The Hollow Places
Authors: Dean Edwards
Tags: #horror, #serial killer, #sea, #london, #alien, #mind control, #essex, #servant, #birmingham
Copyright 2014 Dean
Clayton Edwards
Published by Armoured
Car at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition
License Notes
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PART ONE
One
For the driver, only three things existed: the road,
the wheel and the woman in the back seat.
A glance in
the mirror showed him nothing but the rear windscreen, so he took a
look over his shoulder and saw that the woman hadn't moved, sitting
with her head between her knees, a fall of dyed blonde hair, making
burping sounds and sniffling.
“It’s okay,”
Simon said and kept the car sliding through the darkness. He was
enjoying a heightened state of awareness and sensed each turn
before it appeared. His foot on the accelerator, he knew that they
were unlikely to encounter anyone else on this road. It was just
him and her.
When she sat
up, her large, brown eyes were very dark and ringed with red. Her
skin was waxy, streaked black with mascara.
“Oh-my-God, I
am sorry,” she sniffed and wiped her mouth with the back of her
hand.
“It’s okay,”
Simon said again.
It wasn't his
car.
Unknown to
her, Simon watched her wipe her hand on the fabric of the back seat
and then strain to see past her ghostly reflection in the glass. He
offered her a bottle of water.
“I don’t think
it is good for me,” she said, her Parisian accent coming through.
“It will just make me more ...” She gestured throwing up and had to
suppress another wave of nausea. “We are nearly there?”
“This way will
avoid the traffic,” Simon said.
This way would
avoid everyone.
Trees linked
arms overhead, attempting to seal out the moonlight. Their leaves
glowed preternaturally in the headlights before becoming ash-black
and then scarlet as they rolled by. Ahead, a steep incline began
winding down to the sea coast, but they would turn off before they
reached the bottom.
“This might
help,” he said, winding his window part-way down.
The sound of
waves smothering rocks and then sliding back, crashing and
retreating, accompanied the fluttering of owls or bats and the
scampering of unseen things in the trees.
He might have
found it disturbing, but he was on a high now and found himself
observing the fine, curly hairs on the backs of his hands before
remembering the road. The road appeared to be undulating beneath
him, as if their destination was sliding towards them and the car
was still.
“So, you
really think it is broked?” she asked, holding up her hand, which
was very small and pale, except for her little finger, which was
swollen and almost black.
“We need a
medical opinion," Simon told her. "I’m a taxi driver.”
He glanced in
the mirror to see if she knew she was in trouble yet.
She was
peering though the passenger windows, first one side and then the
other. Both views offered her something that evidently upset
her.
"This isn't
London," she said. "Where is the hospital?
Part of him
wanted her to know what was coming, because he didn't want to lie
to her anymore, but he knew that lying was for the best. If their
roles had been reversed, he wouldn't want to know what was coming
either.
"Not far now,"
he said, though his heart wasn't in it.
She was
starting to panic.
"Doesn't your
finger hurt?" Simon asked.
"Yes," she
said. "It hurts. But I can't do anything about it, so why
complain?"
"Good for
you," he said.
“How long you
have been a taxi driver?” she asked.
“Six years,”
he said.
"Why six
years?" she demanded to know. "Why didn't you say five or seven?
It's a lie, right?"
"I always say
six years," Simon admitted. "I've been saying six years for two
years."
“My mother
owns a boutique and my father is a designer. They have money. A lot
of money."
Some people
attempted to develop a rapport with him to dissuade him from
murdering or raping them. This young woman had gone straight to
bargaining. She was sobering up fast and in other circumstances he
might have liked her, though it was a long time since he had
thought of anyone but him and his sister. Their survival came
first.
The turn was
coming up.
The usual
sensation occurred as he slowed the car. He could feel the turn
'glowing', calling to him. It was like being pulled in by tractor
beam.
He flicked off
the lights.
“What are you
doing?” She sat forward and he got a waft of vomit and perfume.
“Sit back,” he
ordered her. “A rabbit in the road, that's all. Headlights dazzle
them.”
She flopped
back in her seat and Simon completed the narrow turning into the
woods.
His eyes
flicked back and forth from the forest to the rear view mirror.
She was trying
the doors. Of course they were locked centrally. From the look in
her eyes, she appeared to be thinking about screaming, but probably
didn’t want to admit that she was in that much danger yet. She saw
no point in accelerating events when she may still be able to talk
her way out of this, whatever this was.
She sucked in
a lungful of air, stifling another wave of nausea. Still and tense,
she stared at her reflection in the black glass, until she was over
the worst of it.
“So …
Vincent,” she began. “Why don't I call my parents, before my
friends do, and organise some money? Then you let me to go. It is
easy to do.”
“I’ll do a
deal with you,” Simon said. “You can ask me five questions and I
promise to tell you the truth, answering yes or answering no. But
then you have to stop talking.”
His night
vision had become very good over the last few years, so he was able
to discern a route ahead by squinting through the windscreen. After
a few moments, however, he found that he knew when to jog left and
jog right, and gradually let go of control, guided. The vehicle
bounced down a new incline, crunching dirt and dead leaves. They
could have been driving in a bubble at the bottom of the ocean, or
bumping along over the dark side of the moon.
“Where are you
taking me?”
“Have you
never played Twenty Questions? You can still have five.”
“Stop fucking
around,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“I'm not
fucking around,” he said. “Four.”
“Can I please
go home? Please.”
“No.”
“Please?”
Simon stopped
the car, shut off the engine and faced her. “You can ask two more
questions,” he told her.
Her voice
thinned. “Please don't hurt me. Vincent? Are you going to ...?”
“No,” Simon
said.
She couldn’t
announce her fears out loud. She still didn't want to make it
real.
Simon opened
her door from the outside and held open a plastic, supermarket
bag.
“Empty your
pockets into this,” he said.
“I don't have
money,” she said. “I said to you. My parents have the money.”
She squirmed
around on the back seat, reaching into the pockets of her
skin-tight jeans. It took some time, because she only had use of
her right hand. She managed to retrieve a plastic lighter, some
tissues and a phone number written in blue ink on a strip of paper.
She dropped each one into the bag.
“My purse is
in my handbag,” she said.
“Drop it in,”
he told her and she unzipped it, searching for the purse. “No,”
Simon said. “Your handbag. The whole thing.”
She dropped it
into the carrier and looked up into his face, holding his gaze. He
imagined how he must look to her. It was difficult, because since
he had got out of the car he felt very little. He watched her face
for some clue as to how he might appear to her.
After thirty
seconds or so, her eyes began to tremble. Whatever she'd been
searching for in his eyes, she hadn't found it.
"Time to go,"
he said.
She managed to
punch him in the face as he leaned in, but her fist glanced off his
cheek and soon he was hauling her out into the night. As she
struggled, she reignited the pain in her dislocated finger and
cried out, so Simon clamped one hand over her mouth and that’s
where it stayed as he pulled her away from the car and forced her
deeper into the forest. He held her body tight against him, knowing
that her attempts to scream for help would give way to sobs. Soon,
he could feel her tears and snot running over his fingers, the
chill in the wind making his wet hand feel icy.
When her legs
gave way, he responded by picking up his pace, dragging her towards
the sound of waves until they came to a clearing, where he
remembered to pop her finger back into place. He muffled her howl
and subsequent whimpers. A couple of minutes later, she settled and
he relaxed his hold on her.
She took in
her surroundings, realising that all the while they had been
approaching the edge of a cliff.
“Are you going
to let me go now?” she asked quietly.
It had helped
him to think of it as a game, but now she was all out of questions
and he was out of time.
“Yes and no,”
Simon said. “You’re going to be okay. After a few minutes, you
won't know what's happening. You won't feel anything.”
Stifling her
protests, he dragged her through the rest of the clearing, towards
the edge. Her eyes rolled and she stamped her bare heels, grinding
her toes into the dirt, but he was much too strong for her. She was
punching and kicking, but he lifted her from the ground, dumped her
onto one shoulder and stood facing the drop.
Silvery clouds
shrouded the moon in the dark, blue sky, and the black sea rolled
below, toiling and growling up at them.
He imagined
himself carrying her back to the car, setting her in the back seat,
and driving back to the road before dumping her somewhere, alive,
but the idea alone was enough to promote a headache. It was as if a
finger penetrated the back of his skull and a sharp fingernail
began peeling back a layer of brain.
“Okay!” he
thought in response and winced. “I’m doing it!”
He pitched her
over the edge, almost losing his footing in the process, making his
stomach lurch.
She didn’t
scream. The last sound she made was a gasp. Perhaps she was
surprised that he'd really dropped her, or perhaps she was sucking
in the air for a scream that didn't have time to materialise.