Point Hollow Read online

  Darkness.

  “Son of a bitch,” Oliver snarled.

  Matthew pushed himself to his feet and flailed blindly. He managed several uncertain steps before tripping, falling to his hands and knees. Dust flowered, stinging his eyes, coating his lips. He coughed and spat, picked himself up, teetered, then slammed into a wall. He dragged his hands along it—

  Please God, oh please . . .

  —and his fingers moved from rock to bone. He pulled back, but not before feeling the empty eye sockets and nose cavity. Gossamer hair brushed the back of one hand. The skeleton toppled sideways and broke into loose pieces.

  “I can hear you,” Oliver said.

  Matthew heard him, too—scratching like an animal as he searched for the flashlight. He swayed breathlessly in the opposite direction. Again, four or five weak steps before falling to his knees. He cried out and clawed at the ground. Another skeleton—there were so many. Matthew felt fragile bones beneath damp fabric, and something else: a shoe. A sneaker, to be exact. Canvas, with a distinct rubber toe cap. He remembered Oliver shining the flashlight on the boy-skeleton dressed in blue jeans and Converse All Stars, and it was like a flare went off in his head. The position of the skeleton helped orient him. His head snapped right. That way, he thought. He picked himself up and flew through the darkness.

  Oliver found the flashlight and hissed with delight. Matthew heard him flick the switch—nothing—then slap the barrel into his palm. The flashlight blinked with each solid slap, showing Oliver in cold bursts. He had the knife between his teeth.

  Please oh please . . .

  The cave floor rose and Matthew took it in keen strides. He came to a wall and ran his hands along it. Five steps, six . . . and all of a sudden the wall sloped inward—disappeared. The tunnel, he thought, stumbling into it with overwhelming hope. Another glance over his shoulder at Oliver, who fluttered in the gloom. He gave the flashlight another firm whack and it flared into life. Matthew stretched his arms to either side and felt the slick wall to his right. He used it to guide him, staggering through the fissure. It kinked and twisted and ascended all too gradually. He put his head down and threw one foot in front of the other.

  Light filled the narrow space behind him.

  Oliver was coming.

  “You can’t get away, Matthew.”

  The tunnel veered right . . . left . . . on and on. Matthew pushed forward with everything he had. He felt the light behind him, snaking through the twists and turns. He heard Oliver’s sandpaper breaths.

  “I’m coming for you.”

  Matthew ducked left and stumbled right. His throat rasped. His body trembled. Another right turn and there it was: a pale whisper of daylight. The relief was flood water. It pulled him under. Drowned him.

  “The mountain always gets what it wants.”

  Matthew drew his arms to his sides and ran hard for the exit. One more turn and he saw the opening to the cave—that jagged triangle they had squeezed through. He lunged for it, reaching with his entire body. The sky looked impossibly blue.

  And then he slipped and fell—hit the ground hard. He tried to get up but slipped again.

  The light extended into the tunnel behind him. Matthew dared another look and there was Oliver. His eyes were small and hard. The knife trembled in his hand.

  Matthew got to his knees, half-crawling, trying to get up.

  Oliver growled like a dog. He was so close.

  Only fear. That was all Matthew knew. It consumed him. He screamed and grappled the cave wall with both hands, digging in with his small fingers, pulling himself to his feet. He stumbled toward the mouth of the cave. Daylight drenched his face and he inhaled it, as if resurfacing from deep water, but he wasn’t out yet. The opening was up high. He leapt for it, grabbed the top rock, and pulled with everything he had. He used the gaps between the lower rocks like rungs, jamming his sneakers in, climbing from one to the other.

  He was almost out—sliding his hurt, dirt-streaked body through the opening—when he felt Oliver’s hand curl around his ankle.

  “Get back here, you little bastard.”

  Matthew grabbed a rock and held on. Blood oozed from his fingertips. Oliver pulled harder, but he was only using one hand and Matthew was able to twist his ankle free. He kicked out with both feet, and felt contact—the sole of his right sneaker slamming into Oliver’s face. It was enough. Oliver stumbled backward and slipped, and Matthew scrambled through the opening. He jumped to his feet, crying wildly, and zigzagged down the mountain.

  His mind burned and smoked. He ran into the woods, directionless, and didn’t stop until it was too dark to see.

  ———

  Oliver emerged, alone, into the bruised light of evening.

  Abraham’s Faith had fallen silent.

  For now.

  Hopefully forever, he thought. He held out his arms and breathed deeply of the freedom. Hope coloured the edges of his mind, like the sun on the horizon.

  She had cried. So many tears.

  “Let that be the last time.”

  I can’t do this anymore.

  He concealed the opening with the rocks he had earlier displaced. Each one slotted into an exact position, as precise as a jigsaw puzzle. They blended with the sloping mountainside. Became a shadow. An unknowing eye wouldn’t look twice.

  Sunset, but it felt like a new day. Oliver absorbed the stillness, and then—with the little girl’s tears drying on his T-shirt—he stepped carefully down the mountain and walked home.

  From Oliver Wray’s Journal (i)

  Point Hollow, NY.

  June 7, 1997.

  Genesis 22:2: He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

  Well, something happened, that’s for sure.

  It has started again—that quaking, furious voice. There is no reprieve, and I have tried various methods of silencing it: drugs (legal and otherwise); alcohol; running away; therapy (which, to be fair, may have worked if telling the truth had been an option). They have offered temporary alleviation, at best—masked the problem, but not remedied it. The mountain speaks to me, and I need to know why. It may be the only way to silence it for good.

  Where did the children come from?

  What happened to them?

  Boom and thunder. It keeps me awake. I pace the rooms of my home with my hands tied in my hair, my body aching. I beg the mountain, but it won’t stop until it gets what it wants.

  After the incident in 1984—when little Matthew scrambled from my grasp—I descended into what my parents called my “challenging period.” I became solemn and introverted. My father reasoned that this was natural behaviour for a boy going through adolescence. The teachers concurred, and I was left to grow out of it. What they didn’t know was that my quietness and reserve was down to an inexplicable fear of the mountain’s certain repercussions. It had wanted a child, and I had failed it. Perhaps it would draw me into its darkness once again, knife in hand, and make me push it into my own heart. Perhaps it would unleash the spirits of the children—howling and vengeful—and they would come to me in the small hours, tapping on my bedroom window until I went insane.

  Years passed, I heard nothing, and emerged timidly from my “challenging period.” I convinced myself that the incident was partly imagined. It was preposterous to suggest that the mountain had spoken to me. I started to smile again, and relax. Abraham’s Faith splashed its shadow on the town, but I wasn’t as intimidated as I used to be.

  The day after my twenty-second birthday, in July of 1992, it spoke to me again. I was eating breakfast at Sally’s Country Kitchen when the voice thundered across the miles. I dropped my knife and fork and clutched my head. The waitress came immediately to my table and asked if I was okay.

&n
bsp; “Did you hear that?” It was the same question I had asked my mother eight years before.

  “Hear what, sugar?” And almost the same reply, except my mother would never have called me sugar, or anything sweet.

  I blinked hard and looked at the windows, amazed that they hadn’t blown inward, shards of glass hanging from splintered lathes. The sound echoed inside me. It felt like ash on my soul.

  “Nothing,” I said, retrieving my knife and fork with trembling hands. “I get migraines. Terrible . . . they . . .” Speaking was useless. I shut up.

  “You need anything? Glass of water?”

  I felt its voice, almost saw it—like black fire in my mind, flickering and man-shaped. Its burning hands reached for me.

  “Hungry,” I said.

  “You still got a plateful of eggs, sweetheart.”

  “Not me.” I looked at the waitress. I imagined blood trickling from the corners of my eyes—my brain hemorrhaging under the load. “The cheque, please.”

  Conflicting feelings. Again, an undeniable sense of pride, having been chosen—the warmth and assurance of being wanted. And fear, of course, that I would fail it again, or that the mountain wasn’t booming at all and I was losing my mind. This was a terrible time for me. Three or four weeks of heavy drinking, losing sleep, missing work. I became a shadow, and Abraham’s Faith did not let up. It coerced and commanded. At last I went to it, my soul stripped and pure. I lay among the rocks and wept, looking for peace. The mountain wrapped its arms around me and I felt its austere love.

  Danielle Dewberry. Eight years old. I drove all the way to North Carolina, believing it prudent to make the grab as far from my front door as possible. Five hundred and seventy miles, and Abraham’s Faith was with me for every one of them. She got into my car easily enough, but struggled all the way home, never tiring. Ten hours of kicking and twisting. I avoided tolls and drove the speed limit; the last thing I needed was to see blue lights flashing in the rearview. I parked on a deserted side road just outside Point Hollow and walked from there to the mountain, carrying the little girl on my shoulder, needing to stop and rest frequently. I uncovered the opening to the cave—just as I had in 1984—and gave the mountain what it had been crying for.

  Or so I thought.

  Roar and bang—those burning, black-fire hands again.

  The therapist’s name was Dr. Wendi Kim. She had the kindest eyes and a manner that set me immediately at ease. She invited me to “release” and I wanted to, I really did. There was a copy of the New York Times in her waiting room, and I had just finished reading about the disappearance of Danielle Dewberry, eight years old, from Louisburg, NC. I elected to not “release,” and instead offered a string of lies. Dr. Kim listened and underlined our first session with a prescription for trazodone, which I duly took, and which gave me an erection that lasted twelve hours, but didn’t stop the mountain.

  Ryan Lloyd-Lewis, five years old, from Montrose, PA. A classic mall snatch, and a little closer to home, too. I couldn’t bear the idea of another ten hours in a car with a struggling child. Not only that, but a long journey presented more chance of something going wrong. You learn by your mistakes, I guess.

  I gave him to the mountain.

  Rumble and boom.

  I drove to Stewart Airport and hopped on a flight to Chicago. I still heard Abraham’s Faith, more furious than ever, so caught another flight, this time to Seattle. Twenty-five hundred miles away now, looking at a different ocean, yet I still heard the mountain. It was a part of me. Inside me. I couldn’t run away.

  Walter Hillier. Eight years old. Stowe, VT.

  “Let that be the last time. Please. I can’t do this anymore.”

  Silence.

  It was like tripping the exosphere—not at the point where sound can’t travel, but at a level so far removed from everything that you cannot hear anything. I drifted there for days before touching down and, with trepidation, resuming normal life. The children I had taken became three more names on a list that expands by the hour. The investigations faltered. Their faces faded from milk cartons and the backs of envelopes.

  Small-town life happened. I fell in and out of love, like a song on the radio, or a chick flick. I switched between jobs and earned a little extra on the side designing leaflets for local businesses. I fell in and out of love again: the chick flick sequel. My mother died of cancer in 1995 and I was happy for her. She’d had a miserable life—had never stood up for herself, or me, during my father’s episodes of tyranny.

  Life. Goes. On.

  Nothing from Abraham’s Faith. Not a squeak. I cast it from my mind—didn’t need to think about the terrible things I had done to stay its voice, its hunger.

  It was over.

  Until six days ago, driving home from work—a bone-shaking explosion that nearly flipped me off the road. Five years had passed since I’d last heard it. Since I’d felt those black-fire hands clutch my soul.

  I pulled over, rested my head against the steering wheel, and wept.

  June 9, 1997.

  I’ve been trying to ignore the mountain for eight days now. I am paralyzed with exhaustion. Haven’t slept and can hardly eat. I’m growing weak. Mentally . . . physically.

  I need to find out what happened up there. I need to stop this.

  June 14, 1997.

  Went pure, looking for guidance, for tranquility. The wilderness is my church. It’s where I worship. The trees understand me like no person ever has. The animals and birds, too. I go among them, naked, and suffer no judgment. There is no need for mask or pretense. I am one of them. I am pure.

  Four days and nights, eating the fruits of the earth, my body smeared with ochre and charcoal. I had hoped this deference would appease the mountain. But no, it still demands of me.

  It is a wicked god.

  June 18, 1997.

  My brain is like a time bomb. Tick-tock-BOOM!

  Don’t make me do this.

  June 22, 1997.

  3 weks of hell and earth . . . pray for me might kill myslef cant think adn im sooooo weak I cant do anythign. Please dog please help a brothr out.

  June 24, 1997.

  Victoria Guy. Six years old. Deep River, CT.

  I can’t lie, I feel a little better. Not ready for jumping jacks, but there’s light at the end of the (CAVE) tunnel.

  Still . . . he rumbles. He burns.

  June 26, 1997.

  Connor Wright. Seven years old. Flemington, NJ. He thought I was his Uncle Tookie. He came easily enough, for sure—didn’t start crying until we crossed the New York State line, and then he cried all the way to the mountain.

  His eyes were the same as mine. The same shape. The same colour.

  I can’t do this anymore.

  June 27, 1997.

  Silence.

  And I trip . . .

  July 9, 1997.

  Point Hollow is a largely unremarkable—yet undeniably picturesque—spit of civilization nestled in the Catskills. Its single claim to fame is that Washington Irving once rested here, and remarked: “Point Hollow is a wonderfully useless little town. I shall not hasten my return.”

  It has grown to be less useless in recent years. There are several quality stores and restaurants, a used car lot, and a sizable lumber mill that employs more than two hundred people. The flea market on Main Street (we called it the Scratch; locals have a nickname for everything, including that damn mountain) was recently razed to the ground, and a shiny new Super 8 will be erected in its stead. The verdant acreage surrounding Point Hollow has long-appealed to outdoor enthusiasts, and soon they’ll have a place to kick off their hiking boots. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before Dunkin’ Donuts and the Golden Arches muscle their way onto Main Street.

  All that aside, this is home. I have lived here all of my life, and despite aforementioned difficulties,
I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

  I am stained, it’s true. But so is the town.

  The whole goddamn town.

  Maybe it’s Abraham’s Faith, casting its broad shadow, making everything dark. Or maybe it’s the fact that Point Hollow is surrounded by ridges and peaks, offering it an isolated quality. Locals often call the town “God’s Footprint.” Another nickname, and perhaps an attempt to imbue a measure of divinity. It fails; regardless of natural beauty, there is nothing godly about Point Hollow. It is like a mad man’s beautiful eye.

  There is an eggshell veneer over just about everything, and you sense it will crack under the merest pressure. I am not the only one who feels it. This is apparent in the expressions of the townspeople. Their smiles are too wide, maintaining appropriate tension lest the weaknesses appear. Everybody is affable, but there is something under the surface. Something unspoken. I am no exception; I offer pleasantries like they are going out of fashion, but beneath my eggshell veneer lurks a monster that listens to mountains.

  It is in the trees—the way they chatter and whoosh. It is in the buildings, too. There is menace in their structure and placement, and the bricks are subtly dissymmetric, so that, when walking, you experience a mild discomposure. The windows have no life. I never feel, looking at them, that there is anything happening on the other side. They are a façade, one of many, disguising the truth.

  The wind blows differently in Point Hollow—and yes, almost certainly because the town is in a bowl. It doesn’t shriek or howl. It doesn’t huff or puff. It chills me to the core when it blows, because it sounds, for all the world, like a sobbing child.

  I’m not suggesting that Point Hollow is a bad place, only that it senses badness, and covers it. I would liken it to an ornate stone on an evildoer’s grave. And the evil is obvious.