Page 58 of So Hollow

“Hold on,” Faith said. “I’ll get you through here, just don’t bark, please.”

In most situations, Faith would want Turk to bark and announce their presence, but in this case, she feared that would only frighten the desperate killer into acting more quickly.

If he hadn’t acted already.

She dropped to the other side and tried to lift the chainlink. It lifted only slightly. She cursed and bent down, grabbing handfuls of the fence and grunting with effort as she pulled it upward. It lifted an inch or two, but not nearly enough for Turk to get through. She looked around for a gate, and with a sinking feeling, she saw that it was locked with a thick chain and an even thicker padlock.

Why the hell did they lock abandoned buildings? Why not just bulldoze them the moment they were condemned? For God’s sake.

Turk whined and stuck his nose through the bottom of the fence in a futile attempt to push himself through.

“It’s no use, Turk,” Faith said. “You won’t fit.”

She looked behind her at the building. Maybe she should continue on her own and have Turk wait here. Every second mattered.

But she’d gotten herself nearly killed that way more than once. Going by herself was how Trammell caught her. Other killers had hurt her, bound her, nearly murdered her. Other victims had almost died because she wasn’t careful.

With a sinking heart, she turned back to the fence. She'd have to either figure out a way to get Turk inside or she'd have to climb back over the fence and find another way in.

She thought a moment, then pulled her multitool from her pocket. The wire cutter in the pliers wasn’t designed to cut through the thicker links of the fence, but the steel used for these fences was the cheapest metal you could buy. It probably wasn’t even steel, just some inexpensive aluminum alloy.

She closed the wire cutters over a link and squeezed. The fence held. She gritted her teeth, and the link slowly, slowly bent.

Then snapped. She pumped her fist in victory, but then it occurred to her how many of the links she’d have to cut to get Turk inside.

Don’t waste time being daunted, she thought.Just keep working.

She moved on to the next link. After an unbearable moment, it snapped. She moved on to a third, and this one took a touch longer than the second. She pulled on the fence and found the links barely moved. She’d made very little real progress.

Images flashed through her mind of the victims, the ones she couldn’t save. She struggled with the fence, each link seeming to take forever to cut.

Lorraine Hayes lay with her legs spread and her arms pointed above her head. Her eyes were open, and her sightless eyes stared up into the night.

SNAP. She moved on to another link.

The woman had been tossed into the dumpster after death. Her body was stiff with rigor, and her eyes wide with terror.

SNAP. Another link.

Grimes had been cut open, and the word Vengeance was written above him in his own blood.

SNAP

The kid looked like he'd been torn apart by a wild animal. His nearly exsanguinated body sat slumped in the chair, and cuts covered him from head to toe.

SNAP

The woman had clearly been left in the well for a while. Her body was bloated and covered in green and blue splotches where gangrene had set into her flesh.

SNAP

Gordon lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. His service weapon lay a few yards away. He had tried hard to defend himself, but he had come up just short.

SNAP. Faith snarled in frustration and grabbed the fence. With a grunt of effort, she pulled. The severed metal bit into her hands, but she ignored the pain and pulled back hard, stretching the hole wider and wider until—

With a soft yelp of excitement, Turk jumped through. Faith released the fence and leaned over, putting her hands on her knees. Her shoulders and arms burned, and her breath came in gasps, but she forced the exhaustion down.

“Come on, boy. Let’s go find our killer.”

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