Jimmy

by William Malmborg

  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.

  Rather than demand an answer from her Jimmy went and investigated the situation himself.

  Megan stewed in her own cowardly guilt for a moment and kept vowing to herself not to give into the fear. Make him realize there will be a cost for his actions. Nothing is free.

  Such defiance was easy to imagine, but hard to actually achieve in this situation.

  After a few moments Megan did sum up enough courage to tell Jimmy he needed to lower Samantha. It was only a small victory, though, because she knew Jimmy would realize this himself. She also worried that by suggesting this Jimmy would refuse, his own mind not wanting to give in to her.

  The worst was when he told her he would let Samantha down, but only if Megan behaved herself. She didn’t want to be tied to Samantha like this. She didn’t want her defiance of him to harm her.

  That is exactly what he wants, though.

  Samantha had become her whipping girl.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Thankfully she didn’t have to think about this much because once Jimmy left the shelter her mind went back to the unrelenting pain, one which never fully disappeared. She couldn’t even put it out of her mind. This led her to think about a statement she had once heard on TV during one of those medical shows. A guy said something about living in chronic pain and how it was horrible because the one who suffered was always aware of it. Making it even more aggravating was the notion other people had about getting used to it. Even Megan had thought this would be the case. Now she knew differently. The ropes were constantly on her mind. At moments other thoughts seemed more pressing, but never fully acquired all of her attention.

  Time passed and she suddenly realized Jimmy had not returned even though he had said something about cleaning them.

  What if something had happened?

  For the first time Megan realized she couldn’t wish for disaster upon Jimmy, not unless he left behind enough clues so people could find the two of them. If not then they would both die a slow death while hanging like this.

  She also realized a part of her was craving his return even though she knew his actions would be horrible. She wanted him back because the long stretches of isolation were too much, especially with Samantha hanging lifeless.


  Don’t!

  She couldn’t help it and quickly grew angry with herself. You can’t let your dependence on him get the better of you! her mind screamed.

  When it came to the population within her mind, this resistance movement was an ever shrinking figure despite how much she wished for it to grow.

  Don’t give into him, the resistance part said.

  Don’t give him reason to hurt you, the other part replied.

  He doesn’t need a reason!

  If he didn’t have a reason, however, she then wouldn’t have to feel guilty about it.

  Samantha moaned.

  Megan turned her attention toward her friend and realized she also didn’t want to feel like she was the cause of her pain.

  It’s not your fault!

  Megan knew this to be true but wondered how long she would be able to accept it.

  How long before I turn into a willing prisoner and accept his rule over me?

  Megan feared this more than pain.

  * * *

  The fresh air outside of the fallout shelter tasted wonderful and for the first time that day he didn’t care about the muggy wetness that clung to him. Instead he felt almost as if it was a complimentary cleansing process, one which promised to take the stench of the fallout shelter away from his body.

  I could walk away. Just seal it off and walk away.

  It was a nice thought but one he knew he couldn’t truly achieve because the cravings to see the girls would be too strong. The same thing happened with the porn he bought. After purchasing an online subscription or a video he always decided that it would be the last time, never again would he waste money on something like that, but then, a few days or weeks later depending on how strong his will power, he would find himself doing it again. He couldn’t stop.

  Will you stop once the girls are dead?

  He feared the answer to this question and quickly pushed the thoughts from his mind as he approached the backdoor of the Hood’s house. Many years earlier the door latch had been broken and people could come and go at will. Eventually the sheriff had gotten tired of having to check the place out all the time — mostly because a few kids got hurt while inside which sparked outrage from the parents — and installed a padlock on the door. Of course, this didn’t stop the kids from getting inside, which eventually led to the front door being padlocked as well, something which the sheriff had been hesitant to do because the Hoods still owned the place and could come back at anytime and would be furious if they found it locked. What made the situation even more frustrating for the sheriff was that he couldn’t have charges filled against anyone who broke inside because they needed the Hood family to be the one to complain, and no one could reach them. Thankfully for the sheriff this information wasn’t common knowledge. Even Jimmy had been ignorant of this fact until two years earlier when he had inadvertently asked his World History teacher about it. Before becoming a teacher the man had been a lawyer and at the time Jimmy was considering using the Hood place as a way of getting bondage videos mailed to him, so he asked him a series of carefully worded questions about the issue, ones that didn’t reveal his true plans but got him the answers he was looking for. The plan had never gotten off the ground though because when he attempted to mail a letter to himself with the Hood’s address as the delivery location, it never arrived. After this he decided to wait until he had his own place to buy bondage tapes, but then eventually gave in to the desire, his hope being that his parents never asked him about the boxes that were arriving, which was the whole reason why he wanted to use the Hood place to begin with. Thankfully the issue never came up. He lied about his age with a simple ‘Yes, I’m Over Eighteen’ age statement along with a fake birth date, and sent in Money Orders to get the tapes, which always arrived a few days later in plain boxes before his parents came home from work.

  His knowledge about the legality of entering the Hood place never disappeared, and one day he decided to use their basement as a dungeon. His plan had been to grab a girl while walking home, tying her up and using her like crazy until he got tired of her, the ski mask he wore making it impossible for her to know who had done this just in case she was ever discovered. In the end the plan had been vetoed because he didn’t think the basement secure enough, but not before he had broken off the backdoor padlock with a pair of bolt cutters and put his own identical one on.

  If the sheriff ever did try to get inside, something that wasn’t likely to happen because they would need a warrant, he would probably just assume he had misplaced the key and use bolt cutters as well once he failed to get inside. So far this had never happened, so Jimmy was confident the sheriff didn’t really care.

  Using his own key, Jimmy opened the lock and went inside to look for a sponge and some soap, the dusty stale air not really bothering him because the stuff in the fallout shelter was still fresh in his mind.

  The cobwebs, however, were a different story and grossed him out, especially when one caught him square in the face.

  Waving his arms around to combat the dangling creations and spitting a bit out of his mouth, Jimmy entered the family room.

  All the electronics had been picked clean, either by the Hood family as they were leaving or by kids who had broken inside over the years, but the wooden TV canopy was still present, its shelves ready to be filled once again with VHS and DVDS.

  I should have left the bondage tapes in here, he said to himself, the thought having never even occurred to him.

  Were did the tapes go?

  The question went unanswered as he left the family room and headed up the stairs, certain there had to be at least one bathroom up there.

  I should just bring the girls over here one at a time to take a shower.

  That would be too risky, though. One false move and the girl could get away easily. Again, if he had shackles and connected their feet together that wouldn’t be such a problem, but then with his luck someone would see him leading a girl from the shelter to the house or the house to the shelter. The place was isolated, but not isolated to the point where being seen was unfeasible.

  The stairs sighed as he stepped into the hallway, his arms once again having to clear away the cobwebs that crisscrossed the open air. While doing this he noticed another horrible smell assaulting his senses, one which almost felt damp when ascending his nose.

  It was coming from the bathroom on his left, specifically the shower.

  Jimmy once again covered his nose and mouth with his shirt and opened the shower curtain.

  Mold and mildew colored the once white walls.

  He looked around for some soap or body wash, but nothing had been left behind.

  The same was true with the top of the sink and the cabinets beneath.

  The place had been picked clean.

  He left that bathroom and looked to see if there was one in the master bedroom. It too was moldy, though this time the toilet was the really gross part because someone, probably Mr. Hood, had left the seat up before leaving the house. A second less noticeable musty smell was present, one which almost reminded him of the zoo for some reason.

  Despite the shirt he could barely stand the room and for a moment wondered if he shouldn’t just rinse the girls off tonight and then come back the next day with soap from home.

  No, you’re here and it will only take a second to check, so just do it.

  Jimmy obeyed, walked over to the shower, and threw open the curtain. This time a bar of soap was waiting, but it was one he would never touch, not even with gloves on, because of the mold all around it, and quickly turned away.

  His eyes rested on the cabinet beneath the sink. It was bigger than the one in the other bathroom had been, only one of its doors had been broken off, probably by kids, and from where he was standing it looked to be empty.

  He couldn’t see into the second cabinet, however, and quickly got down on his knees and opened it.

  Something growled inside and then lunged at him.

  Jimmy scr
eamed while falling backward into the bedroom as an angry opossum came at him, teeth glaring, and quickly back peddled himself from the bedroom, his hand slamming the door shut as he entered the hallway.

  Panic at what else could be living in the house entered his mind, especially given how dark it was becoming outside.

  The opossum continued to scream at him from beyond the door, one which Jimmy knew he would have to open so that the animal didn’t get stuck and die in there.

  Catch your breath first.

  It took a while but eventually he was able to stand, and was ready to leave the hallway and the house, the idea of finding soap far from his mind now. Before leaving he eased open the bedroom door so that the opossum just had to push it to get out.

  Images of other animals entered his mind, ones which could have easily crawled or slithered inside through the broken cellar windows.

  Gooseflesh sprang up on his bare arms.

  Get out of this house.

  Jimmy did just that, his hands scrapping free all the cobwebs and grime that had caught hold of him, his body desperately wanting a shower.

  * * *

  Jimmy looked horrible when he came back into the fallout shelter and for a moment Megan wanted to ask him what had happened, but then bit her tongue as he snatched up the metal bucket from the ground and headed toward the sink.

  He was angry, but at what she didn’t know. Still, it frightened her a bit.

  Bucket filled Jimmy came back into her line of sight and looked around for something. Nothing seemed to catch his eye, though.

  Frustrated he headed over to the shelf with the wool blankets on them and unfolded one. Then, without warning, he pulled out a knife from his pocket, flicked the blade open with his thumb, and started cutting out a large square. Once he was done with that he took the large square back to the bucket and draped it over the edge.