Chapter 1 The Message

Jack Rourke was halfway through his second bottle of bourbon in a roadside motel when the burner phone rang. The number on the screen was blacked out - not unknown, but erased. He hadn't seen a call like that in ten years.

He didn't answer right away. He knew what this meant.

Finally, he clicked it on.

A gravel-thick voice rasped: "Breach Point's open."

Static followed. Then silence.

Jack dropped the bottle. It shattered.

He sat on the bed, breathing shallow. Ten years ago, Breach Point was a ghost buried under a Colorado mountain - a black site filled with things better forgotten.

But ghosts don't stay buried.

He reached under the bed, pulled out a duffel bag.

Inside: a Glock, a Ka-Bar knife, dog tags, and a single photo - his old unit. Seven men. All dead.

Except him.

And maybe not for long.

The mountain loomed in the distance like a scar across the landscape. Wind howled through the trees as Jack drove the rented SUV up the unmarked trail.

The facility was exactly where he remembered it - a chain-link fence curled with rust, concrete bunkers half-swallowed by the earth, and a steel door carved into the rock face.

He cut the engine and stepped out.

No birds. No wind. Just silence.

He scanned the perimeter. Empty. Still, something watched him - from within the trees, or maybe beneath the ground.

He touched the dog tags hanging around his neck, feeling each one like a prayer.

This place had killed better men than him.

Ten years ago, they'd gone in to contain something. A failed experiment. The official name was "Entity-08." His team called it the Hollow.

Because it didn't just kill you.

It wore you.