She Heard Her Grandson Screaming Behind the Nursery Door—Then She Saw His Father Sitting There Doing Nothing. But the moment Grandma noticed the tiny red light above the crib, she realized the camera had captured something far worse than anyone expected. / Chapter 37 / 50

Chapter 37 - The Red Light Bloodbath

"Ethan, now!" Margaret screamed.

Ethan didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger.

The gunshot in the enclosed concrete basement was deafening, a thunderclap of raw violence that shattered the overhead fluorescent tube, plunging the room into chaotic, strobe-lit madness. The bullet tore through Clara’s shoulder, spinning her backward against the plastic sheeting.

The detonator slipped from her fingers, clattering across the concrete floor.

Ethan lunged forward to secure the device, but the shadows in the corner of the cellar came alive.

From behind the brick furnace stepped a man—massive, barrel-chested, wearing a Kevlar vest and night-vision goggles. It was Harlan Higgins, Clara’s son, the disgraced former county sheriff who had supposedly drowned in Lake George three years ago.

Harlan moved with brutal military precision. A heavy combat boot caught Ethan in the ribs, sending him crashing into the metal shelves. Glass jars exploded on impact, raining shards and fermented syrup down on him. Ethan lost his grip on the revolver; it slid beneath the water heater.

"Ethan!" Sarah shrieked through the tape, thrashing so violently that the cast-iron chair tipped sideways, crashing to the floor with a bone-jarring impact.

Harlan drew a twelve-inch hunting knife from his tactical belt, stepping over Ethan’s writhing body, raising the blade with two hands to plunge it into Ethan’s chest.

Margaret didn't think. The seventy-year-old grandmother ceased to exist.

She seized the heavy, cast-iron fire poker that had rested beside the coal chute since her wedding day. With a low, guttural roar that came from the deepest, most primal core of maternal fury, Margaret charged.

She swung the iron poker with the full rotational force of her body, connecting squarely with the back of Harlan’s knee.

A sickening *crack* echoed through the room. Harlan howled in agony as his joint buckled backward. He collapsed onto one knee, turning his blade toward Margaret, slashing wild arcs through the air.

The blade sliced across Margaret’s forearm, opening a deep, searing gash that painted the concrete with crimson. Margaret didn't even blink. Pain was irrelevant. Noah was waiting in the truck. Sarah was on the floor.

Ethan scrambled from beneath the shattered shelving, clutching a jagged glass shard from a broken pickle jar. Before Harlan could swing his knife at Margaret a second time, Ethan drove the eight-inch shard of thick glass directly into the side of Harlan’s neck.

Harlan choked, his eyes bulging behind the green lenses of his night-vision goggles. Blood erupted in a dark, rhythmic geyser against the plastic sheeting. He dropped the hunting knife, clawing at his throat, gargling on his own blood, before collapsing face-first into the pool of red water.

"Ethan... Sarah..." Margaret gasped, clutching her bleeding arm, stumbling toward the fallen chair.

Ethan was already on his knees beside Sarah. He ripped the heavy duct tape from her mouth.

Sarah choked on a lungful of clean air, throwing her bruised face against Ethan’s shoulder, weeping hysterically. "Ethan! He’s alive... is Noah alive? Tell me he’s alive!"

"He’s alive, Sarah. He’s outside. He’s safe," Ethan sobbed, pulling the hunting knife from the floor, frantically sawing through the thick industrial zip-ties binding her wrists and ankles. "I'm sorry. God, Sarah, I'm so sorry..."

"Ethan, look out!" Margaret yelled.

On the other side of the cellar, Clara Higgins was crawling.

Her shoulder was mangled from Ethan’s bullet, leaving a dark smear of blood across the floor, but her left hand had reached the gas valve beneath the main water heater. She had a heavy pipe wrench in her grip.

With a final, manic burst of strength, Clara slammed the wrench against the brass coupling of the main natural gas line.

The metal sheared off with a deafening *hiss*.

A cloud of high-pressure methane gas began roaring into the enclosed cellar, filling the air with the suffocating stench of sulfur and rotten eggs.

Clara rolled onto her back, her bloody lips peeling back over her teeth in a ghastly, triumphant sneer. In her trembling left hand, she held a battered silver Zippo lighter.