Beyond the veil, the Hollow Dead wait, tormented by a hunger to replace the souls they’ve lost.

The last thing anxious teenager Katie Fielding needs is more problems. As if her only friend Becky Summers moving away wasn’t enough, now she’s suspended from school for a fight she didn’t even start.

While waiting for Becky near a lake in the woods, Katie sees an eerie green light over the water and hears cries for help.

But on her way to help, she is suddenly dragged beneath the surface.

Katie emerges in a nightmarish forest obscured by fog. The trees all bear human features and are stalked by pale, faceless monsters. Desperate for a way home, she forms an alliance with an ancient, deformed creature who warns her that things worse than the dead will be drawn to her soul.

Katie will confront horrors from both beyond and within in a fight to overcome evil and survive in this harrowing horror novel from Sam Drake.

Praise for THE HOLLOW DEAD

facts About the hollow dead

• The initial idea for this book came to me in 2011 under the working title The Ignis Fatuus.
• Work on the first draft began in spring 2019, but had to postpone the second draft when The Forever Man Collection was picked up by Alban Lake.
• I wrote the first draft almost entirely in a cafe in Preston, Lancashire, called Townhouse. I’d strongly recommend their French toast.
• The look and general vibe of the Adam character originally came from Eddie, from the Iron Maiden album The Book Of Souls.
• I’ve always described this story as ‘What if the two girls from Ginger Snaps were trapped in Silent Hill?’
• An early draft involved Katie acquiring a weapon that would consume a part of her soul with each use.
• To get back into the headspace of a teenager while writing the characters, I would always listen to the music I listened to back then. Lots of Evanescence, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Slipknot, System of a Down. I was a mosher and proud of it.