Chapter 3 – The Voice in the Dark
Daniel's hands shook as he stared at the dead baby monitor.
"No..." he whispered.
The batteries had finally given out, but he knew what he had heard.
Not static.
Not imagination.
A child's voice.
"Help me."
Above him, Mariana was crying.
"Daniel! Get out of there!"
He ignored her.
Instead, he pulled the flashlight closer and examined the monitor.
It was an older model.
The yellowed plastic was coated with dirt, but one faded piece of masking tape still clung to the back.
Written across it in black marker were two words.
LEO'S ROOM
Daniel's heartbeat stopped.
"We threw this away..." he murmured.
Mariana heard him.
"What?"
"It belonged to us."
She stared down through the opening.
"No..."
"We used it when Leo was a baby."
"But..."
She couldn't finish the sentence.
They had replaced the monitor years before Leo disappeared.
Daniel distinctly remembered placing the old one in a donation box.
How had it ended up beneath Patricia's floor?
Patricia suddenly stood.
"We need to call the police."
Daniel looked up.
"You should have called them ten months ago."
"I did!"
"No."
His voice was ice cold.
"You called after we arrived at your house looking for Leo."
Patricia's lips trembled.
"I... I panicked."
"You've been panicking for ten months."
Daniel pushed himself farther into the crawl space.
The tunnel narrowed until he had to drag himself on his elbows.
His flashlight swept across old pipes, electrical wiring, and decades of packed dirt.
Then he noticed something strange.
The soil ahead looked different.
Smoother.
As though someone had disturbed it.
Recently.
He reached out.
The dirt collapsed beneath his fingers.
Hidden underneath was a square piece of plywood.
About three feet wide.
It had been buried intentionally.
Daniel's pulse quickened.
"Mariana."
His voice barely carried.
"I found something."
She knelt beside the opening.
"What is it?"
"A hatch."
Patricia's face went white.
"What?"
"A wooden hatch."
"That's impossible."
Daniel looked directly at her.
"You knew."
"I didn't!"
"You remodeled this house."
"The contractors never mentioned anything."
"Then why do you suddenly look terrified?"
Patricia couldn't answer.
Daniel wedged the pry bar beneath the plywood.
It resisted at first.
Then—
CRACK.
The hatch lifted.
A foul smell rushed into the crawl space.
Old.
Wet.
Rotting.
Daniel covered his mouth.
The flashlight beam disappeared into a narrow chamber beneath the hatch.
Concrete walls.
Barely six feet across.
Someone had built a hidden room beneath the foundation.
His light swept slowly across the darkness.
An old mattress.
Rusted food cans.
Children's coloring books.
A tiny blue sneaker.
Mariana screamed.
It matched the pair Leo had been wearing the day he vanished.
Daniel's breathing became ragged.
"No..."
He climbed down into the chamber.
Dust exploded beneath his feet.
The room looked abandoned.
But not ancient.
Someone had lived here.
A blanket still lay folded in one corner.
Plastic water bottles were scattered across the floor.
One of them still contained cloudy water.
His flashlight stopped on the wall.
Deep scratches covered the concrete.
Hundreds of them.
Some looked like desperate fingernail marks.
Others formed uneven lines.
Words.
Daniel brushed dirt away.
His heart nearly stopped.
Carved into the wall, in childish handwriting, were three heartbreaking sentences.
DAD
I WAS HERE
PLEASE FIND ME
Mariana collapsed onto the living room floor above, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
Daniel reached toward the words with trembling fingers.
The scratches weren't old.
The edges were still pale beneath the dust.
Someone had written them long after the room was built.
A loud engine suddenly roared outside.
Tires screeched across the driveway.
A truck.
Then another.
Daniel heard doors slam.
Heavy footsteps pounded toward the front porch.
A man's voice shouted from outside.
"Patricia!"
Patricia's eyes filled with absolute terror.
May you like
She whispered only one sentence before the front door burst open.
"They came back."
