Eve's Hollow by Charles Bedlam (best free e reader .txt) 📕

The Punished fingers reached toward Estelle as he dragged forward. Estelle didn't wait for him to come to her.

“No,” Estelle said. “You die!”

Using her broken emotional state as a battering ram, she charged the monster with enough force to knock him to the ground. She straddled him and he reached up to grab her throat with an angry shout. He tried to talk more, but only wheezes came out.

Estelle violently threw his hands away from her neck, but he continued to attack her. Rage building, the girl began using her knife to cut chunks of his arm away. Blood splatter sprayed on her face, but it didn't staunch the flow of hate. He screamed out in pain, but still tried to strangle her. Eventually she was able to tire him to the point that she could exploit a small opportunity to stab her enemy in his neck. His blood was dark and warm as it gushed all over her hand. The Punished man attempted one final futile swipe at her throat. Estelle ripped her blade from his neck with a scream and the man died beneath her.

Estelle breathed heavily and watched the orange glow fade from his eyes. She screamed and plunged her knife into this chest. She did this again and again until her hands were covered, slick with blood. She grunted with each stab and when she was finished, she rolled off of his corpse and tried to catch her breath. While her chest heaved up and down, tears fell down the sides of her face, mixing with the blood. Her quiet sobs were the only sound on that roof.

*** Estelle didn't know how long she had been lying there next to her kill. Her eyes stung from tears and her hands were sticky with dried blood. She shakily rose to her feet, using a crate for support and began toward Ransley's penthouse. Estelle held her knife, ready to fight again, though she lacked the energy. Ransley was correct when he told her how sharp it was. The bulk of her attempts at her fight were simply to subdue the Punished man. She needed relatively little effort to actually kill him. She knew that she'd have far less trouble with her gun here, but she knew that there would be more blood with the knife. That's what she wanted. There were no more enemy encounters on her way.

Estelle sheathed her knife when she made it to the elevator to his penthouse. It was only as the elevator hummed up during its ascension that she realized how she must appear. Still so very tired, she couldn't even think of an excuse to tell him. An excuse was something her evil past life would have given. A lie would be more accurate. Estelle wanted to be honest, but spare herself the torture of explaining the entire situation to Ransley, she would only tell him the bare minimum. She didn't have the energy to tell him everything even if she wanted to.

When Ransley opened the door to his penthouse, pistol aimed at a potential assailant, she knew exactly what to say before passing out from exhaustion.

“I need your help.”

Estelle found that one of the worst aspects about Eve's Hollow was that there was no way to tell time. The sky was a gloomy red shroud all of the time. No sun, no moon, no day, no night. Once Estelle reached Ransley's residence, the immediate memories that followed were splotchy and vague. She had been at his home for what she perceived to be several hours.

Ransley, again took Estelle into his home. He treated the wounds on her hand. He gave her food and water. Ransley also provided means to clean the blood from her face. Estelle came to the realization that she had greatly missed him. He gave her his bed to rest in and she slept very well. It was a heavy, dreamless slumber. When she awoke, she left his bedroom and went out into the living room. The two couches that formed and “L” were situated on the far side of the room. She crossed the living space and sat on the couch. She listened for Ransley, but the penthouse was dead quiet.

She walked over to the window and pressed her hand against the cool glass. She looked down and could not see the street. It was just dark. Above, she tried to count the buildings that rose up around her. She had never known a city co large. She spent much of her old life in rural parts of her home country and on the run for the most part. She had only ever seen the ocean a handful of times. Eve's Hollow reminded her of the ocean. Though she had never been out to sea, she heard stories of crushing black depths beneath the water. A grave so deep and vast that it could swallow you and you'd never be found. She felt this way when she looked up at the buildings, as if she were already drowning.

The front door opened and Ransley entered the penthouse, completely unaware of Estelle's presence at first. He hurried in with his head down and his bag slung over his shoulder. He whipped it over his head and set it down on the floor before entering the living room. That's when he saw her and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“You're awake,” he said. He took a breath. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Estelle replied. “Thank you. Very much”

“I was out, uh, scouting,” Ransley said, pulling his coat off.

He threw his coat on the kitchen counter and entered the living room without bothering to remove the small arsenal of guns he kept strapped to his person. He dropped his body into the soft recliner that sat facing away from the window. Staring straight ahead, he took a deep breath.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Ransley did not look at her for a long time. This made Estelle feel awkward and nervous. He tried to choose which question to ask first. This girl had perplexed him since the moment he met her.

He simply said, “what happened to you?”

Estelle sighed. Without hesitation and without a break, she recounted the events that occurred after they last met. She explained to him how almost as soon as she had left she was captured by a vending machine that was made to abduct people. She described her awful, restless ride to the Grigori compound. She explained how the mansion was a shelter for survivors and their armed men keep them safe. Estelle retold the story that Tabitha told to her while she had been bathing. She told him of the club, the soldiers, and how Supernova was a part of it. She did, however omit her father's story of Supernova and the Pale Lady's fight.

Estelle ran him through the story of how the Pale Lady did strike down a giant beast that crushed the safety wall, allowing the blood thirsty Punished to rush into the compound. He was apparently familiar with scenes of battle, blood, and gore. His eyes were focused and empty, looking but not looking. She told him of the monster that she saw when she hid in the mirror shop. Estelle had not yet decided whether or not she wanted to tell him about her counterpart. She was afraid of the look in his eyes and did not want to say anything to make him perceive her as a threat. Fortunately he had a question for her at that point.

“How did you get all...,” he waved his hand in front of his face, “bloody?”

“I had a close encounter with a Punished,” Estelle simply answered. “I used the knife you gave me... The blood was mostly his.”

“Is that so?”

This seemed to brighten Ransley up a bit.

“Told you, didn't I?”

Estelle nodded with a half smile. During this conversation, Estelle chose to “forget” two facts. The first being the Anti-Estelle, she figured the creature may be a hallucination, a figment of her insanity. The second being that the man who lead the mansion and kidnapped was her father.

“What exactly do you want from me?” Ransley asked, crossing his arms.

“It's just- I went out there and I tried..”

“Even if the survivors couldn't to leave, don't you think you'd be safer there?”

“I may have been safe, but I wouldn't have been free.”

Ransley was surprised by this answer.

“Look,” Estelle said. “I know that this is crazy and I know that you don't agree with what I'm trying to do. But this samurai... He's my only way. I need to find him. But I can't do it alone...”

It was self explanatory at this point. Estelle wanted Ransley to accompany her. She needed him.

“What if the Supernova Samurai doesn't turn out to be who you think he is?”

“I-”

Estelle didn't have an answer.

“I don't know,” she said. “Like I said, this is my only way out so I'm trying to stay as positive as I can.”

Ransley nodded, understanding.

“I'm glad you that you chose not to engage that monster you saw in the mirror shop,” he said to her.

Estelle tilted her head to the side and furrowed her brow.

“That particular monster is known for something worse than killing,” he continued. “It has been known to... force itself on his victims. Man or Punished. Adult or child.”

Estelle swallowed hard. She shuddered at the thought of what that goliath could have done to her. She tried to keep her mind on point.

“About this club,” Ransley said.

“The Blue Key Club,” Estelle said.

“Right. The Blue Key Club. I knew about it, but I didn't know what the samurai was part of it.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“I don't. But I have ways of finding the answers to such questions.”

“What do you mean?” Estelle asked, puzzled.

“I went out to scout for a possible location of the Supernova Samurai.”

Estelle's eyes grew with hope.

“I was able to locate one place. I don't think that he's there, but I think that he might have been at one time.”

Estelle looked at him quizzically. Ransley sensed her confusion.

“I thought that it would be the best place to start looking, rather than hiking to that clock tower right away.”

The girl couldn't help but to smile. She felt a positive surge of energy rise up in her like an arc of fire shooting off of the sun.

“So you'll help me?” she asked, excitedly.

Ransley closed his eyes. “I still don't agree with what you're doing, but I can't let you go out into this city by yourself again. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.”

Estelle didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to express the amount of gratitude she had for him.

“Thank you, so much,” she exclaimed.

“Listen to me,” Ransley said, opening his eyes. “You've got to treat this more seriously.

Either of us could die out there. Yes, we can venture through the Hollow and be completely unharmed. Just as well, anything terrible could happen. You can't earn a second life if you lose it first.”

“You're right,” she replied. “I've been reckless and I realize that now.”

“I'll get you some water and we'll talk more about what I learned.”

Ransley stood to his feet and walked into the kitchen. Estelle reached into her pocket and