Chapter 4 - Breach
The house looked entirely normal from the outside.
The white colonial siding, the manicured boxwood hedges, the hanging fern baskets on the front porch—everything looked like the picture of suburban domestic bliss. But as Ethan stepped out of the cruiser into the pouring rain, the house felt like a tomb.
Three uniformed officers stood on the front porch with drawn sidearms. The sergeant in charge, a weathered veteran named Miller, rushed down the steps to meet Marcus and Ethan.
"Vance! Blake!" the sergeant called out, holding his raincoat tight against the wind. "We have the perimeter secured. Rear cellar doors are deadbolted from the outside with a heavy padlock. We tried the code on the electronic keypad, but the system’s main power breaker has been flipped from inside the utility closet."
"Break it down," Ethan said instantly, moving past the officers toward the side of the house.
"Mr. Blake, wait—"
"I said, break it down!" Ethan roared, grabbing a heavy iron snow shovel leaning against the brick foundation and swinging it with all his remaining strength against the reinforced wooden door of the basement bulkhead.
CRACK.
The old oak splintered, but held.
Marcus rushed over, grabbing the handle of a heavy crowbar from a patrolman’s tactical kit. "Together, Ethan. On three."
"One... two... THREE!"
Both men threw their weight against the crowbar. With a deafening screech of rending metal and snapping screws, the iron hasp tore out of the concrete frame, and the heavy doors flew open, venting a rush of damp, stale, subterranean air mixed with the unmistakable scent of copper, dust, and human terror.
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Ethan dropped the shovel. He didn't wait for the officers to clear the space with flashlights.
He threw himself down the steep, dark concrete steps, his boots slipping on the slick risers as he plunged into the pitch-black abyss of the basement.
