The Hollow

by Erik Schubach

  I completed my spin and embedded his own axe into his chest, where his heart would be. He staggered and the horse staggered as well. Then he let out another of those screeching wails of anger and pain and tore the offending axe from his chest throwing it to the ground in a spray of black ichor.

  Alright, that didn't work. I suddenly found myself on the retreat as he pulled a dagger from his belt in his left hand and started to attack with two blades. It was all I could do to keep the steel from finding purchase. Swiping my blade from side to side to beat his attacks away.

  I adjusted my footing, he was trying to create a pattern, to catch me unaware. I had trained with the Italian swordmaster Foro Romano with my father. This Hessian was good, and I was starting to doubt myself.

  I spun away, trailing my blade around in a wide arc to create some separation, giving me a moment to pull my flintlock and when I completed my turn I fired and dropped the flintlock to the snow covered ground, pull out my dagger. The salted ball struck his left shoulder and spun him back as he shrieked in pain.

  I stalked toward him with a vicious grin on my face, showing my teeth as I growled, “That's right, you forgot I can hurt you didn't you?” I spun the dagger in my left hand and said, “If you liked that, you're going to love this.”

  He actually backed off a step as he raised his blade again, this time slower, his left arm not moving well. I smirked before I screamed out a challenge and I closed again. We spun and twisted dodged and parried, dual blades lighting up the night as they sparked and clanged with each strike.

  I was able to land a glancing blow with my dagger, which left a sizzling trail along his right shoulder. It hissed out in pain. The natives in this area knew how to fight the spirits of the damned as he was learning firsthand from my Wampanoag blessed dagger.

  That is when my luck ran out as my foot landed on something just under the snow and my ankle twisted on it, and I fell back uncovering the discarded axe. I scrambled away from a strike but not fast enough as his blade cut across my left shoulder. The agonizing pain caused me to lose my grip on my dagger and my eyes to water.

  I spun to my feet as I heard Dot screaming my name. I hobbled on my right foot, my ankle badly sprained. I watched in horror as Dot came at the Horseman's back with an improvised club from a branch of wood. But he spun on her, knowing exactly where she was as she was in the horse's vision. He struck her in the stomach with a driving roundhouse kick and she flew back and skidded along the ground and landed with a gasp, her mouth wide, trying to pull in air.

  I charged the abomination, but he dropped and spun, taking my feet out from under me. I started scrambling to my feet as he took two long strides toward Dot and raised his blade to strike.

  In a high voice, shrill with panic I screamed, “No!” And I watched in terror as Mary stepped in front of the Horseman, her arms held wide. Had she been the one in the shadows on the bridge? The Hessian had already been in mid-strike when she interposed herself between it and her sister, and he couldn't stop the strike. It struck home, driving through her chest and out her back.

  Dorothy and Hank were yelling Mary's name as I stumbled to my feet in shock. The Horseman and Mary just stood there facing each other, a blank look on the younger Jefferson's face. The life leaving her eyes. Then as she fell, the Horseman fell as well, and everything came snapping together in my mind. The apparition's bonds to its summoner had ben severed, and it fell like a marionette whose strings had ben cut. I whispered, “Oh Mary...”

  Then I held Dorothy after she crawled over to hold her lifeless sister's head in her lap. It was all I could do... hold her as she cried.

  I looked up at an enraged Hank who looked helpless, not knowing what to do. I motioned my head to the Hession soldier's body. “Burn that abomination!” I looked over at the horse, not knowing what to expect, but where it had stood, was nothing but night air.

  I held Dot while the winter storm seemed to dissipate around us, as people from the Hollow ventured across the bridge to help Hank with his gruesome task. I shot an accusing look at the Vicar as he joined them. All of this because of men who sought to punish someone for their love of another.

  I absently wondered as I shushed the inconsolable Dot... if Mary had summoned the horseman now, then who had done it fifteen years ago?

  Epilogue

  “I love you too you sorry excuse for a hunter,” Dot teased as I pulled her up onto the saddle behind me on Tirza as she adjusted the bag she packed on her shoulder. She looked around discretely to make sure the Hollow hadn't awoken yet, and nobody was around to see and snuck me a kiss.

  I was smiling like a fool and trying not to sigh when Hank stepped out of the Jefferson with the girls. “You're sure Dotty? It won't be the same around here without you.”

  She looked around, pain evident on her face. “Too many memories. I just... I just can't Hank. And I'm not about to let Imelda here out of my sight for another fifteen years.”

  I chuckled. “Not planning on it.” I bit my lower lip as I gazed at her lips.

  Hank paused and started looking at us with a furrowed brow. Then he pointed at us, his finger waggling between us as he asked cautiously, “You two aren't...”

  I snorted when Abbey slapped the back of his head and said, “Of course they are you, lout.”

  Then she rolled her eyes at us and said, “Men,” as she shook her head.

  Then she said, “Im, take care of Dotty, or I'll have to hunt you down.”

  I nodded with a smile. “I promise.”

  Dorothy looked around the Hollow then to her family and said, “I love you all. We'll visit, and I'll write I promise.”

  They all exchanged farewells, and there were many tears to be had bay all as I turned Tirza toward the covered bridge I would be happy to never see again as we left Sleepy Hollow and the ashes of the Horseman behind us.

  When we searched Mary's room at the Inn two weeks back, we found the Hession's decomposing head in a hat box under her bed. And her father's journal which she must have found after his death. What it contained had started this nightmare all over again.

  It told of Gus' love for his wife and how devastated he was to learn of her infidelity when he had been pushing her away for years. Then the quorum shamed his wife and his family. When she took her own life after the village had shunned her like a leper, it was the last straw.

  He found some writings, satanic rituals that could bring his wife peace and him satisfaction. He wrote about how to perform them in detail.

  He found the burial site of a Hession soldier from the war and severed the head from its body. Then while working his pub each night, would escape into the back to summon the wraith to walk the Earth, controlling it with that severed head.

  He worried when my father arrived to stop the abomination then actually stopped it. He searched for days for the body downstream but couldn't find it. The inhumanity and evil of what he had done had started to sink in, and he had his children to think about, so he vowed to let it go. So he hid the head away in a Hollow stump in the woods behind the Inn and tried to live with the last of the men who had wronged his wife.

  He had died an bitter old man who was forever changed by the evil he had perpetrated. But one thing was plain, he had loved his children.

  When Mary had learned the truth about her mother's death from the journal, something inside of her must have broken. She sought out the head and then called forth the wraith to terrorize the Hollow again, to finish her father's work.

  In the end, it was love that had doomed her. The love for her sister. When the Hession was going to strike her dead, she couldn't let that happen, and she tried to stop the evil beast, but it did what evil does. Love never plays into it. When she died, so did the binding of the Hession's spirit. And it went to whatever hell awaited it.

  If God is up there watching over us all, I hope he can forgive a young girl for her transgressions and allow Mary to find her peace.

  Imagine my joy when after the funeral and th
e discoveries, Dot had professed her true feelings for me and told me she wanted me to take her away from the Hollow and never leave her again. She couldn't forgive me if I ever did it again.

  I cried like a girl when I had told her that I loved her too and there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think about our first kiss. She has given me plenty since, and more. But a lady does not speak of such things.

  Who knows what the future and the new century might bring, whatever it is, I shall do it with Dot at my side. For now, we are heading to Boston, to give my report to the Cardinal and see what fresh hell there is out there that needs a hunter to chase it from the mortal coil.

  The End

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  Novels by Erik Schubach

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  Books in the Djinn series...

  Cursed

  Books in the Urban Fairytales series...

  Red Hood: The Hunt

  Snow: The White Crow

  Ella: Cinders and Ash

  Rose: Briar's Thorn

  Let Down Your Hair

  Hair of Gold: Just Right

  The Hood of Locksley

  Books in the Techromancy Scrolls series...

  Adept

  Soras

  Masquerade (Winter 2016)

  Outrider (Summer 2017)

  Books in the Drakon series...

  Awakening

  Dragonfall

  Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...

  Return of the Asgard

  Bloodlines

  Folkvangr

  Seventy Two Hours

  Titans

  Books in the Bridge series...

  Trolls

  Traitor

  Unbroken

  Books in the Fracture series...

  Divergence

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  Novellas by Erik Schubach

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  The Hollow

  Books in the Paranormals series...

  Fleas

  This Sucks

  Jinx (Winter 2016)

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  Short Stories by Erik Schubach

  (These short stories span many different genres)

  -------------------------------------------------

  A Little Favor

  Lost in the Woods

  Rift Jumpers: Faster Than Light

  Scythe

  Snack Run

  Something Pretty

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  Romance Novels by Erik Schubach

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  Books in the Music of the Soul universe...

  (All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

  Music of the Soul

  A Deafening Whisper

  Dating Game

  Karaoke Queen

  Silent Bob

  Five Feet or Less

  Broken Song

  Syncopated Rhythm

  Progeny

  Girl Next Door

  Lightning Strikes Twice

  June

  Dead Shot

  Music of the Soul Shorts...

  (All short stories are standalone and can be read in any order)

  Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker

  Wallflower

  Accidental Date

  Holiday Morsels

  Books in the London Harmony series...

  (All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

  Water Gypsy

  Feel the Beat

  Roctoberfest

  Small Fry

  Doghouse

  Minuette

  Squid Hugs

  The Pike

  Flotilla

  Books in the Pike series...

  (All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

  Ships In The Night

  Books in the Flotilla series...

  (All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

  Making Waves

  Bonus Short Story

  I hope you enjoyed the story of Imelda Crane in the Hollow. In the spirit of the horror genre, I have included a bonus horror short story, Scythe, for your reading enjoyment! Turn down the lights, lock the door and hide under your blankets and experience the tale of Lischca Fonteneau as she she navigates the world of demons in the human realm.

  -Erik Schubach

  Scythe

  By Erik Schubach

  Copyright © 2016 by Erik Schubach

  Self publishing

  P.O. Box 523

  Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

  Cover Photo © 2016 Kiselev Andrey Valerevich / ShutterStock.com license

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  FIRST EDITION

  Chapter 1 - Demon

  I stumbled in my low heels a little when the pain struck. “Damn it, not now!” I hissed under my breath as I winced in agony when my shoulder started to smoke slightly. I could smell the flesh burning as my mark of binding rearranged itself to allow the soul fire to start pouring through my body. My vision sharpened as my eyes began to burn. I stifled a scream of pain as my eyes reconfigured to allow The Sight. I knew they were a brilliant metallic gold now, burning with the soul fire of my kind.

  “Come on Lisc, pull it together,” I whispered to myself

  I glanced down at my shoulder and pulled up my short sleeve slightly to determine the threat level. The brand of the curled up, sleeping demon was now standing fully erect with its wings spread, claws at the ready, and I felt the almost overwhelming compulsion to go on the hunt. I muttered, “Damn it damn it damn it.” I pulled my mirrored sunglasses down over my eyes, I shrugged my light jacket on to hide the now glowing tattoo on my arm which smelled slightly of sulfur. My hands shaking the whole time as I resisted the urge to let it take me, to let it change me.

  I continued on with the rest of the interns on the tour of the museum and did my best to ignore the siren's call of the hunt. I couldn't let it take me now. I couldn't blow this great opportunity to have a regular job and a more normal life. I had just finally settled down from my random wanderings from city to city. But I felt my jaw rearranging as fangs started growing and pain flooded my being as punishment for not following the call, for not doing its bidding.

  My jawbone cracked and crinkled, causing one of the men in our group to look over at me, and I looked down and away before he could see my jaw distending.

  I felt the horns start to tear through my skin at the apex of my skull. I sighed, I was just deluding myself. I should have known I could never have a normal life. I've tried so very hard, but my family's God damned curse; and I mean that literally, we were damned by God; makes sure of that.

  It had been months since the last calling. I thought that maybe my nightmare was over, and the curse had run its course, since I know next to nothing about it. So with this new lease on life, I believed that I had, I was able to go through training and finish my schooling. I was on the verge of getting a normal job and living a normal life after this internship.

  All that I have worked for would be all blown to hell if I left just then. All because of something
I had no part in, something some ancient ancestor had done, now our entire bloodline will forever be Scythes. Fallen demons who are trying to win their way back into heaven.

  I grunted in pain when my tailbone started burning as my hips cracked and my tail started growing, slithering down my pant leg. Kimoura Kaga, the anthropologist research assistant who was leading the tour, and my immediate supervisor, stopped her orientation speech and looked over at me. Her eyes homed in on me with laser-like focus. Had she heard my bones cracking?

  I hesitated before looking away from her, damn she was gorgeous. I've always loved the looks of Japanese American women. They had something that just really got my motor running. Too bad I'm so socially inept. When Kimoura introduced herself this morning to each of us individually in her back office, I got all tongue tied and couldn't get rid of my blush. She must have thought that I was slow or something. Hell, when she asked my name I said, “Ummm.”

  She had grinned and tilted her head cutely and looked at her clipboard to examine it, then looked back at me with a wry grin, saying, “I don't have an Ummm, on the list.” Her grin turned into a reassuring smile, and she said, “Just relax, take a breath.”

  I looked up at her and had to look away, here huge expressive eyes were so dark they looked almost black. My pulse was pounding, and I was getting a little light headed. Yup, that's me, so smooth with the girls. I swallowed then blurted out, “Lischca Umm Fonteneau?”