The Hollow Man Excerpt 1

The Hollow Man   |     The Hollow Man Series, International Espionage​

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It was a dream. I am fairly certain of that now. A shadowy sixteenth-century cathedral emerged from the mist, and I found myself waiting for a funeral procession to begin. Except for a large rat that brushed past my leg, I was alone in the darkness, although it felt like someone was watching me. The tower bell tolled sharply, and each numbing stroke sucked a little more confidence from my bones, right through the muscle, and it settled like sweat on my skin. I wanted to push the melting courage back inside to strengthen my spine, but I couldn’t move. I was getting weaker by the second, and my body would no longer support the weight of my own thoughts.

The heavy timber doors of the church swung wide, and in the winter moonlight I saw a robed priest appear at the doorway. With his head bowed over scriptures for the dead, he mumbled soothing passages as he baby-stepped down three stone stairs to the ground. Six pallbearers followed him carrying their burden, solemnly gliding along the gravel path to the waiting coach and restless horses. Their footsteps made no sound on the hard surface even though they passed so close that I could smell death on the air around them. Gaunt, hollow eyes reflected heavy hearts but the men persevered to the coach where they lowered the plain casket to the earth.

The coffin was a small mahogany enclosure made for a half-grown child. The top was covered with a pale red lace that stood out against the anemic landscape. A sudden stale breeze caught the cloth and blew it into the night. A thin pallid girl of perhaps twelve sat up in the box and began clapping in time to the tolling bell. She slowly turned, pointing in my direction and I saw blood running down the side of her face from a bullet wound near the scalp. The child beckoned me toward her.

“I can help you,” she said, not quite looking at me with colorless, blind eyes.

“I’ve already told you that you can’t. No one can help me now,” I said.

“Yes,” she emphasized.

“How?”

“Come closer.” She absently wiped at the blood, but it only smeared her ashen face.

“Can you stop the bell from ringing?” The sound scraped across my raw nerves.

“You’re a strange policeman,” she smiled. “Why do you still search for him?”

“You know why. He slaughtered half the British Embassy, including you and I need to find him.”

“Be careful of Chaban,” she said. “He is a creature of evil and he’s brought you here to witness his power over you.”

She stared past me into the dark night. I turned in the direction she was looking to see if someone was standing beside me, but there was no one in the blackness that swallowed us.

“Where is he?” I asked.

She suddenly frowned.

“He’s been watching the watcher for a long time now. Look behind you, not in front.”

With vacant eyes still fixed on the dead unknown, her watery figure faded to a thin wisp and blew through me leaving cold fear in its wake. My soul parted like the Red Sea and when it closed again, there was another scar. It was always the same. I needed more but she was gone.