear noises—voices and footsteps—from outside the front of the house. As he neared the door, a deep male voice called out.
“Who the fuck is in that house?” the voice bellowed.
Choosing not to present himself as a target and remaining safely within the house, Banks answered, “My name is Detective Richard Banks. I’m with the Detroit Police Department.”
“Bullshit!” roared the voice. “You’re the second stranger I’ve seen let themselves into this house in the past hour. Now get your ass out here before I put a bullet in you!”
Coolly, Banks crept closer to the front of the house and responded to what he assumed must be a protective neighbor. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to remain calm. I am a police officer. Any threat you make toward me is a very serious crime.”
Banks leaned out from around a corner and peered toward the front door, trying to get a decent view of the person outside. As soon as he did so, a shot rang out and shattered a mirror just a few inches away; the shotgun blast also tearing up a good chunk of plaster. Reacting quickly, Banks retreated around the corner and drew his radio to call for assistance.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” Banks yelled, rattling off the address of the house. “Officer under fire, requesting immediate assistance at my location.”
Unfortunately for Banks, the annual Fourth of July fireworks were just a few short hours away, taking place down by the riverfront. Recent changes to the event made crowd control an even bigger headache and, as a result, most of the city’s uniformed officers were providing extra security for the event. More often than not, it was the yearly scene of a shooting or stabbing. Hearing that backup was a minimum of fifteen minutes away, Banks began to worry.
“Who the hell do we have out this way? Give me anybody with a gun and a car goddamn it,” he snapped at the dispatch operator.
“One moment,” she responded, and he heard the clicking of a keyboard. “The only officers we have who are even remotely close are Detectives Walker and Harris; they’re a few miles away responding to a domestic dispute.”
“You’ve got the new guy and his partner responding to a
domestic
?” he asked, wondering why they were using a detective for what was clearly uniform work. Deciding that the department was stretched thin enough as it was, he decided not to press the issue further. “Whatever. Fuck it. Get the kid on the horn and get him over here, but tell him to watch his ass.”