The Hollow Man

Journal Entry – November 20, 1871

The morning began as any other.

Frost clung to the windowpanes, and the guests complained about the chill seeping through the walls. I lit the stove, boiled water for coffee, swept the front step — all the motions of a woman tending her inn. The smell of bacon from the kitchen almost made me forget the hum beneath the floorboards. Almost.

By noon, the light outside had turned the color of pewter. Baxter stopped by to deliver nails and kerosene. He asked if I’d been sleeping, said I looked pale. I lied and told him I’d been reading too much by candlelight. He smiled, awkward and kind, and left before the silence could swallow us both.

The house was waiting for me.

When night came, the hum deepened, and the cellar door eased open with a sigh. I should’ve left it, locked it, prayed. Instead, I took the lantern and descended. The air grew thick — damp earth, iron, and the faint sweetness of rot.

At the bottom, I found him.

Not the stranger from the mirror — not quite. He was shaped like a man, but wrong. Too tall, the shoulders narrow, the face smooth where features should be. Light from my lantern sank into him instead of reflecting. The mark on my arm burned like ice.

He tilted his head, as though studying me, then took a step forward. The dirt around his feet shifted, whispering like dry leaves. I wanted to scream, but all that came out was a single word, the one that had lived behind my teeth for weeks:

“Closer.”

He stopped. The cellar went still. Then, as though obeying a rule older than breath, he raised his hand and pressed it against his chest. The sound that followed wasn’t a heartbeat.

It was mine.

When I woke, I was back in my bed, the lantern cold beside me and mud streaked across the floor. The cellar door is closed again.

But I can still hear the breathing beneath.