Chapter 8 - The Siege of Blackwood Creek
"Out! Get out!" Julian roared, slamming his arm across his face to shield his eyes from the biting gas.
He lunged forward, grabbing Margaret by the waist and pulling her toward the back door. Clara kicked the heavy oak front door wide open, but a loud, metallic crack echoed through the trees, and a high-caliber bullet splintered the wooden doorframe inches from her face.
Someone was shooting from the tree line.
"The cellar floor!" Margaret gasped, coughing violently as the thick smoke billowed into her lungs. "The trapdoor under the rug!"
Julian didn't hesitate. He kicked aside the hand-woven rag rug near the kitchen stove, revealing a heavy iron ring set into the floorboards. He pulled it up with a desperate grunt, revealing a dark, wooden flight of stairs leading down into the earth.
"Go! Both of you, go!" Julian commanded, pushing Clara and Margaret down into the darkness.
Clara scrambled down the steps, supporting her mother's frail weight. Julian jumped down behind them, grabbing the heavy wooden trapdoor and pulling it shut just as a hail of bullets ripped through the cabin's floorboards above them.
He slammed the heavy iron bolt into place, locking the trapdoor from below.
The cellar was dark, cool, and smelled of damp soil and stored root vegetables. A faint line of light cut through the cracks in the ceiling boards above, illuminated by the growing glow of orange fire. The cabin above them was burning.
"Is there an exit?" Julian asked, his voice low and urgent as he pulled a small silver flashlight from his pocket and clicked it on.
"The old drainage tunnel," Margaret said, pointing a trembling hand toward a low, arched brick opening at the far end of the cellar. "It leads out to the creek bed behind the waterfall. I dug it out twenty years ago in case they ever came for me."
"Then move," Julian ordered, guiding them toward the tunnel. "Arthur knows we're here. He threw that canister. He wants to burn the cabin to the ground just like he burnt the study twenty-two years ago."
They ducked into the narrow brick passage, the stone walls dripping with icy groundwater. Above them, the floorboards of the cabin groaned and crackled as the fire consumed the timber structure.
As they reached the end of the tunnel, the cool spray of the creek hit Clara's face. They emerged behind a roaring curtain of water, crouching on a slick stone ledge overlooking the ravine.
Through the translucent sheet of falling water, Clara looked up at the ridge.
Standing on the embankment above the burning cabin was a tall figure dressed in a heavy black oilskin coat, holding a hunting rifle with a telescopic sight. As the flames illuminated his face, Clara felt her breath catch in her throat.
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He had Julian’s broad frame, Julian’s sharp chin, and Julian’s silver-streaked hair. But his face was scarred across the left cheek, his eyes twisted into a cold, psychotic sneer of triumph as he watched the cabin collapse into a pillar of roaring flames.
Arthur Blackwood was very much alive.
