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An Excerpt From: The Hollowing
Copyright © N.D. Hansen-Hill, 2008
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
It was cold. The gooseflesh had started rising on his
skin once more and just wouldn’t go. He risked a glance back but all he
could see was black. Somehow he’d thought the outside—the night sky with
its streetlight underglow—would show up more
brightly at his back. Instead there was only a sensation of claustrophobia,
of being locked in.
Like before…
No.
But he couldn’t deny the sensation of fullness—as though
the thick black was busy, moving, pressuring him forward.
He was letting it get to him. Half of this paranormal
stuff was self-hypnosis, and he was conning himself into believing the
worst. Shawn closed his eyes and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths.
There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t here during the day.
Except cold. It was so icy in here now that Shawn’s
breath came out as fog. It scared him at first—the dim glow showing up as
an amorphous cloud before his face.
If there was someone else here he hadn’t heard him. At
this point he was much more likely to fall over something than be the
target of a bullet. Relieved and feeling a little stupid, Shawn flicked on
the light.
Only to jerk back in terror. He was in a storage room,
full of props. False walls, scenery, wigs, faces
everywhere. Masks and makeup, clowns and costumes, spangles and feathers.
Cymbals and drums, harps and hoops. Lights and curtains and fringes and
rope. A garish, gaudy clash of overbright color.
Shawn couldn’t take it in. Old storage, his mind
supplied. Long abandoned.
No. It’s the Mill. No storage for stage props.
His breathing was fast and erratic now, his breath
coming in gusty puffs of steam. Grimacing, he stretched out a hand and
touched the harp.
His fingers came away dusty.
No, not dust, he realized as another stray breeze
sent the particles flying.
Flimsy, irregular, gray-black leavings.
Not dust.
Ash.
Shawn ran. Skirts fluttered in his periphery and at his
back the harp twanged strings that were no longer there. He tore down the
hallway, back the way he’d come.
It was barricaded. Gone. Part of the wall. No sign that
he’d ever been here, and his feet cut new swathes through old dust.
Oh God!
Somewhere behind him the cymbals clanged. He spun, his light catching flickers of bright white
skirts.
The dancers, preparing to go onstage.
And in that second he saw her. She was tense with excitement, her white face strained and alight with
anticipation. Her feet moved restlessly and she was chattering to one of
the blurred faces at her right.
Her first performance. Her eyes, moist with
thrill-riddled fear, searched the backstage then focused on him.
She smiled, her eyes bright.
Shawn gawked, stunned.
And heard her giggle.
Then the first strains of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake rose like motes on the air,
stirred from the dust around him.
There were other footsteps in the distance now. Halting
at first, they picked up speed as doors slammed and shouts rose above the
orchestra’s efforts. A man was running in Shawn’s direction—sprinting
toward the exit.
No.
Visions of fire victims—bone-covered ash—wavered behind
Shawn’s eyes.
I don’t want to see him…
Horror sent Shawn’s own feet flying back the way he’d
come. He tripped and nearly fell but he couldn’t afford to stop. The thing—the
man—was coming up too fast at the rear. Dead men running…
I’m right in his path.
Shawn, think, it’s the homeless guy. The vandal.
No. No stray opened that back door.
There was a set of metal rungs to his left. Shawn was
moving so swiftly now he nearly missed them. He reached out and swung
wildly in a half-arc then tugged himself up. Panting, he climbed hand over
hand. The flashlight held in his teeth captured erratic pictures of
curtains and rope, sandbags and pulleys. Drool dripped disgustingly down
his chin but he couldn’t afford to stop.
The ladder was jiggling beneath him.
Shawn climbed out onto a catwalk and his flashlight
dropped out of his teeth. It tumbled down onto the stage below. It slammed
and crashed and the orchestra clashed in discordant cacophony as several of
the dancers screamed.
They heard it…
Shawn stumbled and fell face down on the catwalk. Heavy
feet stomped across his back and slammed against his head. His nose was
ground into the wooden platform.
The pain was real. So was the blood spurting down his face. Shawn pushed himself up and followed the thudding
footfalls. The catwalk vibrated beneath their running feet.
Whoever—whatever—he is, he knows a way out…
There was another ladder. Below, the music was beginning
to lift once more, the vibration of the sound waves making the air at this
level stir. Shawn could hear the audience now. They were a low grumble
demanding satisfaction. Backstage, in the wings he’d just left, there were
still squawks and complaints. He could hear it all from up here.
A trapdoor thudded above and Shawn climbed the last few
rungs and shouldered it open. He was back in the room—the windowed room
with its flaming floors—the one he had been in the other night.
The night of the fire.
He sniffed. That wasn’t smoke he was
smelling now. It was something else.
Cordite. The person in the room with him was an
arsonist. It wasn’t lightning that had burned down the Majestic.
The man’s silhouette stood stark and black before the
front window. He hadn’t yet done the deed. He’d set it up but it hadn’t
gone off—not yet.
He’ll kill them all…
The girl’s face floated before Shawn—scared, proud, excited. Her first performance. She was going against
all the stigmas of her time—the censure of her parents. This was her daring
first appearance. Shawn knew it, even though she hadn’t spoken a word. Her
first performance and her last. In hours she’d be nothing but ash and bone.
Her remains would be forever mingled with those of the Majestic.
Shawn no longer knew when he was, or even where. He only
knew he had a chance to stop it if he acted now. He plowed into the
arsonist at a run.
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