As I leadher through the house toward the concealed stairwell, I catch her slowing, her attention snagging on details she pretends not to care about.
She looks up at the ceilings, the molding, the way the hallway angles just slightly off true.
“This place is bigger than it looks from the outside,” she says. “And there is definitely a quiet, almost spooky vibe about it.”
I let her walk, let her look, without commentary. She’s mapping it anyway. Everyone does.
She stops short when the panel slides open, revealing the narrow stairwell spiraling down.
“Let me guess,” she says, peering into the dim. “This is where you keep the bodies.”
“We’re heading underground,” I say. “Watch your step.”
“A basement,” she mutters, gripping the rail as she starts down. “Of course. Why wouldn’t there be a basement under a haunted mansion?”
The lighting is low and steady, circular fixtures spaced just far enough apart to keep the descent from feeling endless. Her steps slow as the air cools.
“How far down does it go?”
“You'll find out soon enough. Keep walking.”
She huffs but keeps moving.
The stairwell ends in steel. A thick door sits flush with the concrete at the bottom of the stairs, matte gray and scarred with use. No handle on her side. Just a keypad and a palm reader set into the wall.
She stops when she sees it.
“Well,” she says. “That’s comforting.”
I step past her and press my left hand to the reader, since my right is wrapped. There’s a brief pause, then a low mechanical release. The door swings inward with a muted, weighted sound that tells you exactly how much force it’s designed to resist.
The space beyond opens deliberately. The ceiling lifts. The walls widen. Light spreads in a way that feels planned, not improvised.
She stops short.
“Oh,” she says. Then, quieter, “This isn’t what I expected.”
Most people say something like that the first time. The bunker doesn’t announce itself as a bunker. It looks morelike a private residence stripped of windows and dressed in concrete and steel. Clean lines. Thoughtful lighting. No sense of hurry or panic in the design.
This space wasn’t built to survive a single night. It was built to last.
Her eyes travel deliberately around the main living space. She takes in the ceiling panels, the recessed lighting, and the breadth of the room that stretches farther than the stairwell suggests.
She takes a few careful steps forward, testing the floor as if it might give way beneath her.
“This isn’t a panic room,” she says. “This is… a compound.”
“You could call it that,” I reply. “Panic rooms are for reacting. My father designed this for planning.”
She turns to look at me. “Planning for what? Nuclear fallout? The end of civilization?”
That’s rhetorical, so I leave it there. She can come up with her own assumptions.
The controlled temperature. The quiet hum of systems running behind the walls. The absence of clutter. Everything here serves a purpose, and nothing was chosen just to be comfortable. My father believed comfort should be earned, not assumed.
My hand tightens reflexively, the stitches pulling beneath the wrap, a reminder that comfort came at a cost last night.
“For anything that can’t be handled upstairs,” I say finally. “Power failures. Lockdowns. Extended stays. Situations where someone needs to disappear for a while.”
