Jimmy

by William Malmborg

  “No,” Jimmy said. “I think. No.” He waved a hand. “I thought I forgot my history book, but it’s already at home.” Once the lie started he went with it. “Yeah, it is certainly at home because I was working on note cards yesterday for my presentation next week.”

  “Okay,” Alan said. Something about his tone told Jimmy that his brother wasn’t convinced.

  The two started walking again.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, but the library is going to be closing in a moment,” a middle aged woman who looked every bit the part of a high school librarian said. Most students disliked the lady and thought she was a bitch, but Tina had never had any problems with her and always tried to be nice.

  “Oh, okay. Um. Do you know where I could wait until five thirty?” Tina asked while sticking a bookmark in the novel she had brought with her. “My Mother doesn’t want me walking home because of the missing girls, so I’m waiting for her to pick me up.”

  “Oh dear,” the librarian said, hands folded against her chest. “Such a tragedy. Those poor girls.” She paused a moment. “It is good your mother is concerned. Most don’t seem to care what their children do these days. So many young girls just tossed into the world without care or concern.”

  Tina waited, but then, when the woman didn’t continue, she asked again about a place where she could wait.

  “I suggest you go ask in the office because I really don’t know where you could go. All the after school activities are finished for the year.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Tina said while grabbing her things. “I’ll just head down to the office.”

  “Oh my, what is that you are reading my dear?”

  Tina looked down at her book. It was Necroscope by Brian Lumley and it sported a wicked looking skull on the cover, one which often did startle people who weren’t ready for it. “It’s a novel about a young man who can communicate with the dead who also fights vampires during the Cold War.”

  “How dreadful.”

  “It’s pretty good. Way better than the romantic vampire garbage that most people read today.”

  The librarian smiled. “Not a Twilight fan?”

  “God no!” Tina wanted to add a vomit sound to this, but held back.

  “Thank goodness. There is at least one sane girl in this school.”

  Tina smiled. She had heard stories of some of the fights that had broken out when the school got the Twilight books, fights that had gotten pretty vicious, especially when someone shouted that Jacob was a loser. Jimmy had told her all about it, said some crazy mothers had even called the school because they were angry that their sons and daughters — daughters mostly — had not been allowed to use the book for English reports. The teacher hadn’t banned the book from being used as a report topic, but instead had only allowed one or two students to do a report on it, and parents had gotten upset because they felt only their son or daughter would be able to give the story justice in front of the classroom.

  “I’m an Anne Rice fan myself, though I do enjoy a really good horrific vampire story as well,” the librarian added.

  “Well you might want to check out these,” Tina said while lifting the book. “My boyfriend loaned me this copy and said that there are a dozen more.”

  “I will do that. And now I better close this place down. Good luck finding a spot to wait.”

  “Thanks,” Tina said and headed for the doors. Ten minutes later she was sitting outside of the girl’s locker room on the far left of the school, her body lounging across a old wooden bench, her book open, her eyes going from line to line waiting to see if Harry Keogh managed to outsmart the Soviet supported East German police as he searched for the grave of a man he needed to talk with.

  It was an exciting scene.

  A breeze came out of nowhere and turned several pages forward in the book. Tina swore and flipped the pages back until she found where she had been.

  Her eyes did not return to the page, however, but looked over at the deserted field. With school over in two weeks (three for anyone who had to take finals) the practice fields were empty, the sport programs over for the year. An eerie thought settled in as she realized how alone she was. Sure, there were janitors and teachers and office officials still in the school, but out here there was no one. Isolating her even more was the area she had chosen to wait. During the outdoor sport seasons the area would have been packed with girls coming and going from the locker room, but now there was no one. She was completely alone.

  What if the kidnapper is watching me now?

  Beyond the sport fields was the sidewalk she always walked home on, one that everyone said Samantha King and Megan Reed had been on when they both disappeared — though no one could understand why Megan Reed had gone that way when her house was on the other side of town.

  Tina shivered at the thought of someone coming out at her while walking home. Thankfully she always had Jimmy with her.

  Were the two even kidnapped? What if this was just some hoax they were playing?

  This was a thought some people had voiced today after the assembly, though most thought it unlikely. One girl disappearing right before prom and graduation could be explained with the runaway theory, but two girls, both back to back like this was a stretch.

  Then again, they were good friends, so it wasn’t completely improbable. Still, Tina now fell into the majority that thought something bad had happened. The question was what and why?

  Tina shook her head and went back to reading her book, but unfortunately her eyes could no longer focus on the story because they kept looking up and scanning the horizon, one which was growing darker and darker as thick clouds once again moved in.

  Behind her the door to the locker room was thrown open with a bang causing her to jump up from the bench and twist around, book clutched against her chest. A second later a janitor pushing a huge cleaning contraption that held a garbage can, broom, mop, bucket and other sanitation tools wedged everything through the door.

  Tina eyed the tools on the cart and hoped that one day she would not be skilled enough in their uses to be considered a professional.

  The guy stared at her for several seconds and then said, “What’re you still doing here?” It was a voice that was trying to hold authority, yet fell short; a voice that would still cower to teachers in the hallway despite being the same generation as them. Teachers in turn would talk down when replying to that voice and treat its owner as if they were students themselves.

  “Um, waiting for my Mom to pick me up,” Tina said. She was still standing, her book clutched against her breasts, which were heaving in and out with each breath.

  “Schools closed. No students allowed on the grounds.” A second later he added, “No loitering. It’s against the law.” He seemed proud of himself after that statement.

  “But I’m waiting to be picked up.” A part of her had known someone would probably say something to her while she waited outside between four-thirty and five-thirty, which was why she had chosen such an isolated spot. Her mind had never pictured a janitor saying something, though, and now she thought about Samantha and Megan and how often serial killers and perverts took jobs as janitors at schools so they could be around young girls without looking suspicious. “My Mom should be here any second.”

  “Go wait somewhere else.”

  “I can’t,” she said, and then once again, just in case he had any ideas, added, “She’ll be here soon!”

  The janitor continued to stare at her and for a moment Tina wondered if he was considering how easy it would be to grab her and take her to his car, an act that would probably go unseen and unheard on this side of the school.

  “I’m reporting you,” the janitor said and turned to head back inside.

  Tina sighed and took a much needed breath, her lungs having halted its production line for a moment. A second later she started to wonder if she would be in trouble for waiting out here like this, and for not doing as the janitor said, but th
en let the thought fade because her mother had insisted she wait and the library was closed. Besides, chances were the janitor wouldn’t even report her given the odd social position they carried in the school, one that had them hovering above the students but below the teaching staff. Most likely the man would feel just as uncomfortable walking into the dean’s office as a student would, and even if he did get up the courage to do so and report her, the dean probably wouldn’t care. In fact, if she remembered correctly, she once heard second hand from someone about a janitor that reported overhearing students talking about doing a ‘bigger than Columbine’ school shooting and reported it. Nothing was done until a few weeks later when a teacher reported hearing the same students making similar comments. An investigation uncovered evidence that what the students had been saying was true.

  Tina sat back down on the bench and tried to get back into her book, but once again had a hard time focusing.

  A horn honked.

  Tina looked up and saw a car pulled alongside the walkway that encircled the school, the driver looking at her through the windshield, face and body blanketed by shadow.

  For a moment she had no idea if the driver was trying to get her attention, or someone else, and looked around to see if someone else had been waiting without her knowing.

  No one else was present.

  “Tina,” a familiar yet unrecognizable voice called from the car. “Your mother asked me to pick you up so you didn’t have to wait too long.”

  “Who—” Tina started to ask but then realized it was Scott Goldman, the young man who was part of the same knitting club as her mother, one who she knew her mother was screwing during her nights away because she had pretended to be her mother once when Scott called looking for her.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Scott said.

  “She told me she would pick me up at five thirty,” Tina called back, an image of the two missing girls floating in her mind.

  “Yeah, but she said she knows the library closed and thought you wouldn’t have a place to wait and told me to take you home and stay with you until she came home.”

  Tina shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll wait here anyway.” Even without two girls missing Tina would never have considered getting in the car with him, not when his favorite pastime seemed to be knitting with a bunch of women and fucking the ones twice his age. No thank you.

  “Tina, your mother wants me to take you home.” His voice was growing harsh, yet couldn’t mask the juvenileness that it still carried. “Now get in this car.”

  “No.” Tina turned and looked back and wished the janitor really had gotten the principal or dean or some school official.

  “Tina, I’m not going to ask you again.” Scott got out of the car and stood with his arms crossed.

  “Fuck you!” Tina shouted and started back toward the girl’s locker room.

  Scott followed.

  Panic developed as she neared the door, but it wasn’t overwhelming because she knew he wouldn’t follow her inside the girl’s locker room.

  “Tina!”

  Tina grabbed the door handle and pulled, but nothing happened. The door was locked.

  Shit!

  The panic increased.

  “Tina, get in that car right now!” Scott said. His voice was too close.

  Tina turned. Scott was standing ten feet away from her, anger covering his face.

  “I’m serious!”

  Tina ran.

  Scott followed.

  The main entrance to the school wasn’t far, just up and around the corner from the locker room doors. The only problem was she had to scale a large hill that went up the side of the school, one which equaled two flights worth of stars inside of the building, thereby making the locker rooms a part of the subbasement even though they had their own outside doors.

  Making matter worse the grass was wet from the rain earlier and about halfway up Tina slipped, her right leg just seeming to disappear the moment she put pressure on it, the ankle crunching as she landed. A horrible numbness vibrated through the leg, one which made standing impossible.

  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 plat
es.

  “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.