The Hollows by Ben Larken

Author:Ben Larken
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Forty-five seconds after Melanie left the apartment with a load of boxes David opened the front door and slid inside. He rushed into his bedroom and threw off his clothes, careful to keep the note. His boxes and suitcases of clothes had all been moved, probably by Melanie this morning. He could imagine her coming back into the apartment to find him barely clothed. But that ignored the bigger picture. He didn’t want to be found by Melanie at all. He ran to the dresser and exhaled when he saw the drawers already stocked full of his stuff. He grabbed some underwear, white tube socks, and blue jeans.

The front door opened.

She walked through the hallway. David cringed, tip-toed to the walk-in closet and shut himself inside. As he clicked on the closet light, the stereo in the front room came on. Taylor Swift sang an upbeat number called I’m Only Me When I’m With You. He wrestled with his clothes, jerking them on as noiselessly as possible. He snatched a maroon button-up shirt off a hanger, and then slid into his sneakers. He paused, listening to Melanie move around the apartment.

You’re hiding in the closet from your daughter, he thought and had to suppress an urge to laugh. If this doesn’t make you Parent of the Year I don’t know what will. This was insane. He should go into the front room, surprise Melanie with a hug and tell her the whole crazy story. She wouldn’t believe him at first, but then he could time travel in front of her. It could be their little secret, and it would make things less complicated than they were now.

He looked down at the note. He didn’t need to open it. Number Three: Don’t tell Mel. “Yeah, I know,” he whispered. “Still stinks.”

Just then her footsteps ambled through his bedroom, probably to put something in its place. He waited breathlessly until her footsteps turned back to the hall. How long before she returned with something to store in the closet?

Time to make a trip, he told himself. Now where do I start?

He stiffened as he realized Charlie hadn’t gone into much detail concerning the how of time travel. It wasn’t like Charlie knew a lot about it anyway. You focus on where you want to go, and then it happens—it had been his one and only piece of instruction.

“So focus, David,” he mumbled to himself. “Where do you want to go?”

The first idea was the most obvious: the evening of May 16, 1999. Every cell in his body wanted to be there to witness the moment Elise dropped off the world’s radar. He could finally know the answers that had haunted him for a decade. He could find out where Elise was being held captive today. The idea flared inside him but then faltered. Number One: You can’t change anything. Could David stand by and watch the inevitable happen without saving her?

He gritted his teeth. No, he decided. That trip was coming, but it couldn’t be his first trip to the past.

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