The Hollows(88)

But at least I would see her again.



‘Dad.’

The night before, after I’d got back to the cabin and started packing up our stuff, Frankie had come up to me and given me a long hug. Then she’d stood back, arms wrapped around herself.

‘I feel different,’ she said.

‘That’s . . . not surprising.’

‘I had to do it, didn’t I?’

I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Of course you did. You saved me and Ryan. You were amazing.’

She pulled away and crossed to the window. ‘Do you think they’ll ever find Darlene?’

The police had been searching the woods for her for over twenty-four hours now. The helicopter had failed to find her. Sniffer dogs hadn’t been able to pick up her scent in the wet grass. Just like Everett twenty years before, she had vanished, except we knew she couldn’t be hiding in a hunting cabin, trapped forever in its basement.

‘She’ll turn up,’ I said. ‘One day.’

‘Maybe she’s gone to Canada,’ Frankie suggested.

‘Poor Canada,’ I said.



I did a final sweep of the cabin to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind, then shook David’s hand, then Ryan’s. Connie gave me a quick hug, and Frankie gave Ryan a long hug.

Then we were in the car.

On the way out, I stopped at reception to drop off the keys. Vivian, who had been made temporary manager, was on duty.

‘Hey,’ she said. I could tell she was pleased we were leaving. She wanted everything to get back to normal. Maybe that was possible now the ghosts of the Hollows’ past had finally been exorcised.

‘Hi.’

I handed her the keys and spotted a cat carrier on the side. She noticed me looking at it.

‘I’ve volunteered to take in Nikki’s cat,’ she said.

‘Cujo? That’s great.’

‘He’s a cutie,’ she said.

I turned to leave.

‘Hey, Mr Anderson,’ she called. I looked back. ‘Don’t forget to leave us a review on TripAdvisor.’

I was still chuckling when I got back to the car. Neal Fredericks drove past us, also on his way home, and I raised a hand to say farewell. Then something else occurred to me that made me laugh more. I stopped and took a final look back at Hollow Falls. It was beautiful. There was no denying it. And we were never coming back here again.

‘What were you laughing at?’ Frankie asked as I slid into the driver’s seat.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I was just trying to figure out what we’re going to tell your mum.’





Epilogue


There are places in the woods that only she and Buddy knew. Dark spaces. Hollow tree trunks. The abandoned den of some long-dead animal in which, for hours, she has lain still, concentrating on slowing her heartbeat to a crawl, something she has always found easy. Once, a doctor told her she had both an unusually slow resting pulse and a surprisingly low body temperature. She has always been proud of that. Buddy was the opposite. It was as if they balanced each other out.

Now that balance has gone.

Thanks to the girl.

Katniss, Crow called her, which made Darlene sick. The Hunger Games was one of her favourite movies. She’d watched it over and over. Had taken part a thousand times in her own mind, picturing kills, weapons, plotting out exactly how she would survive – and win. The English girl was no Katniss. She’d gotten lucky with that arrow, that was all, though Darlene guessed that was a lesson. Even the weakest competitor can win sometimes, through a fluke of fate, or a moment of weakness on the part of a natural-born winner.

Her brother paid the price for that. He had thought himself invincible.

Darlene would not make the same mistake.

All yesterday, they searched the woods for her. Men with dogs. A helicopter that swept overhead. But the men hadn’t been looking too hard. At one point, a pair of them came within feet of her and she heard one say he was certain she would have gotten the hell out of here by now.

‘Waste of time,’ the other grumbled.

She had been tempted to surprise them. Slash one’s throat, then the other’s, just that quickly. They wouldn’t have seen her coming. A pair of stealth kills. But in the end she let them go, deciding not to take the risk.

The important thing was that she remained free. That she lived to fight another day.



Morning comes. The second sunrise since the fire and Buddy’s death and her escape into the woods. All night, the scene replayed in her head. The arrow, thwacking into Buddy’s chest. The way he fell.

This she could not bear, so she ran it in reverse: the arrow, sucked from the fresh wound, leaping back to the string of the English girl’s bow.

But then the bitch would just unleash it again. That awful sound. Buddy falling.

Back and forth, up and down, all night.

The last time, Darlene leaps forward, knocks the arrow aside with a forearm and drives the knife into the girl’s skinny throat.

In reality, she crawls from the abandoned den into sunlight.

She is filthy. Black with smoke and slick with mud. She can smell herself, stinking like a real fox, not one who wears a mask. She licks her lips, tastes dirt. Her stomach growls and she remembers how thirsty she is. She sucks rainwater from leaves, wonders about trapping a rabbit or a bird. How long will she survive out here in the forest?