It's funny, making so little progress I turn here for a new entry, with the hopes of having something productive or introspective to say, but instead I'm running dry here as well. Ah, creativity and all its unpredictability. I'm not sure how to proceed, whether to call it the unproductive end to an unproductive week, and hope next week makes up for it. Or do I try to force something out, even if it's meaningless garbage, just to say I gave it my all? The latter will make me feel less guilty, though no less frustrated. Other than this, I don't know what else to say or think. Even my notes that are my usual refuge don't offer much solace today. In my scenes, in my notes, and even here, I am writing in empty self-reflexive circles getting nowhere and boring myself in the process.
Gads, what a mopey mess I am making for myself. Well, here are some pages while I go sit in the corner. I'm not even going over the pages to edit them since I'm in such a whiny mood. Also, it looks like I changed some stuff from previous posts, so there may be a number of inconsistencies. At some point down the road I may post a master version just so everything is consistent.
She doesn’t know whether to go after Mustard first or the dog or just get out while she can. The second she sees the two figures at the front entrance she runs for cover.
She recognizes the men immediately as the kidnappers. They pound at the door until a guard rushes up to let them in. Maddie slips into a trash bin, then tightly focuses the light into tiny peephole through which she can see and hear the others.
“What do you have?” One of the kidnappers asks the flustered guard, breathing hard and wiping his head with his cap.
“We have at least two minors, and a dog loose in the museum. Near as we can tell, they were probably in after lock up since there’s no sign of forced entry and none of the alarms were tripped.”
“Where are they?” The other kidnapper asks.
The guard points upstairs with his hat. “We have one in custody upstairs. They are bringing him down now. The other minor and the dog are still at large some where on the premises.”
The kidnappers exchange looks, one nodding to the other. “Check the scene. I’ll detain the suspect.” As one of them heads for the stairs, the guard puts his hat back on, and pulls out his walkie talkie. “I’ll prep a room for questioning and put the call out to the P.D.”
“That won’t be necessary. We will be conducting the interview off site and will notify the police ourselves once we deemed what charges we intend to press. Continue sweeping the premises until the dog and girl are found.”
Maddie is as surprised as the guard.
“Girl, sir?”
“Minor.” He corrects. “Move it.”
The guard disappears from Maddies’ view as she keeps her focus on the kidnapper. Even though she is hidden from view, she feels visible and vulnerable, especially as the man just stands there by the door waiting. She hears noise and swings the light around to see two guards dragging Mustard in cuffs. Oh no. Now he really is in trouble. If he ends up going to the police, he might not be sent just to juvie, but now possibly even jail.
She considers how she can help him from her position in the can, but knows too well the likelihood she will fail and simply be captured herself. She tightens her grip on the lamp. Keeping it safe is of up-most importance now. Without it she can do nothing, and there is no telling how it might be used if it falls into their hands.
Mustard is brought to the kidnapper, who takes quick appraisal before gesturing for the guards to follow him. “Bring him.”
The four of them move away from her towards the main doors when something bumps into her trash bin, nearly scaring the lamp out of her hands. Her bin bumps again as something scrapes the metal like it is trying to get in. She braces herself against the rocking and fumbles the lamp as something heavy drops on top of her.
“Argus!” He hangs half in the bin, his legs kicking outside trying to climb in with her. Maddie drops the lamp, trying desperately to pull him in. She hears one of the men shouting, “There’s the dog.” And the fall of feet echo off the tile growing louder as they descend on the garbage bin. Maddie is buried under fifty pounds of fur and feet, blindly scrambling for the lamp. The guards fall on the rocking garbage bin and kick it over only to find nothing inside.
Maddie crashes on a stack of cardboard, Argus landing on her, tumbling off into the pile of compressed boxes. “Ow. I hate that!” She tries to stand on the unstable mound, grasping the side of the metal dumpster they had luckily landed in, the dumpster next to her filled with wooden palettes and crates, and all around them the bare cement floor of the museum parking garage. “We have to get out of here Argus. C’mon boy.” She tries heft him up over the side of the dumpster, but the sides are too high and the compressed cardboard too unstable. Then she remembers the lamp, and finds it half under a box. As soon as it is lit she and the dog leap through the hole and scramble for the only way out she can see, a caged garage door leading to the street. She stops the moment they arrive at the door, right in front of it a gray van, the two guards closing the back doors, tapping on the back, the kidnapper at the wheel.
“Mustard.” Maddie says under her breath, defeated, afraid. “Now they have you too. What are we going to do Argus?” As if in answer, the van pulls out and drives away, revealing parked across the street the same gray car she saw at Gladstone’s, the two guards meeting the second kidnapper on the museum front steps. “This is our only chance, Argus. We have to try it.”
They bolt out of the garage across the lamp lit street.
She doesn’t know how far they are going, how long she has been in there, but she is thankful to still have Argus with her. She clings to him for warmth and to keep from rolling across the wide trunk as the car speeds around turns and over bumps. At last, after what seems likes hours, the car comes to a stop, Maddie having to brace both of them to keep from smashing into the back and giving themselves away. She waits at least five minutes more after the sounds of the door closing and diminishing footfalls before she braves looking out of the trunk. They are in the woods somewhere, it is dark, darker than she has ever seen it, and the air coming in through the peep hole is biting cold, colder than it had ever been at Gladstone’s, and how she wishes now she had never left there.
She shivers as the widens the light, and Argus bolts from the trunk before she can even reach for him. She scrambles out after him, following the fading clatter of his paws on the gravel road, as he completely disappears around the rising bank of the road. Maddie is running as fast as she can, lamp swinging wildly from her flailing arms. She doesn’t know what she is running to, if she’s running into danger, a trap, or if she’ll get caught. She just doesn’t want to be alone. Not here. Not like this. The tears on her face turn to stinging streaks of cold.
She comes to the crest of the hill, the banked road opening to a large flat expanse of land, the canopy of trees opening to reveal the most brilliant star-lit night she has ever seen. The sky is so black that more stars than she ever knew existed lay stretched out before her like a low hanging net. For a moment everything is forgotten as her mind tries to take it all in, the vastness so great that everything else is put on hold. The stars span all around her, as solid and clear as though inches from her face, spilling down to the endless horizon that lay all around her and the hill she stands atop. It is last that she notices the thing closest to her, an unusual building rising darkly before her like a ragged shape cut out of the sky.
Her situation returns, the realization that she is afraid, alone, cold and so tired, and now lost somewhere in at the of the world. She listens in the absolute silence for the sounds of Argus but hears nothing but her own racing heart and chattering teeth. She hugs herself from the cold, the lamp knocking against her. She has it still but she no longer knows what she can accomplish with it on her own. She is just a kid, like Mustard said. Worse, she is just a girl. What is she going to do against kidnappers and guards and police. She decides whatever she is going to do, she is not going to do it freezing outside.
She continues up the path to the strange building. Thankfully, what few lights are on do not illuminate her approach and she can approach in the safety of relative darkness. The fact that Argus had preceded her tells her she doesn’t have to worry about motion sensing lights like those they had outside Gladstone’s. A large door stands at the front, but she eases around to the side to get a better sense of how big the building is. As she rounds it, the silhouette transforms and what she thought before was the shape of jagged protrusions, turn out to be tall turret like shapes of varying size, the widest and shortest of which is capped with a large dome that reminds her of the observatory she had visited during one of Gladstone’s field trips.
When notices her breath fogging the air before her, she hurries to one wall far from any lights or what darkened windows she can see, and shines the light into it. She is struck first by the stonework, like something that would be on a castle, and next by they thickness. Even standing at the base of the wall with her arm fully outstretched and the light fully immersed inside it, there was still nothing before her but more stones. The light around her shaking with her shivering body, she walks blindly into the stonework, the hole closing behind her.
Five steps and she comes into a dark room. All suggestion of the thick stone fortress wall is gone, the walls paneled in smooth polished wood, the furniture and fixtures of the room sleek and modern like those at the museum. It looks like some kind of office, with a glass-topped desk and two different computers with large clear screens. Where there is not wood paneling, there are bookshelves filled to capacity with books spanning floor to ceiling. As the cold that followed her through the was dissipates, she feels the warmth of the room and rushes to a vent, squatting down against it to warm herself as quickly as she can.
When he shivering stops, she rises and moves to the door, listening first, then shining the light through it. A dark hallway opens before her and she moves into it, quickly, silently, determined to accomplish something, anything before fear or exhaustion take over. She finds doors leading to other rooms, some offices like the one she left, others storage room, filled with boxes, office supplies, equipment. She finds a conference room, a computer room, filled corner to corner with tall banks of blinking lights, like a tiny contained patch of the sky just outside. Everywhere she ventures she finds the same unlit, unpopulated workspaces. She doesn’t understand why someone would have an office at the top of a hill in the middle of a forest far away from everything else. Who would ever want to drive all the way out here? Unless they lives here too? But where are the rooms? Where would they sleep?
A deep, almost painful yawn racks her whole body. She had no idea how late it was, but she knows she has been going way too long and that she will need to sleep soon. She doesn’t know why the man came here, or even where he was, but there has to be a reason for it and she’s staying until she finds what it is. Maybe she’ll just find some small space to park herself for a little rest before going on. She decides to check one more door before deciding where to hide out and finds a garage, and there right in front of her, is the gray van, back doors wide open and as empty as can be.
Mustard’s here! Both kidnappers! Maybe the old man is here to. With a renewed sense of urgency Maddie shines the light around, searching for anything that might lead her to them. She sweeps over a wall and finds behind it a hidden stairwell. She plunges down the stairs not questioning where they lead, but knowing they had to lead to Mustard and the others. She spirals around and down so may times, two stories, three, maybe more, that she is dizzy when the stairs finally level out and end before a black metal door. It is at the same instant she sees the camera over the door and as much out of exhaustion as quick thinking, she lets her spiraling momentum carry her through the stairwell wall away from the door. She finds herself moving through concrete and metal pipes, then ducts like those back at the Home. She is lost in the foundation of the building, so dizzy and disoriented she has no idea where she is or if she will ever find her way out again. A part of her starts to panic, wishing she had the dog to guide her, but for all she knows, he’s down here too, needing her to save him as much as everyone else. She takes a moment to collect herself and catch her breath, then remembers: the air ducts!
She quickly locates one and crawls inside it, dimming the light to allow the duct to close around her. She curls up in small space feeling almost relieved in the tiny confines as though she was back at the Home, just a few feet from her own room again. She looks at the lamp and closes it entirely, being reminded of her first night in the duct, the flashlight dying on her in the dark. Maybe the lamp works the same way. Maybe there is only so much light left in it. The idea of being trapped inside solid walls makes her feel sick and she begins to understand the unusual and deadly potential of the lamp.
She pushes ahead through the completely dark space as quietly as she can, less afraid of the space within as the space without. The ducts are clean, far cleaner than those back at the Home, and the air is blissfully warm and fresh. She stops to rest again, this time allowing herself to lie down and with her head on her arms. Her eyes close on their own, so dark in there she doesn’t even know they have closed and is dreaming of Mustard arguing with the teachers and she wakes with a start, only the hum of air in her ears. How long had she been out? It seemed like only a second that her eyes were closed before she started dreaming.
She pulls herself up, taking a deep breath to wake herself, and she hears it again, this time knowing she is awake: Mustard! His voice is coming from some distance down the duct. She makes sure she has the right direction before shuffling ahead as quickly as she dare without giving herself away. The excitement of hearing him again gets her heart pounding and compels her forward. She gets to a fork in the duct, listens, and charges right, seeing a dim light breaking though the darkness seemingly miles ahead.
She is at the source light before she even knows it, a vent opening to a dimly lit room. Mustard’s voice coming from the room, but still muffled by some distance. When she peers through the vent she sees a large room, dark but for the dim flicker of light as through from a television, and within, in spite of the voices, not a person in site. She waits to be sure, then adjusts the lamp to gain entry to the room.
In spite of the warmth from the vent, the room is cool. The walls and floor are hard cement. She moves towards the light source, coming around a bank of television screens, and on one them Mustard in a large room, being questioned by one of the kidnappers. Mustard has a bandage on his head, one of his eyes blackened and swollen. Maddie doesn’t know if this man had done it, or one of the security guards back at the museum, but one thing is certain, if they are willing to hurt a seventeen-year old kid, they are probably willing to hurt an eleven-year old one.
Maddie finds a knob and turns up the volume. Mustard is holding his hands in his head, looking tired and hurt, his face wet with tears as the kidnapper stood over him. She hears the voice of a woman speaking from off-camera.
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