October 20th, 1976
Hollow Creek, Pennsylvania
10:37 A.M.
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The wind whipped among the trees, rustling leaves and creaking, swaying branches. Hollow Creek, a normally sleepy town, hung strangely silent when Trooper Everett Lane waited on the front porch of the Briggs' house, eyes on the curve of winding road. His patrol radio provided only static chatter, a monotonous background interrupted only by the horrors that awaited within.
Lane had been the first one there, his boots crunching gravel as he made his way through the backyard. The house itself had been strangely quiet, too quiet. The first thing he had noticed was the blood. There was plenty of it, and already it had begun to dry on the carpet, standing in vivid relief against the rest of the immaculately tidy room.
The male and female corpses were posed in such a way that something far worse than a random crime was afoot. There had been signs of struggle—kinky hair clung to the woman's head, a blood-streaked handprint from wrist to chest across the woman's nightgown—but their positioning had been precise, nearly clinical. They had fought for their lives, Lane was sure, but their deaths had been surgically neat in effect. The sight of the man's contorted face lingered with him—wide, fixed eyes and a mouth frozen in a final scream. The woman, equally stiff, had clutched the edge of the nightstand, her fingers stuck with dried blood, her body twisted at an unnatural angle.
Lane took another sip from the coffee cup he'd been nursing, his gaze sweeping the compact area in front of the house. He was hoping to see the local deputies arrive at any moment, and he'd already called in the crime scene team out of Harrisburg. His job now was simple—get the perimeter secured and let the professionals work their magic. He was a state trooper, not a detective. The forensic team would continue with what they were doing, and Lane's job was to protect, to make sure that nothing or anyone came in or out. He had to maintain the scene.
The biting cold air pained his skin, and he hunched up his jacket, tightening the collar higher to shield himself from the wind. His gaze moved to the street, which was empty except for some parked cars, all under the vigilant eye of the yellow police tape. Hollow Creek was a small town—quiet, too quiet—and Lane knew that after the local deputies arrived, things would start to move fast.
The radio crackled in his ear, breaking the silence. "Unit 212, come in."
Lane reached for the mic. "This is Unit 212, go ahead."
There was a brief pause before the dispatcher's voice came over, flat and expressionless. "Danvers State Hospital issued a bulletin today. A 10-96. Escaped patient. White male, late twenties. U.S. Army veteran. Last seen night of the 19th."
Lane's hold on the mic tightened. "Was he local?"
"Negative. He was committed to Danvers federally. VA records in his psych file. Came back with combat stress and behavior issues. Will vanish for days if not on meds."
Lane went cold, the name coming up to the forefront of his mind. He recognized this name. "Name?"
"Thomas Bell," was the response, the name suspended in the air like a malignant curse.
Lane's breath lingered in the air. Bell. He'd been following the reports on the asylum escape, but he'd never heard the name attached to a location before. Hollow Creek. The town Lane grew up in, where everyone knew one another—or so he thought.
He glanced back over the house, his mind whirling. Too much of a coincidence. A man like Bell didn't vanish. He was violent, on the run, and capable of anything. And now this. The brutality in the house, the bloodstains, the eerie quietness—it all pointed to one thing. Bell was here. He had to be.
"10-4," Lane muttered into the mic. "Send over the bulletin and the psych file to the barracks. I'll stay on scene. Over."
"10-4, Unit 212. Advise caution. Subject is flagged violent and evasive."
Lane pushed the mic back away from his face to his shoulder and stood frozen, looking carefully at the house. His gaze swept the grass once again, his eyes scrunching together as they locked on the bent-over fence section in the back yard. Bell entered that way? Lane wasn't sure. It was probable, but unless the forensics people made it over with a closer check, there was no way to be certain.
He strode off the front porch and began to make slow circuits around the perimeter, checking the scene over again, shaking in the chill morning air. His boots broke on the gravel, every step slow and calculated. There was no sign of anyone nearby, no fresh tire tracks, nothing that suggested Bell had left in a hurry. The stillness was oppressive. Too oppressive. It was the kind of silence that made your head start racing, your mind drifting to things you didn't want it to.
He reached the other side of the yard, near the row of trees, and caught his breath. There was a smell of decay in the air, and he told himself to be cautious. This was not his case to solve. He was just the first to be called out, until the others got there. He did not let himself think too much ahead.
There was nothing yet, no absolute tie, but the notion tormented him: Thomas Bell existed out there. Someplace.
As he toured the property, the wind began to build. The earlier light blue overhead was changing to gray and the clouds full of the smell of rain. He felt then—the sense that something was beginning, something on the horizon but just beyond his grasp. He couldn't keep from the feeling that Bell wasn't far behind him.
Lane arrived at the back gate, his hand resting lightly on the old wood as he peered into the trees in front of him. Nothing. No sign. But he understood, deep inside, that it would not be long before folks started seeing things.
The quiet would not continue much longer