The Hollow Places Read Online Free Page B

deliveries franchise and mum had
looked at the floor. He didn't think it would do her any good to
know that. It only made it more difficult to sleep.
    And he was
afraid of the forgotten things that might clamber up if he allowed
Sarah to ask questions. He had to be empty to do what he did. The
past was gone. The future was unknown. He could only survive in the
present.
    He stopped
mid-step, eyes wide, before dropping to the ground and crouching,
holding his breath.
    Torchlight
hovered in the mid-distance. He had been moving towards it as
though it was the north star. Now, he flattened himself against the
ground and the light washed in his direction. Head to one side,
eyes open, he saw it sweep past him, then back. Lungs burning, he
drew a very slow breath, knowing that he wouldn't be able to
breathe out again without giving a signalling plume of vapour. He
remained perfectly still on the damp earth as the light settled
beside him. He closed his eyes for a moment, working to regain
control of his desire to see more clearly and his desire to run.
His heartbeat thumped in his ears.
    Someone was
looking for him or the French woman.
    Perhaps, he
thought, this person had seen him last night and had returned in
the safety afforded by 24 hours. Or perhaps it was someone
following the tracks, looking for evidence. Finding it. He'd been
sloppy. He'd been exhausted. He'd been high. Twenty Questions.
    He opened his
eyes again when, in the distance, he heard a snort and saw that the
torch bearer had given up on training the light in his direction
and was now facing the other way, so that it created a halo,
revealing a male figure, sitting on the ground, his elbows resting
on his knees. The man was not crying but weeping. He had a coughing
fit through the tears and wiped his face with his fists. He growled
at himself in anger and thumped the ground, stamped a foot.
    Simon didn't
imagine that this was the boyfriend. The father perhaps. He
wondered if this man had seen what he had done last night but had
been powerless or too afraid to stop it, and had returned here,
like him, to reignite his grief and have it soar. His cries went
up, promising minute relief but ultimately falling dead among the
branches. He sat in the middle, suffering, his breath hitching,
waiting it out.
    Every sound
the man made caused Simon to wince. He could feel his throat
burning, as though he was going to cry, but he didn't dare lose
control.
    The man's
grief seemed both old and new, as if he was unhappy for many
reasons, which were presenting themselves to him in a dismal
procession.
    If this was
the French girl's father, Simon admitted, then he had robbed the
man of the one thing that was keeping him alive.
    He wished that
he hadn't come back and seen this. He knew that he could have gone
anywhere to ponder his actions and come to terms with what he had
done, but Sarah's questioning had driven him toward the extra
flagellation that returning to the cliff would afford him. As good
as he was at burying his emotions, this night would keep him in
nightmares for the rest of his life.
    *
    Twenty more paces would
have brought Simon to the edge and that was where the man had
stopped, swinging his big head left and right, gazing down into the
tumultuous waves. He was portly and ungainly, like a PE teacher he
had once had, and he was wearing a short, waxy jacket that hissed
when he moved.
    Simon wondered
if the man was working himself up to jump and again he felt
contradictory urges: the muscles of his legs tensed, ready to
spring from his hiding place and haul him back, because he had sent
too many people into the unknown to watch it happen again without
the demand of the Creature and yet any attempt to save him would
mean giving himself away.
    Suicide or
not, the man's presence here posed questions that were becoming
increasingly intolerable. The torch had fallen from his fingers and
lay at his feet spilling light through fallen branches; a gust of
wind tussled his hair