Chapter 22 - The Echo in the Walls
A sudden sound shattered the subterranean silence.
*Click.*
Then the static hiss of an old magnetic tape player spinning to life.
I spun around, pistol raised, sweeping the shadows of the bunker. The sound was coming from an old speaker horn mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
A voice crackled through the speaker—hoarse, raspy, damaged by years of breathing damp cellar air, yet horrifyingly familiar in its intonation. It sounded like a shattered mirror of my own voice.
*"Do you know what it’s like to listen to your brother laugh on the lawn above your head, David?"* the voice whispered through the static. *"Thirty-four years of your birthdays. Thirty-four years of Christmas carols filtering down through the drainage grates."*
"Where are you?" I screamed into the empty bunker. "Where is my family?"
*"Mother told me I was a monster,"* the voice continued, accompanied by a soft, wet cough. *"She said my face would make people vomit. She said my mind was a disease. But when she locked Elena down here ten years ago... I wasn't alone anymore. I watched Elena through the observation slot behind the cistern wall. I watched her weep. I watched her scream for you. And you never came. Not for eight whole months."*
Cold sweat ran down my neck. Celeste hadn't been the only one visiting the cellar.
*"I gave Elena extra water when Celeste forgot,"* the voice whispered. *"I dropped crushed crackers through the floor drain when she was starving. Elena thought God was feeding her. It wasn't God, David. It was your sister. The monster you forgot to bury."*
"Evelyn," I choked out, lowering the weapon slightly, desperation cracking my voice. "I didn't know. I swear to God, I never knew you existed! My father told me you died at birth!"
*"It doesn't matter what you knew,"* the recording clicked and skipped, followed by the terrifying sound of a live microphone being turned on somewhere nearby.
The live voice didn't come from the speaker.
May you like
It came from the dark tunnel at the end of the bunker.
"What matters is what you owe me, brother."
