The Hollow Men

Late on a rainy Thursday night, two men walked into the Hampton Ridge Credit Union wearing

cheap plastic masks. No names, no words — just a silent precision that the investigation

would later call “unnervingly rehearsed.” Security footage showed them moving like they knew every

camera angle, every blind spot, every guard rotation. In under four minutes, they emptied the

vault, locked the staff in the breakroom, and walked out the back door into an

alley with no working lights. What happened next is what unsettled investigators.

A witness across the street — a janitor closing up his shop — claimed the men didn’t run.

They didn’t drive. They just stood in the alley, staring up at the sky like they were