Liam pulled a small crowbar from his pack. The wood was soft with rot, but the iron bars were stubborn. He wedged the tool into a gap and heaved. With a groan of protest, the ancient timber snapped.
A blast of air hit him in the face. It wasn’t fresh mountain air. It was cold, damp, and smelled of wet rust and stale earth—the smell of a tomb that hadn’t been opened in decades.
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He clicked on his headlamp and stepped into the darkness.
He was standing in a concrete tunnel. It was man-made, precise, and eerie. Water dripped from the ceiling, echoing in the silence. As he walked deeper, his light caught something on the wall.
Faint white chalk, almost erased by time, spelled out a message that made him stop in his tracks:
“PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT. KEEP OUT.”
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