Chapter 5 - The Red Door on Mill Street
The rain was falling in relentless, gray sheets when the SUV pulled to the curb outside 412 Mill Street.
The structure was a narrow, two-story brick townhouse that had survived the demolition of the old industrial quarter. Its facade was covered in dark soot, the windows on the upper floor boarded up with weathered plywood, the front porch sagging under the weight of rotting wood. A tall, rusted chain-link fence enclosed a tiny front yard choked with dead weeds and trash.
Ethan stepped out of the car, his hand tucked firmly into his jacket pocket, feeling the cold steel of the firearm against his ribs. Vance stepped out beside him, pulling a heavy tactical flashlight from his door panel.
"Stay in the car, Leo," Ethan instructed softly, looking back at the boy. "Lock the doors. Don't open them for anyone except Vance or me."
Leo nodded, his small face pressed against the glass as he watched his father walk toward the iron gate.
The air smelled of ozone, stagnant canal water, and wet rust. Ethan pushed the gate open; the hinges screamed with a sharp, metallic screech that cut through the sound of the rain. He walked up the three rotting wooden steps of the porch, Vance half a pace behind him, scanning the upper windows for any sign of movement.
The front door was solid oak, painted a peeling, flaking crimson red.
Ethan didn't bother knocking. He turned the brass knob; it was locked solid.
"Allow me, sir," Vance murmured. He stepped forward, raised his heavy tactical boot, and drove it with violent precision into the latch point beside the lock.
BOOM.
The doorframe shattered, wooden splinters flying into the dark hallway inside as the heavy red door swung open, bouncing off the interior wall with a hollow thud.
A suffocating smell hit Ethan instantly—a nauseating mixture of damp mold, stale urine, copper, and the unmistakable, sweetish stench of advanced gangrene and unwashed illness.
Ethan stepped across the threshold, his shoes crunching on broken glass and dead plaster. The hallway was pitch black, saved for the narrow beam of Vance’s flashlight cutting through the thick, swirling dust.
"Olivia!" Ethan yelled, his voice echoing off the bare lath-and-plaster walls. "Olivia!"
Silence answered him—a heavy, suffocating silence broken only by the rhythmic dripping of water from a leaky ceiling pipe somewhere in the darkness.
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Then, from deep below the floorboards—from the far end of the hallway beneath a set of narrow cellar stairs—came a tiny, rattling gasp.
Ethan...
