The Hollows(36)

David crossed to the dresser and beckoned me over.

‘I thought I spotted these,’ he said.

He picked up a bottle of pills from the dresser and handed them to me. I read the label.

Beta blockers, with Donna’s name on the label. The bottle was almost full.

Tamara saw us and got up from the bed. She snatched the pills from David’s hand. ‘Where did you find these?’

‘They were right there. On the dresser. Are these the pills Donna lost?’

Tamara nodded, dumbstruck for a second. ‘I looked here. I searched this whole room. This whole cabin.’

‘I guess she must have found them just before . . .’ David trailed off.

‘But I searched the whole cabin,’ Tamara said again; and, clutching the bottle of pills, she collapsed into a chair, sobbing.





Chapter 18


They reached the main road. Frankie couldn’t stop shaking. She wanted to go home. Back to Albany. No, further than that. Back to England. Back into her childhood. It didn’t really matter. She just wanted to get away from this place.

She was even more certain now that Buddy and Darlene were after her. It was them who had left the dead rabbit outside the cabin. A rabbit they had stolen from their neighbours and murdered. There was no doubt about it. Maybe they were responsible for the ants too. Her missing Hydro Flask. Maybe it actually had been them firing that gun in the woods.

What were they going to do? Abduct her and bury her alive, like they’d done with those kids’ cat?

She could hardly catch her breath.

‘Frankie.’ Ryan’s voice appeared to be coming from a long way away. ‘Frankie!’

‘I want to go back to the resort,’ she said. She staggered, and Ryan caught her, kept her from crashing to the ground.

‘You need some sugar. Remember we saw that minimart on Main Street? If you wait here I can run there and grab you something before we head back.’

‘No!’

He took a step away from her. She had shouted.

‘This is all your fault!’ she yelled. ‘If you hadn’t put up that stupid Insta post and written all that crap they wouldn’t even have known we existed.’

‘No. We’d already met them, remember?’

She didn’t care. ‘It’s your fault they killed that rabbit.’

‘Come on, that’s unfair.’

‘No, it’s not. Why did you do it? Why did you have to be such a twat?’

His face hardened. ‘I showed it to you the moment I posted it. If you thought it was such a stupid thing to do you should have told me to take it down.’

‘I hardly knew you. Jesus, I hardly know you. I was meant to be having a nice relaxing vacation with my dad, and instead I’ve been drawn into all this madness. Because of you. I wish I’d never—’

‘Shut up!’ Now he was shouting. He had his hands up by his ears, like he didn’t want to hear her. ‘Quit whining and blaming me.’

‘I’m not whining!’

He put on a high-pitched voice. ‘If you hadn’t put up that stupid Insta post. Fuck you, Frankie.’

She took a step back, as if she’d been struck.

‘Get away from me,’ she said. ‘I never, ever want to speak to you again.’

She turned and, without another word, sprinted towards the entrance to the woods. She didn’t think she had ever run as fast, even on sports day at school when she had come second in the hundred metres. Ryan called her name and she thought she heard his footsteps behind her but she was moving too fast to be sure, everything muffled by the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. She entered the woods, grabbing a tree to steady herself, and ran down the path that had led them into town – blindly, sure this was the way they had come.

It took a few seconds for her to realise how dark it had got. Dusk fell swiftly here and now the path was barely visible, the trees and shrubs black shapes against a grey backdrop. Suddenly, the woods weren’t so pretty any more.

Fear forced her to stop running, to attempt to get her bearings. She had been following her instincts, her inner compass, sure she was heading back towards the cabins – but now? Now she wasn’t sure. She expected to hear Ryan behind her, calling out her name, but there was nothing. He clearly didn’t give a damn about her, and she didn’t care. She really didn’t care.

Except she was in the darkening woods. Not entirely sure where she was going.

They’d take us to him. The man who lives in the woods.

Once again, she thought she might be sick. He’s not real, she told herself. He’s a stupid urban legend. The murderer disappeared twenty years ago.

She took several deep breaths and forced herself to calm down, to take in her surroundings and work out where she was.

She could hear a gentle wind rustling the leaves on the trees. Just that and . . . scuffling? It’s the dead cat, digging its way out of the grave.

Shut up! she yelled at her own brain. It’s birds, that’s all. Nothing dangerous. But the rational part of her brain was in danger of being shoved aside by the primal part. She took another deep breath, exhaled as slowly and calmly as she could.

She should turn around and head back, but she was still convinced she couldn’t be too far from the resort. It was impossible to tell in the near-darkness. All the paths, all the trees, looked the same. She strained to listen and thought she could hear, very faintly in the distance, the hubbub of voices. The sounds of people enjoying themselves down by the lake.