The Empty Ones

Chapter One- The Shouting Man

He was outside again.

His scraggly hair tackled with the wind, slapping against skin so slack and brittle it could have been carved out of clay. Spittle flew from his mouth in thick, watery droplets as he shouted at the people walking by.

"The beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit," he said in a voice of crunching gravel, "and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder whose names are not in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when behold, the beast that was, and is not, and yet is."

He'd stood outside the Jolly Lobster since Harriat had started, one and a half years ago, and probably long before that. Every morning at the crack of dawn, he was there, and each night as Harriat hurried in to the parking lot, he could still see his shadow melting into the night, like a lone soldier standing to attention. Maybe he never left. Maybe he'd been doing it for years, arriving as the world blinked awake and shouting the words engraved in his book- and across his mind- at it. Maybe he'd been doing it for decades. He didn't strike Harriat as the sort of man that perceived time quite like other people did.

People crossing the foot path skittered around him the way they always did, avoiding eye contact, hands clasped at their sides, as if he were a stray animal that might bite them if they got too close. It occurred to Harriat, not for the first time, that he didn't even know his name.

"Hugh."

His head snapped down, and Billy stared up at him with her muddied water eyes, her reflection sliding off the counter. She was small, even for her age, the plush, bloated fat associated with toddler-hood not quite shed. The lighter edges of her dark skin betrayed her mixed parentage, and her eyes held that childish spark, the kind you see in the heart of a burning fire.

"I want to play on the cars," she said.

He dug into his pocket, pulled out a couple of dollars. He handed them to her, and she made a face.

"No, I want you to play with me."

"Can't," he said. "I'm on my shift."

Her pout deepened. "You're always on your shift."

"Yeah, well, that's one of the negative side effects of being part of the percentage of the population that's employed."

She looked down at her feet, not frowning, not making a fuss, not anything. She knew him, in the raw, perceptive way only a child can know you, and she knew silence affected him more than anything else.

"Listen, I'll buy you an ice-cream when my shift ends, yeah?"

Her eyes lit up, the negotiation made, and she skittered into the games room. The wooden sounds of the machines blinked into life.

Harriat was just going over the menu with disparagingly optimistic depictions of the quality of the food when the bell chimed- almost screamed- and the door flung open.

The Shouting Man stepped inside.

Harriat stared. The Shouting Man never stepped inside. He never left his post. A strange sense of awe, almost horror swept over Harriat as he stared into those dull eyes, like a sheet of clouds draping over a rainy sky. His clothes hung limply on him, like when a child wore their older brother's uniform to school. They were scratched and faded, battle worn, holes peeking through the knees of the trousers.

He stood for a moment, as if he were studying his surroundings, then shuffled to the counter. Slapping dirty palms on the surface, he leaned in, and Harriat caught a glimpse of his own face sliding across those stony eyes.

"Do you hear it?" The Shouting Man asked. His voice was old, heavy, like the cogs of an aging ship grinding into gear.

Harriat didn't know what to say. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in, felt the dust from The Shouting Man's coat rise up and tickle his throat.