Chapter 3 - Ryan grabbed Lily.The girl screamed as darkness swallowed the room.
“Daddy!”
“I'm here.”
His phone flashlight flickered.
Emily shouted from behind him.
“Ryan!”
The passage seemed to shift around them.
A heavy sound rolled through the walls.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Someone was walking beneath the house.
Ryan carried Lily toward the entrance.
“Emily, get Noah.”
She didn't move.
“Emily!”
She looked at the floor.
There was blood dripping through a crack in the ceiling.
Ryan stared.
Another drop fell.
Then another.
Emily whispered, “They're here.”
“Who?”
Before she could answer, a voice came through an old speaker hidden in the wall.
“You shouldn't have opened the room.”
Ryan froze.
Lily buried her face against his chest.
The voice continued.
“Ryan Carter.”
Ryan's blood turned cold.
“He knows my name.”
Emily grabbed Ryan's arm.
“Run.”
They rushed through the passage.
Ryan climbed into the kitchen with Lily.
Noah was standing near the stairs.
“Dad!”
Ryan grabbed him.
“Outside.”
They ran toward the back door.
It wouldn't open.
Ryan pulled again.
Nothing.
Locked.
He looked at Emily.
“Did you lock the doors?”
“No.”
All the lights suddenly came back on.
The kitchen looked normal.
Almost painfully normal.
The broken vent hung from the wall.
Bread crumbs were scattered on the floor.
The clock ticked.
Ryan looked toward the hallway.
Then he noticed something.
A photograph.
It hadn't been there before.
It sat on the kitchen counter.
Ryan picked it up.
It showed Emily.
Six years younger.
Holding a newborn baby.
He turned the photograph over.
Written in black ink:
SHE WAS NEVER DEAD.
Ryan's hands began shaking.
“Emily.”
She started crying before he even looked at her.
“Tell me everything.”
“I can't.”
“You already lied to me about our daughter.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From who?”
Emily looked toward Lily.
“From her father.”
Ryan stared at her.
“You just said I'm her father.”
“I said she's your daughter.”
“What is the difference?”
Emily whispered, “You aren't the only man who claims her.”
Ryan heard movement upstairs.
Noah whispered, “Dad.”
Ryan looked up.
Someone was walking across the second floor.
Slowly.
A shadow moved under the bedroom door.
Ryan grabbed a kitchen knife.
Emily stepped in front of him.
“Don't.”
“Who's upstairs?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
“I swear.”
The shadow stopped.
A man's voice called from the hallway.
“Emily.”
She went completely still.
Ryan watched her face.
Recognition.
Pure terror.
The voice came again.
“You should have kept the door closed.”
Lily began shaking.
“That voice.”
Ryan looked at her.
“You know him?”
She nodded.
“Who is he?”
Lily whispered:
“Grandpa.”
Ryan's heart sank.
“My father is dead.”
Lily stared toward the ceiling.
“Not him.”
Emily whispered something Ryan couldn't believe.
“Your father.”
Ryan slowly turned toward her.
“My father?”
Emily nodded.
“The man who built this house.”
Ryan remembered his childhood.
His father's locked basement.
The room he was never allowed to enter.
The strange rules.
Never play near the kitchen wall.
Never touch the old vent.
Never go into the cellar.
Ryan had forgotten those things.
Or perhaps...
he had spent his entire life trying to forget them.
The voice upstairs spoke once more.
“Ryan.”
Then came a soft laugh.
“You really don't remember?”
The floorboards creaked.
A man's footsteps began moving toward the stairs.
Ryan pulled Lily closer.
And then he saw the old family portrait hanging at the end of the hall.
His father stood in the center.
Ryan stood beside him as a boy.
And beside them was another child.
A little girl.
Same face.
Same eyes.
Same silver bracelet.
Ryan stepped closer.
The date printed beneath the photograph was 2002.
Ryan was six years old.
The girl beside him was also six.
His own age.
He stared at the photograph.
He had no memory of her.
Not one.
Then Lily whispered:
“That's my mother.”
Ryan turned.
“Your mother?”
Lily nodded.
May you like
“The first Lily.”
And upstairs, a man began laughing.
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