Chapter 2 - Echoes From The Dark
The living room fell into a suffocating silence, save for the ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the hallway. Mark froze, his hand hovering inches from the jagged edge of the broken oak flooring. Sarah dropped her phone, the screen cracking against the baseboard.
"Who's down there?" Mark forced the words out, his throat dry as sandpaper.
"You know who I am, Mark," the voice rasped again, sounding like dry leaves scraping across concrete. "You walk over my head every single day."
Lily began to cry again, a high-pitched, terrified sound that pierced Sarah's heart. Sarah scooped the little girl into her arms, burying Lily's face against her grey suit jacket.
"Mark, get away from that hole right now," Sarah pleaded, her voice trembling. "We are walking out of this house. This second."
"We can't leave," Mark muttered, his eyes glued to the black opening. "Whoever that is... they called me by name."
"It could be a squatter, a lunatic hiding in the foundation," Sarah argued, backing toward the front door. "We're calling the police."
"And tell them what? That our floorboards are talking to us?" Mark looked back at his wife, frustration and fear warring in his eyes.
"Tell them someone broke into our home!"
Before Sarah could reach the brass handle of the front door, a heavy metallic thud echoed from beneath the floor, right where Mark was kneeling. It sounded like a rusted toolbox hitting the dirt foundation. Then came the unmistakable sound of wood shifting, groaning under an immense, sudden pressure.
"Mark, move!" Sarah screamed.
May you like
Mark lunged backward just as a pair of skeletal hands burst through the remaining flooring near the baseboard, tearing the dark oak planks apart like wet cardboard.
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