Chapter 20 - A Knock in the Frozen Night
By eight in the evening, the valley was locked in deep, freezing darkness. A fresh layer of snow had begun to fall, muffling the distant sounds of Bell Creek into complete silence. Sarah Thorne had left an hour earlier, leaving behind an empty pie dish and a folder of final title deeds declaring Mom the unencumbered, sole owner of every square foot of 414 Elm Street.
Mom was sitting in her favorite armchair by the hearth, her spectacles balanced on her nose as she thumbed through an old album of family photographs. She lingered for a moment on a picture of Danny when he was seven, grinning beside a soapbox derby car our father had helped him build. She ran her thumb over the yellowed print, sighed quietly, and closed the album.
"He made his choices, Mom," I said gently from the kitchen island, where I was packing away the leftover supper.
"I know, Nell," she said, looking into the fire. "A mother always looks back, wondering which seed grew into a thorn. But Danny tore down his own roof. Now he has to sleep under the cold sky."
Suddenly, the phone on the kitchen counter buzzed with a sharp, insistent vibration.
I picked it up. It was Detective Miller from the county sheriff's department.
"Nell?" Miller’s voice was clipped, urgent, stripped of its usual calm drawl. "Are you and your mother inside?"
A cold prickle of alarm ran down my spine. "Yes, Detective. We're by the fire. Officer Vance is parked down the street, isn't he?"
"Vance just got pulled away to an overturned fuel tanker on the state highway," Miller said quickly. "Nell, listen to me very carefully. Richard Finch didn't stay in the hospital infirmary."
My grip tightened on the receiver until my knuckles ached. "What do you mean? Sarah said he was transferred to detention!"
"The transport van was intercepted twenty minutes ago on the old logging cut above the ridge," Miller said, sirens wailing loudly in the background of his call. "A private security detail hired out of state blocked the road. Finch slipped away into the timber line. We're mobilizing every unit in two counties, but his last known vehicle was seen turning south toward the township boundaries."
"Toward Elm Street?" I breathed, my heart slamming against my ribs.
"Keep your doors locked, Nell. Don't go near the windows. I’m four minutes out with three patrol cars. Just hold—"
The line went dead. A hollow burst of static hissed in my ear, followed by the flat, lifeless buzz of a severed landline.
Across the room, the lights in the living room flickered once, twice, and then plunged into total, pitch-black darkness.
Only the red glow of the woodstove remained, casting long, bloody shadows across the wooden floorboards.
Mom stood up from her chair, her cane tapping sharply against the hearthstone. "Nell? What was that?"
"Stay down, Mom," I whispered, reaching into the utility drawer beside the sink and pulling out our father’s heavy steel flashlight.
Outside, the crunch of heavy boots sounded on the frozen snow of the back porch.
Then came three slow, deliberate raps on the kitchen door.
May you like
From the other side of the thin wood, a voice—rough, rasping, and dripping with desperate, dying malice—spoke into the freezing night:
"Open the door, Evelyn. Before I burn this house to the ground."