Chapter 8 - The Breach
The second blow of the battering ram sounded like a small explosion, sending a long, jagged crack splintering up the center of the oak front door. The brass deadbolt housing warped, pulling away from the frame with a shriek of tortured metal.
"Get away from the door!" David shouted, raising his pistol and aiming it squarely at the splintering wood.
Michael scooped Lily up into his arms, ignoring her muffled cries as he pressed her face hard against his shoulder to shield her eyes. He sprinted toward the kitchen, gesturing frantically for Elena and Eleanor to follow.
"The cellar door!" Elena yelled, pointing toward the pantry in the corner of the kitchen. "There’s an old storm shelter exit leading out to the greenhouse. My father built it during the Cold War."
"Move, move, move!" David barked, firing two warning shots through the upper glass panels of the front door.
The sound of shattering glass was immediately followed by a muffled shout from the porch. A heavy boot kicked the remaining fragments of the door inward, and three figures clad in tactical black gear and ballistic vests poured into the hallway, their assault rifles raised and sweeping the room with tactical precision.
David fired twice through the kitchen doorway, striking the lead operative in the shoulder. The man stumbled backward, shouting orders into his comm-link as his comrades returned fire, chewing through the drywall and shattering the kitchen cabinets above Elena’s head.
"In the pantry, now!" Michael roared, shoving Elena and Eleanor through the narrow door just as a volley of submachine gun fire shredded the refrigerator door behind them.
Michael slammed the heavy wooden pantry door shut and threw the deadbolt, knowing it would buy them mere seconds against tactical breaching tools. He dropped down to his knees beside Elena, who was furiously pulling at a rusted ring embedded in the concrete floor beneath a stack of old wooden crates.
"It's rusted shut!" Elena cried, her fingers slipping against the cold iron as wood splinters from the pantry door rained down around them like shrapnel.
David lunged forward, pressing the barrel of his Glock against the rusted hinge of the storm door and firing three rapid rounds into the mechanism. The iron shrieked, and with a desperate heave, David and Michael pulled the heavy steel hatch upward, revealing a pitch-black staircase leading down into the earth.
"Go! Get Lily down there!" David ordered, pushing Michael toward the opening.
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Before Michael could descend, the pantry door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and white smoke. A gloved hand reached through the gap, grabbing Eleanor by the collar of her grey sweater and jerking her violently backward into the kitchen.
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