The Hollow, part 1
The Hollow, part 2
Frank wouldn’t usually show up for the dirty work, but Tony Riggs had made this personal when he demanded a favour. Frank was tired of these favours, Tony really wasn’t the hot shot that he thought he was, and didn’t deserve all the special treatment. He dusted off his blue suit with the golden pin stripes as he walked through the dusty barn, a lavish .45 auto pistol with silver accents filling up his right hand. At the end of the corridor was a wash stall for horses, Eddie was waiting there with Sarah Riggs, her head in a purple cloth bag and her hands tied behind her back.
When Frank reached the wash stall, a simple pump of his finger ignited Sarah’s hair and drove a bullet through the fleshy parts of her skull.
Felix’s eyes felt heavy as he opened them, and he could feel a gentle throbbing in his chest. He felt a force holding him into his chair, and reached down to his torso to lift the dead weight of his body. The bright chrome chain wrapped around him wouldn’t give.
“Sit back,” Tony said, grinning, “take in the view.”
Judging by the moon, Felix guessed that barely any time had passed. The car was still surrounded by the raw-skinned freaks that had eaten the driver.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” Felix asked.
“I’m still going to kill you” Tony said, flipping open the cylinder of the revolver. He popped out the spent round, and replaced it with new brass.
“I loved Sarah, Tony, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Felix said, his voice cracking, hands shaking. Of everything Felix said in his last moments that night, this was the most true.
“Loved her like what? The toilet you shit on?” Tony said.
“No, I- look man, “Felix stuttered, not knowing whether the crack of hot lead or the bite of the undead would take him.
Tony reached into the back and pulled Felix’s sleeve up, presenting tiny red pinholes in his skin. “You’ve been shooting up again,” he said, his face now turning a soft red and his voice rough “Sarah told me about that.”
“We were going to have a kid together,” Felix was crying now, “I took care of her.”
An engine blaring on straight pipes came ripping from the distance at the end of the road. Lights peaked through the trees on the windy gravel road.
“You didn’t deserve her,” Tony’s last words to Felix as an orange van came up beside them, skidding to a stop as the person driving noticed the crowd around the old Chevy. The things outside the car clicked their teeth and watched as the door opened on the van, cowboy boots hitting the ground.
Tony saw his chance and waited, watched as the group of bloody corpses ran at the van, overtaking the man in the boots in seconds.Tony reached across the seat and pushed open the driver side door. He opened his own door and slid out of the seat as quietly as possible, and began trailing up the road while the zombies sucked the life out of the driver of the van.
Felix began screaming, realizing the door was wide open to the monsters outside, “I never hit her man! Hey! Don’t leave me here!”
As the rotting humans flocked to the sound of Felix wailing, Tony made his run for the van, and made it without drawing much attention. A few of the undead broke off from the gurgling and moaning coming from the Chevrolet, and rushed towards the van. Tony hit the gas, hard. Two thumps and then the van was roaring down the road.
Eddie began dumping gasoline onto the dark chestnut boards of the old barn. He sprinkled the last of it on Sarah’s body, then climbed the ladder up to the loft where Frank was sitting on a derelict stool.
The sound of the big engine of the van Tony had stolen made the boards shake as it came up the driveway a few minutes later. Frank took his pistol out of the holster strung up to his chest under his jacket.
Footsteps made the wooden floors creak as Tony made his way up the corridor towards the wash stalls. When he reached them, an unworldly silence filled the barn.
The silence was broken by a massive thump as Tony dropped down onto his knees beside Sarah. No sound came out of Tony’s mouth, instead his mouth quivered wide open and his eyes darted between the body and the brain fragments littering the wall. He clenched his fists and began to sob.
The last thing he heard was the click of the auto pistol’s safety being released.
Frank made his way down the ladder, slow and elegantly. He didn’t look at the mess he had created, instead he stepped over Sarah’s body like he would a puddle on a rainy day.
Eddie followed, and made his way to the front door of the barn. Frank lagged behind, he wanted to be the one to put a flame to the fuel. He flicked open his zippo lighter, and clicked the wheel around a couple times. It wouldn’t light.
“Frank, I think you better see this,” Eddie yelled at him from the door.
The zippo finely took a light, and he held it up in the air. Eddie screamed as two dark figures engulfed him. Frank watched as the shadow things ripped into Eddie’s stomach. His mouth agape, frozen in awe, he dropped the lighter onto the floor. It ignited the gasoline immediately, the flame meandering like a snake on the trails Eddie had spilled out all over the floor.
The shadow figures saw the sudden brightness, and began sniffing the air from Frank’s direction.
The fear that Frank felt was like no other. He couldn’t explain it if he had tried, it was a visceral thing that disjointed every part of his mind. It was the fear of incomprehension. He ran for the ladder, climbing in a fury, his legs missing the rungs and bashing his shins on the solid wood. By the time he was at the top, the shadow things were two thirds of the way down the corridor. The fire was now a few feet off the ground, the Riggs siblings bodies totally entrenched in it.
Frank fired off 6 shots rapidly, one of which exploded the head of one of the shadow figures. Only they weren’t shadows anymore, the fire made the raw flesh glisten. The remaining fleshy thing made it to the ladder and began climbing. Frank fired the remainder of the magazine, and the flesh monster fell in a heap to the floor.
Frank cried. Like so many men he had executed, he cried and begged for his life. The fire wouldn’t listen. It grew, tips of flames dancing closer and closer to the loft. Frank pointed the pistol at his own head, and pulled the trigger, only to hear the click of an empty chamber.
Our Depression 