Chapter 4: The Town That Isn't on the Map

Chapter 4: The Town That Isn't on the Map

The note was a brand seared into Eli’s mind. YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE US. Written in his own hand, yet not. It was a paradox he couldn't solve, a threat he couldn't comprehend, and the final, absolute proof that he wasn't dreaming. The invisible thing on his bed hadn't been a random phantom; it was a guard, and he had broken its rules.

He needed answers, and he knew he wouldn't find them in the sane, sunlit world where mothers blamed nightmares and outdoor cameras dutifully recorded lies. He needed someone who already lived in the cracks, someone who had been looking at the town’s peeling paint their whole life.

There was only one person like that in Hollow’s End.

Old Man Ritter’s gas station was the town’s appendix—a grimy, forgotten organ clinging to the edge of everything. It was the last stop before Route 9 swallowed the road and the first sign that you were entering a place best left behind. The pumps were ancient, the windows were coated in a film of grease and dust, and a cloud of cigarette smoke permanently wreathed the entrance.

Eli parked his bike, the kickstand sinking into the cracked asphalt. Ritter was where he always was, sitting on a rickety stool just inside the open garage bay, nursing a cup of black coffee and staring out at the road with eyes that had seen too many sunrises over this cursed town.

“We’re closed,” Ritter rasped without turning his head. His voice was like gravel churning in a cement mixer.

“I just want to ask you something,” Eli said, his voice feeling small and thin in the cavernous, oil-scented space.

Ritter finally turned, his gaze sharp and dismissive. He took in Eli’s anxious posture, the dark circles under his eyes. “You’re the Vance kid. Go home. Nothin’ for you here.”

“It’s about what happens at night,” Eli pushed, his desperation overriding his fear of the town’s resident boogeyman. “At 3:17.”

The effect was instantaneous and terrifying. Ritter’s face, already a roadmap of cynical lines, hardened into a mask of pure, animal panic. He shot to his feet, the stool clattering to the ground. “Get out,” he snarled, pointing a trembling, grease-stained finger at the road. “You don’t talk about that. You don’t think about that. You keep your damn head down and you wake up in the morning. That’s how you survive here. Now get out!”

Eli stumbled back, shocked by the ferocity of the reaction. He had expected dismissal, not raw terror. That fear was a confirmation. Ritter knew. He knew everything.

Eli fled, his heart hammering, but his mind was racing. Ritter wasn't a crazy old man. He was a scared one. And scared people could sometimes be persuaded.

An hour later, Eli was back, a fresh pack of Morley cigarettes—bought with a fumbled ID and the last ten dollars from his wallet—held out like a peace offering.

Ritter eyed the pack from his resumed position on the stool. The panic was gone, replaced by a weary, profound exhaustion. He gestured with his chin. “Put ‘em on the counter.”

Eli did as he was told, placing the cigarettes on a grimy surface next to a stack of old invoices. Ritter didn’t move for a long moment. He just stared at the pack, then back at Eli.

“You’re a damn fool, kid,” he said, his voice low and devoid of its earlier anger. “A walking dead man. Some things, they’re like bears in the woods. You don’t poke ‘em. You don’t make eye contact. You just hope they don’t notice you smell interesting.” He finally stood, retrieved the cigarettes, and expertly tore one from the pack. He lit it with a tarnished Zippo, inhaling deeply.

“What is it?” Eli whispered. “What is this place?”

Ritter let the smoke out in a long, slow plume. “This town ain’t built on rock, kid. It’s built on something hungry. Something that likes things neat and tidy.” He took another drag, his eyes distant. “You want to know why you’re a fool? Because you’re asking questions. And questions are like stones tossed into a calm pond. They make ripples. And the thing in the water doesn’t like ripples.”

He looked directly at Eli, his eyes narrowing. “You want a real answer? Something you can chew on? Go to the library. Stop looking for monsters in the dark and start looking at the numbers. The number. It never changes.”

Before Eli could ask what he meant, Ritter turned his back. “That’s all you get. Now get out of here before you draw its attention to my doorstep.”

The library was a sanctuary of logic and order, the complete antithesis of Ritter’s grimy outpost. Its hushed silence was calming, the scent of old paper and bookbinding a balm on his frayed nerves. Behind the main desk, Sarah Jenkins was meticulously shelving returned books, her movements precise and efficient.

Sarah was the librarian’s daughter, and it showed. She moved with a quiet confidence, her sharp, intelligent eyes missing nothing. She and Eli had been in the same classes for years, but their orbits had never truly intersected. She was studious and grounded; he was… not.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice a soft but firm whisper.

“I, uh, need to look at the town archives,” Eli said, feeling his own explanation wither under her analytical gaze. “The old census records.”

She raised an eyebrow. “History project?”

“Something like that.”

Her skepticism was palpable, but she was also a creature of the library; a request for information was a request she was obligated to fulfill. “The paper records are in the archives downstairs. You’ll have to sign in. And no pens, pencil only.”

She led him down a narrow set of stairs into a climate-controlled basement room lined with grey metal shelves and flat-file drawers. The air was cool and dry. As she pulled out a heavy, leather-bound ledger from the 1950s, Eli’s anxiety returned full force.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Sarah asked, her curiosity finally getting the better of her professionalism. “No one’s asked for the raw census data in years.”

“The population,” Eli said, his voice barely audible. “I just want to see the official count. For every year you have.”

For the next two hours, they worked in a strange, silent partnership. Sarah, intrigued by the bizarre request, became his guide, pulling down dusty ledgers and setting up spools of microfilm on the humming reader. Eli scanned the pages, his eyes jumping to the final tally at the end of each report.

1953: Population of Hollow’s End: 3,417. 1968: Population of Hollow’s End: 3,417. 1975: Population of Hollow’s End: 3,417. 1989: Population of Hollow’s End: 3,417. 2004: Population of Hollow’s End: 3,417. Last year: Population of Hollow’s End: 3,417.

Page after page, decade after decade, the number was a monolithic constant. It never wavered. Not by one.

“That’s… statistically impossible,” Sarah murmured, leaning over his shoulder to stare at the microfilm reader’s glowing screen. The skepticism had evaporated from her voice, replaced by a thread of disbelief. “Towns grow, they shrink. People are born. People die. A number can’t just… stay the same for seventy years.”

A cold dread washed over Eli. Ritter’s words echoed in his head. The number never changes.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Eli said, his voice thick. He looked at her, letting her see the genuine terror in his eyes for the first time. “Sarah… can you look something else up for me? Can you find the town’s birth certificates? Or… or the death certificates?”

Sarah nodded, her expression now as grim as his. She moved to a different set of cabinets, her movements quick and sure. She pulled out a drawer labelled ‘VITAL RECORDS: BIRTHS 1950-1980’. It was empty, save for a thin layer of dust. She tried the next one, ‘1981-PRESENT’. Also empty. She moved to the deaths, pulling open drawer after drawer.

All of them were empty. Seventy years of civic life, and there was no official record of anyone ever being born or dying in Hollow's End.

Sarah slowly turned to face him, a single, pristine records request form held in her trembling hand. Her face was pale. “Eli,” she whispered, her voice cracking the sacred silence of the archive. “According to this… nobody ever comes or goes.”

They stared at each other as the horrifying truth settled over them. The population of Hollow’s End didn't change because the town didn't allow it to. There were no births. There were no deaths.

There were only replacements.