Chapter 6 - The Flames
Thick, black smoke rapidly filled the small hunting cabin.
I grabbed the moth-eaten blanket, dunked it into a bucket of dirty rainwater, and threw it over Chloe.
The wooden walls were igniting with terrifying speed, turning the room into a glowing oven.
Julian wanted to erase all the evidence of his crime, even if it meant burning his own mother alive.
I searched frantically for a way out, my eyes stinging and tearing up from the toxic fumes.
Beneath the cot, I noticed a square outline cut into the wooden floorboards.
It was a heavy trapdoor leading down into an underground root cellar.
I yanked the iron ring upward, revealing a dark, damp pit just as the cabin ceiling began to collapse.
We jumped down into the cold earth, pulling the heavy door shut above us.
The roaring sound of the fire was muffled, but the heat radiating from above was unbearable.
I used the flashlight from my phone to illuminate the tight space.
At the back of the cellar, a narrow dirt tunnel sloped downward into absolute darkness.
We crawled on our hands and knees for hundreds of feet, escaping the inferno above.
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Suddenly, a bright light blinded me from the end of the tunnel.
The loud, metallic click of a shotgun being racked echoed through the confined space.
