Husband pretends to go on a business trip, then secretly d3:adbolts the door, clears out all the food, and cuts off the water supply: The horrifying scheme to lock his wife and children inside to d!:e while he runs off with his mistress!
CHAPTER I: THE SOUND OF THE DOOR LOCKED BY DIGITAL FINGERS
The last words of that man echoed before the space outside was completely cut off, carrying an eerie nonchalance, like a harmless joke on a lazy morning.
“You and the boy stay home and be good, everything will be fine for the next three days. When I get back, there’ll be a big present for the two of you.”
He smiled—a smile that once served as armor warming the reckless years of my youth, but now, under the dim light of the narrow hallway, it took on the shape of hidden fangs. He leaned down to the forehead of our three-year-old son who was half-asleep, lightly brushed his lips against him, and walked out carrying his leather suitcase. I smiled and nodded, pushing the wooden door gently shut, still convinced this was just the beginning of a hasty business trip to some faraway seaside city as he had instructed.
Then, a harsh sound rang out.
Click. Click.
Two deadbolts were tightly turned from the outside. That sound was resolute and cold, completely severing all connection between us and the outside world. I startled and rushed forward, my hands eagerly twisting the doorknob. It was rigid. Not budging an inch. Beyond the small glass pane, the shadow of his car had already glided past the poor street, vanishing behind the murky morning mist.
At first, a foolish innocence still clung to my mind. I thought he was careless, or made some mistake in his haste. I called his name, pounding rhythmic thuds against the thick wood, my hands twisting the lock until my knuckles turned red and throbbed with pain. Yet, when I rounded the back, a massive solid brass padlock had been latched at some point. The surrounding windows were all reinforced with solid iron bars. Even the garage roll-up door was locked tight at its base.
— “Mom, where did Dad go?”
The innocent voice rang out from the living room. My little boy was still tightly hugging his frayed teddy bear, his round, sleepy eyes looking at me through his dinosaur-printed pajamas. My heart tightened, my chest feeling as though it were being squeezed by someone. I had to swallow back the tears welling up, forcing a stiff smile on my lips, leaning down to stroke my son’s head: — “Daddy went to work, sweetie. In three days Daddy will be back.”
Just this morning, everything was still following a routine so familiar it was tedious. I had waked up at dawn, ironed his expensive shirt, prepared a hot breakfast, and reminded him of various things before he stepped out of the house. Five years of living under the same roof had trained me to become an obedient wife, always forcing myself to ignore small, nagging fractures. But at this moment, amidst the four walls thick with silence, I realized with a shock that those fractures had long since turned into chasms.
I tremblingly pulled my smartphone from my pocket. The screen was pitch black. The signal bar suddenly vanished, replaced by a cold “X” symbol. Not a single bar of cellular signal, no connection signal. I turned on the house’s Wi-Fi, but the router had been unplugged at some point, or the access password had been changed remotely via the master administrative account he held. He had grasped total technological power in his hands, turning my phone into a useless piece of iron, turning this house into an isolated desert island.
Panic began to crawl up my spine. I hurried into the kitchen, hoping to find some food to reassure my son, who was starting to cry of hunger.
The refrigerator door opened. Empty.
Two half-empty bottles of filtered water, half a carton of expiring milk, and absolutely… nothing else. The vegetable crisper was bare, the hidden rice bin had vanished from who knows when. Even the packs of instant noodles tucked away in the kitchen cabinet corner were completely gone. He hadn’t just locked us in; he had cleared out our entire source of life before stepping out. Everything had been calculated with chilling precision: he knew precisely how many calories mother and son needed to sustain a lingering survival over three days, and he wanted us to experience every passing hour in the ultimate terror of starvation.
Ransacking every nook and cranny, I found a stale, moldy pack of crackers hidden deep behind the microwave and a slightly shriveled apple on the dining table. I sliced off the bruised part of the apple, giving half to my innocent son. Watching the child happily bite into small pieces, my chest twisted as if someone were dragging a razor blade across every shred of flesh. He still trusted me absolutely, still believed his mother was the one who could shield him from every storm in this world, completely unaware that we were being slowly buried alive in our own home.
CHAPTER II: THE TORN PAPER AND THE GHOST FROM THE PAST
Fear faded, giving way to a dark and furious energy. I couldn’t just sit here and wait to die. I began tearing through every room, searching for anything that could be used as a pry tool. The toolkit in the corner of the house had been taken by him earlier. The hammer, the pliers, the screwdriver – all of them had vanished without a trace. He had cleared out anything capable of saving us, leaving a perfect environment for helplessness.
Despite everything, I threw myself into his private study. It was chillingly neat. I dropped to my knees, frantically digging through the trash can under the desk. Among the shredded paper scraps was a crumpled printed reservation sheet. I tremblingly picked it up, piecing the fragments back together under the desk lamp.
It was a hotel booking confirmation at a distant seaside city, accompanied by a handwritten note in a curve of handwriting chillingly familiar: “See you Friday night, I’ve prepared everything.”
The initials on the paper along with the intense, sweet perfume scent that used to linger on his collar during late-night homecomings suddenly flashed clearly in my mind like a fatal punch. It was his ex – the woman who had appeared at last year’s class reunion, who had looked at me with the gaze of a superior waiting for the day to usurp my position as the legal wife.
I recalled the past months. The sudden business trips lasting several days, the nights he casually turned off his phone under the excuse of urgent meetings with international partners, the times he coldly chided me for being useless, dependent, and unreasonable. I had swallowed every humiliation, convincing myself I had to endure for the sake of our child, to preserve a complete home for the boy. But as it turned out, my endurance in his eyes was merely a circus act, stepping stones for his mistress to walk right into my place.
He wasn’t on a business trip. He went to enjoy a fake honeymoon with that woman, while leaving his wife and child starved and imprisoned in this locked-down house.
Using my remaining strength, I grabbed the golf club from the corner of the room, slamming it repeatedly against the floor-to-ceiling glass window. The sound of metal crashing against glass echoed deafeningly, but the thick double-layered tempered glass only showed a few faint cracks. The strength of a woman drained by malnutrition and panic was no match for the reinforced concrete fortress he had meticulously designed for this house.
Late into the night, my hands were bleeding, blisters bursting and stinging fiercely. I had to let my arms drop powerlessly, leaning my back against the cold wall and sobbing silently in the dark. My boy had drifted off to exhaustion, asleep on the living room rug some time ago, his soft breathing acting like daggers piercing my heart.
CHAPTER III: THE CRY IN THE NIGHT AND THE SILENCE OF THE WATER PIPE
That night stretched on like a century. I didn’t dare close my eyes, sitting guard over my little boy, listening to every tiny sound from outside. The city out there was still bright with lights, the sounds of car horns and distant laughter filtering through the soundproof walls only making the isolation in this house feel more bitter and extreme.
Around midnight, when the ticking of the clock sounded clear in the quiet space, a strange sound emanated from the wall near the bathroom.
Gurgle… gurgle… creak…
It was the sound of underground pipes vibrating, a dry and unfamiliar noise. I startled awake, hurrying into the bathroom, turning the shower and sink faucets on to maximum.
Not a single drop of water came out.
Only dry, hollow wheezes from the pipes, then complete silence.
I froze in place. The main water supply to the house had been completely cut off from the external smart control system. He hadn’t just starved us of food; he stripped away our water too – the sole element to sustain life during these days.
Looking at the two empty water bottles in the fridge, I understood that time was no longer measured in days, but counting down by the hour.
He hadn’t forgotten us. He was monitoring our every breath from some distant place through hidden cameras installed in every corner of the house that I had never noticed. He was standing from afar, smiling as he enjoyed the scene of the wife he once loathed writhing in despair, waiting for the grim reaper to take the lives of mother and child so he could smoothly step into a new chapter of life with his new lover.
The air inside the house grew stifling to the point of suffocation. Oxygen in the sealed room began to thin as all vents were tightly locked. I hugged my son tightly, pressing my ear against his chest to listen to his faint heartbeat.
— “Mom… I’m thirsty…” – The child stirred and mumbled in his dream, his dry lips chapped.
My tears had dried up long ago. No more fear, no more weak tears. Instead, a ferocious fire of hatred burned deep within my soul. I picked up a sharp piece of iron broken from my child’s toy structure, clenched my teeth, climbed onto the window sill, and used all my might to pry open every single screw fixing the protective iron mesh.
Though my hands bled, though my fingernails peeled off, I didn’t stop. This house would not become the grave of my mother and son. If he wanted us to die, he had to walk over my dead body first!
Outside, the cold moonlight shone through the glass pane, illuminating the cold and absolute resolute eyes of a mother pushed to the edge. This cruel game had only just begun, and I would not let him have the ending he longed for.
