The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave (5 page)

Tom thought it was a great idea. He wanted to get his son away as quickly as possible. They agreed on a diner about an hour’s drive away.

The Eagles’ school song blasted through the Dome. Mobs of people in the lower deck flowed down the stadium stairs and bleachers, scrambling over the field walls, and quickly overwhelmed the security teams. They pooled on the playing field. It was too small to hold them all. Fighting grew intense. Splotches of blood dotted the synthetic grass.

Bright lights of cameras made small clearings where sportscasters were snaring players and coaches for interviews about the victory. Tom knew one of the biggest stories and most-looped videos would be of his son fumbling the ball.

Chase hadn’t moved from the bench, thankfully unnoticed by the media who would lack the good sense to leave him alone. The coach crouched down by Chase, tapped his knee with a cupped hand and nodded his head in the direction of the bus. They didn’t say a word to each other.

By the time Tom closed the distance to his son, Chase had removed his helmet and draped a towel over his head. His shoulders were shuddering.

Tom hated seeing his son crying. He made his way down to the field but checked the urge to go over and hug him as though Chase were still a little leaguer. He would always see his boy that way. He wanted to get his son home and sequester him for a few days, letting time to heal it all.

Tom backed up a few yards before giving a shout. “Hey number 32, want to grab a ride with your dad?” He walked over to bump his son’s shoulder pads with his fist.

Chase dried his face with his towel before turning around and said, “I don’t want to talk. Can you just take me home?”

He put his arm around his son’s shoulders. Chase didn’t lean in, but he didn’t pull away either. For the first time that night, he was glad only his dad had come instead of his whole family.

Tom saw blood on his son’s uniform and pulled at the jersey in concern—more blood than the scrapes from sliding on the turf and more than from other players’ cleats. “What’s this? How did this happen?”

Chase touched his neck and felt stickiness from a graze. He remembered the stinging pain to his neck as he’d thrown the deranged lady away from him. It didn’t feel like much of anything—just a nasty scratch. He’d forgotten all about it.

“I don’t know if you saw, but some crazy lady jumped me and started scratching at me. It’s no big deal.”

Things were turning into an impossibly ugly full-blown riot. Father and son fought their way to the tunnel leading to the locker room. It was depressingly empty. Chase’s teammates were already on their way home. Cone-shaped spotlights emanated from industrial sized hanging lights, guiding them through the darkened hallways.

Chase took off his shoulder pads and jersey, hurling them down on the grey-flecked carpet in front of the orange locker in which he had stowed his duffel bag. He changed out of his sweat-soaked undershirt and into a clean navy blue T-shirt. He kept his football pants and cleats on, stowing the rest of his gear inside his bag. “Can we go?”

Until then, Tom had stayed silent. Not able to hold off any longer, he reached out to Chase and clasped his shoulders, not letting him turn away. “Son, it hurts now, but it’s going to get better…”

Before he got another word out, he heard a strange noise behind him and caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of his eye. Something wasn’t right about the movement. Based on what he had seen in the Dome, he believed they were about to meet a mix of drunk and crazy, with an undercurrent of intent to harm. A strange thumping came from the team offices.

For the second time that day, he shifted into Marine mode, padding silently to the entrance to the tiled showers, where he’d seen the movement. He crouched down and stilled himself into a sniper-like trance—slowed pulse, long shallow breaths, body motionless.

Tom signaled for his son to stay put and listened for activity, considering his choices. If he left things alone, he risked being stalked through the unfamiliar hallways in the bowels of the Dome. He’d had enough of Syracuse. He chose the fastest course to get them to his truck and on their way: he would take care of things right here, right now.

He straightened up and shouted, “Come on then, Wally. Let’s see what you’ve got!” and took a step around the corner.

Two sets of hands gripped him almost simultaneously—one pair grabbed his arm and neck, the other pair cinched around his thigh and waist. Tom pushed ahead past the grasping hands and went to work on the bodies of the two men who were hidden in the shadows.

A few broken limbs usually put an immediate stop to a fight, so he shattered the clavicle of the man close to pulling him off his feet by clutching at his legs. Taking on two people while he was on the ground on his back was possible, but less than ideal. The grip on his waist weakened. Tom shifted his attention to the person who had his arm. He broke the man’s wrists and hurled him sideways into a tiled wall.

The man at Tom’s waist clung to him, clawing and biting at him through his jeans, perilously close to Tom’s groin. He stomped on his attacker’s leg, taking out the tibia and fibula. Still the man held on.

Tom’s brain rewound and collectively analyzed each nanosecond since he’d entered the showers. He smelled industrial cleaner, mildew and…what? The sickly scent of decay.

He looked closely at the indistinct shapes in the darkness. There was a tremor in their movements, micro-seizures as they clutched him with inhuman strength.

He heard nothing from them—no reaction from the men whose bodies he damaged. No screams. No whimpers of pain.

His hubris had made him supremely confident of the outcome: a warrior against two drunks. On autopilot, he had missed critical cues. He had ignored his deeper instincts screaming that his life, and his son’s life, were in jeopardy.

It might already too late.

His other attacker rejoined the fight, lunging at his lower torso in another attempt to bring him down. He snapped his knee up into the man’s face, cracking teeth and bone. Snared in the arms of enemies that wouldn’t let go no matter how much pain inflicted, Tom unleashed all his fury and fear.

He could not fail. If he didn’t escape, Chase would fall next. Brutish strength burst from within him.

CHAPTER 8

D
ARKENED
F
LIGHT

I
t was difficult to tell she was only fourteen. She was already taller than her mom and moved with the confidence and grace of an adult woman. Maddy had straight, honey-blond hair that she wore in a ponytail, never wanting (or needing) to do any primping before leaving the house. She was a naturally beautiful girl with a fierce independent streak. Her mom and dad wanted her to have a wonderful young-adult life but yearned for the days when their cute little girl used to follow them around the house.

Laura and her daughters were hurrying along the broad concrete paths connecting the buildings on the Syracuse campus. Only a third of the way back to the car, Maddy stopped and announced, “Mom, I’m going back for Dad and Chase,” her voice brittle.

Laura snapped, “Don’t fight with me. We need to get to the car as soon as we can. We have the baby and it’s getting dangerous out here. Chase is a big boy and he’s with his dad. I’m sure he’ll survive long enough for us to meet up with him later. “

The post-game riot had spilled from the stadium. The game had been a release the same way a grenade would liberate propane from a pressurized tank.

Four-month-old Autumn slept in her stroller, oblivious to the raucous surroundings. Laura wondered what possessed her to bring a baby here. The stroller slowed them down, and Laura didn’t like having her even an arm’s length away in this madness. She plucked her out of the stroller, carrying her daughter securely in both arms.

CHAPTER 9

B
LACK
O
F
H
EART

F
ollowing just out of sight was Bill Koenig, who lived two blocks away from them. Bill was six feet tall with a large, awkward body atop two stumpy legs. He had yellow teeth, his canines thrust into an exaggerated over-bite that jutted from the front of his mouth. Though only in his early 40s, his hair had turned prematurely grey.

He knew he wasn’t physically attractive. That truth was pounded into him when he entered elementary school. His family struggled financially. He was the oldest of six kids. His dad worked as a manager of a motel chain. His mother stayed home to take care Bill, his three brothers and two sisters. They ate the massive bricks of bland government cheese and bought bread from the day-old bakery.

A gifted seamstress, Bill’s mother made professional looking shirts and sold these for a little extra spending money. She handmade all of her childrens’ clothes. While Bill’s shirts looked store bought, the rest of his outfits were a disaster. Replicating the look of blue jeans manufacturers surpassed his mom’s capability. Her best effort tightly clothed Bill’s lower body in a material that resembled a canvas tarp. The teasing was heart breaking, and lasted all of his growing years.

One morning in December, ten-year-old Bill returned to school after a one-week illness. His dad dropped him off early, almost one hour before school started. He trudged to his locker enduring the mocking laughter of a small cluster of sixth graders. He heard footsteps running behind him too late. One of the bigger boys tripped Bill from behind. Immediately, he shot up to his feet feeling proud to have recovered so quickly. That was when he earned the name “weeble wobble”. The name stuck, as did his unwanted reputation. Until Bill moved away for college, wherever Bill walked, someone tripped him and laughed when he stood up again.

Bill drew inward and focused on academics. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and armed himself with an expansive vocabulary and impressive diction. With school success, Bill recovered his self-esteem. He went to bars with confidence and awkwardly flirted with attractive women. He fell hard for a pretty brunette named Wendy who was exceptionally gifted at leading him on, all the while extorting expensive presents from him. This went on for a year.

Unpracticed in dating, he assumed that a relationship lasting one year meant a serious one, a permanent one. Bill surfaced the topic of marriage several times. At first Wendy treated it lightly, “We’re just having fun now, Bill. What’s the hurry?”

As he ramped up his earnestness, she progressed from casually brushing the idea off to firm rejection of the notion of marrying him. Her plan was to have fun on his money and then move on to the next infatuated fool willing to empty his wallet to entertain her, so she kept enough playfulness in her tone to keep him interested and spending money on her.

The more she resisted, the more anxious and blinded Bill became. In his addled mind, she wanted to marry him but was just nervous to take the next logical step in their relationship. He decided to show his commitment to her by buying the most expensive ring he could afford. The diamond was a half carat with one tiny occlusion and slightly yellow in color.

His heart was beating with excitement when he went down on one knee and presented her with the engagement ring. Before he could get the words out, Wendy shrieked at him. “Bill, get up off the ground. You look ridiculous, an even greater embarrassment than normal. I’ve told you a million times that I would never marry you. To tell you the truth, I find the whole idea of being married to you revolting.”

It had never occurred to Bill that his girlfriend, as he saw her, wouldn’t say yes, let alone mock him so brutally instead. His heart shattered, he numbly got to his feet, hung his head, and mumbled. “I’m sorry. I thought we were…and that you felt…”

Wendy had enough of his whining. “Let me do you the biggest favor of your life and break it off now before you get even more pitiful. I can’t stand another minute of pretending to like you. To tell you the truth, every time you touch me it makes my skin crawl.”

Bill collapsed onto a chair and began to cry. The physical pain in his chest was so strong that he felt like he was dying. Wendy took the ring box and shook it in his face. “I should just take this from you. I’m probably the closest you will ever get to putting a ring on someone’s finger. Instead, I’ll leave it for you to remember me by”

Bill bounded to his feet, “weeble wobble” again, and pushed the ring box back at her. “Take it. I don’t want it any more than I want the memories.” He couldn’t mask the hope that this might hurt her feelings and realize she’d pushed things too far, that she’d apologize and things would get back to normal.

He hated himself for wanting that.

She rolled her eyes at him, threw the ring in her purse, kissed her hand and patted him on the cheek with nearly slap-like force. She walked away laughing. “Suit yourself. Take care Bill.”

From that moment, Bill decided he would never be that vulnerable again, never be pathetic again. He took a professorship at Syracuse and taught two classes a week there.

He kept himself emotionally distant from any woman he dated. The less emotion he gave them, the more needy his girlfriends grew. When his relationships reached the point of total surrender to him, he ended them immediately. He told himself that he wouldn’t keep dating women who had reached that point of desperation because he didn’t accept weakness in himself.

In reality, he relished conquering women so completely and felt a great thrill when he caused the kind of pain he’d felt when Wendy crushed his heart.

Laura reminded him of Wendy. He became enamored with Laura when she and Scott first moved into the neighborhood. Laura was different from the women he normally dated. She was completely comfortable with herself, beautiful, confident, intelligent—completely out of reach for someone like Bill.

He knew a relationship with her would be impossible and it made her irresistible to him. Over the years, he’d made several passes at her, fumbling at first. As time passed and he grew more desperate to be with her, he became more assertive and crude.