The smell hit me first—a toxic cocktail of damp earth and formaldehyde rising from the floor vents. It was the scent of a funeral home basement, sharp and chemical, overpowering the stale aroma of woodsmoke in the cabin.
I stared at the black droplet bubbling on the vent grate. It looked like a blister ready to pop.
"Daddy?" Lily whispered. She was clutching my leg now, burying her face in my jeans. "I don't like the smell."
"Me neither, bug," I said, my voice tight.
My brain was doing that thing again where it tried to process terror as a logic puzzle. If ink is coming up the vent, the source is below. The basement.
The basement housed the furnace and the breaker panel. If the power was out, that’s where I needed to go. But if the thing was down there...
I looked at the vent again. The scratching had stopped.
"Okay," I said, kneeling down so I was eye-level with Lily. The flashlight beam cast weird, dancing shadows on her face. "Listen to me very carefully. We're going to play the Quiet Game. You’re the champion of the Quiet Game, remember?"
She nodded solemnly. "Like when Mommy had headaches."
The guilt stabbed me in the chest, sharp and familiar, but I shoved it down. "Exactly like that. I need you to go into the pantry. Sit behind the big sacks of rice. Don't make a sound until I open the door. Can you do that?"
"Are you going down there?" She pointed a small finger at the floor.
"I have to fix the lights," I lied. "It's just a fuse. But I need to know you're safe up here."
I didn't wait for an answer. I steered her into the kitchen. The pantry was a narrow closet next to the fridge, stocked with enough dry goods to survive a zombie apocalypse or a very long blizzard. I cleared a space on the floor behind a fifty-pound bag of jasmine rice and sat her down.
"Here," I said, handing her my phone. The screen was dim, battery dying, but it was a light source. "Draw on the sketch app. Do not leave this closet."
"Take the hammer," she said softly.
I looked at the claw hammer in my hand. I had forgotten I was holding it. "Good idea."
I closed the pantry door until it clicked. Then I dragged a heavy oak kitchen chair over and wedged it under the doorknob. It wouldn't stop a tank, but it would stop a six-year-old from wandering out—or buy her five seconds if something tried to get in.
I took a deep breath, tasting the stale air.
The door to the basement was in the mudroom, just off the kitchen. It was a flimsy hollow-core door that rattled every time the wind blew. I approached it like it was a sleeping tiger.
My hand hovered over the knob.
If you open this, you might die.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyVXsNAEPAt
If you don't open this, you freeze to death.
"Great options, Elias," I muttered. "Really winning at life."
I gripped the hammer tighter, turned the knob, and kicked the door open.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.