Chapter 3 - The Room Behind the Wardrobe
Ethan did not go alone.
He understood enough about Claire's family to stop respecting instructions designed around secrecy.
He took a flashlight, a pry bar and the mansion's structural plans.
Claire came with him.
Lily stayed downstairs with security.
She protested.
Ethan did not bend.
“This one is not negotiable.”
Lily crossed her arms.
“Because I'm a kid?”
“Because the hand stole a hammer.”
“Borrowed.”
“It did not ask.”
“Maybe it can't talk.”
Ethan almost smiled.
“Still staying downstairs.”
They returned to the bedroom.
The wardrobe stood exactly as before.
Doors open.
Dark clothing hanging motionless.
The hole seemed blacker than it should.
Ethan shone the flashlight inside.
Light disappeared after three feet.
Claire stood behind him.
“That's impossible.”
“What?”
“The wall ends there.”
She pointed toward the exterior.
The original architectural drawings confirmed it.
But Ethan had discovered newer plans.
A renovation occurred eighteen years earlier.
After Jonah disappeared.
A false wall had been added.
Between the bedroom and exterior masonry ran a hidden corridor almost four feet wide.
It continued downward through utility shafts.
Someone had deliberately created a tunnel network around the original service passages.
Ethan removed clothing from the wardrobe.
Behind the back panel, faint seams appeared.
He wedged the pry bar.
Claire whispered:
“Don't.”
“Why?”
“If Jonah is in there…”
“Then he's been waiting twenty years.”
The panel cracked open.
A smell escaped.
Dampness.
Rust.
Something animal.
Something medicinal.
Claire gagged.
Ethan widened the opening.
Inside was a narrow corridor.
Black.
Scratches covered the walls.
Long vertical lines.
Thousands.
Some at adult shoulder height.
Others lower.
Ethan stepped inside.
Claire followed.
The corridor descended behind the mansion walls.
Every few feet they found small vents leading into rooms.
Someone could have observed the household unseen.
Claire stared through one into Lily's bedroom.
“Oh my God.”
Ethan's anger surged.
“He's been watching her.”
“Or protecting her.”
“Don't romanticize this.”
“I wasn't.”
They moved deeper.
Then found bowls.
Empty water bottles.
Chicken bones.
Lily had been feeding more than a single drumstick.
She had been sneaking food.
Ethan whispered:
“How much has she been giving him?”
Claire saw chalk marks.
One line for each day.
Forty-two.
Six weeks.
Exactly what Lily said.
Then another discovery.
A blanket.
Small.
Powder blue.
Lily's old blanket from infancy.
Claire picked it up.
“I threw this away.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
Someone had taken it.
Beside it was a photograph.
Lily as a newborn.
Ethan holding her.
Claire asleep in hospital bed.
The photo had never been printed.
It came from Ethan's phone.
Someone had access.
Claire whispered:
“This isn't Jonah.”
“How do you know?”
“He disappeared before Lily was born.”
“He could have been watching.”
“No.”
She pointed.
The picture had writing on it.
SHE HAS HIS EYES.
Same phrase.
Ethan felt anger rising.
“Whose?”
A scraping noise answered.
Close.
Ethan raised the flashlight.
At the corridor bend—
the filthy hand appeared around the corner.
Then part of an arm.
Thin.
Gray-black with grime.
Scarred.
Human.
Too long.
The elbow angle looked wrong.
Claire gasped.
“Jonah?”
The hand froze.
Ethan watched.
Claire stepped forward.
“Jonah?”
Three knocks against the wall.
Claire began crying.
“It is you.”
A second hand appeared.
Same distortion.
Then hair.
Long.
Matted.
Dark.
A face almost emerged.
Then stopped before the flashlight reached it fully.
Ethan caught only one eye.
Blue.
Huge in the darkness because the pupil was massively dilated.
Human iris.
Human fear.
Claire whispered:
“I'm sorry.”
The figure retreated.
“No.”
She followed.
Ethan grabbed her.
“Don't.”
“He knows me.”
“He also has claws.”
“Those aren't claws.”
She had seen something Ethan missed.
“Nails.”
Long.
Thickened.
Deformed.
Not animal claws.
Human keratin overgrowth.
The creature wasn't a monster.
Not biologically.
At least not entirely.
The corridor ended at a steel door.
Locked from the other side.
The figure disappeared beneath it through an opening too narrow for a normal adult torso.
Ethan crouched.
“What happened to him?”
Claire noticed numbers scratched into the metal.
Repeated.
Then:
VOSS.
Claire froze.
“Samuel Voss.”
The doctor who told her about the embryo.
Ethan found another word.
MALCOLM.
Crossed out violently.
Then one sentence.
HE MADE THREE OF US.
Claire stared.
“Three?”
Ethan felt the mystery widening.
Jonah had not been the only subject.
Maybe not even the first.
They forced the steel door.
Beyond was an underground room.
Old medical equipment.
Restraint bed.
Refrigerators.
Computers destroyed long ago.
Photographs remained.
Ethan lifted one.
Teenage Jonah.
Seventeen.
Normal.
Next photograph:
Jonah months later.
Gaunt.
Eyes enlarged from medication or darkness.
Fingers beginning to lengthen.
Another:
two years later.
He looked less human only because suffering had reshaped him.
Not because he had become another species.
His joints had changed.
Skin thickened.
Hair uncut.
Nails deformed.
But he was still Jonah.
Claire collapsed into a chair.
“What did they do?”
A file answered partially.
PROJECT NOCTURNE.
Lead investigator:
Dr. Samuel Voss.
Sponsor:
Malcolm Hart.
Objective:
Induce adaptive survival traits through regenerative gene activation.
Target traits included enhanced night vision, tissue repair, reduced caloric dependence and increased tactile sensitivity.
Human subjects.
Three.
SUBJECT ONE: JONAH HART.
SUBJECT TWO: REDACTED.
SUBJECT THREE: REDACTED.
Claire turned pages.
Jonah had not volunteered.
Malcolm signed parental consent.
His son was seventeen.
The ethical horror barely fit inside the phrase.
Ethan continued.
The experimental compound initially caused rapid healing.
Then uncontrolled connective-tissue growth.
Nerve changes.
Photosensitivity.
Bone remodeling.
Jonah became unable to tolerate daylight.
Voss wanted termination.
Malcolm refused.
He considered Jonah “proof of concept.”
Claire cried silently.
Ethan found the final page.
Reproductive viability.
Jonah Hart:
sterile.
Claire looked at him.
“He can't be Lily's father.”
“No.”
Then they found Subject Two.
A photograph had slipped behind the cabinet.
A man around twenty-five.
Blond.
Blue eyes.
Normal-looking.
Name:
ADAM REESE.
Ethan stared.
He knew that face.
From somewhere.
Claire did too.
“Who is that?”
Ethan whispered:
“My mother's brother.”
Claire froze.
“Your uncle?”
“Adam disappeared before I was born.”
Another Hart secret connected to Ethan's family.
Then Subject Three's photograph emerged.
A woman.
Brunette.
Twenty-one.
May you like
Claire screamed.
It was Claire.
