Chapter 4 - The Sound of the Bolt
Total darkness swallowed the room instantly, thick and heavy like wet wool. Daniel dropped the flashlight in surprise, the plastic casing cracking against the concrete floor, though the beam remained wedged against the wall, casting a long, distorted shadow across the ceiling. The heavy metallic clunk of the vault locking mechanism engaging from the outside reverberated through the small space like a gunshot.
"No!" Elena yelled, throwing herself against the massive steel door, beating her fists frantically against the cold metal. "Open it! Daniel, open it from the inside!"
Daniel lunged forward, grabbing the interior wheel handle and throwing his entire weight into turning it. It spun freely, completely disengaged from the locking pins. Someone had thrown a deadbolt from the outside, locking them inside a tomb with no apparent release mechanism.
"It's jammed," Daniel said, his voice tight, the first real note of panic creeping into his tone. He patted his pockets frantically for his phone, pulling it out and tapping the screen. Zero bars. Complete isolation.
Lucas began to cry in earnest, the high-pitched sound echoing uncomfortably off the bare concrete walls. "Mommy, it’s dark. I want to go home."
"Shh, baby, look at me, look at Mama," Elena cooed, dropping to her knees in the dark and pulling Lucas into a tight embrace. She glared toward where she knew Daniel was standing in the dim light cast by the erratic flashlight beam. "This is your fault. Your obsession with your mother's past, your refusal to let go of a dead woman—you brought us right into her grave!"
"I didn't lock it," Daniel snapped back, his temper flaring as he examined the heavy hinges with his bare hands, searching for a manual release latch. "Somebody else is in the house. Somebody pushed that button from the hallway."
"There is nobody else in this house!" Elena shrieked. "We checked all the doors before we went to bed! We are miles from the nearest neighbor!"
As if in cruel response to her words, a sharp, metallic scratching sound began on the other side of the vault door. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. It sounded like fingernails dragging slowly down painted steel, pausing at the height of an adult, then lowering to the height of a child.
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Lucas stopped crying instantly, his wide eyes staring straight at the solid metal door. "Grandma is saying hello," the boy whispered.
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