The Unquiet

“You’re bad luck for me,” I said. “You’ll forgive me for not shedding a tear when you go.”

“I think you may be bad luck for me too. I’ve had to move part of my collection, I’ve lost a secure house, and Mr. Eldritch has been subject to some unwelcome publicity. He fears that it will be the death of him.”

“Heartbreaking. He always seemed so full of life.”

The Collector removed his tobacco and papers from his pocket and carefully rolled, then lit, another while the first still smoldered in the gutter. He appeared unable to think properly without something burning between his fingers or his lips.

“Since you’re here, I have a question for you,” I said.

He put the cigarette to his mouth, inhaled deeply, then blew a cloud of smoke into the night air. As he did so, he waved a hand in the air, inviting the question.

“Why those men?” I asked. “Why the interest in this case?”

“Equally, the same question could be asked of you,” he replied. “After all, you were not being paid to find them. Perhaps a fairer question might be: why not those men? It has always seemed to me that there are two types of people in this world: those rendered impotent by the sheer weight of evil it contains, and who refuse to act because they see no point, and those who choose their battles and fight them to the end, as they understand that to do nothing is infinitely worse than to do something and fail. Like you, I decided to pursue this investigation and to follow it through to its conclusion.”

“I hope the outcome was more satisfactory for you than it was for me.”

The Collector laughed. “You can’t be entirely surprised by what has happened to you,” he said. “You were living on borrowed time, and even your friends couldn’t protect you any longer.”

“My friends?”

“My mistake: your unseen friends, your secret friends. I don’t mean your lethally amusing colleagues from New York. Oh, and don’t worry about them. I have other, more worthy objects of my disaffection to pursue. I think I’ll leave them be, for now. They are making recompense for past evils, and I wouldn’t want to render you entirely bereft. No, I’m talking about those who have followed your progress quietly, the ones who have facilitated all that you have done, who have smoothed over the damage that you have left in your wake, who have leaned gently on those who would rather have seen you resting behind bars.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, I don’t suppose that you do. You were careless this time: your lies tripped you up. There was momentum building against you, and the consequences have now become apparent. You are a curious, empathic man who has been deprived of a license to do the thing that he does best, a violent individual whose toys have been taken away. Who can say what will happen to you now?”

“Don’t tell me that you’re one of these ‘secret friends’; otherwise, I’m in more trouble than I thought.”

“No, I’m neither your friend nor your enemy, and I answer to a higher power.”

“You’re deluded.”

“Am I? Very well, then it is a delusion that we both share. I’ve just done you a favor of which you don’t yet know. Now I’ll do you one final service. You have spent years drifting from the light into the shadows and back again, moving between them in your search for answers, but the longer you spend in the darkness, the greater the chance that the presence within it will become aware of you and will move against you. Soon, it will come.”

“I’ve met things in the darkness before. They’ve gone, and I am here.”

“This is not a ‘thing’ in the darkness,” he replied. “This is the darkness. Now, we are done.”

He turned to walk away, sending another dying cigarette after the first. I reached out to stop him. I wanted more. I grabbed his shoulder, and my hand brushed his skin-

And I had a vision of figures writhing in torment, of others alone in desolate places, crying for that which had abandoned them. And I saw the Hollow Men, and in that instant I knew truly what they were.

The Collector pirouetted like a dancer. My grip on him was broken with a sweep of his arm, then I was against the wall, his fingers on my neck, my feet slowly leaving the ground as he forced me up. I tried to kick out at him, and he closed the distance between us as the pressure on my neck increased, choking the life from me.

“Don’t ever touch me,” he said. “Nobody touches me.”

He released his hold upon me, and I slid down the wall and collapsed onto my knees, painfully drawing ragged gulps of air through my open mouth.

“Look at you,” he said, and his words dripped with pity and contempt. “A man tormented by unanswered questions, a man without a father, without a mother, a man who has allowed two families to slip through his fingers.”

“I had a father,” I said. “I had a mother, and I still have my family.”

“Do you? Not for long.” Something cruel transformed his features, like those of a small boy who sees the opportunity to continue the torture of a dumb animal. “And as for a father and a mother, answer this: your blood type is B. See the things I know about you? Now, here’s my problem.” He leaned in close to me. “How can a child with B blood have a father who was type A and a mother who was type O? It’s quite the mystery.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I? Well, then, so be it.”

He stepped away from me. “But perhaps you have other things to occupy your time: half-seen things, dead things, a child who whispers in the night and a mother who rages in the dark. Stay with them, if you wish. Live with them, in the place where they wait.”

And I asked him the question that had troubled me for so long, and for which I thought he might have some answer.

“Where are my wife and child?” The words burned my damaged throat, and I hated myself for seeking answers from this vile creature. “You spoke of beings cut off from the Divine. You knew about the writing in the dust. You know. Tell me, is that what they are, lost souls? Is that what I am?”

“Do you even have a soul?” he whispered. “As for where your wife and child dwell, they are where you keep them.”

He squatted before me, bathing me in nicotine as he spoke his final words.

“I took him while you were at di

He rose and walked away, and by the time I got to my feet, he was long gone. I went to my car and drove home, and I thought about what he had said.

Joel Harmon disappeared that night. Todd was ill and Harmon had driven himself to a town meeting in Falmouth, where he handed over a check for $25,000 as part of a drive to buy minibuses for a local school. His car was found abandoned at Wildwood Park, and he was never seen again.

Shortly after nine the next morning, I received a telephone call. The caller didn’t identify himself, but he told me that a search warrant for my property had just been signed by Judge Hight, authorizing the state police to seek any and all unlicensed firearms. They would be at my house within the hour.

They were led by Hansen when they came, and they went through every room. They managed to open the panel in the wall behind which I used to keep the guns I had retained, despite the suspension of my permit, but I had sealed them in oilcloths and plastic and dropped them in a marsh pond at the back of my property, anchored by a rope to a rock on the bank, so all they found was dust. They even searched the attic, but they did not stay there long, and I could see in the faces of the uniformed men who descended that they were grateful to leave that cold, dark space. Hansen did not speak to me from the time the warrant was served until the moment the search was complete. His final words to me were: “This isn’t over.”