Chapter 4
The hidden latch fought back against the fire poker for one agonizing second before giving way with a loud, violent CRACK.
The metal locking mechanism snapped, and the heavy disguised wall panel swung outward on hidden hinges, groaning against the weight of the brick facade. Emma immediately dropped the fire poker. It clattered loudly onto the floorbed of broken glass.
She threw the heavy panel fully open, and the breath was instantly knocked from her chest at the sheer horror of what lay inside.
It was a cramped, claustrophobic crawlspace barely large enough for a dog, much less a growing five-year-old boy. The space was pitch black save for the bright corridor light spilling into it. Ethan was curled tightly into a fetal position on the raw wooden floorboards. He was shivering violently beneath a thin, moth-eaten blanket.
Beside his trembling form lay an empty plastic water bottle. But it was the object sitting next to the bottle that made Emma’s stomach violently heave. It was a heavy ceramic food bowl—an animal’s bowl. Inside it rested a single, chewed dog bone.
Emma did not speak. No words could encompass the atrocity of this hidden tomb.
Tears spilled hot and fast down her fair, rosy cheeks. She reached her arms into the suffocating darkness, her white cleaning gloves contrasting sharply against the filthy, dust-covered environment. She slid her hands under Ethan’s small, fragile arms and pulled him toward the light.
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He was incredibly weak, his muscles atrophied from being curled up for God knew how long, but miraculously, he appeared physically uninjured. He felt as light as a feather as she hauled his small body out of the wall and into the bright, open expanse of the corridor.
Emma wrapped her arms tightly around him, pulling him fully onto her lap, heedless of the dust transferring onto her pristine uniform. She cradled the back of his head, rocking him back and forth on the floor as the little boy buried his face into her shoulder. The nightmare was over. He was out. But the terror vibrating through his small frame told her the danger was still very much alive in this house.
