Chapter 26 - Shadows in the Holler
"Down!" Vance shouted, drawing a semi-automatic sidearm from beneath her trench coat in a single fluid motion.
Michael and I dropped to the hardwood floor just as the front window shattered into a thousand glittering shards. Pine siding splintered above our heads as another round tore through the exterior wall, lodging deep into the stone hearth of the fireplace.
"The agents outside!" Michael yelled, crawling toward the pantry.
"They're taking cover behind the reinforced quarter-panels of the SUV," Vance shouted over the rising din. "Sterling's men aren't using local deputies or Carter Hayes' rent-a-cops. Those are suppressed semi-automatic rifles. They're private security—ex-military contractors."
I dragged myself on elbows and knees toward the narrow hallway leading to the cellar door. The house I had lived in for half a century was under siege, but fear wasn't what pumped through my veins. It was the fierce, ancient fire of an old mountain man who had buried his beloved wife in this soil and refused to let wolves desecrate her memory.
"Michael!" I barked. "Get down to the root cellar! Bring up Margaret’s cedar chest and the 12-gauge behind the gun cabinet!"
"Dad, you can't fight them with a bird gun!" Michael argued, scrambling along behind me.
"That 12-gauge loaded with double-aught buckshot has killed three rabid bears and stopped two flash floods from tearing down the barn," I retorted. "Move!"
Director Vance crawled to the edge of the shattered window, peering through the curtains with cold precision. She fired two controlled shots into the treeline across the creek. A muffled shout came from the pines, followed by the clatter of someone slipping down the shale embankment.
"They've blocked the bridge," Vance reported, reloading her weapon with calm efficiency. "A flatbed truck just dropped a reinforced steel shipping container directly across the one-lane bridge over Cold Creek. We can't drive out."
"We don't need the bridge," I said, reaching the cellar door and throwing it open. "They think there's only one road out of this hollow because Carter Hayes only ever looked at county tax maps. But this is limestone country. Margaret spent thirty years mapping every cavern, sinkhole, and underground run between here and the lower highway."
Michael returned from the basement, his breathing ragged. In his left hand he held the heavy brass cylinder wrapped in oilcloth; in his right, he carried my old Winchester pump-action shotgun along with a canvas bandolier of shells.
"The cellar floor is trembling, Dad," Michael said, his eyes wild. "Down in the deep vault, the water in the cistern is rising fast. Whatever they did with that drilling rig yesterday... it destabilized the upper cavern ceiling."
"They're using hydraulic charges," Vance said, her face pale. "Sterling isn't just trying to stop us from reaching the courthouse. He's trying to collapse the cavern ceiling right now. If the cavern collapses before we register the key, the entire hollow will cave in on itself, creating an instant sinkhole. Apex can claim it was a natural geological catastrophe, buy the ruined land for pennies at a disaster auction, and pump out the mineral brine unhindered."
The front door groaned as a heavy boot slammed against it. The heavy oak beam I had dropped into place held, but the frame shuddered violently.
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"They’re on the porch!" Vance warned, aiming directly at the center of the wooden door.
"Down the cellar!" I commanded, shoving Michael toward the stairs. "There’s an emergency ventilation shaft behind the canning shelves that Margaret built during the Cold War. It leads straight into the upper shelf of Blackwood Cavern. We go through the mountain!"
