by Jay Nichols
Chapter 20
The paper and pencil were so easy to get, it was obscene.
Spying the empty driveway from the fringe of the woods, he waited thirty minutes then made his approach. Over lawn, hedge, and flower bed he crawled, serpentinely, lizard-like. When he got to the house, he stood, entered through the unlocked front door, and headed straight for the girl’s room. What he needed was sitting on top of a white dresser, along with about a dozen guitar picks. He gathered the objects (minus the guitar picks) and exited through the back door, which was also unlocked.
Sitting on the back steps, Mike examined his loot. The paper was in the form of an artist’s sketch pad. Good. Nice and thick. The pencils were of assorted colors, but so were their leads. This won’t do. It needs to look like the real deal.
Mike went back inside the house to search for a real pencil, one he could use to write a serious letter. Not finding one in the girl’s room, he went to the kitchen and rummaged through the junk drawer. After a thorough inspection, he discovered an old No. 2 near the back. Luckily, it had already been sharpened to a keen point. Then Mike, worrying what he would do if the point were to break, delved back in for a pencil sharpener. Smiling demurely, he lifted a small plastic cube out of the tray and dropped it in the front pocket of his shorts.
He returned to the stoop to plan his escape. It had been risky venturing away from the pack during the day, but he had assessed the risk and concluded that most of the meanies would be indoors in the middle of a hot Friday afternoon and most likely at their places of employment. Mike thought he could escape to the woods the same way he had come. But he soon nixed that plan, knowing it would be safer to stick to the backyards. The fences weren’t too high, and due to his excitement over his plans coming to fruition, he had plenty of energy to jump them. It was only a matter of hours now before the show started. Since first daylight, O’Brien had found himself eagerly checking the sun’s angle every few minutes in anticipation of night’s cover and the coming of his glory.
Once it’s dark, they’ll see. They’ll see how much I’ve changed. Then they’ll regret doing the things they did to me.
Mike’s stomach grumbled and he doubled over in pain. His last meal had been consumed over twenty-four hours ago, and it could hardly be called a meal—just some wild berries and a couple of cicadas he’d knocked out of a tree with a rock.
Mike dropped the pad and pencil on the stoop and went back inside the house. He threw open the pantry door and nabbed a jar of peanut butter, which he took to the counter. There, he opened a fresh loaf of white bread, unscrewed the jar, dug all four fingers in, and spread the goop over a slice. He downed the open-faced sandwich in four large bites. After that, he made another one…then another…and another.… It wasn’t until the bread bag was half empty that he realized he was leaving clues all over the place.
"Oh well," he said to no one. "Good luck finding me."
After washing his hands in the sink, he leaned over and lapped at the stream to dissolve the peanut butter from the roof of his mouth. He then shoved the empty jar inside the bread bag and twisted the bag shut. Refreshed and full, he escaped via the back door, where he grabbed his loot from the stoop and beat a path back to the woods. Leaping fence after fence, he held his pilfered goods high over his head, far away from his filthy, sweating body. He didn’t want the people who read his letters to suspect their authenticity. If they were to notice anything out of the ordinary, like a smudge of dirt, or a fat, yellow thumbprint, it might put his plans in jeopardy. In fact, it might ruin all he had tried so hard to achieve.