Chapter 11
The cold, bony fingers clamped around Mark’s wrist with a terrifying, vice-like grip that stopped him dead in his tracks. Mark gasped, spinning around to wrench his arm free, but his eyes locked onto a figure emerging from the pitch-black shadows of the basement foundation wall. It wasn't a ghost, and it wasn't a hallucination; it was an elderly man wrapped in a tattered, soot-stained cardigan, his face gaunt and pale under a thick layer of grey stubble.
“Dad?” Mark breathed, his voice barely a rasping whisper as he stared into the hollow, sunken eyes of Arthur.
Arthur’s lips parted in a dry, painful smile, his grip on Mark’s wrist remaining unyielding as he pulled his son away from the root cellar entrance.
“You shouldn’t have opened that door, Mark,” Arthur whispered, his voice sounding like dry autumn leaves scraping across concrete. “Some rooms are meant to stay buried in the dark.”
“Dad, you’re alive... how are you alive?” Mark stammered, looking frantically between the living old man and Vance, who stood frozen with his gun still drawn.
Vance lowered his weapon slowly, stepping forward with narrowed eyes and a suspicious scowl.
“Arthur? The coroner’s report identified dental records from the fire victims... they said you were inside the master bedroom when the roof caved in,” Vance said sharply, tapping his radio against his thigh. “How did you survive down here for six months?”
Arthur let out a low, raspy chuckle that held no humor, his cloudy eyes darting toward the glowing amber light of the open root cellar doors.
“Survive?” Arthur repeated bitterly, his grip on Mark’s wrist finally loosening. “Who said anything about surviving, Detective? Some of us never actually left.”
Mark stared at his father, noticing for the first time that Arthur’s feet were hovering a fraction of an inch above the dirt floor, casting no shadow against the dusty ground.
“Dad, what are you talking about?” Mark asked, backing away a half-step in mounting terror. “Where is Lily? Where is Clara?”
Arthur pointed a trembling, soot-stained finger directly down into the open root cellar stairs, where the warm amber light was suddenly growing brighter, accompanied by the distinct sound of a grandfather clock ticking loudly.
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“They are waiting for the head of the household to take his seat at the head of the table, Mark,” Arthur whispered hauntingly. “The dinner party is about to begin, and everyone is dying to see you again.”
Before Mark could process the horrifying implication of his father’s words, a freezing cold gust of wind surged up from the root cellar, slamming the heavy wooden doors shut with a deafening bang that plunged the entire basement into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
