Hollow Men

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Hollow Men Copyright © 2013 Sommer Marsden

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  The New Reality Series Now Available at Resplendence Publishing

  Also Available from Resplendence Publishing

  www.resplendencepublishing.com

  Hollow Men

  A New Reality Story

  By Sommer Marsden

  Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  http://www.resplendencepublishing.com

  Hollow Men

  Copyright © 2013 Sommer Marsden

  Edited by Darlena Cunha and Liza Green

  Cover Art by Les Byerley

  Published by Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  2665 N Atlantic Avenue, #349

  Daytona Beach, FL 32118

  Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-717-9

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Electronic Release: December 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

  America’s greed finally bit it on the ass in late 2012. The Mayans had nothing to do with our spectacular fall. All things fast, cheap and super-sized did. They called them Hollow Men because the phenomenon appeared in men first. The theory being men, toting more muscle mass, ate more meat. And meat was ground zero…

  In a new world where voracious inhuman killers roam the streets and human poachers can be just as dangerous, the only thing that could make loner Eleanor Salt’s life more complicated is the love from her past. Evan Blackwood.

  He’s the one who got away. Or more like she pushed him. But now he’s back, and he still loves her. And he wants her to come with him. To have a shot at a real life. All they have to do is survive the open road and get to a safe place. If they can.

  For Jim, for always. I thought it was time people knew your name. I love you. Forever and ever. Amen.

  Prologue

  America’s greed finally bit it on the ass in late 2012. The Mayans had nothing to do with our spectacular fall.

  All things fast, cheap and super-sized did.

  They called them Hollow Men because the phenomenon appeared in men first. The theory being men, toting more muscle mass, ate more meat. And meat was ground zero.

  Specifically, beef. Specifically, burgers.

  The meat—usually from animals stuffed full of chemicals, antibiotics and questionable feed—introduced a bacteria. The bacteria caused infection. The infection tipped off a condition similar to pica. Instead of chalk or rocks, the infected craved meat mostly. Old, new, gamey…living. They weren’t picky.

  With us being fast food nation, the contagion spread seemingly overnight. The runoff from the farms where infected cattle were raised breached the water supply, and, as they say, all hell broke loose.

  In the beginning, the government took to our streets, armed men looking and listening for anyone who showed the signs. No questions were asked—suspected infected were shot on sight.

  All illnesses have a tell. Some small sign, waving a flag to let you know it’s there. For the infected—the Hollow Men—it was a whimpering. A mewling cry. The sound a chained dog makes as it lusts for its freedom. As the ravenous infection took over—triggering an insatiable hunger, the whimpering began.

  As the infection spread to men, women and children, they became just ‘hollows’ or ‘the infected’. Their cry was their earmark. The sound that turned any healthy person’s blood to ice water.

  As T.S. Eliot said—this is how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

  Chapter One

  I leveled my shotgun at the front window. It was barred. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but I could hear the rustle-thump-slither of someone testing the plywood that reinforced the window looking directly out onto the front porch.

  It was my weakest point in the house besides the sunroom that had been boarded up ages ago.

  “I will shoot you through that wood, motherfucker!” I yelled.

  The hollow men didn’t talk for the most part. They sort of grunted, whined and laughed. It was an unsettling, hackle-raising noise that could make the calmest person frantic. They weren’t picky about their diets, the infected. Dog meat, horsemeat, squirrels…people.

  “I’m warning you!”

  “Eleanor!” came a cry.

  I paused. The hollows could sometimes speak, so I wasn’t convinced what I was dealing with was one of the uninfected. I could be dealing with someone recently sick or one of the few able to reach way back into the fully human bits of their gray matter for the name of a loved one or a familiar phrase.

  “Go away!” I yelled. I angled the gun toward the front door, then swung it back to the window. The front entrance had a wrought iron storm door that remained locked at all times. The inside door was solid maple, and it was always locked, triple bolted with a security bar braced in a well-worn groove.

  Gone were the days of opening the windows when the Maryland weather was nice. You ran your air when it was hot. If there were power outages, you fucking baked in your own house as if you were a Christmas ham. The best you could do was go to your basement where it was naturally cooler and hang tight until the utility companies got things up and running again.

  “Eleanor, is that you?”

  “Fuck,” I growled under my breath. That was an intelligent question. Someone was out there. Someone who knew me. Which made my stomach feel weird. Because seriously, I hadn’t seen someone who wasn’t a fellow hunkered-down neighbor in quite a while.

  “Who is that?” I got up close to the plywood and put my eye to the single hole I’d drilled to see through. Peeking out the top window of the front door was too risky until I knew who my visitor was. Pressing your face to glass was a good way to get shot.

  We weren’t just dealing with hollows anymore. We were dealing with people willing to take your shelter and your supplies if you were vulnerable enough to get taken. The infection had brought out the best and worst in people. There were loads of folks who spent their time as refugee workers, driving around in armored vans, collecting people who had run out of food or were on their own. And there were the poachers. The men and women who went around just looking for an in so they could take your stuff, take your house, maybe even take your life.

  To me, the poachers were more dangerous than the infected.

  Whoever it was stood too close to the hole. I saw a big greenish blur and nothing more.

  “Eleanor?” came the voice again, but softer this time. He sounded almost worried.

  “Step back. I can’t see your face.”

  Then it must have occurred to him because I heard a sharp intake of breath. “It’s me. It’s Evan.
Evan Blackwood.”

  I stepped back with a gasp. Then: “Back up, so I can see your face!”

  My heartbeat had picked up, but I wasn’t going to fall down on the job. My father had taught me well, and I felt most days it was the only reason I was still holding strong. He’d built a stockpile of food and water in our small basement behind a recessed door. He’d taught me to shoot and build fires and even to rig stuff including the extra security on the front windows.

  “He saved my ass,” I said to myself, then chewed my lip waiting for Evan to obey.

  Evan Blackwood. Big, brawny, quick to smile, quick to laugh and good in bed. We’d dated my senior year of high school. Both of us eighteen and him looking to do the settling-down thing. Me saying, no way. We were too young. Too much life to live. It had been a messy breakup.

  He stepped back and then my heart plunged into my gut. He’d aged well. Not that six years aged him a lot. At twenty-four, he was a bit brawnier, and his face was leaner. Any signs of baby pudge gone, leaving in its wake a chiseled jaw and those fantastic high cheekbones.

  “Tell me something!” I ordered.

  He scratched his head, glanced around. “I can tell you I could get attacked just standing here as if I were a moron. You know, Eleanor, when out and about you need to keep moving, preferably go by car and always have protection.” He waved his hands at the plywood, guessing where my point of view might be. “I have a pocketknife and nothing more, and I might smell like dinner.”

  “So get in your car and go.”

  “I passed by and saw you…someone was here.”

  I sighed, pushed my forehead to the rough plywood. “How could you possibly know someone was here?”

  He frowned. “How long since you’ve really been out?”

  I thought about it. “A few weeks. My phone was down, I had to drive to utilities to report it and my power kept failing off and on.”

  “Do you look around when you go out?” He did another quick glance around to make sure no one was getting curious.

  “Not really. Why?”

  “Eleanor, your front door is shut, your windows are undisturbed and your porch light still works. It’s on, you know.”

  I frowned. “I must have turned it on by accident. The switch is next to the one for the back lights.”

  “The empty houses are all messed up. Doors hanging off hinges, lights busted, windows shattered. Look, you don’t have to let me in.” He kicked the porch with his work boot.

  In the distance, something moved. Someone.

  Panic flared in my stomach. I felt as if I was drifting weightless, and the sensation unnerved me. “Tell me something important you’d know if you were still…you.”

  He frowned. “I’m not turned—”

  “Hurry!” I barked, watching the thing behind him draw closer. Not too fast, not too slow. Could be human, could be a hollow. They were much slyer than most people realized.

  “You have a birthmark that looks as if it’s a cupcake—to me—at the very top of your left thigh. Where your thigh meets your…” He coughed, and I almost laughed. “Groin.”

  “Come to the door. Something’s behind you, don’t turn around.”

  I quickly undid the bolts and pulled the metal rod free. I yanked it open fast, turned the handle on the screen door and leveled the shotgun at his gut. “Come in!” I yelled.

  His big gray eyes went wide, and I had to motion with the gun. “This isn’t for you, Evan, it’s for the uninvited guest.”

  He moved fast then. Rushing inside and immediately pulling the door shut and thumbing the meager lock. The person moved faster but gave no motion to call out or engage verbally. Which meant his head was empty, and so was his stomach. It was one of them looking for a good meal.

  “Hurry,” I said and together we shoved the door shut. Evan worked the locks, and I found the security rod.

  The thing came up onto the porch and tried to open the door.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “Got another gun?”

  “Dining room next to the china cabinet.”

  He hurried off, and I watched the guy outside move. He wasn’t dead. Not really. At first folks thought we were dealing with zombies. Not so. We were dealing with the living. The living who had transformed, mutated, pick your word to crave all meat. Including meat from other people. Some said cannibals, but I just called them hungry. Historically, cannibalism is a choice, usually with very specific reasoning behind it. This was just…a clawing hunger. A need. As the brain begins to go blank, the stomach drives the body.

  I watched him. They reminded me of Alzheimer’s patients looking to eat, but having no idea who they are, where they are or what they eat. So the answer is: everything.

  And sadly—the fresher the better.

  Evan came back, locked and loaded. “He still there?”

  “Yeah, but…he looks to be losing interest.”

  The hollow man walked up and down the porch, studying my house as if it were a puzzle. Then a van drove by—a city work van—and it caught his attention.

  “Go on…go after the shiny thing,” I whispered. I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath.

  He did. He almost fell down the front steps and shuffled off after the sound of the vehicle.

  Evan leaned against the wall and blew out a sigh. He ran a massive hand through his thick dark hair, then grinned at me. “So, El…what’s new? How ya been?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, you know…normal.”

  Chapter Two

  “Hungry?”

  It was easier to offer Evan food than examine the bristling of attraction I felt standing close to him. It had been ages since I’d been in the same room with a man for very long. Even longer since I’d been with one. Your choices are severely limited when the world attempts to go to shit.

  “That’s okay, Eleanor. I know food’s slim for—”

  “I have plenty,” I said, ignoring his argument and heading toward the kitchen.

  It occurred to me I’d just dropped my guard for him. Told him more than he needed to know. It made me a bit nervous, but I just kept moving.

  Food was severely rationed currently. All factories and even farms needed more security, and transportation between state lines and from overseas was limited and difficult. Therefore, the grocery stores only got so much stock, and it had to be doled out as evenly as possible. Plus getting to food stores—or any place—could be a dangerous venture and many took it on as few times as possible.

  What I hadn’t told Evan was I’d been giving my ration tickets to my neighbors on either side. They needed them more than I did. Both were elderly, both were alone, and I tried to keep an eye out for them.

  “I’m fine. For real.” Even as he said it, his stomach growled noisily.

  “Sit,” I said.

  He obeyed, dropping his bulk at my parents’ retro kitchen table. I pulled out a can of white meat chicken and some dehydrated onion. Fresh food was a luxury mostly. I started to doctor it with mayo packets that were shelf stable. My father had called it doomsday gourmet.

  “Just you?” He was worried about my answer. His voice gave it away.

  I nodded. “My mom died a few years ago.” I paused, swallowed hard. “Breast cancer.” I found some pickles in the refrigerator and chopped them up to add to our lunch. “Dad was… killed by a hollow. He died when the outbreak first happened. Which is a shame,” I snorted. “Because he had prepared his whole life for this Armageddon shit.”

  Evan grinned. “I remember. Stockpile food, water, ammo. Never let your guard down but always—”

  “Be willing to lend a helping hand when you can,” I finished the sentiment, and my eyes briefly clouded with tears.

  Plates, napkins, iced tea. No need to eat as if we were savages.

  “So that explains the fancy spread.” He winked at me before digging in. The wink brought back memories. Hot, sweaty, pleasure-soaked memories of the big back seat of his ancient Chevy. Or the l
oft in his parents’ barn, or certain stolen nights when we had one house or the other to ourselves.

  It was quite a memorable event, coming while locked in Evan Blackwood’s arms.

  “You’re blushing,” he said.

  “It’s hot in here.”

  “It’s nearly freezing. I take it you’re conserving fuel.”

  I rubbed my forehead nervously, nodded. I used the wood burning stove a lot. But not on busy nights—when either hollows or poachers were on the street—because the smoke might get noticed.

  Just as I was thinking of smoke, something exploded out on the street, and we both groaned.

  “Molotov,” he said.

  I got up to check the window, and he was right at my heels, pressing up behind me at the side window I’d reinforced with steel bars on the inside. He was too close. Despite the scene outside, my mind turned to less important matters. Including how it would feel to have the grown-up version of Evan touch me. Hold me again while I came.

  I pushed the thought away and watched as the car that had lobbed the fire tore off. They often did this, people looking to kill the hollows. Tossing a Molotov cocktail or starting a blaze drew the infected and then they’d pick them off with one by one, using head shots, as if they were crows at a trash heap.

  “No fire tonight,” he said. “If they’re out there, we don’t want to draw attention to us. They’d just as likely come after us as they would the hollow.”

  “Fuckers.”

  He chuckled. “Still have a way with words, El.”

  I nodded. “Let’s eat. I’ll take you to the basement and show you where I hunker down when the neighborhood gets busy. I can trust you.”

  He grabbed my wrist. “What makes you so sure?” Evan cocked an eyebrow and gave me that half smile of his, but he was serious. He wanted to know.

  I shrugged, feeling way too much more on the spot than I cared to feel. I was used to solitude. I was used to choosing when to be around others and as the months marched past the urges were getting fewer and far between.