The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [73]
Or what he was convinced he knew.
Hell, if Simon was simply a murderer, he was grateful to have respectable company to hide behind. With Max’s convictions swirling, he was beginning to hope he was about to meet just that --a murderer, or a suspected one. Not someone more, someone unhuman.
But that was his goal, his dream, the essence of his pursuits.
Wasn’t it?
They reached the head of the stairs, arrived at the attic door.
The pastor seemed to have a wariness about him just then, as if his rational self was beginning to actually doubt his own evolved opinions about Simon, was beginning to reflect upon this private detective’s investigative queries concerning his beloved handyman. The man was indeed bizarre, that Simon. He was mysterious and he was reclusive. The man had secrets and the pastor always carried the conviction that the facial scars which highlighted Simon’s features bore witness to a deep dark past.
But then there was the issue of repentance, that Simon was born again, that with repentance there was forgiveness and an erasing of the past, no questions asked.
Time would tell for sure, as simple as a knock on the door.
Without a word, the pastor knocked. And then a word, a few words, to Max, “I’d expect him to be here, as he’s only usually here or around the property. He’s never really any place else. One of us even delivers his groceries and he has a car for Pete’s sake. He’s not for being out and about....”
The pastor dug into his pockets the next moment, began to fumble with a small key chain. He sorted keys until he came to the precise one, then, inserted it into the doorknob. He knocked once more, knocked twice more, called out Simon’s name.
Max became aware of his own sweat.
The door unlocked.
It creaked open into the decadent dark.
***
Bradshaw took one step forward, eased further into and against the attic door until it rested half way open. The hesitancy with which he did so was an intentional result of polite respect, much like the careful intrusion into a bathroom one fears may be occupied by an embarrassing moment and a do you mind!??
Max’s hesitancy was far more primal. To him, this was yet another door open unto mystery pervading and ageless, which was nothing new for an experienced explorer of the unknown, but this particular mystery was to Max both threatening and deadly. Max held his breath, clenched his knuckles, and peered fearfully inside past the threshold, maintaining an immediate closeness to the pastor in front of him. If only Bradshaw shared in his suspenseful dread.
The pastor was about to call out again, but something stopped him. He stood still and motionless suddenly. There was an unmistakable rancidity which swept through the attic bowels and assaulted Max’s senses, humid as stale sweat. A dim lucidity invaded the attic space and revealed an atmosphere relatively spacious if not for the massively cluttered arrangement of dusty furniture; it gave Max the impression of having discovered a garage sale waiting to happen. He saw nothing but this at first, and it appeared as if no one was home.
If one could call it a home.
Max was certainly more relieved than disappointed at this, and the coast seemed clear enough to provide Max with the courage to enter the room fully and have a quick look around. With Bradshaw’s permission, of course.
But Bradshaw remained frozen before him, blocking greater portion of Max’s view and barring him from entering further.
“Pastor...?”
He was at once aware that Bradshaw was trembling, but when he reached for his arm in effort to gain his attention, the pastor made an unexpected move forward abruptly, quickly, and as he did so he cried out, “Alice? Alice, oh my God...Alice...?!”
And that was when Max came into full view of the surreal scene directly ahead and beneath the dismal daylight filtering down upon it, of a ramshackled bed and of the young woman sprawled naked and bound and motionless upon it like some wretched archaic portrayal of an innocent maiden