By Kadrolsha Ona Carole
The Hollow Man
The town of Black Hollow had long been forgotten, a dead-end place with nothing but rusted streetlights and whispers in the dark. But something still breathed there. Something ancient. Something hungry.
It started with the butcher. Henry Reed was found in his shop, his skin peeled away like the rind of an orange, his body drained of every drop of blood. His wife, Martha, swore she heard something that night—a slow, ragged breathing just outside their bedroom window, followed by the sound of nails scratching against the glass. She never saw what it was.
No one ever did.
By the time the third body turned up—a child, her tiny body emptied like a broken vessel—the town knew they were cursed. Some swore it was the work of a demon. Others whispered about him. The Hollow Man.
The legend had existed for centuries, buried beneath the dust of forgotten stories. He was no ordinary killer. He was hunger itself. A figure wrapped in tattered darkness, his face a swirling void of shadows, his eyes like pits that swallowed light. He didn’t just kill; he drank his victims dry, leaving only empty husks behind. And once he found you, he never stopped coming.
Sheriff Dalton led a group of men into the woods where the Hollow Man was said to roam, desperate to put an end to the terror. They found something all right—something watching them.
A shape emerged from the trees, moving unnaturally, its limbs too long, its fingers ending in jagged claws. The sheriff fired, but the bullets disappeared into the thing’s body like stones sinking into a black lake. Then, it spoke—its voice a chorus of whispers, layered, each word like something ancient slithering through their ears.
“I am not of flesh. I do not die. But you… you will beg to.”
They ran. Only the sheriff made it back. He wouldn’t speak. Not until they found the others—hanging upside down from the trees, their throats torn open, their veins sucked dry.
That night, the Hollow Man came into town.
People barred their doors, held their breath in silence. But the Hollow Man did not knock. He did not break in. He seeped through the cracks, through the walls, through the spaces between their very thoughts. When the screams started, they did not stop for hours.
By morning, Black Hollow was empty. Nothing remained but abandoned houses and the faint smell of copper on the wind.
They say if you stand in the town at night and whisper his name, you’ll hear that slow, ragged breathing behind you.
And if you turn around…
You’ll never be seen again.