THEY BURIED MY SIX-YEAR-OLD SON IN THE SNOW AS A "PRANK," AND THE HERMIT AT HOUSE 402 JUST TAUGHT THEM A LESSON THEY WILL NEVER FORGET. Chapter 1: The Ice Tomb The silence was the first thing that hit me. It wasn’t the peaceful silence of a winter morning; it was the heavy, suffocating silence of a graveyard. I had only looked away for ten minutes. Ten minutes to answer a client email that would determine whether or not we made rent this month. I looked out the kitchen window, expecting to see t