Chapter 3 - The Cold Ember
""Clara! Clara, look at me!"" Mark shouted, dropping to his knees beside the couch and grabbing her shoulders. Her skin felt icy, like river water in late autumn, yet beads of sweat dripped from her temples.
Toby climbed onto her chest, pressing his tiny palm directly against her sternum. ""Hot,"" the baby whimpered, tears finally welling in his wide eyes. ""Too hot, Mama.""
""She’s freezing, Toby, she’s not hot,"" Mark muttered under his breath, desperately searching for his phone on the coffee table. He found it buried beneath a picture book, his fingers trembling as he dialed emergency services. The line clicked, a faint static hiss buzzing through the speaker, followed by a dead tone. No dial tone. No operator.
""Damn it,"" Mark cursed, checking the screen. No service. The four signal bars had dropped to an empty zero, a circumstance that had never occurred in their central neighborhood.
Clara’s lips parted, and a low, ragged breath escaped her throat. Her eyes opened halfway, clouded and unfocused, staring straight through Mark toward the ceiling. ""The hatch..."" she rasped, her voice thick and gravelly, sounding nothing like the gentle woman he had loved for ten years. ""Don't let him open the hatch.""
""Who, Clara? What hatch?"" Mark pleaded, rubbing her cold hands.
Clara’s head slumped sideways, falling unconscious once more. Her breathing normalized, but the chill radiating from her skin deepened, filling the air around the couch with an unnatural frost that made Mark’s breath mist in the room.
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Toby picked up the television remote from where he had dropped it. He pointed it directly at the blank TV screen and pressed the power button repeatedly. The screen didn't turn on, but the red standby light began to blink in a frantic, irregular pattern, mirroring the cadence of Morse code.
Behind them, the front door rattled, the brass knob turning slowly against the lock.
