Chapter 6 - The Race Through the Snow
Screams and gunfire shattered the night.
POP-POP-POP!
"Stay in the car!" David yelled, but I was already throwing the cruiser door open.
I didn't care about the bullets. I didn't care about the storm or the tactical officers shouting commands into the dark. My son was inside that burning, flashing nightmare, and every instinct in my body slammed into motion.
"Clara! No!" David shouted, sprinting right behind me as we plunged into knee-deep snowdrifts.
We reached the back porch just as two tactical officers wrestled a massive, bearded man in a heavy canvas coat out through the kitchen doorway. It was Marcus Kane. He was thrashing, cursing, his face bloody from shattered glass, a hunting rifle kicking loose across the porch ice.
"Secured! Suspect down!" an officer yelled, pinning Kane’s head into the snow.
I pushed past the officers and hurled myself through the shattered wooden door into the cabin.
The air inside smelled of acrid gunpowder, stale wood smoke, and kerosene. Smoke hung thick near the high timber ceiling. Red tactical lights swept across the living room, illuminating broken furniture and overturned supply crates.
"Theo!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs, my voice cracking into a ragged sob. "THEO!"
"Clara, wait!" Detective Vance called out, stepping through the hallway with her weapon drawn. "The structure isn't clear yet!"
"I don't care!" I screamed, tearing down the narrow hallway toward the cellar stairs. "THEO! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
From deep beneath the floorboards, past the cellar door at the end of the hall, came a faint, muffled sound.
A metallic rattle.
And then, a tiny, terrified voice:
"Mommy...?"
I hit the cellar door with my entire body weight.
The wooden latch gave way with a loud snap, and I tumbled down six wooden steps into the dark, cold basement.
"Theo!" David shouted, crashing down the stairs right behind me, holding his flashlight up to cut through the pitch-black air.
The beam of light swept across the poured concrete floor, past stacks of old firewood and rusted tools, until it landed on a small metal cot in the far corner of the cellar.
Sitting on the edge of the cot, wrapped in a threadbare wool blanket, was my son.
He was thin, his cheeks hollow, his dark hair long and unwashed. He was clutching his knees to his chest, blinking wildly against the sudden glare of the flashlight beam.
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For one terrifying second, he looked at us like he didn't believe we were real—like we were another cruel dream he had lived through during six long months in the dark.
"Mommy...?" he whispered, his voice small, raspy, and trembling. "Is it really Christmas?"
