Chapter 13
Mark threw his arms forward, catching the edge of the stair timber with his elbows just as the wooden treads beneath him sheared off and plummeted into the abyss with a distant, echoing clatter.
"Mark!" David screamed, lunging forward in the dark and grabbing the back of Mark’s grey t-shirt with both hands, hauling him backward onto a solid concrete landing that had suddenly materialized beneath them.
Both brothers collapsed onto the cold, damp concrete, gasping for air as the sound of the collapsing stairs faded into absolute silence below.
"Are you okay?" David asked, his voice shaking as he gripped Mark’s shoulders in the dark. "Did you break anything?"
"I'm fine," Mark panted, coughing as the heavy, metallic dust filled his lungs. He sat up, rubbing his knee where it had scraped against the concrete. "Look... look at where we are."
David blinked in the gloom, slowly raising his head.
They weren't in a dark basement stairwell anymore. They were standing in a massive, sprawling underground chamber that stretched out as far as the eye could see in every direction. The ceiling was lost in shadows miles above, supported by colossal stone pillars carved with ancient, repeating patterns that looked disturbingly like human ribs.
In the center of the vast chamber stood a single, perfectly preserved suburban living room—complete with a seventies-style floral sofa, a coffee table, and an old glowing television set playing static on its small curved screen.
And sitting calmly on the floral sofa, petting a golden retriever that looked remarkably like Buster, was an elderly man wearing a tweed jacket and wire-rimmed glasses.
The old man turned his head slowly toward them, revealing the exact same piercing green eyes that Mark and David saw every time they looked in the mirror.
"Well, boys," the old man said, his voice smooth, resonant, and entirely youthful despite his ancient face. "Took you long enough to drop in for a visit. I've been keeping the house warm for you."
David scrambled backward, his hand hitting the cold stone floor as he pointed a trembling finger at the figure. "Grandfather? You died twenty years ago! We went to your funeral!"
The old man chuckled—a warm, rich sound that echoed chillingly across the colossal chamber. "Funerals are for people who leave, David. I never left. I am the foundation. Every brick, every pipe, every wall in that little subdivision upstairs was built around me, keeping the outside world out... and keeping my family safe right where they belong."
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Mark slowly climbed to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in his bruised wrist. He stepped forward, glaring at the man who had supposedly been buried under a granite headstone three states away.
"You didn't build a home, grandfather," Mark said, his voice dripping with venom. "You built a cage. And you trapped us inside it."
