The Hollow Places

Kara and Simon step through the door and struggle to orient themselves in a misted river landscape threaded with small, barrow-like islands, each with a concrete bunker and a metal door. The light, plants, and birds mimic Earth’s, but they are slightly wrong. Before exploring, Simon mounts a deadbolt on their entry bunker as a fallback. They wade the cold water to a willow-covered sandspit, where Kara feels a sudden, crushing dread. In the sand, they notice neat, cone-shaped funnels like antlion pits.

They test nearby bunkers; one door is rusted shut and another is flooded. To avoid losing their entry point, they mark it with a forked stick. Moving along the shore, they spot a carrot-colored school bus half-buried in sand, with the words “BYRICOPA COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS” (85) rendered in an unfamiliar serif font on the side. Abruptly, it begins to rain in sheets, so they duck inside for shelter. The interior looks intact, but Simon urgently warns Kara not to sit on the seats.

Inside the bus, Kara sees the shapes of children thrashing beneath the green leather of the seats, as if they are stuck inside the cushions;