Buried During Snowfall – Chapter 9
The Children in the Hallway
Neither Adrian nor Mara moved.
The office remained completely dark except for pale moonlight leaking through gaps in the curtains. Outside the door, the children’s voices had gone silent again. But the presence remained.
Waiting.
Listening.
Mara slowly raised her gun toward the doorway while Adrian stood frozen beside the desk, every nerve in his body screaming memories he still couldn’t fully reach.
Then came another whisper.
Closer this time.
“Open the door…”
A child’s voice.
Male.
Young.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
Noah.
It sounded exactly like Noah.
Mara leaned toward him slightly. “How many exits?”
“Window.”
“Too high?”
“Three stories.”
“Great.”
The whisper came again.
“You left us in the dark…”
Then scratching started beneath the door.
Slow fingernails dragging across wood.
Mara’s face tightened. “That’s not kids.”
No.
It wasn’t.
The scratching sounded wrong.
Too aggressive.
Too many hands.
Adrian stepped carefully toward the office wall where an old metal cabinet stood partially open. He pulled it wider.
Inside sat a rusted fire axe.
Mara gave him a look. “Comforting.”
Adrian gripped the handle tightly.
The scratching stopped instantly.
Absolute silence returned.
Then—
BANG.
The office door shook violently.
Another bang followed immediately after.
Not fists.
Bodies.
Something outside was slamming itself against the wood.
Mara aimed straight at the entrance now. “Back away from the door!”
Another impact.
The hinges creaked loudly.
Then children began laughing outside.
Dozens of them.
Low hysterical laughter echoing through dead hallways.
Adrian felt ice spread through his chest.
He remembered this too.
Students used to laugh during punishment nights.
Not because they found it funny.
Because they broke eventually.
Another crash.
The top hinge snapped loose.
“Window,” Mara said sharply.
Adrian moved instantly toward the curtains and ripped them aside.
The lake stretched beneath them beyond the broken glass, endless and black beneath snowfall. Emergency floodlights still glowed near the excavation site far below, though most federal vehicles had shifted positions around the lake.
Too far to jump safely.
Then Adrian noticed something else.
Footprints.
Fresh footprints in the snow directly beneath the office window.
Someone had been standing there recently watching the room.
The laughter outside stopped all at once.
Silence again.
Heavy silence.
Mara whispered, “Why do I feel that’s worse?”
Then came the voice.
Adult.
Male.
Soft.
“Adrian.”
The Headmaster.
Right outside the door.
“You brought an outsider into sacred ground.”
Adrian tightened his grip on the axe.
“You murdered children.”
“No,” the Headmaster answered calmly. “I rescued abandoned things.”
Mara shouted toward the doorway. “Federal agents are surrounding the property. You’re finished.”
A pause.
Then quiet amusement from outside.
“Detective Quinn…” the Headmaster said gently. “Do you truly believe they came here to stop me?”
Mara’s expression shifted slightly.
Because deep down, she already knew the answer.
The voice continued.
“They came because the lake opened too early.”
Adrian felt dread crawl through him.
Too early.
“What’s beneath the lake?” he demanded.
Silence answered briefly.
Then:
“The future.”
Mara mouthed What the hell does that mean?
Before Adrian could answer, the office lights suddenly flickered on.
Dim yellow electricity flooded the room.
Both froze instantly.
The building had power now.
The tape recorder on the desk clicked alive again by itself.
Static hissed softly.
Then surveillance footage appeared on an old television mounted near the bookshelf.
Live footage.
Security camera angles.
Modern cameras.
Dozens of them.
Showing hallways throughout Ashriver.
Mara stared in disbelief. “No…”
Someone had been monitoring the school continuously.
One camera displayed the excavation site below.
Another showed federal agents near the lake.
Another showed the third-floor hallway outside the office.
Empty.
Completely empty.
No children.
No Headmaster.
Nothing outside the door at all.
Yet footsteps still echoed faintly beyond it.
Adrian approached the screens slowly.
Then one feed changed.
Apartment footage.
His apartment.
Greyford.
Recorded live.
The camera showed his living room empty beneath city darkness.
Then a figure walked into frame.
Tall.
Thin.
Wearing black gloves.
The figure slowly sat on Adrian’s couch and looked directly into the hidden camera.
Then smiled.
Mara whispered, “Jesus…”
The figure raised one hand.
Three fingers missing.
Adrian felt his stomach drop.
Impossible.
The dead child beneath the lake had missing fingers.
Then the figure spoke directly into the camera.
“Caleb says hello.”
Adrian staggered backward.
“No…”
The figure continued calmly.
“You should have drowned with Noah.”
The video feed cut to static.
At the exact same moment, screaming erupted downstairs.
Adult screaming.
Multiple voices.
Mara ran to the office door instantly and pulled it open.
The hallway outside was empty.
But chaos echoed from below.
Gunshots.
Federal agents shouting.
Someone yelling for medics.
Adrian and Mara rushed into the corridor and reached the second-floor landing overlooking the main entrance hall.
The scene below looked like war.
Floodlights flashed wildly through broken doors while federal agents dragged injured personnel across the floor. One man lay motionless beside overturned equipment bleeding heavily into snow-covered tiles.
Mara shouted downward. “What happened?”
Nobody answered.
Then Warren appeared from beneath the staircase holding a pistol.
His face had lost all calm now.
“Get out of the building!”
Adrian frowned. “Why?”
Warren looked genuinely afraid for the first time.
“Because they’re awake.”
A loud metallic crash echoed from deep beneath the school.
Not above.
Below.
The entire floor trembled faintly.
Mara steadied herself against the railing. “What the hell was that?”
Adrian already knew.
Or rather—
He remembered.
There were tunnels beneath Ashriver.
Huge ones.
Connected to the lake.
Connected to the Cold Room.
Another crash thundered upward from underground.
Closer now.
Followed by screaming.
Not children this time.
Adults.
Federal agents.
Something terrible was happening beneath the school.
Then every emergency radio in the building exploded with static simultaneously.
A voice emerged through all of them at once.
Calm.
Controlled.
The Headmaster.
“Phase Two begins now.”