The Hollows(82)

I’m sorry, Abigail, Carl says in his head. Another time. We’ll do it another time.

Two.

Wait. Claws? That’s not . . .

‘All the better,’ says Darlene, and her voice is right in Carl’s ear, her breath on his neck. When did she get so close?

She slides the knife into his back.

‘All the better to kill you with.’



Carl lies on the dirty wooden floor of the cabin, gazing up at them. He can’t move. He’s vaguely aware of his blood seeping out of him, pooling around him. He turns his head and sees Abigail’s picture, the glass of the frame smashed to pieces, lying in the path of his blood. Two faces look down at him. A fox and a goat. Nikki and Greg. His friends. His family. He smiles, not feeling the blood on his lips. They’re all so young. They have their whole lives ahead of them.

Then he remembers. This isn’t Greg and Nikki. It’s Buddy and Darlene. Behind them, in the doorway, he sees another face. A woman’s face. Abigail? Has she come for him? Come to take him away? Oh, such relief. She hasn’t abandoned him, hasn’t fled this place. She’s been waiting, waiting to welcome him to the next life, to take his hand and lead him into the woods, her woods, the place he protected for her, and they will roam and dance and laugh and be together forever.

He takes one last look at Abigail’s broken portrait and closes his eyes. He hears Buddy say something about burning this place down, but that doesn’t matter now.

He waits.

Waits for Abigail to stretch out her hand.

He’s still waiting when the last breath leaves his lungs.





Chapter 45


Frankie’s throat was sore, her voice hoarse, from pleading with Carl to let them out. Ryan’s too, despite the bottled water Carl had dropped into the basement.

Finally, realising it was futile, that they should save their energy, Frankie stopped yelling. She touched Ryan’s arm and he fell quiet too.

All was silent above them.

Frankie tried to picture what it was like up there. They had been led into the house, through the room with the altar in the corner and into another room. That’s where the hatch was. If Carl was in the first room with the door shut, he probably couldn’t hear them, or they were muffled enough to make ignoring them easy.

Ryan sat back on the ground, his arms wrapped around his knees.

‘We’re gonna die down here,’ he said. He turned his face towards the remains of Everett Miller. ‘Like him.’

Frankie, who had sat down too, scooted over to him. ‘Don’t say that. We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to live long, wonderful lives. We’ll be grateful to be alive. We won’t take it for granted. And that will give us an edge over all our friends and peers. Because we’ll have been given a second chance.’

‘Huh.’

‘Hey, that was my best motivational speech.’

‘It was a good one.’

‘But wasted on you, huh?’

He smiled. In the dim light of the torch his face was like a skull; bone-white, eyes sunken. The sight of him made Frankie shiver, as if it were a premonition. She wondered if, in their final moments, they would cling to each other. Which of them would die first? Would the other be left here for hours or days with the corpse of their friend?

She reached out and gave Ryan a hug.

The hatch opened.

Frankie jumped to her feet, forcing herself not to start yelling and begging. She didn’t want to anger Carl and make him leave them alone again. She would be reasonable with him. Try to persuade him that she would never tell anyone. She would take his secret to the grave in many, many years’ time.

Except it wasn’t Carl.

It was Nikki. And she was pushing something down through the hole.

‘Stand back,’ she said. She was whisper-shouting it.

Something came sliding down into the basement, hitting the ground with a loud thump, which made Nikki swear and turn her face away from the hatch as if she knew the sound must have drawn attention. But Frankie didn’t care. It was a ladder. They had a ladder! They were getting out of here. She grabbed Ryan’s hand, pulled him to his feet and told him to start climbing.

‘No, you first,’ he said.

Nikki stuck her head through the open hatch and whispered, ‘Hurry.’

Frankie stepped on to the first rung and started to climb.

There was a noise from above. A voice. A male, teenage voice, saying something to Nikki. It must be Buddy. Above Frankie, Nikki vanished from sight and began to talk in a pleading tone, her words low and indecipherable.

Frankie froze in her position halfway up the ladder. She looked down at Ryan beneath her, his face turned upwards. And then, looking back to the hatch, she could see Nikki again. The backs of her legs. She was standing right by the edge of the open hatch, still pleading with Buddy.

And then he must have pushed her.

Nikki’s falling body filled the open hatch. There was a thump as her spine banged against the far side of the opening and she tried to twist, scrambling to hold on to the edge. Her legs kicked at the air beneath her, a few feet above Frankie’s face.

Frankie froze. Nikki was going to make it. She was going to hold on, haul herself back up.

And then Buddy must have stamped on her hands or kicked her in the face.

Frankie saw Nikki plummeting towards her, legs first, but there was nothing she could do about it. It took less than a second. The falling woman crashed into her and Frankie tried to cling to the rung she was holding, but the force was too great. Pain exploded in her shoulder and she was thrown to the side, hitting the ground face down, knees and hips and belly smashing into the hard floor.