Chapter 10 - Trapped in the Light
The silhouettes on the front porch didn't knock, nor did they rattle the handle. They simply stood there, motionless and silent, their forms stretching and distorting against the frosted glass as if they were pressing their faces directly against the panes from the outside.
Elena pulled Toby and Lily back toward the kitchen, her white blazer stained with dust and sweat. "Who are they, Mark? Did Vance bring backup?"
"Vance didn't bring anyone else," Mark replied, his voice chillingly flat as he walked backward from the dining room entrance, never taking his eyes off the open maw in the floor. "Those aren't county agents, Elena. They’ve been out there since we moved in. They only come close when the seal is broken."
From the dining room floor, the gaunt hand pulled itself higher, followed slowly by a figure draped in tattered, mud-stained clothing that looked as though it had been buried for over a century. The face was gaunt, skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones, and its eyes—completely milky and devoid of pupils—fixed directly on Mark.
Vance backed away slowly, his back hitting the mahogany sideboard. He stared at the creature emerging from the floor, his mouth opening and closing silently as his mind struggled to process the impossible reality before him.
"You... you knew," Vance whispered, his voice trembling violently. "The municipal records... they weren't stolen by accident. Your grandfather didn't hide them to protect the county... he hid them to keep them anchored here."
"The registry book contains the names of every man who went down into the mine in 1912," Mark said, stepping between the creature and the hallway where his family waited in the shadows. "As long as the names were kept in the dark, locked away in this house, they couldn't reach the surface. But you wanted your precious historical documents back."
The creature pulled its entire upper body out of the opening, its long fingers scraping against the Persian rug as it dragged itself forward. It didn't look angry; its expression was one of an overwhelming, eternal hunger—the same hunger Lily had felt when she reached for the bread rolls on the table.
"Daddy, make it stop!" Lily cried from the hallway, her small voice breaking the heavy tension in the room.
The creature’s head snapped toward the hallway at the sound of the child's voice. Its milky eyes widened, and a low, guttural rasp rattled in its dry throat. It began to crawl faster across the rug, its movements jerky and unnatural.
Mark didn't hesitate. He lunged to the sideboard, grabbed the glass bowl filled with the three hardened bread rolls, and hurled it directly onto the floor in front of the creature.
The glass shattered into a thousand glittering pieces, scattering the dry rolls across the carpet.
The creature stopped instantly. Its long fingers reached out, trembling, and clutched one of the hard rolls, bringing it to its mouth with desperate urgency.
Vance stared in horror at the bread, then looked up at Mark with sudden, horrifying realization. "The bread... it isn't food for you, is it?"
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"It’s the only thing they eat," Mark said quietly, pulling a heavy iron poker from the fireplace holder by the wall. "And we just ran out of our last loaf."
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