The Hollow Man in the Hall

I was eight when I learned that some doors are better left locked, and that the dark has a voice of its own. My name is Elena, and this is the story of the night the grown-ups decided to play a game.

It was the last weekend of October in the town of Ashford, a place where the leaves turned to rust and the wind carried the scent of decay. My cousin Marco and I were staying at our great-uncle Felix’s house, a sprawling Victorian relic that had been in the family for generations. The house was a maze of creaking floorboards, peeling wallpaper, and rooms that smelled of mothballs and secrets. Uncle Felix was a collector of oddities—stuffed birds, old clocks, and a library filled with leather-bound books that he never let us touch.

That night, after dinner, Uncle Felix gathered the adults around the dining table, his eyes gleaming with a strange excitement. ‘Let’s play a game,’ he said, producing a tarnished brass planchette. ‘A spirit board. It’s all in good fun.’

My mother and aunt hesitated, but they were lured by nostalgia and the promise of a thrill. They pushed the table against the wall, lit a single candle, and placed their fingers on the planchette. Marco and I were supposed to be in bed, but we watched from the shadowed hallway, our hearts thumping.

At first, the planchette skittered playfully, spelling out nonsense. But then, the air grew cold, and the candle flame bent as if something was breathing on it. The planchette began to move with purpose, sliding to the letter ‘M’, then ‘O’, then ‘R’. ‘MOR’ it spelled, then ‘TIS’. ‘Mortis.’

My aunt giggled nervously. ‘Very funny, Felix. What’s next, a ghost?’

The planchette flew across the board, spelling ‘THE HOLLOW MAN KNOWS’. The adults exchanged uneasy glances. My mother tried to pull her hand away, but her fingers seemed stuck to the cool metal. Uncle Felix laughed, but it was a brittle sound. ‘It’s just a trick of the mind,’ he said. ‘Let’s ask who’s here.’ The planchette spelled ‘I’. ‘AM’. ‘THE’. ‘HOLLOW’. ‘MAN’. Then it stopped, and the candle blew out.

A scream cut through the dark, from the direction of the upstairs hallway. Marco and I ran up the stairs, our bare feet slapping against the cold wood. We found my grandmother’s bedroom door ajar, and inside, the room was wrong. The furniture had been rearranged into a circle, and in the center stood a tall, thin figure, impossibly dark, as if it were a tear in the fabric of the night. It had no face, just a hollow where features should be, and it was humming a tune I had never heard—a discordant lullaby that made my teeth ache.

It turned its head toward us, and Marco screamed, but no sound came out. I grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hallway, but the doors seemed to shift, the corridor stretching longer with each step. Behind us, the figure moved with an unnatural grace, sliding rather than walking, its humming growing louder.

We barricaded ourselves in the bathroom, the only room with a lock that actually worked. I pressed my ear to the door and heard the humming stop, replaced by a soft, rhythmic tapping on the wood, like knuckles rapping a summons. ‘Let me in,’ a voice whispered, smooth and false. ‘I only want to play.’

My mind raced. The game. It had opened something. I remembered a story Uncle Felix had told me about a previous owner of the house, a man who had vanished after a seance, leaving only a hollow smile burned into the floor. ‘It’s the Hollow Man,’ I whispered to Marco. ‘He takes you if you let him in.’

We stayed motionless until dawn, when the sound of real birds outside signaled the world had returned. When we finally opened the door, the hallway was normal, the door to grandma’s room closed. But at the end of the hall, on the wall, was a new stain in the shape of a man, and from its chest, a brass planchette was embedded, as if it had been driven through.

The adults acted as if nothing had happened. My mother said it was a bad dream. Uncle Felix avoided us, his eyes hollow. But that night, I saw him standing before the stain, whispering, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’

We left the next day, and we never spoke of it again. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I hear that humming, and I see a figure in the corner of my room, watching, waiting. And I know the Hollow Man is not done with us. He took something that night, a piece of the house, a piece of our family, and he will return when we least expect it.

The house in Ashford is still there, but no one has lived in it for years. They say it’s haunted. They say if you knock on its door at midnight, you’ll hear a humming from inside. Don’t answer it. Don’t answer it, or you’ll become hollow too.