The Hollows, page 3
Her mind numb as she stood there in the lifeless silence.
In the harsh silence. In the merciless silence.
It was a murderous silence.
Silence that was then interrupted by a heavy, weighted, and predatory crunch of bone.
INTERLUDE I
She is here, he said to himself. She is here, somewhere.
He sat on the ground, digging into the dirt and pulling out little hard-shelled bugs. Methodically peeling off all eight legs, snapping and pinching until they pulled free. His fingernails were getting green with the ooze as he crushed the bug’s cavity and tore open its insides, wringing out the tiny, dime-sized bulk of meat and popping it into his mouth. The taste was bland and grainy with tiny sections of the crunchy film still attached. He swallowed and dug for another.
“Ethan, please…” A girl’s voice pleaded beside him. He rarely looked up, there was no reason. He knew she was there.
“She is here. I know it. She’s not some myth or boogeyman,” Ethan said while scraping the ground.
“The boogeyman isn’t a myth, either. He’s real, he’s just not here anymore.”
“You know what I meant, Maggie,” He said. He glanced up at her as she stood against the wall. The concern on her face could have been from the fact he was eating bugs or his current obsession with finding a particular woman. He rarely ate, rarely slept. All he wanted was to find her.
Maggie adjusted her little pink dress, “And what would you do if you ever did find her?”
Ethan shrugged, “She killed mom and dad.”
“The Woman in Red would kill you, too. I can’t watch that happen. I can’t see another one of our family dead,” Maggie said. She didn’t cry or weep like children usually do. As a matter of fact, there was rarely any emotion on her face at all since the blight on their family.
Ethan dug deep until his fingers hurt, now more out of frustration than hunger, “You are too young to understand.”
“You are only a year older, Ethan, not even a teenager. Don’t treat me like the child.”
“Whatever, are you going to eat or not?” Ethan asked.
Maggie stood at the wall, “I’m not hungry.”
“You’re never hungry, anymore.”
“Well, not for bugs, that’s for sure,” She said.
Ethan shrugged, not hungry himself any longer. All he could do was sit and brainstorm how to find the creature. The Woman in Red, that’s what Maggie referred to her as, which was fitting.
He felt hollow, digging at the ground, making quite the impressive little hole. The dirt under his fingernails ground against the rocks and pebbles. He didn’t care if his fingers bled. He didn’t care if the creatures beneath the earth died. He crushed them between his fingers, watching them squirm for a moment before going still. The child’s ambition was gone. Playing, toying, and the sounds of laughter were gone, he knew. Ethan hadn’t smiled in over two months. There was no reason to smile. Every time he tried it felt like a betrayal. The Woman in Red was the only thing he seemed to care about. It was what his heart desired. And until he found her, nothing mattered. Life, love, happiness, even his own breath didn’t matter.
Maggie put her hand on his shoulder to let him know she was ready to leave. It was a very light pressure, barely noticeable, but he always felt her. He always knew where she was. He looked up at her emotionless face and tried to smile at her, but nothing formed.
Something screamed just beyond his sight, he didn’t bother to even turn his head and look. Screams were normal. Death had become a familiarity. The screams grew louder, pleading against the night.
“The Gray are hungry,” Maggie said.
The screams died almost immediately, leaving the air heavy with the sudden silence.
Ethan stood up and wiped his hands on his tattered jeans, “They always are.”
Chapter 2:
SEVENS and Shadows
Its curved fingernails clicked against the ground.
There was nothing in its eyes; no sorrow, no anger, no emotion of any kind. All seven glazed with a shine looked at my every pore. The creature with seven eyes and seven limbs stood tall and thin, easily two or three heads above my own. His complexion was pale white with yellowing tips. Its arms, six folded sets in front of his thin chest. A single arm extended forward, pointing directly at me.
“You need to remain calm,” The voice of a silk, smooth threat triggered the memory of the drug-tripped adolescent sitting bare ass on the warm concrete. A black film coaxed the candles to shadows at the creature’s back.
My body snapped upright to a standing position swifter than I had dreamed possible, barely a noise escaped my shock-locked jaw.
The creature’s muscles never flinched, its fingernail still fixed, unmoving, towards me.
Each of the seven walls that made up the heptagonal room held seven candles illuminating the area from their small, cast-iron vessel. The small detail that passed me in light of my initial shock was the lack of melting wax. Even against the dark, his skin was nearly translucent, almost like a white film covering the solid muscle. It looked down, looming over my head as if anticipating an outburst.
“Your corporeal nature is a lie, a figment of your inability to accept your death,” This was a different voice altogether, animalistic and hungry. I looked at the creature as it spoke, its head tilting as if struggling to get its words across.
My drug-trip recovery took a bounce forward at that. Drug.
“This is a hallucination, a forged vision that your mind forced upon you to cope.”
I thought for a second, “Wait. Didn’t you say I was dead?”
He spoke louder, irritated, “A poison has entered your body, causing tricks and schemes to play with your mind.”
The shadows seemed to deepen, sweeping across to the creature’s left. It wasn’t as if the candles were fading; more like the dark was just growing.
“What are you saying?”
He spoke over my last word. His voiced edged in malice, “There is a man here who will answer any question with complete, unaltered, truth.”
My head ached; a pain descended from my temples in a pulsating jolt that traveled down my back. The after effects I have felt many times before. I pitched forward suddenly and heaved bile onto the dusty, cold concrete. My body shook deep in the muscle, quivered from the rejection of the remaining effects.
“This can’t be real,” I spoke softly.
The creature encroached, eyes narrowing and voice booming, “This is an illusion towards myself; you are not authentic.”
It was so close. Too close. I should have been able to feel the heat of its body on mine, but it felt colder, like holding your fingertips just above ice as it prickled your skin. We were within inches of one another, staring into each other’s eyes, neither wanting to make the first move. Its skin smelled of wet dog and mud.
The head that held the seven eyes cocked to the side as if awaiting a response. My skin felt clammy and sweat trickled down my neck.
It continued, “We are characters in someone else’s fantasy, forced upon a trail of destiny without foreknowledge or hope.”
All seven limbs reached out simultaneously, all stretched towards a part of my body; surrounding, but not touching, hovering millimeters above my skin.
It was my turn to not flinch. I held my breath.
Tranquility embraced him, “This is nothing but a game, an illusion to force you to deal with the past by someone who plays wicked games.”
Then he stood, statuesque, unnaturally still as stone. There was not even a pulse of a vein or an expansion of the lungs; he was completely, and wholly still. His frame cast his shadow onto me from the slowly darkening flames that still held their height and brightness as they did upon her first glimpse, but darkness had nearly swallowed the light.
We stood, me twitching and parched, him immobile.
“Our time is fleeting. Choose,” The shadow swallowed the flame.
I looked around the room for the silky voice, “Choose?”
This time, it came from behind me, the creature’s eyes never leaving mine as the shadows spoke, “He told you seven possible truths. You must pick one to continue.”
“This isn’t real,” I told myself, throat burning and skin wet. I thought, fixating on each word I heard from the seven eyes and seven limbs with seven possible truths.
And I chose. “There’s a man who will not tell a lie.”
I closed my eyes, blinking firmly through my sweat tipped eyelashes. For a moment, the room seemed a few degrees warmer, but only slightly. There in that moment, I let my lungs inflate, relishing in the silence.
I opened them to discover the seven-limbed creature re-lighting the candles that had flickered out behind him just paces away. My hallucination was still in a desperate attempt to affirm itself. Shuffling on more legs than one would think normal outside of illusion, the creature moved back to the side. Only after did I have a logical thought. How the hell did he light the candle?
“Why did you choose the fourth possibility?” A voice came from my right. A man stood leaning against a wall, standing on two legs, crossing two arms over his chest. He was completely covered in a shadow to where I could not see any portion of his face or tangible form to his body. The shadow, cast by nothing, clung to him like a cloak, a fully enveloped shade that the candlelight never pierced.
“Who are you?” My voice sounded stronger than I felt.
“You answer mine, and I’ll answer yours,” he said. Nothing could have prepared me for what my body witnessed. I felt him grin. It made me shiver.
With my jaw set, I glared, “It was simple. It was the one sentence that didn’t involve a lie of sorts. The other six had only to do with someone being either tricked or deceiving itself. The man who cannot lie is the only one that lacked any sort of deception. Now, may I ask who you are, please?”
“So polite,” He said. I felt him smile again, “Well, I’ll answer if I can. You can call me ‘Day’.”
“Day. Are you screwing with me?”
The shadow tilted its head, “What do you mean?”
“Oh, please. ‘Day’, the complete oxymoron.”
I knew he smiled, “I sense skepticism, but I can promise you it is of immense importance.” He moved from his position, “See, I have a question for you.”
A shadow seemed to glide against the wall, a flowing thick ribbon coursed from a darkened corner and connected against the shadow that draped ‘Day’ before swallowing it like night. My delusion took a stab at my psyche as the man disappeared in the dark.
“This is the first of three times I will ask you this, so the utmost importance must be placed upon the questioning. Attention must be paid. Listen,” The cloak reformed directly in front of me, “do you wish to return?”
I stopped; the daze contorting and shaping stars into every crevice of my vision. I could not stop myself from another attempt at vomiting, but all that was produced was several painful dry-heaves. I collapsed to the ground into the soot and began to convulse violently. My body shaking, muscle control shattered in a failed attempt at regaining composure. My jaw clenched and locked; I felt the cracking of a tooth and tasted the warm intrusion of copper.
Flashbacks of rope and iron, crust, and blood; smells of spermicidal condoms and brief sensations sending waves of re-opened scars both emotional and physical, placated and swirled in dazes and sharp flashes. Some came like a short breeze, others like a stab through the pupil.
I felt a sudden pounding force on my chest and my body heaved from the ground, turned and bent so that the foam and blood that collected on my lips and in my throat spilled to the ground. Another sharp pound on my back sent what air remained trapped in my lungs outward, and then, upon instinct, a flood of dusty wind was sucked back into my windpipe. My eyes exploded in pain-induced lights.
The Seven limbed monster gave an unhuman screech as it groped.
Painful breaths were forced in, and forced out, clearing the air passage. My head floated and filled, morphing my sight into rippling illusions. The relapse lasted for several minutes. My body was propped up on the heptagon wall. Opposite of me, a wooden door slowly came into view through the waves, one that I had never seen before. I finally swallowed and clung to reality, at least this one.
“You are lucky Sevens caught you. You could have died and that would have been quite unfortunate. The effects of that toxin can be highly unpleasant as you can tell. My sincerest apologies at that,” Day said.
“Sevens?” My voice was hoarse, but I watched the monster with new questions.
The creature with seven limbs and seven eyes turned on a dime and was at my feet, eyes wide with anticipation much comparable to a dog awaiting a treat. I carefully placed my hand on the crown of its head and its chest pulsated with what I could only compare to a purr.
“Now, I asked you a question. I need an answer,” The shadow waited.
“What question?” I asked before I immediately recollected.
His shadow leaned forward, “If I am forced to ask again, that will be the second time I ask. It is not the moment to ask it a second time.”
The dryness in my throat made my attempt to swallow futile, “Where am I?”
“I will answer your question if you answer mine,” his voice returned to frighteningly velvet.
Hallucinating, that’s what this was. This was nothing more than my delusion brought on by some sort of drug. Although, the worst trip up until this point was my mistakenly taking a bad batch and ending up in the hospital. There was no other explanation that seemed sensible. The walls, the dark, the shadows, Sevens, Day; it all was a bad trip. I would wake up soon to white hospital sheets and a fat, donut guzzling police officer asking me where my parents were.
My skin grew hot as fire, sweat clamming my hands and pits. But even through the daze, the craze, the rippling mirage that was set before me, I was distracted. I was forgetting. I was forgetting everything I left behind.
The question he was referring to finally came to my mind, “Yes, I want to continue.”
Sensations of concern filled my chest, “Are you sure, Serenity?”
Nodding, I slowly sat up, “I want to see the man who will answer questions in total truth.”
I was not yet ready for my reality’s embrace. My psyche clung to this one, wanting to drown in it rather than ever wake up again.
“I think I want to stay,” I said in a whisper, “sir.”
Day grinned as an unsettling sense snaked through my seams, “Then welcome to The Hollow, Serenity Nyx. Did you know that your name means ‘The Calm within the Dark’?” He leaned so close I should have felt his breath, “Because, trust me, you’ll need just that.”
Chapter 2.5:
In The Hunter’s Presence
The echo of heavy footfall silenced, waited.
Stay still, must stay till. Do not move. Do not even breathe. The girl looked around without moving her head, the walls and bone waited with anticipation. Sweat prickled against her nose, forehead, and neck. She could feel the perspiration between her pits and legs. She wished she was home, desperately wanting to be clean.
The darkness seemed to taste the way she shook and sweat. It licked the air around her, savoring her breathlessness. She stared into the shadows in search of the catalyst to the noise standing invisible amongst the dark.
The words flew to her both loud and subconscious, whispering bellows.
Hide.
Run.
Panic.
Danger.
Survive.
She licked her lips with a sandpaper tongue. The air went from damp to dry. It siphoned off moisture straight from her skin and dried the saliva off her tongue. The final drop of wet from her lip fell, withering the tips of her mouth in the cold just before cracking. For a moment, she thought that she imagined the sound, that in the midst of her panic, she felt a little foolish, letting out the breath she had been holding so tightly to her chest.
Something else breathed beneath the veil of darkness, a slow, long exhale from whence she could not see, but she could feel even from the distance. Her eyes fought for a figure, an outline, a sign, straining against the dark enough to cause a pain in her vision.
She warred with the urge to turn and run. As much of her life within the Hollow had taught her, to run would be turning you into the easy victim. Runners had given up. Runners were mostly painless prey. So she stood, arms at her side with her fists in balls, shaking beneath her skin. Returning to breathless immobility.
In her frantic state, she could think of nothing he wanted more than her father. She could not even draw on what his face looked like, but she remembered how she felt safe. How he would put her in his shoes and let her clop around on them, nearly tripping because they were many sizes too large. The piggy-back rides he would give her, bouncing her around on his shoulders and making strange animal noises. Or when he first showed her how to put her hair in pigtails because her mother was sick in bed.
In the middle of those thoughts, whatever stood so close to her inhaled and exhaled for several counts. She knew, that with each breath, it inhaled her scent.
An exhale came with a low, satisfied rumble when her fear finally took control. It was not to be handled, chained, or detained. Her fear was wild inside of her, shaking the depths of her muscles, twitching the constraints of her bones.
She did not scream, not a shrill nor shriek. There wasn’t time or the energy for her mind to process the possibility. Against her will, she broke.
The girl ran.
The dust clouded beneath her feet as she turned quickly, kicking aside the tattered bones of the Labyrinth’s previously fallen captives.
Backward towards the candle lit hallway behind her, taking every endeavor not to trip over the lifeless hindrances that could impede her. She bounded down the hallway until her ankles went sore, her feet ached. She fled for hours, candle after candle in the midnight.
