Hole in the World

Brian Keene is the Bram Stoker and Grand Master award-winning, bestselling author of over forty books, including Darkness on the Edge of Town, Take the Long Way Home, Urban Gothic, Castaways, Kill Whitey, Dark Hollow, Dead Sea, and The Rising trilogy. He’s also written comic books such as The Last Zombie, Doom Patrol, and Dead of Night: Devil Slayer. His work has been translated into many foreign languages. Several of his novels and stories have been developed for film, including Ghoul and The Ties That Bind. In addition to writing, Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions via Thunderstorm Books. Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. Keene lives in Pennsylvania. You can communicate with him on Twitter at @BrianKeene.

At least they’re not talking much, Lucinda Hawkins thought as she eased the airport shuttle bus through the blizzard. Lucinda had been awake for seventeen hours straight, was well into overtime, and had a vicious migraine forming behind her temples. The coffee cup in the drink holder beside her was cold, the coffee inside it was even colder, and the bus’s heater was lethargic at best. It wheezed like an asthmatic robot, belching out pitiful, lukewarm drafts of air. Lucinda gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead into the storm. She couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of her, and although the plows had gone through only moments before, the road was already covered again with drifting, blowing snow. Lucinda was tense, tired, and pissed off. Yattering passengers, angry over their flight cancellations, would have only added to her stress levels. A few of them murmured into their cell phones, but for the most part, they sat in uneasy silence, watching the snow fall.

As often happened while she was driving, Lucinda’s thoughts turned to her granddaughter, Mikya. Her mother, Lucinda’s daughter, had passed away two years ago after a quick and unexpected battle with ovarian cancer. The girl’s father was currently serving twenty-five to thirty years at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup. He was allowed two visits per week, but had expressed no interest in seeing his daughter, and indeed, hadn’t even added Mikya or Lucinda to his approved visitor list. Lucinda was raising the five-year-old on her own, something she hadn’t expected to be doing at this stage of her life. Raising children was hard enough when you were in your twenties or thirties. To be doing it again at age forty-eight? That was exhausting.

Mikya was with a neighbor tonight, one that Lucinda trusted, but she also knew that the little girl would be upset about spending the night there. Since the loss of both parents, she’d clung even tighter to her grandmother. Lucinda hadn’t minded, though. After two ex-husbands and the death of her only daughter, Mikya was pretty much all she had. Mikya was Lucinda’s whole world, along with her few friends from church, and this stupid job.

A snapshot of the little girl was taped to Lucinda’s dashboard. Next to it, tucked into the console, was a paperback copy of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Lucinda had checked it out of the library last week, and read it during her lunch breaks. Judging by the weather, she’d be lucky to get a lunch break tonight.

A passenger seated behind her raised his voice, apparently losing his cell phone signal. “Buzz? Buzz, are you there? Oh, you stupid fucking cock-sucking phone!”

Lucinda frowned. She debated asking the man to watch his language, but she didn’t want to start an altercation. He already seemed wound up. If he became any more belligerent, it could distract her from the road. The storm seemed to be growing worse.

Across from Lucinda, beneath a blue handicapped sign, a bespectacled man in a wheelchair stared at the angry caller, his expression impassive. Seated next to him was a short, thin man, who was nodding off and apparently oblivious to the commotion. Lucinda glanced at them and then turned her attention back to the road. She wondered how anyone could be sleepy in the midst of a blizzard. Then she remembered that she had heard him speak when they first boarded the shuttle. He’d had an Australian accent. The time zone difference was probably catching up with him. Poor thing.

“Buzz?” The irate passenger’s voice grew louder. “Shannon? Are you there? Goddamn it! This fucking phone …”

Sighing, Lucinda focused on guiding them safely through the storm, and tried to tune the man out.

The snow fell harder.

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