Chapter 9 - The Root Cellar
I didn't wait forty-five minutes.
If they loaded those cars and drove away, my parents would be left to freeze in the dark cellar, or worse, taken as leverage.
I moved like a shadow across the snow-covered lawn, reaching the glass patio at the back of the house. I took the heavy iron tire iron, wrapped it in my wool cap to muffle the sound, and shattered the small pane of glass near the mudroom door handle.
I reached through, turned the brass lock, and slipped inside without making a sound.
The smell in the house was overpowering now—the sharp scent of gasoline mixed with cold air. They were planning to burn the house down to cover the evidence.
I crept through the mudroom and into the dark kitchen hallway.
From the front living room, I could hear voices shouting in a frantic, panicked argument.
"We don't have time to process the timber deed!" Marcus Kane’s voice hissed. "Shawn is in town! Nancy talked to him, I know she did! If he goes to the state police, we’re all going to federal prison!"
"What about the old people downstairs?!" Sheriff Vance’s deep, gravelly voice demanded. "We can't just leave them! If the fire marshals find bodies—"
"The fire will burn hot enough!" Brenda shouted back, her voice completely hysterical. "The gasoline will destroy the cellar beam structure! The whole floor will collapse into the cellar! It’ll look like an electrical fire!"
A cold, blinding rage erupted inside my chest, burning away every trace of fear, caution, or hesitation.
I stepped out of the shadows and walked straight into the kitchen toward the padlocked cellar door.
I jammed the flat edge of the iron tire iron between the heavy steel latch and the wooden doorframe. I planted my boots firmly against the pine floorboards, pulled with every ounce of strength in my broad shoulders, and screamed as I leveraged my body weight.
CRACK!
The old wood splintered with a sound like a rifle shot. The steel latch tore free from the frame, falling to the floor with a heavy metallic clatter.
"What was that?!" Sheriff Vance shouted from the living room.
I didn't answer. I yanked the cellar door open, clicked on my tactical flashlight, and plunged down the narrow, steep stone steps into the darkness below.
"Shawn!" Brenda’s scream echoed from the top of the stairs behind me.
I ignored her. I reached the bottom of the icy stone steps. The cellar was cold as a meat locker, the floor covered in damp earth and old coal dust.
At the far end of the basement stood an old, heavy wooden door set into the reinforced stone foundation—the original 1940s root cellar, held shut by a thick wooden beam dropped across iron brackets.
"Dad!" I roared, throwing my body against the wooden beam and hoisting it out of the iron brackets. "Mom!"
I threw the thick wooden door open.
The beam of my flashlight swept across the small, freezing stone room.
Lying on an old, threadbare mattress on the dirt floor, wrapped in a single stained blanket, were two frail, terribly thin figures.
My mother, her white hair matted, her face pale and sunken, pulled my father against her chest to shield him from the bright light. My father, his eyes wide and unseeing without his reading glasses, held up a trembling, bone-thin hand.
"Shawn...?" my father whispered, his voice a dry, rasping thread in the cold air. "Is that... is that my boy?"
"Dad!" I sobbed, dropping the flashlight and falling to my knees on the dirt floor, wrapping my arms around both of them, pulling their freezing bodies against my chest. "Mom! It’s me! It’s Shawn! I’m here! I’ve got you!"
"Shawn..." my mother wept, pressing her cold cheek against my neck. "You came back... oh God, you came back..."
A heavy footstep thudded against the stone floor behind me.
May you like
I turned my head.
Sheriff Vance stood in the doorway of the root cellar, his service revolver drawn, aimed directly at my chest. Behind him stood Brenda and Marcus Kane, holding a five-gallon red plastic jerrycan of gasoline.
