Chapter 5 - Into the Dark
“You’re not dreaming, baby, I swear to God you’re not dreaming!” I cried, pressing my face directly against the wooden crack where the stale, damp air of the basement rushed up to meet us. “Sam is here! Sheriff Turner is here! We’re getting you out right now!”
“Stand back, Evie,” Sheriff Turner said, his voice tight and urgent. He unclipped a heavy steel pry bar from his tactical belt and handed it to Sam. “Sam, jam this into the latch frame. Miller, grab that sledgehammer from the back porch!”
Sam didn’t wait for the sledgehammer. Adrenaline and five years of burning, unspent grief gave him the strength of an ox. He jammed the thick end of the iron pry bar into the narrow gap between the reinforced door and the concrete threshold, planted his boots against the wall, and roared as he threw his entire body weight into the lever.
The metal groaned in protest. Screws popped out of the rotting pine frame with loud, pistol-crack snaps.
“Again!” Turner yelled, throwing his weight onto the bar beside Sam.
With a deafening crunch of splintering timber and sheared iron, the heavy deadbolt tore out of its concrete mounting, and the cellar door flew open, crashing flat against the hallway floor.
A wave of thick, stagnant air billowed up from the depths below—smelling of unwashed laundry, old urine, damp earth, and despair.
Sheriff Turner flickred on his tactical flashlight, sweeping the beam down the steep, narrow concrete steps that plunged into absolute darkness.
“Janet?” Turner called out, stepping onto the top step. “It’s Sheriff Turner. We’re coming down.”
The beam of the flashlight cut through the gloom, sweeping across bare concrete walls, damp cinder blocks, and a makeshift living space tucked into the corner of the cellar: a single metal cot with a stained mattress, a plastic bucket serving as a toilet, a gallon jug of tap water, and a stack of paperback books lit by a single bare bulb dangling from a frayed electrical cord overhead.
And huddled in the far corner, clutching a gray wool blanket around her thin shoulders like a shield, was a woman.
Her hair was tangled, long, and streaked with premature gray, falling past her collarbones in matted clumps. Her skin had the translucent, ghostly pallor of someone who hadn't felt the touch of direct sunlight in half a decade. Her eyes—wide, hollow, and terrified—blinked painfully against the harsh glare of the flashlight.
She looked like a skeleton draped in rags.
But as the light hit my face standing at the top of the stairs, the hollow terror in her eyes broke, morphing into a look of such agonizing, soul-deep recognition that my knees gave out completely.
“Mom...?” Janet whispered, crawling forward across the concrete floor on her hands and knees. “...You came... you really came...”
I didn't wait for the stairs to be safe. I scrambled down the concrete steps on my hands and knees, sliding through the dust and grit, until I reached the bottom and threw my arms around her skeleton-thin frame, pulling her against my chest with a force that wrung every last drop of air from my lungs.
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She felt like bird bones. Her shoulders were sharp under my hands, her cotton shirt stained and worn thin.
“I’m here, my baby, I’m right here,” I sobbed into her matted hair, rocking back and forth on the damp concrete floor while Sam stood guard at the top of the stairs, wiping tears openly from his weathered cheeks. “I’m so sorry... I’m so, so sorry it took us this long...”
