Chapter 3 - The Forgotten Cellar
"Dispatch, this is Unit 4," Miller shouted into his shoulder radio as he bolted down the hallway toward the precinct garage, his boots echoing sharply against the concrete walls. "I need an emergency paramedic unit and heavy rescue squad dispatched immediately to the North Oakhaven Forest Grid 14, near the old stone keeper's lodge!"
David and Sarah were running right behind him, David holding a weeping Lily tightly against his chest.
"Sergeant, what is happening?!" David yelled, terror laced in his voice. "Is Lily in trouble? Did something actually happen?!"
"Your daughter didn't commit a crime, Mr. Vance," Miller yelled back over his shoulder as he threw open the doors to his marked police SUV. "Your daughter accidentally locked a missing woman inside a deep underground shelter. Get in the back! Now!"
The police vehicle roared out of the station garage, its sirens blaring and red-and-blue lights cutting through the late afternoon rain.
For the thirty-minute drive out to the rural woods of Oakhaven, the atmosphere inside the SUV was thick with a terrifying, suffocating silence. David and Sarah held each other’s hands, staring at their toddler in absolute disbelief. Lily sat in her car seat, clutching her stuffed rabbit, her small eyes darting nervously toward the flashing lights reflected in the wet windows.
"It's okay, baby," Sarah kept soothing her through her own tears. "You're okay. You were just scared."
Miller drove like a man possessed, swerving through rural backroads, his mind racing through terrible scenarios. Seventy-two hours without food or water in a sealed underground chamber. The oxygen levels in those old concrete bunkers were notoriously poor. If the ventilation pipe was clogged with autumn leaves, oxygen deprivation would set in fast.
They reached the edge of the Oakhaven preserve, the SUV’s tires spraying mud and gravel as Miller tore down an unpaved logging trail. The heavy oak trees closed in above them like a dark canopy.
"Stop here!" David shouted, pointing out the window. "The keeper's lodge is down that ravine! Through those pine trees!"
Miller slammed on the brakes, grabbed a heavy iron crowbar and a high-powered tactical flashlight from his trunk, and plunged into the muddy forest. David ran beside him, guiding him down the steep, slippery embankment.
Deep in the woods, choked by wild ivy and thorn bushes, stood the crumbling ruins of an old 19th-century stone lodge. Behind it, half-buried in the side of a dirt mound, was a thick wooden hatch reinforced with iron bands—the entrance to the historic storm cellar.
The heavy brass deadbolt mechanism was engaged.
Miller rushed forward, throwing his weight against the wood. "Evelyn!" he screamed, slamming his fist onto the iron plate. "Evelyn Ross! Police! Can you hear me?!"
Silence. Only the sound of rain tapping against the dead leaves.
"Get back!" Miller ordered David. He jammed the flat head of the crowbar into the space between the heavy oak door and the stone frame, right beside the deadbolt. He leaned his entire two-hundred-pound frame onto the steel bar, muscles straining, blood rushing to his face.
With a sharp, splintering CRACK, the old iron latch snapped, and the heavy door fell open, releasing a cloud of cold, musty, damp air.
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Miller clicked on his flashlight and shone the beam down the steep flight of slippery stone steps into the darkness below.
At the bottom of the stairs, lying curled on the damp concrete floor, was a young woman. Her clothes were torn, her skin deathly pale, and her lips cracked and blue.
