The Meridians(87)
First he looked in the side window once more, trying again to see anyone who might be inside the front room. Again, he saw nothing and no one; only the child, bound and gagged on the couch.
He tried the front door. Unlocked. Normally he would have counted this as a good sign. Now, however, it merely seemed as though he were a fly entering the spider's lair. The spider often invited its prey in; it was getting out that presented problems.
With a click and a whisper of wood on wood that seemed far too loud in his ears, he slowly eased the door open, his every muscle as tightly coiled as a clockspring, ready to jump into action at the slightest provocation.
Nothing. Not a soul moved, not even the child.
At this realization, Scott felt his heart plummet. What if the child was dead? He didn't know if he could handle something like that. Not after so many years as the parent of another murdered child. He worried that he would go insane instantly, the proverbial straw having finally landed on his back after so many years of carrying the heavy loads of guilt and despair that had accompanied him since the loss of his family.
The night pressed in on him like a vise, a palpable force that pushed against him, trying to keep him out of this house. Locking him in place. Scott had to will his feet to move, one at a time, one bare step at a time, until he was able to finally step over the threshold of the house.
Upon passing the invisible line of demarcation that stood between all that was outside the house and all that was within, he shuddered. Just as the night had become a physical presence, so too was the sense that this home - so attractive and well-kept on the outside - had become a den of evil, a lair of corruption. Every muscle in his body ached to retreat; to go back to the car with Lynette and Kevin and resume their mad run from Mr. Gray.
But he knew that he could not live with himself if he were to make such a decision. That would drive him insane, to know that he had stood at the brink of helping a child, and had backed down without doing so. Even dying would be preferable to that.
So he stepped across the threshold, moved into the house. He realized that he would have to close the door behind him. The fact that he had not been shouted at or attacked showed that whoever was behind this cruelty was in another part of the house, but if he or she or they should return to see the open door, suspicion would make the perpetrator ten times more likely to be on guard.
He turned and closed the door, making sure that it remained unlocked behind him. As he did so, he suffered a terrible thought: what if the kidnapper was not home? What if the person or people behind this night returned and found Lynette and Kevin in the car outside, helpless and waiting to be attacked?
But he dismissed the thought in the instant that it came to him. There was something about empty houses, or houses where the sole occupants were asleep or insensible. A feel of quiet solitude that was not present here. No, the kidnapper was in the house, he was sure of it.
He moved quickly across the front room, keenly aware of the moonlight streaming in through the windows of the front room and his shadow that slashed through the room like a razor blade. The best he could do was move quickly and hope that no one saw the movement.
No one came running at him. He crossed the front room in three large strides, moving to the side of the child on the couch.
It was a girl. Not more than ten or eleven years old. She had been beaten before being tied up, her eyes both visibly blackened even in the darkness, and dried blood crusted at the corners of her mouth and under her nose. Scott felt his guts clench even further at the vision of the atrocity. He was reminded of the scripture that said anyone who harmed a child would be better off having a millstone tied around his neck and being drowned. Though Scott and God had not seen eye to eye for years, this was one thing he could agree on.
The next decision he had to make was readily apparent: to untie the girl, or leave her there. Surely it would be more humane to untie her, certainly it would be better for her in the short run. But there were other considerations. What if she awoke with a scream as soon as he unbound and ungagged her? Such a noise would be sure to summon her captors like moths to a bright light. What if she mistook Scott for one of the people who had done this to her and tried to fight him? Again, disaster lay at the end of that path.
On the other hand, what if she vomited while gagged? What if she died of her injuries while he was busy sweeping through the house for the people behind this? Scott knew he could not bear that on his conscience. Again, as was so often the case, it seemed he had been presented with two choices, and neither of them was right or even to be considered.
Finally, he decided to unbind her. At least to remove her gag and let her breathe more freely. That would ease his conscience and allow him to think more clearly than he was presently capable of doing.
He knelt down beside her, heedful of the slightest movement, of the tiniest noise in the darkness. Other than the creaking of his knees as he moved, there was nothing. He touched the girl's shoulder, gingerly at first, then more rigorously when she did not respond. After a moment, her eyes fluttered open, then grew wide and terrified at the sight of Scott looming over her.
He put a finger to his lips and whispered the words that came naturally to his mouth: "Shh. I'm the police. Are you okay?" The girl didn't nod, but nor did she scream, which he took as a good sign. Though it might mean that she had suffered so much that she had descended into a state of open-eyed catatonia, a traumatic response more devastating to some than Kevin's autism could be.