The Hollow Read Online Free PDF Page A

soft, and her eyes were slightly reddened, but her smile was encouraging.
    Reaching out for a hug, I remembered belatedly that I had left my cup downstairs in the basement. She didn't say anything while she hugged me back, but I didn't need to hear the words. I knew what she was feeling.
    "Do you want me to stay and help you clean up?" I asked.
    She shook her head. "No, don't worry about it, honey. I'll take care of everything. It'll give me something to do." Her voice broke slightly on the last sentence, but I pretended not to notice. "You'll call us if you need anything, right? Anything at all."
    "Sure, sweetie." She tried to give me a brave smile, but it didn't work. "Tell your parents good-bye for me."
    "Okay," I replied. "I will. Take care of yourself." She nodded, and I squeezed her hand once before I left the kitchen.
    Mom was waiting for me out in the hallway.
    "I'll be right back, and then I'm ready to go," I told her. At a nod of agreement, I turned around and headed back toward the basement. I had one more good-bye to say.
    But when I got down there, he was gone.
    "Hello?" I called out, walking over to the rocking chair to pick up my cup. I felt stupid for not asking him what his name was. I flipped on a nearby switch, and the room was instantly flooded with eight bulbs of sixty-watt fluorescent lighting.
    It only confirmed what I already knew. He wasn't there. I wasn't going to get the chance to say good-bye, or find out his name. I didn't even know if I'd ever see him again.
    Flipping the light switch one more time on my way back out, I paused for a moment in the dark. "Thank you," I whispered over my shoulder to the empty room.

Chapter Three
    Nightmares and Hallucinations

    They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.
    "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

    I didn't get very much sleep over the next several days. School was starting in two weeks, but that was the least of my worries. Ever since the day of the funeral I'd been having nightmares. I couldn't remember any of them, but they were always there, at the corner of my mind and on the very edge of my consciousness.
    Then it started getting worse.
    I'd wake up suddenly, my body drenched in sweat, while my eyes frantically searched the darkened corners of my room. I usually saw the shape of a person. Like someone was in the room with me.
    If I concentrated, and strained my eyes hard enough, the shape would disappear. I knew it was nothing more than shadows on the wall, but each night, for those brief couple of seconds, my heart pounded in sheer terror.
    More than once I found myself calling out Kristen's name. Asking, pleading, with her to be there. Knowing in my head that she wasn't, but hoping in my heart that somehow she was. I thought I was going crazy.
    After the fourth night in a row of nightmares and hallucinations, I think I really did start to go a little crazy. I struggled to stay up at night, sleeping only when morning came. I didn't feel rested at all, but at least it kept the nightmares at bay.
    Keeping myself occupied all night, though, was a whole different set of problems.
    I tried reading first. I found a book that I hadn't started yet, and it was interesting enough to hold my attention through the first night. But that afternoon I was too tired to go get any new books, and that was a problem when midnight came around again.
    Flipping through some old magazines killed time the second night, but it didn't work quite as well, and I kept nodding off. Morning took a long time to arrive when my body was demanding that I sleep.
    It was the next night that I ended up calling Kristen.
    After checking my e-mail, including every old account I'd ever set up, I had only managed to kill about an hour. There were several new shopping websites to browse, but they didn't really hold my attention either. What I was really missing was Kristen's buddy