To his surprise and relief he didn’t see any patrols the whole way there. When he finally got there he prepared to rush in then paused, thinking for the first time of the possibility of a trap. His dad left out food in the woods to trap bears, and here he was at the honey pot itself. He looked around and through the windows, wishing his eyes could pierce the darkness. All he could see was the candy on display, and only barely. His mouth watered so much he kept having to swallow. He had to go for it, and did. Opened the door slowly, cautiously.
Slowly, but not slowly enough. The tiniest ting sound came from above the door.
The BELL! he thought frantically. He had forgotten about the silver bell that hung above all the shop doors. Spencer froze. Had anyone else heard it? He waited, watching the darkness and listening intently. His nightmares came true as a sound echoed down the lane.
Tap tap, tap tap. A Hollow Man was coming.
In or out, in or out?! he asked himself. He was too afraid to think clearly. If he moved that bell would ring again, if he stayed like this it would see him. He made an impulse decision, one he would regret. He ran into the store, letting the door close behind him. The bell rang even louder this time, there was no question the Hollow Man heard it. He had to hide.
Behind the counter? Under the desk in the office? In the bathroom?
No, the back door, every place had a back door! He ran to it, finding it in the only place it could have been, at the end of the short hall past the bathrooms. He twisted the knob, knowing it would be unlocked.
It wasn’t.
It wouldn’t even turn. Maybe wasn’t even a real door, he couldn’t tell in the near pitch dark. He froze again for a moment, despairing of the short time to find another spot. Wanting to curl up in a ball and just hope the monster ignored him. Then he thought of Jack and his workshop and ran into the storage room instead, praying to find a real hiding spot in there.
He did, and fighting claustrophobia wedged himself in as tight and deep as he could. He would have gone deeper to make sure no part of him showed, but didn’t have the time. He heard the bell ring again, and knew he had to hold perfectly still and perfectly quiet.
Tap tap, tap tap it went from room to room. He could see the creature in his mind’s eye as it searched behind the counter, under the desk in the office, in the bathroom. Finally it came to the storage room where he hid. He was sweating and painfully cramped where he had wedged himself in. He was running out of air in the pocket made by his hunched over body. Worst of all he started itching, right in the back of his neck. The itch grew and grew, till it was worse than pain. He listened as the Hollow Man searched behind the shelves and took the lid off each box and barrel to peek inside. Close it came, inches away. He would have smelled its oil if he had access to air. And all the while his hands twitched to just scratch that itch, to take the chance.
And then, just like that, it left. Tap tap, tap tap out the door with a twinkling of bells. Spencer knew it could be a trap, but it didn’t matter, he couldn’t wait any longer. He stood up, pushing past all the candy he had burrowed beneath inside the barrel. He gasped for air, reaching for the back of his neck to scratch an itch that wasn’t even that bad anymore. He reached down and grabbed one of the candies in the dark, tossing it into his mouth to find out what it was that had saved him.
A sour cherry, his favorite. He thought nothing had ever tasted so good, and swallowed it almost without chewing.
Before he would allow himself any more he went to the front of the store as quiet as he could, to be sure he was really alone. Finding that he was he went back to the storeroom and gorged himself on candy from the crates, so they wouldn’t notice it missing from the shelves. It wasn’t long before he became very ill and had to throw up in the bathroom. Then, once his stomach calmed down, he ate some more. He was filled with a sugar high and happiness at his daring. He grabbed a bag and took a bunch with him back into his hiding spot, even daring to explore the amusement park for a bit before going to sleep.
In the morning he was hungrier than ever.
After a couple weeks of candy, Spence didn’t need to be a nutritionist to know that there was a reason parents only let their kids have so much of it. He was getting weaker, and was sick all the time. He craved meat and bread and never wanted to see another sweet thing in all his life. Worse yet, Jack and his Hollow Men were ferreting out his hiding spots. They would do a circuit of all the ones they had found each night, and again in the day. He’d seen them at it, having taken to spying on them whenever he could using an old brass and wooden telescope he’d found in the toy shop one night.
Spencer imagined himself as an Indian Scout, collecting information on the enemy camp. It wasn’t just Jack and the Hollow Men he watched, he explored as much as he could. He watched the Perfects, who never ever left their houses at night. Jack sometimes watched them play on the playground on days when no “real-world” kids were around.
He watched in despair as the group he came with ran out (none became Perfects, and with Jack’s surgery techniques Spencer was surprised any of them ever had). And even more despair as another group arrived a few days later. Too heavily guarded now for him to even hope to warn them. It was terrible, but watching it all through the telescope was a bit like watching it on TV. Like it didn’t involve him, that it was all make-believe.
There was no question of what happened to his brief friends that came over with him. To his horror he’d seen the bodies carried from Jack’s lab to Nanny Gurdy’s house and into a cellar door on the outside, like in the old farm houses. He wasn’t sure what Gurdy did with them, but he’d seen behind her house since that first visit. Out past the tall hedges that blocked the view from her kitchen. A bone pit, as big as a swimming pool and almost full. He wondered if Nanny Gurdy had some beast in the basement she fed the children too. Certainly they weren’t fed to Jack, although that was his first thought. Jack never went down there, in fact he’d never seen Jack eat at all, or Mr. Buttons or even Nanny for that matter.
Although Nanny certainly looked like she liked to eat. Her generous mouth that opened so wide when she watched the children eating. The way she smiled at the kids, didn’t take her eyes off them. He remembered that strange habit she had of rubbing her hands together as she watched them fill up on pies and pastries. At the time he had thought she looked silly, like a cartoon. Now he thought that a lot of cartoon things would look horrible in real life.
He’d thought about taking to the woods, knowing that the Hollow Men never searched there. Jack didn’t either, though twice he’d seen Mr. Buttons go off into the woods alone, he didn’t know why.
The problem was that whatever lies Nanny and Jack had told them, the warning about the woods was true. There were monsters in them. Spencer had seen them vaguely at night, shadows slinking around. They didn’t move like men, and didn’t move like beasts. No two seemed alike, even in the shadows. But Jack hadn’t told the whole truth, because they didn’t come into town, not even at night.
Until one day he saw one in the light. Jack and two Hollow Men were searching the edge of the woods behind Mr. Buttons’ shack, presumably for him. Spencer watched them from a rooftop a ways away, trying to ignore the grumbling in his stomach as usual, loathing to eat any of the candy in his pocket. Through the telescope he saw them look as a group to the north, maybe having heard something. Jack sent the Hollow Men off alone, investigating something nearby. Once they were out of sight the thing came for him. A surprise attack from the trees.