Hide inside this deep freezer. Your mummy is coming to beat you with a cane. Don’t come out until I open the door,” Aunty Chidera, the housemaid, whispered to 4-year-old Junior.

“Mummy… it is cold,” Junior whimpered inside the freezer, but his voice was too low to be heard.

Outside, Mrs. Gloria pulled the handle again. It wouldn’t budge.

“Chidera! I said where is the key?!” she shouted, her patience running thin.

Chidera was shaking like a leaf. She took a step back toward the door.

“I… I… I think Junior took it to play outside, Ma! Let me go and find him!”

Gloria hissed. “Nonsense! Since when does a four-year-old play with freezer keys? Find it now!”

Chidera turned to run, planning to escape through the back door and leave the compound forever.

But suddenly—

THUD.

A sound came from inside the freezer. Like a weak kick against the wall.

Gloria froze.

“What was that?”

Chidera’s heart stopped. Her eyes darted around the kitchen.

“It… it is the frozen turkey, Ma! The ice is breaking! It happens all the time!”

Gloria ignored her. She moved closer to the chest freezer.

“Frozen turkey does not kick,” she whispered, her motherly instinct screaming danger.

She placed her ear against the cold metal lid.
“Mummy…”

The voice was faint, muffled, and weak, but Gloria heard it clearly.

Her eyes widened in horror. The color drained from her face. She turned slowly to Chidera, her voice trembling with rage and fear.

“Chidera… who is inside my freezer?”

Chidera knew the game was up. She couldn’t lie anymore.

But she couldn’t go to jail either.
She saw the heavy wooden pestle on the kitchen counter.

As Gloria screamed “JUNIOR! IS THAT YOU?!” and began banging frantically on the lid, Chidera made a deadly decision.

She grabbed the pestle.

POW!

She struck Mrs. Gloria hard on the shoulder.
“Ahhh!” Gloria screamed and fell to the floor, groaning in pain, clutching her arm.

Chidera grabbed her bag containing the stolen gold. She looked at the freezer one last time. Junior was still inside, freezing to death

“I’m sorry, Junior,” she whispered. “It is either you or me. I cannot go to prison.”

She ran out of the kitchen, slamming the heavy iron door behind her.

CLICK.

She locked Mrs. Gloria inside the kitchen—from the outside.

Gloria dragged herself up, ignoring the sharp pain in her shoulder. She rushed to the door. Locked.

She rushed back to the freezer.

“Junior! Junior! Can you hear me?!”

“Mummy… open… sleepy…” Junior’s voice was fading fast. The cold was taking over.

Gloria screamed. She scrambled for the spare key in the kitchen drawer. It wasn’t there.

She grabbed a kn|f£ to pry the padlock open. SNAP! The knife broke.

She looked around desperately. She was trapped. Her son was trapped. And the freezer was running on High Power.

Then, she realized the most terrifying truth of all.

Chidera had run away with the only key.
Gloria banged on the freezer lid, tears pouring down her face.

“Oh God! My son is freezing to death in front of me!”

She needed something heavy. Something powerful enough to break a padlock.

Her eyes landed on the heavy 12.5kg Gas Cylinder in the corner.