Chapter 7 - Buried Alive
“They’re sealing us in!” Agent Vance yelled, lunging up the wooden ladder and slamming his hands against the underside of the steel hatch just as a heavy padlock clicked shut into place with a sharp, metallic finality.
Vance threw his weight upward, driving his shoulder into the metal, but the hatch didn't budge. Heavy earth and gravel poured down through the narrow cracks around the frame as a piece of heavy machinery—likely a front-end loader or a tactical vehicle—rumbled directly over the top of the cellar.
“Stand back!” Hayes ordered, raising his assault rifle toward the wooden ceiling rafters.
“Don't shoot!” I yelled, grabbing his arm. “The cellar is reinforced with concrete and brick, but the floor is full of old fuel storage and fertilizer cans from Michael’s gardening supplies. A stray round down here will turn this whole bunker into a crematorium!”
The grinding roar above us intensified, and the air in the cellar quickly grew thick with choking dust as tons of dirt were shoved over the entrance, cutting off our primary source of ventilation. The green tactical flashlight flickered against the damp walls, casting long, twisting shadows across the crates.
My mother began to cough violently, clutching her chest. I rushed to her side, pulling a clean field handkerchief from my pocket and pressing it to her mouth.
“Mama, breathe with me. Slow and deep,” I commanded, keeping my voice steady despite the rising panic clawing at my throat.
“General,” Vance called out from the dark, his flashlight beam aimed at the far corner of the cellar behind a rotting wooden workbench. “Look at this.”
I helped my mother lean against a solid stack of storage boxes and crawled over the dirt floor toward Vance. Partially concealed behind an old tarp was a low, square iron grate set flush into the concrete foundation wall. A rusted latch held it closed, but the metal screws around the frame looked loose, caked in fresh mud rather than decades of dust.
“It’s an old drainage culvert,” I realized, shining my light into the dark, narrow tunnel beyond the grate. “It runs out past the property line toward the creek bed behind the tree line.”
“It’s tight,” Hayes muttered, inspecting the opening. “And we don't know where it exits.”
“It beats being buried alive,” I said, grabbing a heavy iron wrench from the workbench and wedging it into the latch. With a sharp twist, the rusted screws groaned and snapped, the iron grate clattering onto the dirt floor.
A draft of cold, wet night air rushed into the claustrophobic space, smelling of wet pine and freedom.
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“Vance, you take the lead with your sidearm,” I instructed, pulling the encrypted hard drive and my weapon out. “Hayes, you help my mother. I’ll take the rear and cover our exit.”
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