Chapter 4 - The Voice in the Mud
The words on the fallen screen seemed to burn into the concrete patio. Julian stared down at the glowing device, his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid gasps. The water in the deep end of the pool had begun to spin in a slow, unnatural vortex, drawing the remaining mud and leaves into a tight funnel that revealed the smooth, white porcelain of the main drain at the bottom.
“That's impossible,” Julian whispered, his fingers curling into tight fists at his sides. “Dad's phone was buried with him in the safety deposit box in town. I saw the bank records. I signed the closure forms.”
Martha stepped forward, her initial terror momentarily eclipsed by a surge of dark, bitter resentment. She kicked the phone away with the toe of her white sneaker, sending it sliding across the patio until it hit the base of a lounge chair.
“You always trusted the paperwork more than you trusted your own family,” Martha spat, her voice sharp and brittle. “Your father was a banker, Julian. He spent forty years shuffling numbers and creating false identities. You really think a bank vault could hold a man who owned half the county?”
Julian snapped his head up, his dark eyes blazing with a fury that mirrored her own.
“Then who sent that text?” Julian demanded, stepping into her personal space. “Who is messaging me from the bottom of a pool we filled ourselves twenty years ago?”
Before Martha could formulate a reply, the low, mechanical hum of the pool pump sputtered and died. The sudden silence that enveloped the backyard was absolute, save for a wet, dragging sound echoing from inside the PVC pipes beneath the concrete. It sounded unmistakably like bare feet shuffling through mud in a confined, subterranean space.
Julian turned his head toward the skimmer box, his expression turning pale. Slowly, the heavy plastic lid of the skimmer began to vibrate, lifted from below by a rush of pressurized air that smelled heavily of damp earth and old pipe tobacco.
May you like
The lid popped off and clattered onto the tiles. From the dark opening, a raspy voice whispered: “You left the backdoor unlocked, children.”
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