Chapter 11 - The Incinerator
"End of the line, children," Sterling said.
He didn't hesitate. He pulled the front trigger.
The shotgun roared in the enclosed concrete space, a deafening blast that shattered Julian's ears with a blinding wall of white noise. A spray of heavy lead buckshot tore through the coal pile, sending black dust exploding into the air like a smoke grenade.
Julian dragged Maya behind the massive iron body of the old boiler just as the second barrel went off, the shot ricocheting off the iron casing with a sound like a screaming whistle.
"Go!" Julian yelled, his ears ringing so loudly he couldn't even hear his own voice.
They stumbled through the narrow archway into the incinerator room.
The room was dominated by a three-story brick furnace, its heavy iron doors hanging open like a gaping maw. The scent of ancient soot, charred bone, and damp moss hung heavy in the air.
At the back of the furnace, three feet above the iron ash grate, was the intake hatch that led directly to the underground river culvert.
"In there!" Maya pointed toward the furnace door.
"Are you insane?" Julian shouted through the ringing in his ears. "If he traps us in the brick—"
"It’s the only way out!" she screamed back, pulling him by his jacket. "The culvert drops into the creek half a mile down! He can't follow us with the gun!"
Behind them, the heavy tread of Sterling's boots crunched into the incinerator room.
Julian didn't argue anymore. He grabbed the iron edge of the furnace opening, hauled himself up onto the ash grate, and pulled Maya up behind him.
The inside of the furnace was pitch black, narrow, and slick with decades of fine gray soot. They crawled on their bellies through the narrow flue, the air turning ice cold as they moved away from the building foundation.
Behind them, a yellow circle of light hit the front ash door.
Sterling peered inside, the barrel of his shotgun poking into the brick opening.
"I have your sister's phone, Julian!" Sterling’s voice echoed through the narrow brick flue, distorted and hollow. "If you step into that river, I make one call to the house, and the man watching her finishes what we started three years ago!"
Julian froze in the dark crawlspace, his hands planted in the soot, his heart stopping dead in his chest.
Maya turned her head back in the dark, her eyes catching the faint light from the furnace door.
"He's lying," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "He doesn't have a man at the house. He works alone. He’s always worked alone."
Julian looked at her in the dark. "How do you know?"
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"Because," Maya rasped, her thumb tracing a jagged scar on her own neck, "I'm his daughter."
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