Innocents Lost by Michael McBride Read Free Book Online

the four corners. Her dark hair was tangled and matted, her naked body smeared with dirt and blood. She bucked and screamed, then fell perfectly still. Her eyes widened and she shook her head violently from side to side, releasing a rush of blood from her nose.
    "Please," she sobbed. "Please. No. I'll be good. I promise. I…I won't tell anyone."
    Footsteps scuffed to her right and she turned in that direction. Her cheekbone was bruised, and a scabbed laceration ran through the crusted hair above her left ear.
    A man's voice gently shushed her.
    "I…I can't watch this," Miller said, shrinking away from the group.
    Dandridge only wished he could do the same, for they all knew what was about to happen. The evidence was bound in barbed wire across the clearing.
    The girl shook her head again and repeated the word "no" over and over. A metal cart rolled into view with a clatter. Rusted surgical implements from a bygone era were spread out evenly on a bloodstained towel.
    "Mommy!" she screamed. "I want my mom! Please. Let me go. I need to go home!"
    A green blur suddenly filled the screen. The lens focused on a poorly erased chalkboard upon which the same series of numbers and letters that adorned the disk and its case had been scrawled. In the room beyond, the child's pleas turned to screams. The chalkboard jittered before being jerked away from the camera.
    A shadow crossed over the supine girl's body and the recorder zoomed in on the frightened child's face and torso. She was so young, her cheeks still chubby, what little skin showed through the filth was smooth and porcelain. The shadow shifted and there was the sound of metal against metal.
    The girl screamed and thrashed.
    Again, there was a shushing sound, which only served to increase her exertions.
    A pointed shadow traced the slope of her neck down to her jugular notch before the tip of a scalpel appeared, followed by a hand, the wrinkles in the knuckles lined with dried blood. The man pressed the blade into the skin, which dimpled and then parted with a swell of dark blood.
    The child's cries were so filled with terror and pain that Dandridge found himself praying for them to end.
    She trembled as the scalpel drew a line down the center of her narrow chest, then bucked so hard she nearly buried the blade in her upper abdomen.
    The man made a growling sound and pulled the scalpel away. There was a crash as he slammed it onto the tray of utensils.
    Ribbons of blood trickled to either side of the incision when she arched against her restraints in an effort to seize the momentary opportunity. She screamed for her mother and father, for help, for the pain to stop, until a large hand closed over her mouth and nose, and held her face still. Her muffled screams faded to whimpers and her eyes opened impossibly wide, the irises shivering.
    A hammer struck her hairline from the top of the screen with a sickening crack, then disappeared again, trailing a tangle of hair. Blood pooled in the depression in her frontal bone where the skin had torn. She fell abruptly silent, her body motionless.
    "Oh, God," Dandridge whispered. The laptop suddenly felt as though it was on fire, burning his legs, and he wanted nothing more than to hurl it to the ground. He had never seen anything so horrible in his life.
    The girl's eyes glazed over and her lids slowly began to close.
    After a moment's hesitation, the man loosened his grip and removed his hand from her face. Her lips had split under the pressure, smearing her entire mouth with blood.
    "I don't think…I can't watch this," one of the officers said from behind Dandridge, then scampered away to vomit in the forest.
    The child's chest rose and fell, subtly, slowly.
    Dandridge had to look away, but only saw the girl's remains kneeling at the point where the cairn had been removed from above her.
    He glanced back down at the monitor in time to see the hand return with the scalpel, which slid back into the incision past the depth of the