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

“Me neither,” Estelle whispered. “What are the odds?”

This gave her great hope. When first she entered the city, she acted on blind faith, but this news seemed divine and Aleena, a vessel to speak through. In this hopeless situation, she had hope.

“I'm looking for him too,” Estelle said. After a few minutes of silence, she asked, “what did he look like?”

Just then, before Aleena could answer, a sickening, metal wail silenced everything. Estelle clamped her hands over her ears. Something massive sputtered, then roared. It was the sound of a massive engine. She tried to scream for Aleena, but she knew that her voice would be drowned out. She felt a great lurch forward and then constant motion. Estelle surmised that she, Aleena and all the other people were in a large, moving container. The structure violently shook as it moved. Estelle could only wonder where she and the rest of these people were being taken.

The ride was long and violently agitating. There wasn't a single moment of rest. She was shook about inside of the vending machine and it made her feel as if her own body didn't belong to her. At one point her body went numb. She completely forgot about Aleena and the Supernova Samurai and blacked out.

What followed after that moment was a series of blurs from her slipping in and out of consciousness. The first thing that she remembered after passing out was the sound of the metal screen being opened. She was blinded by a white light. After being in darkness for so long, it was impossible to see. She closed her eyes and blacked out. The next time she opened her eyes, she was on her back, watching a ceiling of old hanging candle-lit chandeliers pass her vision. She looked to her side and saw a woman walking beside her in a white gown. Her body felt sore. She closed her eyes and slept.

When Estelle opened her eyes this time, she found herself lying in a comfortable bed. She was in a small, well lit room. The presence of a screen, gurneys, medication, and other beds led her to the conclusion that she was in some sort of infirmary. She tried to sit up in bed and winced in pain. Aside from her whole body aching, she had a bruised shoulder from falling off of the fire engine. She lay back down.

Taking it a bit slower, Estelle eventually sat up and propped herself up on her good arm. A bedside table sat beside her with a glass of water, a couple of bottles of pills, her gun, and her knife from Ransley. She was very suspicious after being captured and transported against her will, but her mouth was dry and she knew she was dehydrated. She reached for the glass of water with her left hand and that's when she saw the fresh bandage around her left wrist. She rotated her hand and the wound only hurt a little. She picked up the water and drank it all in three gulps.

Estelle sat the glass down and tried to swing a leg out of bed. That small motion drained what little energy she had. She felt dizzy again and decided to lie back down. As she looked at the ceiling fan slowly whirling overhead, she heard the door to the room open. Before she could reach over to grab her weapon, a dark skinned woman in a maid's uniform entered. She relaxed as the woman didn't seem hostile.

“Oh good, you're awake,” she said to Estelle.

She walked around the room doing various tasks.

“The ride here makes most people sick,” she continued. “I put something on your shoulder. How does it feel?”

“It-it still hurts a bit,” she replied, watching her empty several containers down a sink.

“I'll put more ointment on it, then. It shouldn't be too long before it's back to normal.”

“Where am I?” she asked the maid, still very suspicious.

“You're at Grigori Estate,” she said, moving to make a couple of the beds.

“Grigori?”

The name sent an icy chill down her spine. She knew the name from her past life. There was only one person in the world that she knew by that name. There was no way he could be here, in Eve's Hollow. She hadn't seen him in close to four decades and she didn't want to.

“That's right,” the maid said. “Name's Tabitha. I work as a maid here, as you can see. I also help with the sick, elderly, injured and... victims.”

This was the first time that she had looked at Estelle. The girl had not taken her eyes off of Tabitha since she entered the room. The maid saw a worried look on Estelle's face at the sound of ”victims”.

“From the Punished,” Tabitha said, clarifying. “We take in survivors here. That's why you're here.”

“What if I don't want to be here?”

Tabitha stopped what she was doing. “You'd rather be out there?” she asked with a confounded expression.

The thought was indeed preposterous and Estelle realized how it must have sounded.

“Not that I'm not grateful, but I was... in the middle of something when I was abducted.”

Tabitha sighed and sat down on the bed across from Estelle. She held her hands together with her fingers intertwined.

“You wouldn't be the first to use that word,” she said. “Abducted. Most folks here really are grateful for being saved. But there are a few who look up at the sky, almost like they belong on them mean streets.”

Estelle gazed at Tabitha. This sentiment that someone would actually want to be out in Eve's Hollow was perplexing to Estelle. She did not want to be there, she needed to be there. She had to find the samurai.

“Thank you,” Estelle said, “for helping me.”

Tabitha smiled at her and looked at the floor again.

“My name is Estelle, by the way.”

“It's nice to meet you, miss Estelle.”

“Tabitha, is there any way for me to get out of here?”

“I'm sorry, but the only ones who leave the compound are the Military Guards.”

“I see.”

Tabitha! Tabitha! Someone was calling her from outside of the room.

“I gotta go,” she said, dusting her dress off and getting to her feet. “It was nice to meet you miss Essie. I know you don't wanna be here, but try and make the best of it.”

With a half smile and a shrug of the shoulders, she was gone. As she opened the door, a tall, muscular man stood in the door way. Tabitha apologized to him and quickly passed him by. Estelle didn't recognize him right away. The memory of his name struck her like a bolt of lightning when he spoke.

“Mornin' sunshine,” Mike said.

He carried an assault rifle strapped to his chest. He was dressed in a pair of dark jeans, black boots, and a black tank top. She couldn't see his face very well when she was in the intersection, but when he approached, she observed that he had blue eyes and a very cocky smile. He had a sort of bob in his step. Estelle didn't respond to him.

“Estelle, right?” he asked. “That's what Tabitha called you.”

“And you're Mike,” Estelle said.

“That I am.”

She had hoped to catch him off guard by knowing his name on their first meeting, but he didn't seem to care. He sat down on the very bed that Tabitha had been sitting on. His presence didn't make her as comfortable.

“Sorry about the ride in,” he continued. “It's tough to transport all those people. But we do it to keep 'em safe.”

“Is that why your machine pulled me through a pane of glass?”

“You're alive ain't ya?”

Estelle didn't say anything.

“The boss wants to see you,” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“Is it negotiable?”

“'Fraid not. I'll wait outside.”

With that, Mike rose to his feet and left the room. Estelle felt like she was going to throw up. She knew of only one person with the name Grigori and it shook her spirit all the way to her past life. She felt fear and anxiety creep up inside of her. There was no escape from this. There was only one way out of the room and she had no idea where she was. She reached into her pocket and searched for the crystal snowflake. She removed it and gazed into it.

The brilliant sapphire in the middle seemed to draw all of her negativity away. While still very scared, she found the wherewithal to get out of the bed. She remembered why she was in Eve's Hollow. She had a mission to accomplish. She felt it was easier to just go along with what was happening for the time being. Estelle was sure to take her gun and her knife. She pocketed her snowflake and took a deep breath before exiting the room.

She found herself in a large hallway with elegant red, green, and gold patterned carpet. Wooden doors adorned both sides off the hallway stretching from end to end. She couldn't believe how large just this corridor was. She estimated the ceiling to be around thirty or so feet high. Chandeliers hung down and all were lit with candles. Several dozens of people walked by them; nurses, ministers, normal people. Mike stood opposite the door that Estelle had come from. She approached him. He nodded to her with a half smile and began to walk.

Before this, Estelle didn't believe that she would see this many people in one place. She remained four or five paces behind Mike as they went down to the end of the hallway and took a right turn. The connecting hall displayed arched windows that stretched up as tall as the ceiling. Mike walked over to one of the windows and looked out.

“Welcome to our home,” he said without looking at her.

Estelle peered out the window and observed a very large courtyard. She spied a tall dark wall that reached high into the air. It made the compound feel more like a prison than a place for survivors and refugees. There were several torches lit around the courtyard and a few hundred people walking around and sitting next to what she made out to be tents. That was all she could discern from so high up. Confining walls and a herd of people. This sort of situation put her on edge. Without saying a word, Mike continued walking.

Mike brought her to a main stairwell that spiraled from the ground floor beneath them then disappeared from perspective as it ascended. They were on the third floor of the estate, a floor more suitable for patients than the ground floor where at least a hundred and fifty people crowded a small in-home gymnasium. According to Mike, Estelle was getting special treatment, which was a part of the “Boss” wanting to see her. She couldn't believe how many people he had. It astounded her.

They had climbed three more levels, placing them on the sixth floor of the compound. Here was a hall that was not so crowded. There were a couple of more maids. Mike knew exactly where they were going though. The doors here were much taller than they were three floors below. Mike brought Estelle to one with a gold plaque posted on the side. In bold black letters, it read Study. Mike opened the door and looked at Estelle. She felt that fear creep up in her throat and her pulse beginning to quicken. She took a deep breath and entered the study. Mike followed.

Estelle was hit with a burst of cigar smoke. It was a harsh brand for gentlemen with earthy tastes. The study was a large, dark cylindrical room with bookshelves that sat in the curves of the study. Aside from that there was only a single desk, a cushion chair in front of it, and a large chair that was faced toward the only window in the room. Long, dark gold colored curtains billowed around it. Mike and Estelle stopped behind the