Knock at the Door
The next morning, Sloane again awoke to Mae breathing out the word, “Mooooommm.”
“Please… stop waking me that way,” Sloane said. Then, startled when she heard Sally yipping at the door, exclaimed, “What? What is it?”
“Nicole is at the front door.”
“Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”
“We’ve been trying to. You don’t wake up easily, Mom…seriously,” Mae said.
“We haven’t left the room, Mom. She’s been knocking for a few minutes,” Wren said.
“Should we go down and answer it?” Mae asked.
“She doesn’t look good. We watched her walk down here. She stumbled most of the way and she held her stomach. I think something’s wrong with her.”
“Oh my God, he’d better not have hurt her,” Sloane said then flew from the bed, holstered her weapon, and headed for the door. “Is Doug anywhere out there?”
“We haven’t seen him,” Wren said.
She tried to think. What can I do for her? It was a terrible dilemma and one she resented being caught in. Her father should take care of her, and yet, he was too far gone to see he was hurting his child, the last remnant he had left of his family.
It dawned on her that they were alike, she and Doug, but in very different ways completely. They’d both lost something precious during the pandemic and yet they reacted very differently to ensure the tragedy never happened again. She’d made mistakes along the way, but she recognized them for what they were.
He wallowed in his loss, allowed himself to be consumed by his hatred for Trent, and compensated for his own previous failings with material items.
Where she planned for catastrophes by filling her attic with survival food and supplies, he hoarded anything and everything, filling his home with objects to insulate the void his dead family left behind. She could only imagine what might be going on in Doug’s demented mind but in any event, it wasn’t good.
“I’ll go down and answer the door. You two stay up here for now and keep watch. If you see her father, yell down. It might be a trick.”
Both girls never considered this of Doug and they were frightened.
“Be careful, Mom,” Mae said as she closed the door behind her.
“Always, dove,” she said and left them to watch and to listen.
She approached the door, and instead of the girl standing where she could not see her, Nicole sat leaning against the wall, just beyond the opaque-veiled side window of the door. The girl’s left arm lifted weakly and rapped the entrance once more.
Oh my God! What has he done to her?
She slid back the curtain and expected to see blood. Nicole hadn’t noticed her peering down at her. She had her eyes closed, and Sloane thought she must be barely conscious, as she’d gone from sitting to lying on the concrete stoop.
Sloane peeked around the doorframe, half-expecting to see Doug trying to ambush her. The day was so new, only a sliver of dawn greeted them yet. She peered down again at the girl who was now resting, having given up on trying to get the attention she sought.
Sloane opened the door a crack, but Nicole didn’t stir when the hinge creaked. Her skinny legs, in the same outfit as the days before, stuck out like twigs. Her knees appeared swollen, her arms too long for her frame.
“Nicole?” she spoke to her as she knelt down. “Nicole?”
She had not yet responded, and Sloane reached a hand out to touch her arm. Her large blue eyes, underlined with dark blue circles and splotches of red, fluttered open, sunken and too big for her face. She peered up at Sloane as if she didn’t recognize where she was.
“Sloane. Hi,” Nicole labored to say with chapped lips and without moving her body. Her dull eyes again, too difficult to keep open, shut on their own.
She’s dehydrated.
“Let’s get you inside, Nicole.” She found herself ignoring the advice in her own head and spoke without thinking, but she couldn’t leave her like this. She holstered her gun to lift the girl and briefly thought, If it is a trick of Doug’s doing, now would be the time he’d attack. She watched for it as she lifted the girl. She was shockingly light for a twelve-year-old child. When nothing happened, Sloane kicked the door shut and locked the deadbolt while Nicole’s head began to slip from her shoulder, dangling down awkwardly.
She struggled to get the girl to the couch.
“Mae. Get some water, quick.”
She laid Nicole down on her once-soft moleskin sofa, now rough and scratchy from the seawater wash.
“Nicole,” she called while patting the girl’s sunken cheek. She’d lost consciousness altogether.
How could he do this to her? She screamed inside herself.
Mae came down the stairs in a hurry, with Sally right beside her. Wren appeared at the top of the stairs and asked, “Is she okay?”
“Why aren’t you watching?” Sloane yelled at Wren and then chastised herself. “I’m sorry. Please keep looking out. Tell me if you see him.”
“Sorry Mom,” Wren said, distraught, and disappeared quickly into the bedroom once again.
Sloane knew her daughter was only worried for young Nicole, but now wasn’t the time. Doug might come out of his demented lair and attack them at any moment. She needed to be forewarned. She’d kill him if he tried to break in. She’d kill him if he tried to take Nicole from them. She’d made the promise. She intended to keep it.