Short Walk to PLuto

​The Hollow Man     |     The Hollow Man Series, International Espionage​

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From where you are, it’s just a short walk to Pluto. It was a phrase that had been with me for a long time. I didn’t know if it was a memory, a distant dream, or a way of life now. The universe was closing in on me, collapsing, or imploding, whatever it does to the weak, the lost, and the double-crossed.

But the journey ahead was far more treacherous than any interstellar hike. The investigation had led me along a dark and twisted path, where the line between sensibility and hallucination blurred; and the depths of the human mind revealed its most haunting secrets.

An anonymous tip I came across claimed a connection between a string of bizarre bombings and a buried society known as “Dieu de la Mort”, the god of death; Pluto in camouflage coming back to me. Intrigued by the cryptic note taken from a dead man’s pocket, I had no clue what it meant, but I knew it was my journey to make.

I stood on a desolate street, gazing up at the towering skyscrapers that loomed overhead, shutting out the air that usually fell to earth. The gusts that remained seemed to pull the last of the oxygen from my lungs. An icy chill soaked through my coat, sending a shiver through an already fragile frame. I adjusted the hood of my jacket, shielding a battered face from the biting intake of the wind’s breath.

I had come a long way for answers, finding neither fixed and immutable truths, nor the resting place of ever-evolving revelations. I had followed the leads through moonlit alleyways, whispered conversations, and encrypted messages. Each step I took brought me closer to the depravity in man’s soul, where the truth waited so patiently for its turn to tell its own gospel. And now, I stood with one foot kicking dirt into the abyss, ready to take that short walk to Pluto; toward the elusive entity that held the answers I sought.

An uneven spray of stars lightly salted the night sky, twinkling like distant secrets. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what lay ahead. I had learned that Pluto wasn’t just a physical place; it was a state of mind, an enigma that played with the sanity of those who dared to explore its depths.

As I walked the black streets, the atmosphere grew heavy with humid anticipation. Gray shadows danced along the walls, casting watery shapes of familiar demons that morphed and faded, then came again. The buildings whispered with mercurial voices that had no origin and no destination.

My rubber-soled shoes glided through the white noise of the mumbles and monsters surrounding me. I felt the weight of desolation pressing upon me, a tangible presence that threatened to consume all sanity. My senses were lulled by colors, smells, sounds, or shifts in the space-time continuum that didn’t belong.

I stopped at the door of an unassuming building with the number 72 etched in peeling paint. It may have been the worst building in a row of worst buildings. Number 72 reminded me of how Wichita was the Kansas of Kansas. Something has to be last, but at least the address was right.

I pulled a Beretta 950 from my waistband and dropped my hand to the side. With the other hand, I pushed open the door and stepped inside. The air was heavy with decay, mingling with a sharp, metallic tang. Flickering overhead lights cast an eerie glow, revealing the long-dead faces of those who journeyed into this surreal realm and found no way back home.

From the far-reaches of the ground floor, a hauntingly beautiful melody slowly wound its way around me. Was I hearing the tune true or was it a song I’d remembered from the Fillmore West and tucked away in some long ago acid trip? I didn’t know for sure. It was that space-time continuum again.

The music pulled me along the corridor toward an area that opened onto a large public area. An inch of dust had settled on abandoned machinery and warehouse floor. Humans had not entered here since Jesus tracked desert sand back into Galilee.

The music shifted to above my head. I started up the staircase to my right. By the time I finished the climb, the light had thinned, and the song misted away like a dandelion on a child’s breath. But I knew this was the place.