Chapter 2 - The Thump Beneath the Floorboards
Jack didn't listen to Diane. Grief can break a child, but a spark of hope—the possibility that a mother who supposedly abandoned them might still be alive—can turn a twelve-year-old boy into an unstoppable force.
Before Diane or I could react, Jack bolted past us, running down the short hallway that led to the heavy basement door beneath the main staircase.
“Jack! Get back here right now!” Diane screamed, her voice pitching up into an octave of genuine terror that made my skin crawl. She lunged after him, her chef’s coat rustling loudly. “Mark, stop him! He’s going to mess up the basement storage!”
I didn't stop him. A cold, heavy suspicion had taken root in my chest, and no amount of Diane’s sudden hysteria was going to pull it out. I followed them both down the steep wooden steps into the damp, shadowy expanse of our basement.
Our basement was divided into two sections: my woodworking workshop on the left, and a locked, walk-in commercial-grade deep freezer room on the right—a heavy, insulated industrial unit Diane had insisted on installing shortly after moving in, claiming she liked to buy meat in bulk for her restaurant catering prep.
Jack reached the heavy steel door of the freezer room first. A thick padlock hung from the reinforced latch, securing the door shut.
“Jack, don't you dare!” Diane shrieked, rushing down the final steps, her face completely drained of color, her composure entirely shattered. “Mark, tackle him! He’s out of his mind!”
“DON’T OPEN IT!” Diane screamed at the top of her lungs as Jack grabbed a heavy iron meat tenderizer hanging from my workshop pegboard and swung it with all his might at the padlock.
CLANG!
The metal echoed off the concrete walls like a gunshot.
“Jack, stop!” I commanded, grabbing his shoulder, but before I could pull him back, a muffled, heavy thump sounded from inside the sealed freezer room.
It wasn't a piece of frozen beef shifting on a shelf. It was the distinct sound of a human fist pounding against the inner lining of the insulated door.
Jack’s eyes widened with manic triumph. He raised the meat tenderizer a second time.
“Mom’s inside!” Jack shouted, and brought the heavy iron head crashing down onto the padlock a second time.
The brass shackle snapped under the brute force of a desperate child. The padlock fell clattering to the concrete floor.
Diane lunged forward like a striking cat, her hands outstretched to grab the freezer door handle and slam it shut, but I stepped directly into her path, catching her forearms in a tight, vice-like grip.
“Mark, let me go! You don't know what you're doing!” Diane screamed, her face twisting into an ugly snarl of pure panic, all pretense of the sweet, loving stepmother completely gone. “Let me go!”
“Stay back, Diane,” I growled, my voice shaking with a terrifying revelation.
Jack threw his weight against the heavy insulated door, pulling the thick rubber gasket away from the frame with a loud suction pop. A cloud of freezing mist rolled out across the basement floor.
My son pulled open the heavy steel door.
Behind the clear plastic strip curtains sat Lucy.
Alive.
May you like
Shaking violently beneath a heavy winter coat. Her wrists bound tightly behind her back with industrial zip-ties. A thick strip of duct tape sealed firmly across her mouth.
“Lucy…?” I breathed, the word dying in my throat as my knees went weak.
