Chapter 6 - The Foundation beneath the Storm
Clara didn't stop to watch her father fall. A primal scream tore through her throat, but her legs carried her forward across the slick, grassy plateau toward the keeper’s cottage. She clutched Lily with a ferocious, unyielding grip, her boots slipping on the wet grass, the freezing rain blinding her vision.
Behind her, footsteps pounded across the granite plateau.
"Get the girl!" Julian’s voice raged through the storm. "Alive! I need her alive!"
Clara reached the rickety wooden porch of the keeper’s cottage. She threw her shoulder against the rotted side door, bursting into the dark, damp interior. The air inside smelled of salt rot, mildew, and wet earth.
She slammed the door shut behind her and threw the heavy iron bolt into place. Outside, boots stomped onto the porch floorboards seconds later, followed by violent shoulder blows against the wooden door.
"Clara! Open this door!" Julian roared from the other side, his voice muffled by the thick timber. "Don't do this! You're sick! You're having a psychotic episode brought on by the pregnancy! Let me help you!"
"Liar!" Clara screamed, her voice echoing through the hollow cabin.
She turned and scanned the room. The cottage was stripped bare, save for an old cast-iron stove and a stack of rotting firewood in the far corner.
Remembering Arthur's instructions, she ran to the woodpile, using her bare hands to hurl the moss-covered logs aside. Beneath the rotting wood sat a heavy, square iron trapdoor embedded directly into the stone floor, locked with a brass combination dial.
Outside, the wooden door began to splinter under repeated axe blows. A blade burst through the upper panel, showering wood chips onto the floor.
Clara dropped to her knees beside the trapdoor. She looked at the brass dial. Four numbers.
Her mind went completely blank. Panic clawed at her throat. Four numbers. What are the numbers?
"Think, Clara, think!" she begged herself, tears streaming down her face as Lily cried uncontrollably beside her. Dates? Birthdays? Addresses?
The axe struck the door again, widening the hole. A gloved hand reached through, reaching down to unlatch the iron bolt.
Clara’s hands hovered over the cold brass dial. Suddenly, Arthur’s words echoed in her mind: Your hands will remember.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself to stop thinking, letting her frantic mind quiet down for a single, terrifying second. Her fingers touched the cold, knurled metal of the dial. Without conscious thought, her right thumb rotated the dial smoothly to the left, stopping precisely at 0-8. Then right to 1-4. Left to 0-2. Right to 1-9.
August 14, 2019. The day she had completed the blueprint designs for the Apex Vaults.
CLICK.
The heavy iron latch disengaged with a deep, satisfying metallic thud.
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Clara grabbed the iron ring, hauled the trapdoor open, revealing a steep, narrow stone staircase descending into pitch-black darkness beneath the cottage foundation.
She grabbed Lily, slid her body down through the narrow opening, and pulled the heavy iron door shut above them just as the cottage door shattered completely and boots thundered onto the floorboards above.
