Jimmy (25 page)

     Thankfully Scott was having trouble with the hill as well and couldn’t reach her level and by the time he started to get the hang of it the numbness had cleared and she managed to stand back up.

     The rest of the climb was no easier, but she made it without slipping and then around the building to the main entrance, which she charged into much to the dismay of the hall monitor at the front hallway desk.

     “Whoa, slow down,” the monitor said.  She was the same young lady that often walked around the lunch room, the school officials thinking the presence of hall monitors would discourage any rowdiness.

     “There’s a man chasing me,” Tina said.

     “What?”

     “A man is chasing me.”

     The woman glanced at the entrance, which was still empty and said, “Are you sure?”

     “YES!”

     Just then Scott came in.

     “That’s him!” Tina shouted.

     Another hall monitor had come on the scene now.

     “What’s going on?” he asked. 

     “Her mother sent me to pick her up,” Scott said.  “But she ran away from me.”

     “My mother told me she would pick me up herself,” Tina said.  “And he tried forcing me in his car.”

     Scott put his hands up.  “I did not try to force her into the car I just told her to stop acting like this and get in the car.”

     The hall monitors looked back and forth at each other for a moment and then the young man turned to Tina and said, “Do you know him?”

     “Not really.  My mother does, but I’ve never really met him.”

     The monitor turned to Scott.  “Her mother asked you to pick her up even though you two have never met knowing two girls have disappeared?”

     Scott shrugged.  “She just didn’t want Tina waiting for ever at the school.”

     “What’s going on?” another adult asked, this one having come out of the main office.

     The hall monitors explained the situation.

     “Okay, into my office, both of you.  I want to call her mother and find out what’s going on.”  He then whispered something to the one hall monitor.  Tina couldn’t hear all of it but was sure one of the words was
sheriff
.

     From there the three headed into the office, Tina keeping the school official between herself and Scott. 

*  *  *

     “Hey Mom,” Alan said.  “Have you noticed anything odd about Jimmy lately?”

     The two were in the kitchen, Alan helping clear up the dinner mess the family had left.  Jimmy himself was down in his room and their father had flipped on an episode of
The Office
.

     “Jimmy?  No.”

     “Really?” Alan asked. 

     “Have you?” she asked.  She seemed to be examining an old sponge while asking this, one which probably added more bacteria than took away when applied to the dishes.

     “Well, I don’t know,” Alan said, his voice careful because he knew Jimmy had a way of appearing out of nowhere at times, his movements almost naturally stealthy.  “He just hasn’t seemed himself lately and - ”

     “I’m going for a bike ride!” Jimmy called, his presence in the entryway having gone unnoticed until he spoke.

     “Okay honey!” his mother called.  “Be careful.”

     Alan waited until his brother left and said, “See, that’s what I’m talking about.  Why all these sudden bike rides?”

     “He just rides at night after dinner,” she said while tossing the sponge into the garbage can.  “I have friends who go on walks every night or jog in the morning.”

     “Yeah but he goes a few times every day.  In the morning he wakes up at like five and goes on a ride in the dark and at night once everyone goes to bed he heads out again sometimes.”

     Kelly opened a new sponge and wetted it.

     “It’s . . . I don’t know?” Alan added before she could reply.

     “He’s just restless.”  She started scrubbing the plates.

     “Maybe,” Alan said, though he knew it wasn’t that.  Something wasn’t right.  It wasn’t just the bike rides.  Jimmy’s entire personally seemed different, almost cautious at times like he was giving more thought to things.  At first Alan assumed it was because of Tina and the prom, but now didn’t think that was really it.

Chapter Ten

    
“Ugh,”
Jimmy gasped as he pulled open the heavy door and stepped into the fallout shelter. 
It smells like shit.

     Thankfully it wasn’t actually fecal matter that he smelled, just a combination of urine and body odor, but it was still enough to stop him in his tracks and momentarily kill his sex drive.  Even worse, he had known something like this would happen given the small space and lack of circulation and had even started to notice a growing foulness, but didn’t do anything about it, his mind able to ignore it at first.  Now he couldn’t.  A smell like this could kill an elephant.

    
And I can’t leave the door open.

     No toilets, no shower, and no way to quickly ventilate the space.  It obviously wasn’t a first rate fallout shelter the Hood family had created.  In fact, Jimmy was pretty sure it had been a last minute creation, probably one that had originally been a storm shelter that they tried to convert - something they could duck into when the foreign paratroopers dropped in and wait out their advance until the lines moved beyond the area. 

    
Illinois Insurgency or the II for short.

     Jimmy smiled at the thought, but then quickly grimaced at the smell and covered his face with his sleeve, his nose wishing the Hoods had left some gas masks behind for him to use.

    
And a hose to spray them down with.

     Actually he wondered if he could connect a hose from the house onto the sink in the back corner and spray them down.  The shelter did have a drain in the center of the floor, so the water wouldn’t pool too much.  Even better he then wouldn’t have to worry about scrubbing the floor, which was undoubtedly covered in drying urine.

    
Like the floor of Frodo’s cage,
he thought to himself.  Frodo had been a rabbit Alan owned for many years, one that he had named Frodo due to the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy.  Unfortunately Alan had been pretty young at the time and hadn’t been very good at cleaning out the cage, or the giant corner of the basement where the rabbit was free to roam, a three foot high foldable fence keeping it penned in.  In the end Jimmy had always been forced to clean the floor, especially when the smell got so great it would waft into his room.  Now this reminded him of that, the only difference being the lack of wood chip litter.

    
Maybe you should give them each a litter box?

     Once again the smell killed his smile.

     He glanced around the room looking for the bucket.  It wasn’t far from Samantha’s feet, feet that were not holding her up but instead simply glided across the floor.

    
Shit!

     He looked up at her face, but couldn’t really see much since her head was hanging low, her chin resting on her chest. 

    
Is she breathing?

     He stared at her chest for several seconds but couldn’t detect any rise or fall.

     His eyes twisted around and looked at Megan.  She was staring back at him, her eyes looking as if she were trying to burn a hole through him.

     “Is she dead?” he asked.

     Megan didn’t reply.

     Jimmy shook his head, and then, nose still pressed into his sleeve, walked over to Samantha and put a hand to her chest.

     For a moment all was still, but then he detected a faint beating of her heart and felt her lungs working.  Both were weak, however, and he doubted she would be able to keep it up if she continued to hang like this, the weight on her lungs too much, her body needing her feet to support her.

     “Let her down,” Megan said.  “She’s had enough.”

     Jimmy glared at Megan even though he knew she was right, but then wondered how he would go about securing her if her hands weren’t over her head like this.  Even if he allowed her to sit rather than keeping her lifted up to where she had to stand, she would be able to work at her bindings once the strength returned and pull herself free.

    
You need handcuffs or shackles in order to keep them like that.

     He didn’t have any that would work, however, and had no idea how to get some.  Several online sex stores carried them, but ordering them was a problem because he feared it would be traceable.  The last thing he needed was for the Sheriff Department to know he had ordered a couple sets of handcuffs.

    
If you drive up into the suburbs you could buy some from Lover’s Lane or even go into Chicago and stop at a sex store.

     Lover’s Lane was a possibility, driving into Chicago was not.  He had only been in the city a few times during his life, and knew that he did not posses the skills to drive around such a busy place or navigate the different neighborhoods.  Too scary.

     “Jimmy, you have to let her down!” Megan said again.

     “I will!” Jimmy snapped back.  “But only if you behave yourself!”

     Megan didn’t reply to this.

    
It’s starting. 

    
You care about her.

     Jimmy wanted Megan to feel responsible for Samantha and to know that if she misbehaved Samantha would suffer for it, unless it was something so horrible that Megan herself needed a severe punishment.

     “First I need to clean this place out.”  His words were still muffled by his shirt.  “If you don’t give me any trouble with that I will lower her.”

     Again Megan didn’t respond even though he knew she had heard him.

     Such actions annoyed him so he quickly said, “Do you understand?” 

     “Yes,” Megan said.

     “Good.” 

     He didn’t want to say much more after that because each time he opened his mouth to talk the smell seemed to attack his taste buds.

    
Could this smell kill them?

     It was a question he had no answer for, though he did remember a teacher once telling him that people who lived in houses overrun by cats could start to go crazy from the ammonia in the urine.  That took a long time, however, and they had only been here a few days.  Still, if the oxygen became contaminated enough it might pose a problem. 

     Unfortunately he didn’t really have a solution to it aside from keeping them clean, so it wasn’t really something he could worry too much about.

     He walked over to the sink in the rear corner while considering this and looked at the nozzle, his eyes trying to figure out if a garden hose would be able to attach.

     The head didn’t have any screw swivels on it so he figured the answer was no.  He would have to fill the bucket with soapy water and scrub them down.

    
And bring a bottle of Febreze next time.

     Jimmy grabbed the bucket from the floor and took it over to the sink to fill.  While there he realized there was no soap, nor any cloth to scrub them with.

     He would have to venture into the Hood’s house and see if anything like that had been left behind.  Chances were they had been, the question was had kids destroyed it during their adventures inside?

     At the moment such thoughts didn’t really worry him because he was craving the fresh air. 

    
And you’ve only been in here a few minutes.

     He wouldn’t let this happen again.  From now on the girls would get a sponge bath everyday, right before he fed them.

*  *  *

     For a while Megan hadn’t even realized Jimmy was down there with them, her mind having drifted into a wakeful daze that didn’t really register anything, almost as if she were having a very plain dream, one which lacked the surrealism most people came to expect and sometimes enjoy during the nighttime hours.

     It was his movement that finally alerted her to his presence, movement toward Samantha.

    
Don’t touch her!

     The words stayed within her head, her mind and body momentarily fearful of drawing his attention.  At the same time she regretted giving into this cowardly behavior and tried to break free from it.

     The words
let her down you stupid piece of shit
nearly left her lips.  In fact, she was moistening her dry lips so that that the words would have the needed forcefulness, and wouldn’t sound weak, when he looked at her, his attention causing the fear to return without any delay.

     “Is she dead?” Jimmy asked.

     Megan couldn’t respond and just stared at him.