The Hollows Read online




  THE HOLLOWS

  Book 1

  The Ticking

  By Ben Larken

  Copyright

  The Hollows - Book 1: The Ticking by Ben Larken

  ISBN: 978-1905091-55-3

  Digital (ebook) version

  Published by LL-Publications © 2009

  www.ll-publications.com

  57 Blair Avenue

  Hurlford

  Scotland

  KA1 5AZ

  Edited by Zetta Brown

  Book layout and ebook converions by jimandzetta.com

  Cover art by Susi Steele © 2009

  Cover Design by Tammy Lowrence © 2009

  Distributed in the UK and the USA

  The Hollows – Book 1: The Ticking is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are entirely the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, transmitted, or recorded by any means whatsoever, including printing, photocopying, file transfer, or any form of data storage, mechanical or electronic, without the express written consent of the publisher. In addition, no part of this publication may be lent, re-sold, hired, or otherwise circulated or distributed, in any form whatsoever, without the express written consent of the publisher.

  Also By Ben Larken

  The 2009 Eppie Award Winning Best Horror

  PIT-STOP

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been simmering for years, but it never would have made it off the back burner without some considerable help.

  Many thanks to Rachel Brower, Susi Steele, and Jacob Toms for giving my book a welcomed touch of sophistication via their poetry.

  And I must give Susi Steele another huge thank you for drawing some exceptional cover art as well as Tammy Lowrance for designing it.

  Thanks also to Jason Jacobs for the promotional help, and to Jim Brown for not only taking a chance on my work, but for his relentless and enthusiastic support.

  Anne Drake, LaTonya Barnes, and Lenna Waters should receive humanitarian awards after enduring the daunting task of reading early versions of this manuscript.

  But the Mother Teresa Award goes to Zetta Brown, an amazingly thorough editor who deserves my eternal gratitude (and possibly my first born).

  Lastly, thanks to Kara, my wife of fourteen years, for allowing me to not only pursue writing but to regularly geek out on it. Thanks for letting me type away on the computer all day no matter how high the weeds grow in the backyard. Thanks for listening to endless, one-sided conversations in which I talk out character, plot, and the irrational fear of things that tick. Thanks for patience, constructive criticism, and subtle hints that sent me in wonderful new directions. Quite simply, because of you this story exists.

  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to mow.

  Dedication

  To Jill,

  who doodles and dances and constantly steals my heart

  Prologue

  Elise’s Journal: December 28, 1993

  I tried to get my wedding ring back today. I pawned it two weeks ago so we could buy some decent presents for Melanie. David doesn’t know. He started at the police academy last month and he’s barely bringing home enough to pay the utilities. He probably thinks I borrowed the money from my brother, although he doesn’t realize that the idea makes me as livid as it makes him. But I wanted Mel to have some good presents. I know she’s only three months old. I don’t care. This was her first Christmas and our first Christmas as a complete family. I wanted it to be special.

  The pawn shop guy couldn’t find my ring. He spent an hour searching the jewelry shelves, the merchandise storage bins, the owner’s desk—everywhere. I don’t know if he did it for show or if he saw a young woman with a baby in her arms and tears streaming down her face and felt compelled to keep going. His compassion hit its expiration after sixty minutes. He stopped at the counter, shrugged, and said something to the effect of, That’s that.

  Excuse me? As far as I was concerned THAT most definitely was not THAT.

  Look, lady, he said. You gave us the ring. We gave you money. I know you didn’t mean it to be permanent, but sometimes you have to take the trade as it stands.

  The jackass.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon at home, crying my eyes out, wondering if David would forgive me. Melanie was the one who pulled me back. I watched her in her crib, staring quietly up at her new Beauty & the Beast mobile. She focused on each individual character as it circled past—the princess, the candle, the Beast, the clock. Her wide eyes flickered in amazement for all of them. That’s when I realized the pawn shop guy was right, even if he would forever be known as Mr. Jackass. Our first Christmas as a family had been perfect. I would remember it always. At the end of the day, the wedding band was just something I wore. The trade was worth the memory.

  Tomorrow I’ll tell David the ring fell down the bathtub drain.

  THE CLOCK STRIKES ONE

  Had I but known the pace at which

  The golden days and deep blue nights

  Would rush along my winding road,

  How differently I would have held

  Your perfect face here in my hands

  The Ballad of Adnan Brophie

  Susi Steele

  1

  The Buckner Farm

  May 13, 1949

  For Tess Buckner the only worthwhile activity on that blustery Texas afternoon was standing between the two clotheslines in the backyard and letting the sheets billow against her. White cotton sheets lifted on the breeze, tickled her nose, and played dead again. She held out her arms, turning her little body into a T. The sheets rose to the occasion, taking her hands in loose but enthusiastic handshakes. Tess giggled.

  Then the breeze quieted and so did she. Momma’s head bobbed over the clothesline on the right, her squinty gaze catching Tess at once.

  “I thought my pischouette came out here to help her mother,” she said in a tone that , sounded both amused and annoyed.

  “I’m only so big,” Tess explained. “These clotheslines are too high for me.”

  “Which means I should give you a chore more suited to your size.”

  “But Maw-aaah,” Tess whined. “I’m helping. I’m looking out for dropped drawers.”

  Mare Buckner smiled. “I assure you, my drawers are in no danger of dropping.”

  Tess took a moment to catch her mother’s meaning. “I mean from the line, silly.” She laughed. The sheets thought it funny too. They billowed up in their own silent fits of hilarity.

  “Tell me a story,” Tess said. She couldn’t see Momma beyond the sheets, but she didn’t have to see her to know she was rolling her eyes. Tess waited and asked again. “Tell me a story…pleeease?”

  “You’ve heard all my stories,” Mare replied, but Tess didn’t believe her. There are endless quantities of certain things. The beach will always have enough sand. The sky will always have enough rain. And Momma will always have a story squirreled away in the corner of memory taken up by childhood.

  Mare Buckner grew up in Nawlins. At least that’s the way she pronounces it. Papa insists it’s pronounced New Orleans. It’s only a teensy bit away from Texas, where they live. Tess once put her fingers on the United States map at school, one on New Orleans and one on Fort Worth, and the gap was barely the size of a dime. Part of her longed to see Momma’s Nawlins, but Papa sounded like the distance was too far to be troubled with.

  Tess rounded the sheets as Mare pulled one of Papa’s shirts from the basket. Tess tugged on the shirt. “A story, Momma. Story, story, story!”

  “Tess Elizabeth Buckner,” Mare said, snapping the shirt back. “You’re about to hear the story o
f the girl who spent all day pulling weeds as punishment for back-sass.”

  “But you haven’t told me one in weeks,” Tess pleaded. Momma didn’t know that Tess repeated the stories at school. She had grown popular retelling them. A small circle of third graders on the playground gawked at her in awed silence as she spun tales of Southern jinxes and Vodun curses. Even big-shot Arnie Fetters occasionally shuddered or gasped in surprise. If the stories ever got back to the teachers, she’d be in for an earful from her mother. But for the moment Tess was willing to take that chance.

  Besides, Tess loved the way Momma sounded as she told them. That accent she tried hard to simmer down most times came bounding back to life during a story. Tess always thought she was glimpsing Momma in her truest, most beautiful form.

  “I’ve got it,” Tess said, holding a finger up like her teacher did when making a point. “If you tell me a story I’ll pull weeds in the flowerbed for a full hour.” She rocked on her feet as her mother looked at her. “You have to admit that’s a pretty swell deal.”

  Mare studied her daughter for a moment, making Tess feel like she was getting a final hair and clothes check before heading to the bus stop. Momma’s stares always seemed too long, and Tess sometimes wondered what she was looking for. Maybe her attention was drawn to the blonde ringlets that came naturally to Tess but took Momma half the morning to reproduce with pincurls. Or it could have been the over abundance of freckles that speckled her nose and cheeks like a swarm of snowflakes. Whatever it was, Momma seemed to get a little lost inside herself when she stared at Tess. The hypnotic music coming from the radio on the kitchen window ledge didn’t help. I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover gave way to the dreamy Bing Crosby crooning Now Is the Hour. Tess listened, swooning in the breeze, as Bing melodiously said goodbye to a loved one sailing away.

  “The weeds can wait another day,” Mare decided. “But that doesn’t mean you’re getting a story for free.”

  Tess grabbed her mother’s dress. “I’ll do anything.”

  Mare grabbed another piece of clothing from the basket. Tess cracked a smile when she saw it was Papa’s drawers. “Fetch that pail off the back porch,” Mare instructed. “If you can go down to the river and make it back with a pail-full of water, I’ll tell you a story.”

  “That’s it?” Tess bounced happily. “I can do that.”

  Their well pump had gone out yesterday evening, giving Papa a chance to use many of the words Mrs. Gershon said were “Paddle Words.” Mare propped her hands on her hips.

  “Then why are you dancing around here?”

  Tess didn’t need further motivation. She darted for the porch, grabbing the pail by the handle without slowing. Rounding their two-story farmhouse, she nearly banged the pail into Papa’s candy-apple red Studebaker. She pulled back in time, thankful she didn’t scratch the paint. That wouldn’t have been pretty, for the paintjob or her behind.

  She slowed to skip across the flat stones surrounding the circle drive, being careful not to get caught on the rosebushes near the porch. Beyond that was the rusty old barn. Tess hurried past it, hearing Papa’s disgruntled tones echo through the loft window. He was somewhere in there, grumbling to himself and banging tools and getting himself all in a dither. Papa spent whole days dithering in the barn and on those days Tess knew to steer clear. When a matter couldn’t wait, it was Momma who ventured into the barn, and she never came out looking happy about it.

  Beyond the barn the forest began. It looked dense and forbidding to a first-timer, which Tess was proud to say she wasn’t. The forest wasn’t as vast as it first appeared. It covered three acres at most, and once inside, the trails were easy to follow. Within minutes you emerged from the other side, staring at the Trinity River. But for a few precious moments, the woods came to life in that same mystical way Nawlins did in Momma’s stories. The silence seemed watchful, as if something unseen waited in breathless anticipation.

  Tess was through the first acre when she heard the sound. It was low and barely audible. She cocked her head and stopped, peering up at the canopy of branches and the shards of sunlight that pushed through the leaves like hungry fingers. Her body went rigid as the sound drifted over the breeze again.

  A groan. She heard a low, muted, raspy groan.

  It was a ragged, withering voice that could have been male or female. She twisted around slowly, finding it difficult to move. The sound didn’t come from any one direction. But it was close. The more she listened the closer it felt. She stared at the forest floor, seeing pine needles dappled in sunlight. The shadows became more noticeable.

  The groan lifted into a reedy warble. Someone had to be hurt, maybe from tripping over a branch, or getting bit by a snake—or worse. Tess wanted to call out. Her lips parted, but her voice didn’t follow. Her mouth had gone dry as dirt. The groan spiked again, passing through her like an electric shock. Tess coughed.

  “Are…are you okay?” Had she said it out loud? What made it past her lips came out as a whisper. Tess tried again, pushing the words out one at a time. “Hello? Who are you? Where are you?”

  The groan broke into a series of dry coughs, sounding like the distant gunfire she heard during hunting season. A thump followed the coughs, and then silence. Tess waited, realizing the abrupt end to the noise was scarier than the noise itself. The fear put her in motion. “Hello?” she called louder. “Where are you? Tell me where you are.”

  No answer. She moved deeper into the forest, leaving the path. Bushes snagged at the blue summer dress Momma had bought last week. She couldn’t stop to disentangle herself from every little branch. Faces of her schoolmates floated in her mind as she imagined each one lying with a broken leg and grasping at the air for help. Tess climbed a small rise and tried again.

  “Please call out again,” she cried as she stepped carefully over a trunk and into a small grove of trees. A group of crows took flight, shooting upward from every side. Tess staggered to avoid them. Her foot landed on something that wasn’t ground. Up above a crow cawed in annoyance. She had already forgotten the crows. Her focus was on the large wooden door she stood upon.

  The wood was nearly green from years of overgrowth. The metal clasps and the old padlock on the handle were so rusted they looked bloodstained. It was a cellar door, or more likely a storm shelter. Spring storms in these parts would justify having one, but why so far from the farmhouse and so well hidden? The surrounding trees stood like guardians protecting the door from the outside world.

  The groan came again. Tess screamed and leapt back, dropping her water pail. The sound came from directly beneath her. She knelt on the ground and knocked on the door in a panic, not wasting time thinking. Someone was down there, someone who needed her. A cold knot tightened in her stomach.

  “Who are you?” she cried, banging the door with her small fist. “Are you hurt?”

  The groan lowered to a whimpering. It sobbed, and Tess brought her ear close to the wood, taking in every sniffle. It whispered only one word.

  “Mm-mm—momma.”

  Tess scrambled to her feet and grabbed the first heavy thing she saw, a fallen branch not two feet from the door. Tess hefted it as best she could, shifting it onto her shoulder and taking a stance over the blood red lock. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “I’m getting you out of there.”

  With a squeaky grunt she swung the branch and got it on the first try. The branch hit the heart-shaped padlock, and the metal shattered like an ancient vase. She probably could have kicked it with her shoe and gotten the same result.

  She lugged the branch aside and grabbed the door handle, hoping it wasn’t as breakable as the lock. “I’m opening the door,” she announced to whoever was down there. If it was a small child, she didn’t want to scare him or her. She squatted and braced herself—and then pulled.

  It was hard, but not as hard as she expected. The door didn’t shift from its resting place at first. The roots and weeds at its borders played tug-of-war with her. Tess thought of the co
wering child waiting inside and put her back into it. Weeds ripped, roots cracked, and the door swung until gravity helped her, allowing her to let the door fall against a tree. Tess found herself at the top of a staircase, staring down into blackness.

  The overbearing stench of mildew forced her to step back. Sour air wafted over her, the underground lair exhaling after years of holding its breath. She wondered how someone could actually be waiting down there. She kept looking in the oily darkness, hoping for a sign of movement.

  “Can you walk? ...Hello?”

  No movement. No sound. Had she scared the child? The daylight could be too bright for someone who spent a long time in darkness. She squatted again and held out her hand, like someone befriending an uneasy dog.

  “It’s okay. You can come out. I wanna help.”

  She waited but no response came. Rising from the squat, she eyed the rotten-looking stairs warily. Only the first four were visible in the light, and there was no way to know how many followed or if they were intact. And yet the toe of her shoe drifted closer to the first stair. Her shoe touched the wood and a soft creak echoed in the darkness. She let her other foot follow until she was completely on the step. It sagged a little, but it didn’t break. She was sure of it. She—

  Hands closed on her shoulders.

  Tess gasped as she was pulled backward. The hands spun her around until she was staring into Momma’s taut face. “Tessie. Tu dèlires? I send you for water and you decide to go exploring instead? Well, I think I have several other chores that need your immediate attention.”