The Hollows(8)

‘You’re trespassing,’ said the boy, staring right into Frankie’s eyes.

‘It was so great to meet you guys,’ said Ryan, after a stunned pause. ‘Come on, Frankie.’ And he walked away quickly. Frankie followed.



When they were out of the teenagers’ earshot, Frankie said, ‘Oh my God.’ She tried to laugh but it wouldn’t quite come.

‘You okay? You seem rattled.’

‘I’m fine. Jesus.’

Ryan laughed. ‘You’re trespassing. Wow. What a pair of freaks.’ His words struck the note he was after, but somehow he didn’t quite sell them. It seemed possible to Frankie that he might be as rattled as she was.

They turned a corner and found themselves on what was presumably Main Street. A wide road, with a few stores and other establishments on either side: a post office, a bar, a minimart and, Frankie was pleased and surprised to see, a bookstore.

There was hardly anyone around. An old man sat on a bench beneath a tree, fanning himself with a hat. A woman strode along the sidewalk with a couple of kids struggling to keep up with her. A few cars went by.

There was a war memorial nearby, a statue of a soldier with a plaque commemorating the brave men of Penance who had died in World War Two. A crow sat on the soldier’s head, gazing down at them with a beady eye. Frankie took a photo. Then she looked down and saw that someone was sleeping in the shadow cast by the memorial. A homeless man, with an empty bottle beside him. Ryan took a picture of him.

‘You probably shouldn’t have done that,’ Frankie said.

Ryan shrugged. ‘It’s fine. He’ll never know. Hey, look, a bookstore.’

They crossed the road, Frankie thinking she might be able to impress Ryan by popping in and buying a Stephen King novel – she’d let him choose which one – but as she got closer to the shop her heart sank. It was shut.

They walked away from the bookstore towards a diner. ‘I’m dying of thirst,’ Ryan said. ‘And I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

The diner was shut too.

‘Oh, you’re kidding me. What is this place? Did all the adults die or something?’

But Frankie had taken out her phone and noticed something wonderful. A Wi-Fi signal, apparently coming from one of the nearby buildings. And it wasn’t password-protected.

‘I’m online,’ she said, and seconds later her phone went ping ping ping as a flood of WhatsApp messages came pouring across state lines from her friends back home. Distracted, she sat on a low wall and scrolled through the most recent ones. As she’d suspected, loads of drama.

‘Hey,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘Can you send me that selfie?’

‘Yeah, course. Give me your number.’ He handed her his phone and she tapped her number in.

The selfie arrived and she forwarded it to her friends. The replies came back instantly.

OMG!!

Who dat?

Frankie got a new boo LOL!

As she smiled at her phone, she noticed Ryan tapping away at his. She could see he had opened Instagram. ‘What’s your Insta name?’ he said.

She told him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just posting. Hey, I’ve followed you, if you want to follow me back.’

She clicked on to his profile and scrolled through. There were a lot of pictures of buildings, rooftops, graffiti. A video clip of Ryan leaping across a gap between two buildings.

‘You do parkour?’ she asked.

‘Oh yeah. Mom hates it. Says I’m gonna end up walking with a stick, like her.’

Frankie scrolled down. There was a photo of Ryan with his arm around another boy.

‘Is this your best friend?’

He glanced up from the post he was still composing and pulled a face. ‘That’s my ex. I should delete that.’

She scrolled down further. There were photos of Ryan and the other boy at what appeared to be a Pride parade, rainbow flags aloft. Of course, the best-looking, coolest guy she’d met, like, ever was gay.

‘Do you have a new boyfriend?’ she asked.

He was still tapping at his phone. ‘Hmm? Not yet. But there’s this boy in my class. Glen Troiano. There, done.’

He showed her his screen. He had put up the photos he’d taken of the junkyard, Penance’s Main Street and the homeless man, with his face blurred. The pictures were accompanied by a caption:

Come to the asshole of the world! Penance, ME. Where the dogs in the junkyard have higher IQs than the people. #Penance #shithole #vacationfromhell

She tried to hide her shock. She didn’t want Ryan to think she was a killjoy. This place was a shithole. A weird, creepy shithole. But that post was mean. She guessed Ryan really had been rattled by the encounter with the other teenagers.

And the homeless guy across the street was staring at them.

Frankie nudged Ryan and he followed her gaze.

‘Let’s get out of here before someone else accuses us of trespassing,’ he said.





Chapter 4


On the way back from the on-site shop, carrying a bag containing coffee, bread, milk and some snacks for Frankie, I paused briefly to peruse a map of Hollow Falls. It was a big place, with the lake forming a border at its southern edge and the general store and the restaurant at its centre. There were tennis courts, an archery field, a stables and a children’s playground. The cabins were grouped in clusters around the edges of the resort, with mine and Frankie’s in the north-west corner, before the resort gave way to the woods that separated Hollow Falls from Penance.