Hollow King, page 1
Waylon Graves
Hollow King
First published by Buffhaus Print & Publishing 2025
Copyright © 2025 by Waylon Graves
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Waylon Graves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
I. UPON POWDERED WINGS
1. A Town Light on the Living
2. Secrets Over Scrapple
3. Beer and Braggarts
4. A Dollar for Your Fear
5. Deals with Eels
6. Few Can Refuse
7. Bubbling Dread
8. Unspooled Yarn
9. A Fall from Grace
10. Where Monsters Lie
II. THE PHANTOM OF FLATWOODS
11. Salted Wounds
12. In the Eye
13. Coming Down
14. Gold for Wolves
15. Sinners Under Steeples
16. The Phantom’s Cathedral
17. They Came a Crawlin’
18. Heir to the Hollow King
19. A Fire Lit
20. Salamander Bride
21. Man Eating Goblins
22. Spitting Venom
III. THE ONE-EYED SERPENT
23. Time Heals Some
24. Cracking Skies
25. An Unmovable Feast
26. Within Talon’s Reach
27. Suffer the Little Children
28. Friends in Low Places
IV. CATCHING COLD
29. The Missing God
30. The Womb of the Abyss
31. No Room for Silence
32. The Empty Road
33. Prodigal Bound
34. Family Reunion
35. The Grinning Man
36. The Sorrow That Binds
V. CRACKING SMILES
37. Flee from Rats
38. A Dark Realization
39. A Last Kindness
40. Last Rites
41. Best Laid Plans
42. Creeping Infestation
43. Into the Dragon’s Mouth
44. An End to Suffering
45. The Sea of Souls
46. A Mountain Lost
The Story Continues In
Dedication
To all those that refuse to whistle after dark.
Acknowledgments
This book would not exist without my family. Special thanks to my wife for driving me just crazy enough to chase a dream, and to my son for being my wellspring of inspiration.
I
Upon Powdered Wings
1
A Town Light on the Living
It’s been a month since the sightings began. No one thought much of it at first. Folks around here are steeped in old stories, tales whispered over fence posts, passed down over weak coffee and strong whiskey. In a town like this, heavy with graves and light on the living, everyone’s seen something strange when the fog rolls in.
The place itself is old. Stone, carved out by a stream that once washed rebellion’s blood into the Potomac. It cuts through the heart of town like a scar that never stopped bleeding. The past here is too heavy to let go. Storefronts stand shuttered, and the churches are long emptied of prayer. Only Mick’s bar has life left in it, and even there, the ghosts outnumber the regulars. So when a drunk starts rambling most folks roll their eyes, until now.
At first, it was small things. A shape too big to be a bird slipping past the edge of your vision. A rogue wind curling down the alleys after dusk. Red eyes glowing from the steeple of the old Episcopal Church on Halloween night watching like some wicked star. Still, folks tucked their coats tighter and chalked it up to nerves, to the season, to old wives’ tales.
Then Donna, who’s been slinging eggs and coffee at the diner longer than most have been breathing, wrecked her car out by the cornfields. Some said deer. Others said something darker came out of the rows, teeth flashing and eyes burning.
By mid-November, the town’s luck finally broke. A group of them saw it, plain and full-on this time. The story goes, that they ran from their picnic as the thing chased them to their soft-top convertible, speeding off with the top down and terror clutching their throats. Now the town’s riled up like it hasn’t been in years. They’re sharpening old tools, dusting off shotguns, muttering prayers they haven’t used in decades. A monster, they say. A curse come home.
Me? Looks to me like it just spoiled a bit of fooling around and left a couple of farm boys aching. Funny how quick fear can turn a backwoods town into a powder keg. But that’s why I’m here. I clean up messes that don’t belong to me, so I can keep what does.
2
Secrets Over Scrapple
Donna’s Diner is dingy and worn thin, like everything else in this town. No one’s bothered keeping up appearances. An out of order sign rests across the soda fountain. The only warmth left in the place clings to a wall of faded, yellowing newspaper clippings—proud headlines from years gone by, kids long since grown and moved away.
I stand beside the crooked little sign telling me to wait to be seated. No staff in sight, just a couple locals hunched in the back booth, heads low. I grimace but stay put. Gotta make a good impression.
Then Donna clatters out of the kitchen, weathered, humorless, carrying two plates of greasy breakfast slop. She gives me a once-over and hollers, “You dinin’ with us or what?”
I point to the sign. She rolls her eyes.
“Sit where you like.”
I slide into a narrow booth, laying my rucksack down beside me like it might break if I’m not careful.
She stomps over, pot already in hand.
“Whatcha want?”
“Coffee.”
Without a word, she tops off a chipped mug with thin, watery black.
“Anything else?”
A soft whimper rises from the sack. I press a hand to it, firm but casual.
“Yeah, scrapple… Bacon and eggs, too.”
She huffs. “You got it. Comin’ right up.”
And just like that, she’s gone, the kitchen door swinging shut behind her. When she returns, the plates clatter onto the table, and she tops off my mug with more of the black swill they call coffee. Before she can vanish back into the kitchen, I catch her.
“I heard you had some car trouble a couple weeks back,” I say, casual.
She squints.
“What, you an insurance adjuster?”
“Nothin’ like that, ma’am. Folks’ve been talkin’. Thought I’d get it from the horse’s mouth, is all.”
My hand drifts to the rucksack, easing it open just enough to slip in a chunk of scrapple. A soft, wet sniffle comes from inside, faint but sharp in the quiet. Donna’s eyes flick to the sack, but she says nothing.
She snorts.
“People called me crazy until those kids saw it. Told me I hit a deer. But no deer ever rear-ended me.”
“Rear-ended?” I raise a brow.
“Smashed the whole back end of my car in. Totaled it, mechanic said. Swore it looked like a bus plowed me.”
“That’s rough. You hurt?”
“Nah, not really. Skin’s thin as paper at my age, bruises come easy. Nothin’ worth fretting about.”
Another faint sound, a sort of pitiful gurgle, rises from the sack as I feed it another scrap. I glance up. “Anything go missing from the car?”
Donna scoffs.
“Yeah, the whole damn rear end.”
Before I can push further, one of the locals in the back calls out without turning around. Voice like gravel.
“She don’t tell half the story, stranger.”
I turn just enough to clock him in the corner of my eye. Older, eyes set deep under a heavy brow, nursing a life long hangover. Donna exhales sharp through her nose.
“Ignore him. Talks more than he listens.”
“Well, why don’t we have any pop in here then, Donna?” he grumbles, raising his glass.
“Nobody wants to hear it, Isaiah.”
I lean toward him, masking the edge in my voice.
“What do you mean, friend?”
“That thing,” he says, voice dropping to a conspiratorial rasp, “drank all the pop.”
She addresses me instead, “I was stocking up for the breakfast rush. After the wreck, every damn BIB was gone.”
“BIB?” I ask.
“Bag-in-Box syrups. Soda pop concentrate,” she explains, deadpan. “Sugar water without the water.”
The sack shifts again, pitiful and soft.. I place a steadying hand on it.
Donna narrows her eyes, suspicion creeping past the tiredness. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”
I give her a crooked grin. “Curious by nature.”
She huffs and disappears back into the kitchen, leaving me with Isaiah’s stare and the quiet whimpering from the seat beside me.
To Isaiah, I ask, “You know where
I’d find Roger and Linda?”
3
Beer and Braggarts
Respectable men don’t spend their mornings in dive bars, or so I’ve been told. Before noon, it’s only the hopeless and the aimless, men who’ve run out of reasons to pretend otherwise. Mick’s is packed with them. Old-timers slouched in cracked vinyl booths, bellies pushing against the limits of their poly-cotton blends. Faces slack. Eyes dim. Waiting out the clock with warm beer and cold memories.
At the bar, Roger holds court, crooked grin in full bloom, a liar’s smirk carved deep into his face. He’s spinning tales, loud and wild, each one more absurd than the last. The old men lap it up, offering him whiskey like pilgrims at a shrine, desperate for one more taste of excitement, even if it’s secondhand and half-true.
I step up to the bar beside the boy, planting my elbows while he leans back on his own like he owns the joint. He’s soaking in the attention, grinning wide, drunk on the adoration of old, spent men trying to remember what it felt like to matter.
The bartender gives me a nod. “What’ll it be?”
“Water. And fresh nuts, if you’ve got ’em.”
“Water?” Roger bellows. He’s already deep in his cups, eyes glassy and cheeks flushed, riding the high of his own story. “You won’t drink with us?” he slurs, his gaze sliding toward the scar that splits down the side of my face. His smirk falters slightly, just for a moment.
I glance at him sideways. “Bit early for me, friend. Heard you saw somethin’ out in the woods. Where was that, again?”
He puffs up. “Me and my buddy were out at Morgan’s Grotto, neckin’ on our girls when—”
I cut him off. “They see it too?”
He stammers. “Who?”
“The girls.”
“Oh, yeah. ’Course they did!” he says too fast. “We all saw it. Thing flew outta the trees like a damn nightmare—red eyes, all black, wings big as a pickup!”
“What’d it do?” I ask.
Roger puffs up, all bravado and booze. “I’ll tel you what it did. Attacked us. Chased us all the way to town!”
“You must’ve been pissin’ yourself,” I mutter. “So what’d you do?”
Before he can answer, the bartender slides a cloudy glass of water and a bowl of bar nuts my way. I dump the nuts straight into my sack, zip it closed, and take a sip.
The water tastes like pool chemicals and pennies. I slide it back across the bar.
“This from the springs?” I ask, confused.
“Nah,” the bartender says, wiping down a glass. “Tap comes outta the river.”
I blink. “You got seven springs feedin’ that damned stream—and y’all drink outta the river?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t plan the damned town.”
Chlorine masks the taste of old corroded lead lined pipes. Whatever I was about to ask Roger gets lost somewhere in the back of my throat. Roger notices my attention slip and flares up, drunk and offended.
“Hey! You wanna hear this or not?”
“I’m listenin’,” I say, still swishing chlorine on my tongue. “Get to it. What’d you do when the demon came for ya?”
Roger puffs up like a rooster in church. “I grabbed my girl, threw her over my shoulder, and ran to my convertible! Tossed her in, slid across the hood like in the movies. Got it in gear just as it came down on us. Slammed the gas, tore outta there.”
He throws his hand in the air, nearly knocking over a half-empty shot glass. “But it was right overhead—right over us—with these BIG RED GLOWING EYES!”
He pauses for dramatic effect. I sip again at my glass and wince. I slide it away.
“I was doin’ over ninety when it hit us. Whole damn car spun out, damn near flipped—crashed into the town sign.”
“And then what happened?”
“Whatcha mean?”
“The dreaded black demon with the glowing red eyes,” I say slowly, “flies ninety miles an hour, slams into your car… and then what? It just… lets you go?”
Roger fumbles. “I-it disappeared. Vanished. Into the night.”
“So you’re tellin’ me this monster’s whole plan was to make you piss your britches and scratch up your fender before headin’ on its merry way?”
“I—I didn’t—”
“Alright then,” I cut in, calm as can be. “Anything missin’ from the car?”
“Huh?”
“Did it take anything? Snacks? Drinks? Your virginity?”
Roger bolts upright, face flushing.
“You sonofa—”
“Well?” I ask, deadpan. “Did it, or didn’t it?”
“No… nuthin’. I mean, we left a cooler back at the park, I guess.”
“Your girl, Linda, right? Works the Dollar Store down the hill?”
His eyes go sharp. “Why you askin’ about L—”
“Appreciate your time.”
I casually walk out of the bar into the cool autumn morning light without a goodbye.
4
A Dollar for Your Fear
The dollar store is empty, stale, and soulless. Black and yellow signs scream about discounts on junk—cheap, gaudy products made by slaves an ocean away. They wrecked a million lives here for their high ideals, only to trade them for the spoils of someone else’s misery. All of it destined for landfills, choking on plastic and dust. But I’m a shopper and shoppers shop.
I grab a plastic bottle of ‘spring water’ from the grimy fridge and drift toward the unmanned checkout. A small, cracked bell sits on the counter like an insult. I slap it and the clatter echoes hollow across the aisles. The rucksack at my side stirs. A soft, wet whimper. I press a steady hand over it. “Easy now,” I murmur. The sack shivers faintly beneath my touch, unsettled but obedient.
Nobody comes, but I notice movement in the back. Linda’s there, headphones on, stocking shelves with vibrant-colored boxes, lost in the drudgery. She’s young but worn down, that hollow-eyed look of someone who’s already accepted the dead-end. The sack shifts again, tense. I draw a quiet breath and slip down the aisle, each step careful and deliberate.
I slip into her line of sight. The faint buzz of pop music bleeds from the cheap headphones clamped over her ears. I offer a polite smile, raising the bottle and gesturing to it.
She pulls the headphones down around her neck, blinking herself out of whatever daze she was in.
“Sorry to bother you,” I say with a smile. “Just wanted to pay for my drink.”
A flicker of embarrassment crosses her face, softening the deadened demeanor. Reflexive kindness surfaces, that old small-town habit. She mumbles an apology and we head together toward the checkout.
“Say,” I venture, voice casual, “aren’t you Roger’s girl? Linda, right?”
Her brow knits. “Do I know you?”
“Nope, never had the pleasure. Rog and I go way back.” I lie smoothly.
“Name’s Carl. Real nice to finally meet you.”
She exhales, a soft note of wariness beneath the small-town politeness. “Yeah… sure.”
I press on. “Heard you had a bit of excitement the other night. Whole town’s in a tizzy, but I can’t get a straight word out of anyone.”
That does it. Her face stiffens, shoulders drawing in a touch. Her eyes sharpen. “You ain’t the first come ‘round snoopin’ in my business.”
My eyebrow raises to this news.
“I doubt you’re with that gossip-column hack,” she adds, voice low but steady. “And you sure as shit, ain’t with those suits.”
