The Stare of the Hollow Man

In the autumn of 1972, my sister Elena brought a man named Carl to our farm on the outskirts of Lubbock, Texas. Carl was from a small town called Giddings, near the Louisiana border. He had been in the Marines, or so he said, but he never talked about it. The moment he stepped out of Elena’s rusty Ford, I felt a chill run down my spine. He wore dark sunglasses even though the sun was low, and a thick black beard covered most of his face. He didn’t say hello, just nodded once and walked into the house as if he owned it.

We tried to be welcoming. Mama made her famous chili, and Dad offered him a beer, but Carl just sat in the corner chair, staring straight ahead. He wouldn’t take off his sunglasses, even indoors. He didn’t touch the food. He just sat there, his hands twisting together like he was wringing out a wet towel, and his jaw worked silently, grinding his teeth. My younger brother Tommy and I exchanged glances. Elena smiled nervously and said, ‘He’s just tired from the drive.’ But we knew better.

The next morning, I found Carl standing in the wheat field, still in his sunglasses, just staring at nothing. The field was dry and brown, but he was looking at a spot where a single black sunflower grew, leaning crookedly. I walked up to him, and he didn’t move. ‘That’s funny,’ I said, ‘We never planted sunflowers.’ Carl turned his head slowly, and I could see my reflection in his black lenses. He didn’t speak, but his lips curled into a thin smile. Then he turned back to the flower.

Over the next days, Carl never removed his sunglasses. Not even at night. We would see him through his window, sitting in the dark, the lenses reflecting moonlight. Elena said he had a condition, that light hurt his eyes. But I remembered seeing him in the bathroom one day, the sunglasses off, and his eyes were not normal. They were milky white, like a dead fish’s, with no pupils. He caught me looking and slammed the door.

At dinner on the third night, Carl finally spoke. He said, ‘I see them.’ Dad asked, ‘See what?’ Carl leaned forward, and his voice was low and gravelly. ‘The ones who are not here.’ He pointed at the empty chair at the end of the table, the one Grandma used to sit in before she died. ‘There’s one now. She’s telling you to leave.’ We all gasped. Elena laughed nervously, but I noticed she was pale.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I heard a scratching at my window, like nails on glass. I pulled back the curtain, and Carl was there, his face pressed against the pane, his sunglasses off. His milky eyes seemed to glow. He mouthed something, but I couldn’t understand. Then he disappeared. I ran to Elena’s room, but she was asleep. I told Ma, but she said I was just having nightmares.

The next day, Carl asked to use the barn. He said he needed to fix some old tools. I watched from the kitchen window as he hauled a heavy sack into the barn. The door closed behind him. He stayed in there for hours. When he came out, he was wringing his hands again, and there was a dark stain on his shirt. I went into the barn later. In the corner, under a tarp, was the sack. I lifted a corner. Inside were dozens of small animal bones, all perfectly clean, as if they had been stripped of flesh. And on top, a single black sunflower.

That evening, Elena told us that Carl wanted to take her and Tommy to live in Giddings. She was going to go. I begged her not to, but she said Carl had changed, that he’d promised to be a good stepfather. I saw him standing behind her, his face hidden by sunglasses, nodding slowly. I knew I had to do something.

I went to see Old Man Reilly, who lived down the road. He was the only one who knew about folk magic and curses. I told him about Carl, about the eyes, the bones, the staring. Reilly’s face turned ashen. He whispered, ‘He might be a Hollow Man. They see the dead because they are half dead themselves. They feed on grief and fear. Once they latch onto a family, they stay until they’ve emptied it.’ He told me to find the one thing Carl loved most in the world, and to destroy it.

I had no idea what that was. I searched his room. Under the bed, I found a worn photograph. But it wasn’t a person. It was a black sunflower, just like the one in the field. On the back, in faded ink: ‘My only window.’ I remembered the barn. I ran there with a can of gasoline. The barn door was unlocked. Inside, I found the sack again, now filled with leaves and a crow’s skull. But in the center, lying on a bed of dried thorns, was a wooden box. I opened it.

Inside were a lock of Elena’s hair, a small toy soldier from Tommy, and a blood-stained piece of cloth. And there, pressed between two yellowed pages of a Bible, were petals from a black sunflower. I doused the box with gasoline, but before I could light it, Carl appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his sunglasses. His milky eyes were wide, and he screamed a sound that wasn’t human. He lunged at me, but I threw the box into the empty stall and set it ablaze. The fire spread quickly, and the barn filled with dark smoke and the smell of burning flowers.

When the fire was out, we found Carl’s body. He had not tried to run. He was kneeling, his arms around the charred box, his sunglasses cracked on the ground. Elena wept, not for him, but because she said she had felt something snap inside her, a hollow place where her love had been. Tommy was fine, but he never spoke of the incident again.

We burned the barn to the ground. The black sunflower in the field wilted overnight. But sometimes, I still see Carl’s reflection in my mirror, just for a second, his milky eyes staring not at me but through me. And I know that the Hollow Man is not truly gone, only waiting, for someone new to bring him into their home.

We sold the farm a year later. We moved to Amarillo. But one night, I swear I saw a single black sunflower growing outside our new house, swaying in the wind, even though there was no wind. And in its center, a tiny face, like the memory of a smile. I haven’t slept with the lights off since.

That’s why, when you hear about a quiet stranger in your town, one who always wears dark glasses and never looks you in the eye, you should listen to your instincts. Because some emptiness is more than just a stare; it’s a door. And once it opens, you’ll never close it again.