Discovery of basement prisoners

The discovery of basement prisoners marks one of the most harrowing moments in the journey, a confrontation with the absolute depths of human depravity that shatters any remaining illusion of safety and forces the man and the boy into a desperate flight for their lives.

The Approach to the House

Starving and desperate, the man and the boy came upon a once grand house sited on a rise above the road, with white Doric columns across the front and a port cochere at the side. The windows were oddly intact, and a cord ran from one of them across the porch to vanish in the grass. The boy, terrified, pleaded with his father not to go up the drive, but the man insisted they had no choice: "We've got to find something to eat. We have no choice." They approached slowly, finding no tracks in the random patches of melting snow, and climbed the steps to the porch where chattel slaves had once trod those boards bearing food and drink on silver trays. The man tried the door, and it swung slowly in on its great brass hinges.

The House and the Locked Hatch

Inside, they entered a broad foyer floored in a domino of black and white marble tiles, with a broad staircase ascending and fine Morris paper on the walls, waterstained and sagging. In one corner of the dining room they found a great heap of clothing, shoes, belts, coats, blankets, and old sleeping bags—a detail the man would have ample time later to think about. In a great hall with ceilings twice the height of the doors, they found mattresses and bedding arranged on the floor in front of a hearth where the wooden mantel had been pried away and burned. The ashes were cold. A cord came through the window, tied to a brass bell fixed in a rough wooden jig nailed to the window molding—a signal system. In a small pantry off the kitchen, they found a door or hatch in the floor, locked with a large padlock made of stacked steel plates. The boy, almost in tears, pulled at his father's hand, saying "We should go, Papa. Papa." But the man, driven by hunger, replied, "We've got to eat." He found a long-handled spade in a toolshed and returned to the house.

Breaking In and the Revelation

Chopping at the wood around the haspstaple, the man finally jammed the blade under the staple and pried it up, the whole thing coming up lock and all. He raised the hatch door and swung it over. The boy, terrified, insisted on going with him. The man started down the rough wooden steps, ducking his head and flicking his lighter, swinging the flame out over the darkness like an offering. Coldness and damp and an ungodly stench met them. The boy clutched at his coat. The man could see part of a stone wall, a clay floor, an old mattress darkly stained. He crouched and stepped down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous. "Jesus," the man whispered. Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. "Help us," they whispered. "Please help us." The man turned and grabbed the boy. "Hurry," he said. "Hurry." He pushed the boy up the stairs as the captives called after them, "Please. Hurry. For God's sake hurry."

Flight and Aftermath

Shoving the boy through the hatch and sending him sprawling, the man swung the door over and let it slam down. But the boy was pointing out the window, and when the man looked he went cold all over: coming across the field toward the house were four bearded men and two women. Grabbing the boy by the hand, the man hissed, "Run. Run." They tore through the house to the front door and down the steps, crashing through a stand of dead cane and out into the road, crossing into the woods on the far side. The man fell to the ground and pulled the boy to him, whispering "Shh." They lay in the leaves and ash with their hearts pounding, the man struggling to stifle a cough. He heard the roadagents in the road talking, a woman's voice, then the sound of them in the dry leaves. In that moment of extreme peril, the man pushed the revolver into the boy's hand and told him, "If they find you you are going to have to do it. Do you understand? You put it in your mouth and point it up. Do it quick and hard." The boy, terrified, could not comprehend, and the man took the gun back, saying "No you dont." They lay listening through the long dusk and into the dark, cold and starless. In the night, the man heard hideous shrieks coming from the house and tried to put his hands over the boy's ears. After a while the screaming stopped. They set out through the dark woods, staggering like drunks, and the boy asked, "If they find us they'll kill us, wont they Papa." The man answered, "Yes. Yes they will." The event leaves the boy deeply traumatized; days later, by the sea, he asks his father, "They're going to eat them, arent they?" and the man confirms it, leading to the boy's crucial reaffirmation of their own moral identity: "We wouldnt ever eat anybody, would we? No. Of course not."