The rain was heavier now. It slammed against the windows like fists.
Lena sat in a classroom closet with Dre. They had blocked the door with a broken chair and were trying to catch their breath.
Kai was still missing.
And Ms. Crayle's black-eyed smile haunted Lena's thoughts like a scar in her memory.
Dre finally spoke. "What the hell is happening?"
Lena didn't answer right away.
Instead, her voice came out small. "I think… I've seen this before."
Dre looked up. "What?"
She hugged her knees. "When I was little. My grandma used to tell me stories—scary ones. About this town. About something buried under Hollow Creek."
Dre blinked. "You're telling me now?"
"I didn't think they were real! She always said weird stuff, like how the school was built on cursed land. That something woke up here once—and it wants people."
Dre stared at her, but didn't laugh.
Lena kept going. "She had a book. Old. She kept it hidden under the floorboards. She showed it to me once when I was five."
---
Flashback — Age 5
The fire had gone out. Shadows crawled on the walls of Ama Lilith's cabin.
"Some things sleep under the dirt," she whispered, sitting Lena on her lap. "And some things pretend to sleep."
She lifted a plank from the wooden floor, revealing a dusty book wrapped in cloth.
"The Hollow Ones," Lena read aloud.
Her grandmother's hands trembled as she opened the book. The pages were filled with sketches—people with black eyes, symbols, drawings of roots that reached into screaming mouths.
"Promise me," Ama Lilith whispered, "if the bell rings before the hour, you run. That means they're walking."
---
Present Day
Lena whispered the words again. "The bell rang too early this morning."
Dre looked like he'd just swallowed a nail. "Okay. So you're telling me… the stories are true? And now what? We just hide?"
Lena slowly shook her head.
"I think it wants something."
She looked at the door.
Outside, footsteps. Slow. Wet. Dragging.
And a voice, muffled through the wall:
> "Lenaaaa... come read the book again."
Lena's face went pale.
"That's her," she said. "That's my grandmother's voice."