by Greg Chapman
Megan carried her bags to the kerb and looked farther up the street. At number 61 she saw Amy and Darryl. They were happily tending to their rose garden, the red and white blossoms shining in the mid-morning sun. Darryl was a ball of excitement as he showed Amy how to properly prune the rose bushes and make them glow. Clearly, they were living life to the fullest.
And yet, once again a twinge of uncertainty plagued her.
Megan shook her head as she looked back, eager to spy the cab. She smiled at her nervousness. She remembered she’d been that way too, when she’d left home to go to college, when she’d started her first job as a salesperson, and later when she’d got married…
The house across the street drew her attention, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. It was a gruesome building, with rotten walls and grimy windows, and the spire on the roof resembled a skeletal finger pointing to the sky. Everything about the house made Megan’s skin crawl, and yet her neighbours on the street seemed oblivious to it.
It’s just an old house, Besides, I’ll be leaving all this behind any moment.
The distinctive yellow hue of the taxi caught her eye and she quickly hailed it. It pulled over to the side of the road. Even the driver wore a friendly smile.
“Where to, miss?”
“To the airport, please.”
He got out and helped Megan put her bags in the trunk, and as she was opening one of the rear passenger doors, she felt the urge to look at the black house across the street once more.
A man stood at a window on the top floor. He was tall and handsome, but his face was stricken, and one of his eyelids drooped. The man pressed his palm to the glass, as if he was waving.
Megan quickly got inside the cab and told the driver she was ready to go. As she left Willow Street and its ugly black house, Megan gave the building no more thought and put the queasy movement in her stomach down to nothing more than nerves.
Acknowledgements
There are a number of people without whom Hollow House would not exist: my beta readers Amanda J. Spedding and Matthew Tait, my law enforcement go-to guy, Joe McKinney and of course, my editors, Janet J. Holden and Kate Jonez. Thank you all for helping me bring Hollow House to life.
About the Author
Greg Chapman is a horror author and artist from Australia. After joining the Australian Horror Writers Association in 2009, Greg was selected for its mentor program under the tutelage of author Brett McBean. Since then he’s had more than a dozen short stories published in magazines and anthologies in Australia, the US and the United Kingdom. Greg is the author of four novellas, Torment, The Noctuary (Damnation Books, 2011), Vaudeville (2012) and The Last Night of October (Bad Moon Books, 2013). His debut collection, Vaudeville and Other Nightmares, was published by Black Beacon Books in September, 2014. Voodoo Press released his latest novella, The Eschatologist in January 2016.
He is also a horror artist and his first graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, written by Bram Stoker Award® winning authors Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton was published by McFarland & Company in 2012. Witch Hunts won the Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel category at the Bram Stoker Awards® on June 15, 2013. He also illustrated the comic series Allure of the Ancients for Midnight Echo Magazine. His latest illustrative work is the one-shot comic, Bullet Ballerina, written by Tom Piccirilli, for SST Publications in the United Kingdom. Visit his website: www.darkscrybe.com