Page 131 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

Walt clung to him, to his legs, and Hollis scrabbled to hold him in.

“Please!” Hollis shrieked.

It stared at him, burning his skin radiation hot. It didn’t respond to Hollis’s request. It paused and then kept pulling harder.

Hollis had never been strong.

But he was ready.

When the weakness of losing Walt came as he knew it would, he caught himself on one knee and hurtled his arm like a comet toward the tincture. Grabbed the handle and threw the entire thing.

The liquid flew in an arc, wetting the entire room. Then, with a noise like tearing the sky apart, the creature split into pieces. Into people.

Hollis could see the shape of them all in suspended droplets, shimmering in midair, and for the first time in a thousand years, it was silent.

Hollis knew which one was Walt, knew the shape of him. Knew those shoulders and that stance and the feeling of him curled up as he was now.

He could tell Walt was crying, but Hollis couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear anything at all.

The largest shade dipped down, reached with an invisible hand to touch Hollis.

“Please,” Hollis asked again.

The smallest turned to the rectangle on the wall, the only space of untouched brick, and vanished. The next began to fade as well.

Hollis lunged forward, connecting with Walt again at last, but he couldn’t hold him inside. They faded in and out of each other like a hologram—nothing at all the way Yulia’s tincture had worked the first time—and Hollis’s heart raced with terror.

Walt’s parents were left, and they were watching them. Tall and thin, short and stout, just like Walt described.

They want me to go. Walt’s voice hit him with great and terrible relief now that they were touching. But it still sounded so far away.

“Is this your door?”

What? No, Hollis, mine is—

“This isn’t your door,” Hollis interrupted him. “I don’t think they know or care whether you leave the right way. I don’t know if there is anything left of them that can remember.”

But they’re my ma and pa! Walt cried.

Hollis looked at the tincture suspended and leaned down to fit it, put his arms where Walt’s arms were, legs bent beneath them, leaned his face where Walt’s face was, merged them manually.

Looked up at Walt’s parents with Walt’s eyes.

“He apologized. This wasn’t his fault, he was just a kid. If you still remembered how to love him, you would already know that. Go home. You don’t belong here.”

The taller shape hesitated, then phased through the wall, leaving Walt’s ma.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Walt sobbed. I didn’t know. I never should have done it, and I never should have left. I’m sorry.

Hollis held his breath, but she didn’t disappear.

Instead of following the rest of the family through the door, she turned and started gliding up the stairs.

What—

Hollis grabbed his phone and stood up. “Come on. You have to move with me.”

They followed her up the stairs and through the living room, jogging as she got closer to the exit. It was so hard to see her in the brightness of the daytime. The tincture was drying and Hollis had to slow and squint. Then, just like Hollis thought they would, the foundations of the house began to shake.