For the next hour, we searched for access to some kind of basement, but came up empty. There was no cellar door on the outside of the house; I’d have noticed that already, but we checked again for good measure. Inside, we opened every door we could find, but nothing led downward. As we sat on the couch resting and thinking, Arthur jumped up next to Miriam, but to our surprise, he just curled up and rested his head on her thigh. Max wandered in, too, but just stood in front of the couch.
“I don’t suppose you’d know anything, would you?” I asked him.
He cocked his head. I supposed it was too much to ask, and, frustrated, shoved the pillowcase away from me with my foot. One of the cameras tumbled out onto the carpet, and Max lowered his head and sniffed at it curiously. When he licked it, I definitely remember thinking to myself, “Please don’t eat it.”
He didn’t, of course, instead slinking away. A few minutes later, however, he reappeared with another camera in his mouth. Dropping it next to the other one, he looked up at me expectantly. I chuckled.
“Good boy,” I said. “That’s one less I have to find later, I guess. But what I really need are the hard drives.”
He cocked his head at me again, and then he did something really strange. As before, he lowered his head to sniff the electronics, but this time, he stuck his whole head in the pillowcase, lifted it up and started shaking it. The cameras scattered everywhere.
“Max!” I said. He stopped, cloth bag still covering his head. I pulled it off. “That’s enough.”
He lowered his ears and slunk off again. I started gathering up the cameras and putting them back in the bag, and when I had collected about half of them I heard a scratching come from back toward the kitchen. Thinking he maybe had to go out, I called, “You were just out. Hold it for a minute.”
Then I heard a yapping bark from him. That was new. Most of his barks had been low and mean, a practiced technique for controlling us, no doubt. At this bark, Arthur lifted up his head and stood.
In the hallway outside the kitchen and behind the staircase that led up to the bedrooms, Max stood in front of one of the closet doors.
“We already checked there,” I said. Max scratched at the door, anyway.
I looked at Miriam, but she shrugged and said, “Hey, maybe he knows something we don’t.”
So I opened the closet again. It was full of utility items, boxes of batteries, tape, and string, lined up neatly on shelves. Now that I looked at the space with different eyes, it hit me: this was the only closet in the house that had a rug. It almost matched the color of the floor, so I had never noticed. I lifted the edge of the rug, and immediately saw the brass latch, set into which was a combination lock.
“My dad taught me how to pick these open,” Miriam said. “You want me to—”
“No,” I said. Kneeling down, I rolled the numbers into place and pressed the smooth brass brad. A solid metallic click resulted.
“Oh shit,” Miriam said, putting her hand on my back as I stood. I didn’t face her, though. I didn’t want her to see my embarrassment. Instead, we both looked down at the numbers: my birthday.
I threw back the rest of the rug and hooked my finger into the pull ring.
The door was heavier than it looked, but the reason for that became instantly obvious. On the reverse side was rebar reinforcement and a square of foam pyramids. I poked at one with my finger.
“Soundproofing,” Miriam said. “Just like in a recording studio.”
“Holy shit,” I said. Whatever was supposed to happen down below, and perhaps whatever had happened in the past, it was already crushingly apparent that it was to be a secret.
“Are you sure you want to go down there?” Miriam said. “I can go for you.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I need to see it for myself.” Max beat me to it, though, padding cautiously down the curiously long concrete stairs.
The interior of the basement looked like the inside of a cave. There were concrete columns at regular intervals and there was a faint glow coming from one corner. On the walls, ceilings, and on most of the columns was the same pyramidal soundproofing. The floor was weird. Instead of bare concrete, it had been tiled with linoleum. As soon as my feet hit it, I knew why. It would be pretty easy to clean and was softer.
In a corner near the stairs was a desk with a computer that was much larger than the one I thought I’d find. The monitors were switched off, but the LEDs on the bank of hard drives were flickering away, no doubt recording data from undiscovered cameras.
“Hm,” I heard Miriam mumble.
“What?” I said.
She held up her phone. “No service,” she said, “not even wi-fi. The cameras must have their own link.”
Max’s ears flattened as he slunk over to the desk and sat.
“Good boy,” I said.
As I approached the desk, I almost tripped over a steel loop bolted firmly into the floor. Looking down, I saw more. And now that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, I saw a few other spots around the basement with loops on the floor.
Suddenly, with a click, the lights came on. I looked back and saw that Miriam had found the light switches on the side of the stairs. Now with the basement lit, I realized two things: it was a miniature prison, and it was bigger than it seemed at first.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Miriam said. Arthur had cautiously followed her down the stairs, and stuck close by her side.
While we had accepted our situation and given ourselves over to the pleasure that our guardians offered, we hadn’t forgotten why they were here and what they were trained for. Nevertheless, I caught myself feeling sympathy for them. The sinister nature of the cottage’s basement clearly affected them as much as it did us. When Arthur nudged Miriam’s hand with his snout, she scratched him on the head. Apparently, she felt the same way I did.
Against a far wall, there was a large wooden armoire. Careful not to trip over any more loops in the floor, I made my way over to it and took a deep breath as I put my hand on the doorknobs. But the doors wouldn’t open. I tried again, but it was shut tight. There was an old-style keyhole that looked distressingly well used.
“Did your dad teach you how to pick any other locks?” I asked.
Miriam nodded. “A little,” she said. “They all work pretty much the same way. That one should be no sweat. I’ll be right back. She ducked up the stairs with Arthur tailing her.
While she was gone, I took a minute to privately process the fact that my parents had built a dungeon under their cottage specifically for me. It must have cost quite a lot to build something like this in secret. They could have spent the money on property or monetary investments, I thought, and then remembered that, to them, I was such an investment. Anger bubbled in me like hot tar.
Oh, Mother, I thought. The things I am going to do to you!
Miriam returned a minute later with a couple pieces of bent silverware from the kitchen. “If this were a modern lock, I’d need something smaller, but lucky for me, this is an antique,” she said.
I didn’t pay much attention to her work, but I got the gist of it. All it took was patience and a little know-how, and a deep click indicated that the armoire was unlocked. I opened the doors this time, and got a horrible sinking feeling in my guts.