He was staring at the back door in the kitchen.
I scrambled back to the living room, quietly sliding the laptop into my backpack. I grabbed the heavy iron fire poker from the hearth. I needed a real weapon. I remembered finding Arthur’s old military service pistol in the study a week ago. It was unloaded, but I had seen a heavy, brass-filled magazine sitting in the bottom drawer of the desk.
I crept down the hallway, keeping my back pressed tightly against the floral wallpaper, listening to the deafening roar of the rain pounding against the roof.
CRASH.
The explosive sound of shattering glass echoed from the kitchen. Someone had thrown a heavy brick through the window of the back door, reaching in to unlock the deadbolt.
I didn't stop. I slipped into the dark study, silently closing the heavy oak door behind me and engaging the brass lock. I dropped to my knees, feeling around in the pitch blackness until my hands hit the cold metal handle of the bottom desk drawer. I ripped it open, frantically searching through the loose papers and pens until my fingers wrapped around the heavy, cold metal of the loaded magazine.
I grabbed the pistol from the top drawer, my hands trembling so violently I could barely align the magazine with the grip. I slammed it upward. It clicked into place with a loud, metallic snap. I pulled the heavy slide back, chambering a round.
I had never fired a gun in my life.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside the study. Heavy, wet, squeaking boots moving slowly and deliberately across the wooden floorboards.
“Ethan,” David’s voice called out. It didn’t sound friendly anymore. It was flat, cold, and entirely devoid of emotion. “I saw the broken collar on the kitchen floor. You found it, didn’t you?”
I held my breath, aiming the heavy pistol toward the wooden door.
“You’re making a terrible mistake, son,” David continued, his voice moving closer. “Arthur was a thief. He stole that money, and I was just trying to recover it for the town. If you give me the drive, you can walk away. You can go back to Chicago. I’ll even wire the money for the house tonight. You don’t have to die for an old man’s lies.”
He was standing right outside the study door. I could see the shadow of his feet blocking the faint ambient light from beneath the gap.
The brass doorknob rattled aggressively.
“Open the door, Ethan,” David demanded, his voice dropping an octave into a vicious threat.
I slowly backed away toward the rear of the study. There was a secondary door here, a narrow, heavy wooden door that led directly down into the unfinished basement. I blindly reached behind me, turning the handle. It opened silently.
“Last chance, Ethan,” David said.
A heavy, metallic thud echoed against the door. He had a weapon. Probably a crowbar. He swung again, the wood splintering loudly near the lock.
I slipped through the secondary door, closing it softly behind me, and began to descend the steep, wooden stairs into the pitch-black basement. The air down here was freezing, smelling strongly of damp concrete and old mildew.
I reached the bottom of the stairs, pressing myself against the cold steel of the massive old furnace.
Upstairs, the study door finally gave way with a deafening crash. Heavy boots entered the room.
“Ethan?” David called out.
A flashlight beam suddenly pierced the darkness at the top of the basement stairs, sweeping across the wooden steps.
“I know you’re down there,” David said quietly.
He took the first step down into the dark.
The wooden stairs groaned loudly under David’s immense weight as he slowly descended into the freezing basement.
I pressed my back harder against the freezing steel of the massive furnace, gripping the heavy pistol with both hands. My palms were sweating so profusely the metal grip felt dangerously slick. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to regulate my ragged, shallow breathing as the sweeping beam of his flashlight cut through the darkness, illuminating the dusty concrete floor mere inches from my boots.
“You know, I genuinely liked your uncle,” David’s voice echoed in the cavernous space, smooth and eerily calm. “He was a good man. But he didn’t understand the modern world. Those old men at the charity, they were dying off anyway. The money was just sitting in low-yield accounts, rotting. I put it to work. I built things for this town.”
He took another step down. The flashlight beam swept across a stack of cardboard boxes near the laundry machines.
“But Arthur had to play the righteous soldier,” David continued, his heavy boots echoing on the concrete as he finally reached the bottom floor. “He found the transfer logs. He wouldn't negotiate. He wouldn't listen to reason. I didn't want to hurt him, Ethan. I really didn't. I just stood in his kitchen while he clutched his chest, and I took his little brown pill bottle, and I watched him fade away.”
Hearing the casual, monstrous confession of how my uncle died sent a white-hot surge of adrenaline through my veins, instantly burning away the paralyzing terror. I wasn't just a bankrupt failure hiding in the dark anymore. I was the only person left to hold this man accountable.
“And now, you’re making me do this to you,” David sighed heavily. “Hand over the drive, Ethan. Don’t make me hunt you in the dark.”
I stepped out from behind the massive steel furnace, raising the heavy pistol directly into the blinding beam of his flashlight.
“Drop the light, David,” I shouted, my voice surprisingly steady, echoing fiercely off the concrete walls.
David stopped moving. The blinding light remained fixed directly on my face. Through the glare, I could barely make out his massive silhouette. In his right hand, resting casually against his leg, he held a heavy, rusted steel crowbar.
“Well, look at that,” David chuckled softly, sounding completely unfazed. “The city boy found Arthur’s old relic. You don’t even have a firm grip on it, son. You pull that trigger, the recoil is going to break your wrist. And you’ll probably miss.”
He took a slow, calculated step forward.