Chapter 7: The Hollow Sheriff

Chapter 7: The Hollow Sheriff

The road back to Mercy Hollows was a phantom limb, a path that shouldn’t exist but was their only route. Every agonizing step Travis took sent fire screaming up his leg from the gash in his calf. The blood from the wound was fresh and warm, a stark contrast to the cold, stiffening gore that caked his entire body. Beside him, Grace moved like a ghost, her face a blank canvas of shock, her once-vibrant blonde hair now a dark, heavy helmet of dried blood. They were two figures sculpted from mud and horror, leaving a faint, gruesome trail on the pristine asphalt.

The town was no longer empty.

As they limped past the perfectly preserved cinema and the silent hardware store, they saw people. A woman in a floral apron sweeping a spotless porch. Two men in flannel shirts leaning against a gleaming vintage pickup truck, talking quietly. A family—a mother, a father, two children—strolling out of a bakery, the little girl holding a cookie. They moved with a languid, unhurried grace, existing within the town’s uncanny bubble of peace.

As Travis and Grace passed, the townsfolk would turn their heads. Their gazes were not hostile, not frightened, not even curious. It was a flat, vacant appraisal, the way a farmer might glance at passing cattle. They saw the blood, the filth, the terror etched onto their faces, and they simply… accepted it. Their eyes would slide away, and they would resume their conversations, their strolls, their sweeping, as if two traumatized teenagers drenched in the evidence of a massacre were as common and unremarkable as a passing cloud.

Hope, a tiny, foolish ember that had sparked when they escaped the cornfield, died a cold death with every indifferent glance. This wasn't a town of victims. It was a town of zookeepers, and the monster was their prize exhibit.

At the center of the main street, the diner with its gleaming chrome and bright neon sign buzzed with a low hum of activity. ‘MERCY’S EATS,’ the sign read. It was the only place that looked like it might offer sanctuary. It was their last, desperate gamble.

The small bell above the door chimed with mocking cheerfulness as they pushed it open. The smell of frying bacon and fresh coffee was so jarringly normal it felt like a physical assault. The low chatter of conversation faltered. Every head in the diner turned towards them. The same empty, incurious stares.

A waitress, a middle-aged woman with tired eyes and her hair in a tight bun, looked up from wiping the counter. She saw their condition—the blood, the torn clothes, Travis’s bleeding leg—and her expression didn’t flicker. She put her rag down, picked up another, cleaner one, and walked towards them.

“You’re dripping on the floor,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. She knelt down and began wiping at the bloody puddle forming at their feet.

“Please,” Grace whispered, her voice cracking for the first time since the pit. “You have to help us. There was a farm… they killed everyone. Our friends…” Her hand went to her throat, her fingers fumbling with the silver locket, the familiar motion a desperate anchor in a world that had come unmoored.

The waitress continued wiping, not looking up. “You kids gonna order something? Or are you just planning on making a mess?”

“Are you listening to me?” Travis snapped, his voice a raw mix of anger and disbelief. “We just watched our entire class get murdered! There are men with pitchforks, archers in the corn!”

The waitress finally looked up, her gaze as flat and grey as a winter sky. “The special today is meatloaf. Comes with mashed potatoes and green beans.”

The bell on the door chimed again. A man stepped inside, and the atmosphere in the diner shifted subtly. He was of average height and build, with a slight paunch pressing against his neatly tucked tan uniform. A five-pointed star was pinned to his chest. The Sheriff. His face was unremarkable, his expression placid, but when his eyes landed on them, there was a flicker of something that wasn’t indifference. It was recognition.

He walked over, his footsteps confident and unhurried on the checkered linoleum floor. He nodded to the waitress. “It’s alright, Peggy. I’ll handle this.”

Peggy simply nodded back, gathered her rags, and returned to the counter as if the interruption was over. The Sheriff stopped a few feet from them, his gaze taking in their state. He didn't seem surprised.

“Travis Brewer. Grace Caldwell,” he said, his voice calm and even. “My name is Sheriff Brody. Looks like you two have had a difficult afternoon.”

The use of their names hit Travis like a body check. “How… how do you know who we are?”

“We know everyone who comes to Mercy Hollows,” the Sheriff replied simply. He gestured to an empty booth. “Sit. Please.”

They moved numbly to the booth, sliding onto the slick vinyl seats. Travis’s leg throbbed, leaving a crimson smear on the floor. The Sheriff remained standing, looking down at them not with menace, but with a strange, almost paternal pity.

“Let’s not waste time,” he said softly. “Your friends are gone. There was no field trip. There was no bus. As of an hour ago, your school has no record of it, or you.”

“What are you talking about?” Grace’s voice was barely a whisper. “My parents…”

“They don’t remember you,” Sheriff Brody stated, not cruelly, but as a simple statement of fact. “No one is coming for you. No one is looking for you. There is no one to call.”

The floor dropped out from under Travis’s world. The physical horror of the barn, the scarecrow, the blood pit—all of it paled in comparison to the cold, quiet existential dread of these words. They hadn't just been brought here to die. They had been erased.

“Why?” Travis choked out, the single word encompassing a universe of pain and confusion.

The Sheriff sighed, a weary sound. “This town, this land… it’s old. Older than the country. It has needs. A tithe is required to keep things… balanced. The Lord of the Furrows provides for us, and we provide for it. It’s a simple arrangement.” He looked out the window at the endless cornfields visible past the town’s edge. “You weren’t meant to get out of the field. You broke the rules. That makes things complicated.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash, held together by a rubber band. He placed it on the table between them. It was a substantial amount, several thousand dollars at a glance.

“This is Mercy’s other meaning,” the Sheriff said, his eyes meeting theirs, and for the first time, Travis saw a glimmer of something human in them, a deep, ancient weariness. “The harvest is for the god. The survivors are for the town’s conscience. We don’t have many.”

He pushed the money towards them. “There’s a bus that stops on the north road out of town at dusk. It’s the only way out. Take this money. Get on that bus. It will take you… away from here.”

He paused, and his voice dropped lower, filled with a cryptic, chilling gravity.

“A word of advice. When you get where you’re going, don’t try to tell your story. Don’t try to find people from your old life. The world has a way of smoothing over wrinkles, of forgetting what doesn’t fit. You’ll find that you don’t fit anymore. Your reality is your own now. Try to force it on anyone else, and it will break. And you’ll break with it.”

He tipped his hat slightly, a gesture of finality. “Be at the bus stop before the sun goes down.”

Without another word, he turned and walked out of the diner, the bell chiming his departure.

The chatter in the diner resumed instantly, the brief interruption forgotten. Peggy went back to pouring coffee. The family in the corner booth laughed at something the father said. Travis and Grace sat in silence, staring at the stack of blood money on the table. They were survivors. They were free. And they were ghosts, haunting a world that had already buried them.