(Part 4) I'm a cable guy in the world's creepiest little town, Hollow's End.. (Final)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The people of Hollow’s End had vengeance burning in their eyes as we made our way east out of town, a convoy of mostly old and beat-up vehicles heading towards a mansion none of us had ever seen. We had only grown in numbers since the explosion. The loners and shy folk on the outskirts of town had been drawn in by the sound of the big boom in the town square. Shadow people, usually elusive and private, had come out of the sewers and joined the crusade to save the town.

At the front of the pack was The Butcher in his giant black work truck. Thick black diesel smoke billowed from twin exhaust stacks as his engine roared, setting the frantic Mad Max pace of the group. Surrounding him were several bikers driving Harleys, howling like banshees and brandishing long knives, guns, and crossbows. Their melted faces were concealed by their dark tinted helmets – they had been close to the explosion, but were tough sons of bitches. I rode behind them, followed by a swarm of other cars, a hearse, an ice cream truck, a school bus, you name it.

We drove through the driving rain and crashing thunder in the dark black of night. I looked to the south, my eyes searching for the black ooze to seep onto the road at any moment. I could only guess at how far it had spread.

My thoughts drifted to the weird ooze. The Butcher had said it was created by the rich bastard, but I wasn’t so sure. I had thought it looked like crude oil at times, maybe that was what it actually was. The tankers seemed to confirm that suspicion, why else would he have them, if not to transport the vile black shit somewhere.

I thought of Hollow’s End a bit like the Bermuda Triangle, or one of those other places you hear of where the laws of physics and reality are thin and flimsy. Perhaps it had always been like that here, and the dinosaurs and prehistoric plants which made up the crude were special too, just like us. The boundaries between worlds waned a bit in places like Hollow’s End. Maybe, just maybe, that black stuff had some power to it, something that could do more than power a car. What if that fuel, when refined, could open a hole between worlds, raise the living from the dead, or create thunderstorms from a beautiful sunny day? Perhaps that fuel could be used to build a weapon that could do a lot more damage than plutonium. I shuddered at the thought.

We pulled up to the house and I saw the customer from my service call earlier in the day was standing out front, waiting for us, a determined look on his face. He held a shotgun and was pointing it at The Butcher, his finger ready to squeeze the trigger as the giant truck bore down on him.

A bolt suddenly appeared in the man’s chest and he dropped his shotgun before he could get a shot off. I saw Gregory, the old hunter, pull the bolt from his chest without even slowing down as he drove past on his Harley. He bounced over the bump at the entrance to the driveway, leading the charge.

I got a bit worried as his engine roared and he sped a little bit too far ahead of us, trying to ambitiously scout ahead. I wished there was some way to communicate with him, to tell him to be careful, to look out for traps. But it was too late.

I heard a loud crash as he dropped out of view, disappearing into the road. As we pulled closer we saw a pit had been dug and disguised as roadway. The bottom of the pit was lined with filthy spikes which had impaled Gregory through his leg. He howled in pain and cursed loudly. A couple of cars pulled to the side of the road to help, and our numbers dwindled a bit more.

As we approached the warehouse it looked deserted. It appeared that the rich man’s workers hadn’t been willing to stay and fight his battle for him. Or perhaps they were just waiting for us up at the mansion, armed to the teeth, I thought.

We had to drive awkwardly around a tanker which was blocking the roadway, there was no other way through. Our caravan moved slowly through the narrow section. My heart was hammering so loudly I could hear it in my ears. I was worried there could be another trap anywhere.

Our part of the group was past the tanker when I heard the explosion. I turned back to see a fireball billowing up into the sky, warming my face as I looked out the window. I thought to myself, these things only happen in the movies. But then I looked down and saw the carnage and it felt all too real again. The explosion had been timed to inflict maximum destruction, as I saw that a large portion of our town had been killed. More were tending to the wounded and others still were trapped behind the inferno, unable to proceed further until it was extinguished. I saw body parts lying scattered everywhere. A decapitated head rolled towards me from the flames, blood spurting from the neck. It stopped rolling facing my direction, about ten feet away, and I recognized the face immediately to be Varduin, the town mortician.

Those of us who were left got out of our vehicles and rallied around The Butcher, weapons in hand.

“We’ll proceed on foot from here,” said The Butcher. His stoicism was on full display as he showed neither anger nor sadness. He looked each of us in the eye. “I would ask if any of you are too scared to proceed, if any of you wish to turn around and go back, but I can see from your faces that would be pointless. That being said, I have no delusions about us all surviving this. He’s clearly prepared for us. We might all die, long before we reach him.” None of us said anything. We looked at him resolutely. He nodded his head once, turned around, and began to march.

We followed like fresh recruits in rag-tag formation up the gravel road, The Butcher leading the way. He had sharp eyes, and spotted several traps which we managed to avoid. A bear trap snatched one of the biker’s feet at one point, just as The Butcher was about to tell him to “WATCH OUT!” but it was too late. He lay there screaming at the side of the road, giving away our location to the defenders in the mansion, which was now visible looming up ahead.

As we got closer and the area opened up, the hunters fanned out, searching for sentries. I heard screams from the trees as their sharp eagle eyes picked out the invisible shapes in the shadowy tree line, killing them swiftly with their simple bows and crossbows before the guards could get more than a few shots off. We lost one or two more and left their lifeless bodies on the gravel road as we continued marching forward in the rain. Thunder and lighting still crashed overhead, occasionally a lightning bolt would hit somewhere not too far off and the ground would shake with the impact.

We reached the wrought iron gates of the mansion and The Butcher rattled his huge steel cleaver against them, the loud, ringing vibrations echoing into the distance.

“WE’RE HERE FOR YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH! COME OUT HERE AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”

The voice we had heard in the town square began to laugh again, coming from the intercom to our left. “Good luck getting in here, you fools. I see there’s not so many of you as there was before, did you lose a few of your friends along the way?”

He began to sing off key:

“Little dirty freaks,

Hiding in your hovels

I make a big bad boom,

And you get out your shovels”

He started to laugh again at his own song. He thought he had us beat. The problem for him was, this place, Hollow’s End, made us special. We each had our own talents. Mine was that I could make connections, I could troubleshoot problems, much better than the average cable technician. I pulled the faceplate off the intercom with my flathead screwdriver and looked at the configuration of cables. I had several tools in my tool belt which I had obtained through, let’s just say, black market dealers. I opened up another electrical box nearby and within a few minutes, I heard the buzz of the electrified fence cease. I opened another metal box and played around inside for a little while. The lock clicked open and the gate swung ajar. We were in. His laughter abruptly stopped. I heard him screaming obscenities from inside the mansion.

We walked forward into the courtyard and stormed the front door, picking up a stone bench and using it to smash our way in. I heard something from up above but it was too late, something large and heavy fell, crushing three of my comrades. Boiling oil poured out and steamed on the ground. It covered our friends and we watched in horror as their faces melted, revealing the stark white bone beneath as their screams turned to shrieks of pure agony.

I looked up from the entrance and saw the bastard for the first time, up on the top of the stairs, looking down at us. He was a short, thin man. Old and balding with gold rimmed glasses and holding a fancy looking cane. He held a big gold handgun in his other hand which he began to fire at us, missing with each shot. It looked like he was alone, his eyes were searching frantically as if there was no one else around to protect him and he was terrified of being flanked somehow. Maybe none of his underlings had stuck around after all. Perhaps the troops had abandoned the general when he had ordered them to fire on their own people. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had turned the tides of war.

We took cover as he continued to fire, but he quickly ran out of bullets. I heard him struggling to reload, and nodded at another one of the hunters.

Hilda, the sharp-eyed wife of Gregory, nodded back. Her eyes had a fire in them, she clearly wanted revenge for her husband, whose leg wound had looked gruesome after he fell into the pit of spikes. She readied her crossbow, took a deep breath, let it out, and stood up. Her eyes looked intently through the sites of her weapon, and she aimed for the man who had caused so much ruin.

The bolt was released and time seemed to slow to a crawl as it flew through the air. It hit the man at the top of the stairs in the neck, and he screamed out in pain, dropping his oversized pistol. It fell down the stairs, the clip still not reloaded.

We marched up the lush, expensive-looking crimson carpet which lined the stairs. Fine embroidery could be seen leading upwards, and I couldn’t help but marvel at its complexity. Everything in the mansion looked expensive and overpriced. The heads of large exotic game animals lined the walls everywhere; huge lions, tigers, bison, and elephants adorned the walls. The ceilings were polished marble with golden trim.

When the group of us got to the top of the stairs there were only a few of us left. The Butcher and I looked down at the bald, sputtering asshole who had killed so many of our people. He had no sympathy, and was only concerned for himself. He wept and pleaded for his life. His hand gripped tightly a walking stick with a skull on top.

“Please don’t kill me! I’ll do anything you want, I have money! How much money do you want? A million? Two million? I can do that.. Just let me get my check book, I’ll make it out to you, my friend, what’s your name?” He looked at me desperately. I shook my head.

Blood flew and sprayed up and everywhere as The Butcher did what he did best. The screams were loud for a long time. We watched as he made smaller cuts from the larger primal ones, And the man watched as well, his head held to look by us - still alive in some way only The Butcher could contrive. By the end he was begging for death, only his torso and head left jabbering and pleading for mercy. He did not receive it.

The Butcher was partial to tourists. They were usually his favourite, but he’d make an exception in this case and make do with a local for his experiments.

We took what we wanted from the mansion and then burnt it to the ground. We got back to the rest of the group, who had by now managed to extinguish the fire caused by the tanker explosion. The devious trap had killed dozens and wounded just as many more. The survivors looked exhausted and were covered in blood and soot, their eyes full of tears for lost friends and family. But they let up a cheer when we told them what we had done. We all set out together to finish what was left to do. How it would be accomplished, none of us knew yet.

We got to the sisters’ place and saw the blackness had begun to recede already, disappearing down sewers and flowing into streams after the large storm. Speaking of which, the half-moon had begun to show again in the sky, as the clouds receded. Maybe The Butcher was right after all, that the evil would end when the rich man was defeated. I couldn’t be sure I was right about my magical crude oil theory, but it felt right to me.

The sisters came out to greet us and told us they had found a way to stop the leak of the black stuff from beneath the earth. I shared with the sisters' about Scratches, how he had died but had been prepared to fight for the town. The other cats sensed my sadness and hung their heads with despair as I told them how he had died in my arms. One came over to me and bonked his head against my leg, a funeral hug, then looked up at me with tear filled green eyes. I hadn't known cats were capable of crying.

I figured I’d tell them my theory, and my idea to clean up the rest of the ooze with the tankers and suction equipment we had brought with us from the warehouse. Perhaps we could salvage what was left and see if we could use it to power the town, somehow. That had always been a great cost to our less financially stable residents.

“You've always been great at making connections, Jerome. Well done, my boy.” The Butcher nodded at me and winked.

I blinked and noticed immediately that the evil eye which had invaded my vision for the last few days was finally gone! I could see clearly in the darkness of my closed eyes again, I could dream and not be haunted by its watchful stare. One of the sisters nodded at me knowingly, she had been the one who had asked me that day, “Did it see you?”

I nodded back to her and we stood together in the glow of the half moon. It had been the first clear night in quite a while.

“I’ll come by later to fix the WIFI, ladies,” I said. “Don’t worry about the service charge, this one's on me.”

You see, around here, we look out for each other. We don’t let outsiders make trouble for anyone in our town; keep that in mind, stranger. Or else you might just end up drowning in the silent blackness beneath Hollow’s End. Sweet dreams.

JG