Alternate Prolouge
Sound exploded in the room. Little Dotty Sykes opened her eyes, the howl on her lips evaporating before she gave it voice. She stuffed her fingers into her mouth instead, her bluish-green eyes wide, pupils dilated in the shadowy dark room. Drool ran down along her pudgy fist to where her right wrist was circled in a red prickled rash from too many damp hours. A man stood in the doorway. She didn’t know him. She turned her head. Her mother was there on the bed sleeping beside her. Dotty’s head wobbled, unsteady, as she turned back to see where the man was. He raised his arm, the noise came, very loud again and the bed pitched and rolled. Like a fledgling in the nest when a cat peers through the leaves, she stayed silent, in the primitive way of babies who may not yet have been seen.
Her eyes followed the man as he turned and disappeared. The noise again and once again. All was quiet. Dotty drooled around her sodden fingers.
The room was brighter when Dotty opened her eyes again. Her mother lay on her belly, eyes shut. The world sounded like it was time to walk and run and eat. She patted her mother’s hair and face, but her mother didn’t react. Dotty did this for a while longer, fussing and crying just a little. The fussing didn’t cause her mother to move, so she gave it up quickly, spying her binky just a bit out of reach. She crawled to it and in her haste to reach it, the pacifier rolled a little, then a bit more, then it disappeared over the side of the bed.
Dotty followed the binky, looking all the way down to the floor where the binky now rocked back and forth. This was a challenge, but not a new one. Dotty didn’t like to leave the bed, but she could do it. She turned herself around, flat on her belly with her legs dangling off the bed. She pushed back a little, then a little more and then wham – she was sitting on the floor, and this time she did cry out, arms held out to the side, face flushed with the surprise of the fall. After a while, when nobody came and picked her up or soothed her, she looked around again and found the binky. She stuffed it into her mouth and crawled back to the bed. Her mother’s feet were dangling above her, and she used the bedclothes to pull herself upright. She stood, swaying, holding onto her mother’s ankles, suckling the binky and patting the smooth and dirty bottoms of her mother’s feet.
The room was very bright when Dotty heard voices, doors banging, people walking. She was sitting on the floor beneath her mother’s feet, her small legs too weak for her to have stood all that time. When she heard the voices, her stomach clenched, and she wanted to eat. She wanted to eat. She wanted her mother. A long wail erupted from her mouth, and she heard a woman’s voice which made her cry louder. Footsteps came faster now, right to the room and Dotty pulled herself up again, holding her mother’s foot and looking to see who would come in.
“Oh My God. There’s a baby in here, Chief, the baby’s alive.” The woman in the door was talking into her shoulder. “The mother looks to be shot too though.”
The woman walked softly to Dotty, who was silent, fingers once again stuck fast in her mouth. The woman was tall, and she leaned over Dotty and over the bed and over her mother. The woman had hands made blue by her gloves, and she gently touched Dotty’s mother’s neck. Dotty watched, drooling.
“Charlotte Sykes is dead chief,” the woman said quietly and then she dropped to her knees before Dotty. “Hi, Dotty. Hi baby.” The woman reached out to Dotty and gently drew her towards her dark blue shirt. Gentle hands with blue gloves pushed Dotty’s damp hair off her face. Dotty let go of her mother’s foot. The woman gathered her up and stood. “It’s OK little one. Every thing’s OK baby.”
And then Dotty was being carried away, away from her mother with this new woman whose chest was hard from her Kevlar vest, and who had a noisy radio on her shoulder, from which the voices of excited and yelling people could be heard. Dotty began to wail in earnest. She kicked her feet and flung her arms out, wiggling to get loose, to get back to her mother, but the woman held her tight, speaking softly as the radio chattered.
They were in the hallway now heading to the front door. Dotty thrashed and kicked, howled and screeched the word she knew, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
When the woman pushed open the wooden screen door, Dotty twisted and climbed toward her face and then wriggled until her belly lay on the woman’s shoulder. She took a deep breath, thrust both hands into the air behind the woman, reaching back to the hallway, back to her mother. “Mama, mama!” Around her the shutters of cameras whirred.
If you want to know what happened to Baby Dot, you can find her story here:
Pop over to Amazon and meet ride along with Dotty as she falls in love with a man who wants to save the world.
Free Stuff, which you shouldn’t ask for until you’ve spent the weekend with Edward Walker, can be found here: