David Morrell: Long lost

The floor had no carpet. It looked solid. Nonetheless, I stayed to the edge of the hallway and inched along. When I came to the door beneath the stairs, I tested the knob. It turned freely in my hand. But another trap might be behind it. So I pulled the flashlight from my belt, gently opened the door an inch, and scanned the light up and down, looking for a cord.

The area beyond was totally dark. Warily opening the door a few inches farther, I smelled something bitter, like camphor.

Mothballs.

I opened the door farther, aimed the flashlight, and saw coats and dresses on a rod. A closet. No! Furious, I used the blunt end of the broom to prod among the clothes. I tapped the floor. The walls. Nothing sounded hollow. Where the hell was the entrance to the basement?

Hurry! I thought.

I remembered the previous night when I'd watched Petey's silhouette through the window. He'd been cooking. Then his silhouette had disappeared. I'd assumed that he'd been eating in an area of the kitchen that was out of my view.

But what if he'd taken the food to Kate and Jason?

In the kitchen? How? There wasn't a door to the basement.

A shock of understanding hit me. Trying not to let my eagerness make me careless, I returned the way I'd come. I paused only once: to look through the front windows, past the windswept shrubs, and check if Petey's truck was returning. Then I stepped over the open trapdoor between the parlor and the dining room, rushing into the kitchen.

The pantry. I tapped the walls behind the canned goods on the shelves. They sounded solid. I glanced down at the floor, realized what Petey had done, and grabbed the workbench upon which the shotgun had been secured. Tugging it away, I saw the outline of another trapdoor. This one had a ring. I pulled upward and stared down at wooden steps descending into darkness.

"Kate! Jason!"

The names echoed back to me.

No one shouted in return.

I tilted the trapdoor back so that it rested against the shelves behind it. I positioned the workbench so that if the trapdoor accidentally fell, it would be stopped before it slammed down and possibly locked. Then I aimed my flashlight into the darkness, saw a switch on a post about five steps down, and tested the first step as I eased down to turn on the basement lights.

No, I warned myself. Petey wouldn't booby-trap the ground floor and not do something to the basement, as well. I'd gotten this far because I'd put myself in his place. I thought like him. What would Petey have done to protect the basement?

The broomstick remained in my hand. I tilted it downward, flicked the switch…

And stumbled back from an arc of electricity that shot from the switch, blackening the stick. The flash was blinding, the force so great that it knocked the stick from my hand. I felt a tingle in my palm where the current had started to reach me.

Smoke rose from the fake switch. Smelling burned wires, I aimed the flashlight again and went cautiously down a few more steps. I eased my weight onto each of them, always gripping one behind me for support in case a step broke away. The lower I got, the less I heard the wind. I scanned the flashlight across the basement, seeing boxes, a handyman's bench, tools on the wall above it, shelves of preserves, a washing machine, a dryer, an oil furnace, a laundry tub, and a water heater. A window above the laundry tub had been boarded over. The walls and floor were old concrete. The ceiling had pipes, wires, and joists exposed. Everything smelled of mold.

I eased lower and saw a switch on another post, this one at the bottom. Reaching it, I picked up the broomstick where it had fallen. Once more, I flicked with the stick, and this time, the switch was real. Lights glowed in the basement's ceiling: dim lights-sixty-watt bulbs-but nonetheless they made me squint.

"Kate! Jason!"

Again, my shouts echoed.

Again, no muffled voices answered me.

I oriented myself. The wall that faced the area behind the house was on my left. There wasn't a door, only a tall object like a bookshelf on which there were jars of preserved peaches and pears. I studied it from various angles, looking for another trap. I stepped protectively to the left and pushed with the broomstick.

The shelves slid away.

I inched my head around the corner, peering into the opening. The tunnel was about fifteen feet long. Its concrete was smooth and new-looking. Petey had imitated the arrangement that Orval Dant had used, with the difference that instead of a wooden ceiling, Petey had chosen concrete.

At the end was a metal-covered door. It had a deadbolt lock, but this one didn't have a knob that needed to be turned. Instead, it had a slot for a key, and I didn't have a doubt in the world that the door was locked.

I wanted to rush to it, but I hesitated. Why had Petey gone to the extra effort of building the tunnel instead of putting the cell directly next to the house? The latter setup would have been quicker and easier. Had Petey merely been imitating the arrangement that Orval had used? Or did the tunnel contain an additional trap?

I studied the bare floor, the walls, and the ceiling, unable to see a threat. About to yell to Kate and Jason again, I abruptly understood the purpose for the tunnel. If a stranger came down to the basement, Kate and Jason would be too far away to hear or be heard.

But how was I going to open the door? Noticing that its hinges were on the tunnel side, I turned to the right, toward the workbench. I grabbed a hammer and a chisel…

And stopped, a sound paralyzing me.

Something dripped. In the stillness of the basement' the slight noise seemed magnified. I focused on the laundry tub, but its taps were secure. No water leaked from them.

Drip. I turned, trying to identify the direction from which the sound came. Drip. Drip. Steady. Relentless.

My attention focused beneath the stairs. On a pipe projecting from the wall. Drip. Drip. Then I smelled it. Drip. Gasoline. Trickle. Gasoline was coming from the pipe, spreading across the concrete floor. The flow must have been activated when I'd pressed the fake switch on the stairs. Petey's final trap. If all else failed, when enough fuel emptied onto the floor, a detonator would ignite it. The house and the intruder, the evidence against Petey-everything would be obliterated.

Clutching the hammer and the chisel, I raced into the tunnel. My frenzied movements echoed as I tried the doorknob and confirmed that it was locked. I held the chisel beneath the head of a hinge pin and hammered upward, freeing it. The pin clanged onto the floor. I did the same to the two other pins and pulled at the hinges, straining to free the door.

"Kate, I'm here!" I pounded on the door. "Jason, it's Dad! I'll get you out!"

But they didn't pound on the other side of the door. I didn't hear any muffled shouts answering me.

The door wouldn't budge. I stared at the key mechanism, hoping that I could unscrew its plate and disassemble the lock, but Petey had drilled the heads off the screws.

I used the chisel and the hammer to pound at the concrete next to the lock. Chunks flew. My arms ached as I pounded harder. Larger chunks fell away. I worried about causing sparks that might detonate the fumes, but I didn't have a choice. I had to do something, anything, before the house exploded. I hoped to expose the lock's bolt, but what I came to was a stout metal sleeve into which the bolt had been seated. For all I knew, the metal sleeve went several feet into the side of the wall. It would take me all day to pound away that much concrete.

I ran back to the workbench and scanned the tools above it, looking for a crowbar. There wasn't one. I swung toward a shovel and a hoe next to the bench, looking for an ax with which I could try to chop through the metal-covered door.