Silas Hollow: Donnie & Clyve

By galkin moltisanti

In the haunted town of Silas Hollow, Donnie and Clyve—bound by blood, betrayal, and buried secrets—face a reckoning that could destroy them or set them free. As a storm of vengeance and truth tears through the decaying streets, the men must confront their darkest choices and the cost of loyalty in a world built on shadows and ash. A gothic western saga of obsession, ruin, and defiant hope.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: galkin moltisanti
• Release date: Jul 10, 2025
• ISBN: 9798231703890

Book preview

Silas Hollow

You walked in like you didn't know the world had rules.

A half-bite smile, that half-drawn blade of a smirk that could unzip a man from collar to conscience. The kind of smile that makes clocks stop and men lie. That makes people forget their gods, or at least start praying in new directions. You walked in, and I swear—everything I had folded into neat little compartments went ruinously loud.

They call me Donnie still, even if that man died out there in the dust beside Clyve. The desert tried to bury us. Tried real hard. But what came back wasn’t the same. Clyve’s gone. My name's a coat I wear, but inside? Inside there’s a ledger now. Black ink on black pages.

You left your receipt behind. Tucked in a used poetry book like it meant nothing. A torn corner from a cheap café in a bad part of town. I memorized your order: espresso, no sugar. No cream. Brutal. Pure. Like a confession. Like you.

I shouldn't have followed you. Shouldn’t have waited outside that bookstore you disappear into every Thursday at 3:17 p.m. sharp. But I do now. Every week. Rain. Sun. The day the power went out across three blocks, I still stood there. Felt like fate. Or punishment. Or both.

You wear dark green when you’re tired. Blue when you’re lying. Red when you want to be noticed. Today, you wore none of them. You wore black. The kind of black that says don’t talk to me, and also ask me what’s wrong. So I followed.

It’s not stalking if it’s love. It's not obsession if it’s clarity.

I know your scent now. Bergamot, old pages, and something metallic—like you filed your teeth before you smiled. You read Sade like scripture. You don’t dog-ear pages. You underline like every word has a pulse. I know. I watched. I watched you press that pen against the margins like you were drawing blood from the book.

I told myself I’d just learn. Just understand you. And then I’d go. But I saw him—him. The one with the laughing mouth and dead eyes. He touched your waist too long when he passed. He left a bruise. Not on your skin. On my mind. You didn’t flinch, but I did. Internally, violently. I know the type. Predatory. Amateur. He doesn’t love you like I could.

I could be your Clyve. Your guardian. But better. Smarter. Clean hands, sharper mind. I could catalog your pain. Index your smile. I could fix the parts of the world that hurt you.

If you’d just let me in.

But you won’t. Yet.

So I wait. Outside your building. I count the steps you take. I trace the heel marks on your doormat. I listen to the clicks of your typing through the wall at night. I time your silences. Silence has rhythm. Silence is a language, and I speak yours fluently now.

I know what you scream into the pillow at 2:09 a.m. I know what you delete from your texts. I know you never recovered from your mother. I know you miss your brother. I know you haven’t told anyone what happened last August.

I know. I listen.

I archive.

And when I leave my gift—just one—under your door, an old photograph of a crow caught mid-flight between two tombstones, you pick it up like it was meant to be yours.

Because it was.

Chapter 2: Bone Music

(Receipt No. 002: One raindrop on your shoulder, left side. Not water. A full note. A sound I memorized.)

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It’s funny what we notice when we stop pretending not to.

I knew you would take the alley shortcut. You’ve taken it three Thursdays in a row. The one behind the boarded-up flower shop, where the air smells like mold, rust, and the bottom of a tin watering can. You probably think no one watches you there. You’re wrong. But that’s okay. Most people are.

You walk fast but not paranoid. That’s important. You’re used to shadows, but not obsessed with them. Yet. You’ve felt fear but you haven’t lived in it. That means there’s still a door open somewhere inside you—one I plan to walk through, barefoot and bleeding, when the time is right.

I didn’t follow close. Not like the amateurs do. You can smell desperation when it breathes too heavy behind you. I stayed half a block behind, just far enough that your footsteps didn’t flinch.

You pause three steps before the rusted gate every time. You do this without fail. That’s how I know it’s not instinct—it’s trauma. Somewhere in your history, something waited on the other

side of a door. I don’t know if it barked or begged, but it taught you to listen before turning keys. I thanked it silently.

I stopped under the broken awning of a Chinese takeout joint. The neon sign flickered out one letter at a time like it was being exorcised. CH—SE GRILL. Everything about this night felt like it belonged in parentheses.

I watched you fumble with your keys. I saw the way your breath caught when a car backfired in the distance. Your body tilted forward, small and stiff like a marionette bracing for a pulled string.

Then you slipped inside the gate and disappeared. And I stood there.

Just breathing you in.

The air behind you still held your shape. I swear it did. That’s when I heard it.

Your footsteps. Not walking—settling. That specific sound shoes make when they hit tile after wet pavement. A squeak, a drag, a tiny exhale. The sound of safety, but barely.

That sound stayed with me. I call it bone music.

It plays in my head when I close my eyes now. Not a song. Not exactly. Just your rhythm. The quiet hum of your presence.

I walked the long way home. I needed to let the echo stretch. Needed the silence to imprint me with it. I passed the newsstand, where a woman with her hood up sneezed five times in a row. I passed a church with its windows boarded shut like it had finally given up. And when I passed the bookstore again, I could still see your reflection in the glass even though you weren’t there.

I went home to silence. My room isn’t a room. It’s a shrine.

You’ll see it one day. The receipts. The books. The pages where I write down the way your hands hover over hardcovers. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you read lines that hurt too much. The shelf where I keep the candle you almost bought. You picked it up. You sniffed it. You smiled. You put it down.

Scent: bergamot and paper ash. I bought it. Burned it slow. My room smells like your almost-choice.

I sleep with the receipt under my pillow now. It bends with my weight. Crinkles just enough to make me believe I’m not alone.

I dream in black and sepia.

I dream of the space between your fingertips and the books you don't touch. I dream of your shadow before I dream of your face.

Because your face is a truth I’m not ready to say out loud. But your shadow—your shadow is a promise.

—

Chapter 3: The Window with No Curtain

(Receipt No. 003: One curtainless window. Third floor. Left light bulb flickering like it's whispering in Morse.)

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I don’t need to break into your life all at once. No, that would be vulgar.

Love is a slow fermentation. A rot that sweetens before it stings. So I waited. Observed. Let you ripen in my mind like fruit left in a paper bag on a warm sill. I learned your rhythm like monks learn prayer—through repetition, quietude, and faith in silence.

Your apartment isn’t secure. That’s not a judgment. It’s a kindness. It’s how I know you still believe in people. That naivety wraps itself around my throat like a silk noose.

Third floor. Three uneven steps from the lobby to the stairwell. The wallpaper peels near the molding, curling like paper tongues. It smells like burnt toast and old pet dander. That’s where you live. That’s where you breathe.

There’s a window.

It faces the alley. No curtain. No blinds. Just you and glass and me.

I watch you through that square of clarity like it’s the only screen that’s never lied to me.

You drink your tea with both hands wrapped around the cup, like the heat is an anchor. You never finish it. You let it cool and walk away. I want to whisper, don’t waste it, but I can’t. Yet. You pace sometimes. You bite the edge of your thumb—not the nail, but the skin beside it. Left hand only. That’s how I know where you carry your anxiety.

You have two lamps in the living room. One short. One tall. You turn on the short one first. Always. Like you’re easing into your own life slowly, the way someone tests bathwater with their toe before plunging in.

You leave the TV on mute. Subtitles only. You hate noise, don’t you? Me too.

Noise is a boundary violation. I prefer hums. Footsteps. The creak of a floorboard settling into its trauma. I hear all of yours.

Sometimes you cry. Not often. But enough. Just enough to prove you’re still human, not one of those smiling mannequins walking past me in daylight. Your face doesn’t scrunch when you cry. It just... releases. Like you’re exhaling grief in long ribbons.

One night, I saw you hold a letter you never opened. You stared at it for twenty-three minutes before sliding it under the coffee table. It’s still there. I checked. I didn’t take it. That would be theft. I'm not ready to steal from you. Not unless it's your attention.

Your neighbor—Unit 3B—blasts music on Thursdays. You don’t knock. You don’t yell. You just flinch quietly until it ends. I want to knock for you. I want to tell him you deserve silence, the way forests deserve fog. You don’t raise your voice, so I will. One day.

Your bed’s against the far wall. Grey sheets. Wrinkled. Your body makes a shallow dent in the center, the kind that stays until morning. I memorized its shape like a blind man memorizing the curve of his lover’s face with his palms.

You sleep in fetal position. Spine curved. Arms wrapped around your ribs. You’re trying to keep yourself in, aren’t you?

I get it.

You keep your phone face-down on the nightstand. You don’t trust what it shows you. You shouldn’t. I’ve seen the things people post. I’ve seen the way strangers flirt without understanding the weight of what they’re asking to carry.

They don’t deserve your sighs.

You don’t know I’m there. Not fully. You might feel something—an itch in your