Chapter 7 - The Silhouette in the Hall
The figure in the corridor advanced with a slow, heavy gait, its shoulders broad and its head bowed slightly as if navigating a low ceiling. As it stepped closer into the dim amber light spilling from the hallway, Clara’s breath caught in her throat. The man wearing the oversized canvas jacket and mud-caked work boots was David, her husband—except David had been killed in a highway collision six months ago, and his wedding band had been buried with him.
"David?" Clara whispered, her voice cracking with a mixture of desperate hope and paralyzing terror. She took half a step toward the threshold, her foot hovering over the wooden floorboards of the impossible tunnel.
Maya lunged forward, throwing her entire weight against Clara’s side to knock her back into the safety of the hallway. "That's not him, Mom! Look at his hands!"
Clara blinked hard, forcing her gaze down past the familiar jacket. The man’s hands weren't flesh and bone; they were gnarled, pale branches ending in sharp, jagged splinters of oak that clicked rhythmically against each other as he walked.
The figure stopped just at the threshold, its face hidden beneath the deep shadow of a canvas hood. When it spoke, the voice was a harsh rasp of grinding timber and dry leaves.
"You left the cellar door unlocked, Clara," the creature said, its tone an exact imitation of David’s warm baritone, warped by an underlying digital distortion. "The house needs to be sealed before the frost."
Lily wriggled out of Clara’s grip with surprising strength, dropping softly onto the hallway rug. Before Clara could snatch her back, the toddler toddled straight toward the threshold, her purple sweatshirt rustling in the heavy air.
"He brought the tools," Lily said cheerfully, pointing a tiny finger at the floor beside the entity's mud-caked boots.
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Resting on the wooden floor of the corridor was a heavy iron sledgehammer and the rusted padlock Maya had seen in the basement. Clara lunged forward, grabbing the back of Lily’s purple sweatshirt and yanking her back into the hallway just as the front door slammed shut with deafening force, cutting off the figure and the endless tunnel in a single blinding flash of motion.
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