Chapter 3 - The Breach of the Vault
Arthur didn't listen to another word.
He turned on his heel and bolted down the dark corridor toward the cellar entrance. His heavy boots slammed against the hardwood floors, echoing like gunshots through the long, narrow hallway. Behind him, he heard Maria's muffled cries and the distant, howling fury of the storm outside, but all of it faded into a dull, meaningless background hum.
He reached the end of the hallway. There, set deep into a heavy stone archway, sat the door to the cellar. It was a massive, ancient slab of solid black oak, four inches thick, reinforced with crossbeams of hand-forged wrought iron.
The heavy iron slide latch had been pushed firmly into place, secured with a thick steel padlock—a lock that Eleanor had brought into the house three weeks ago under the pretense of "securing the estate's historical artifacts."
Arthur threw his weight against the iron latch, pulling at it with his bare hands. It didn't budge. The iron was cold, slick with condensation.
"Lily!" Arthur screamed, pressing his face against the crack of the heavy door. "Lily! Can you hear me?!"
From the deep, cavernous void behind the wood came a sound that made Arthur’s blood turn to liquid fire.
It was a tiny, raspy whimpering—a child weeping so hard that her lungs had run out of air.
"Daddy?" a faint, suffocated voice sobbed from the dark below. "Daddy, please! It's so dark! The water is coming, Daddy! I can't breathe! Please open the door!"
"I'm here, baby! Daddy's here!" Arthur yelled, his hands frantically searching the top of the door frame for the key. Nothing. Eleanor had taken it.
A wave of pure, unadulterated adrenaline surged through Arthur’s veins. He backed up three paces into the narrow hallway, his eyes fixed on the heavy oak door. He didn't look for a crowbar. He didn't look for a key. He became a weapon.
With a primal, guttural roar, Arthur charged forward, throwing his entire two-hundred-pound frame shoulder-first into the center of the oak door.
BOOM!
The impact rattled his spine, sending a sharp, shooting agony down his left arm and neck. The heavy wood groaned, but the iron latch held fast.
"Daddy!" Lily shrieked from inside, her voice shrill with terror.
"Hold on, Lily!"
Arthur backed up again. He ignored the blinding pain in his shoulder. He ignored the blood beginning to soak through his shirt sleeve where the wood had torn his skin. He backed up five paces this time, his dark eyes locked onto the rusted iron strike plate set into the stone wall.
He charged again.
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BOOM!
This time, the sound of splintering oak echoed through the corridor. The ancient iron screws securing the latch to the stone wall sheared off with a sharp metallic snap. The heavy oak door swung violently inward, crashing against the interior stone wall of the stairwell.
