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Don't Let Jimmy Die

Part 3

By Elizabeth ButlerPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
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“You should be okay now... well not okay, but the itching will stop soon.” My new Mother told me, sat at the kitchen table.

The Sheriffs had arrived at the incident, he didn’t remember how, and examined the hand in detail, it was found to belong to the little newspaper boy.

“Just remember not to touch it and the tape should hold,” she continued, she looked troubled, trying to distract him from what had happened.

He just wanted to talk about it, everything was racing through his mind. He had concerns. Did the police think he was involved somehow? How did a hand get detached from a body and find its way into a clearing of grass? Even stranger, no one knew that part of town. He just wanted to leave but he had no means and knowledge of who he even was.

“Are you sure no one has seen that patch of grass before?” He asked Mother, staring at his makeshift bandage.

“Of course, not Jimmy, the whole town can’t be lying, now, can it?”

He nodded gingerly; he was swiftly discovering, it was pointless asking any kind of question of anyone in Blossom Springs, things just could not be investigated.

Life had to carry on as normal, but all through the night, he had images of blood and gore, or court rooms where he was being falsely accused of crimes, swirling in his mind. The image of the severed hand stuck vividly in his head. He wanted to retreat from the nightmare, but he couldn’t escape, no matter how much he tried. He only awoke in the morning when the robin flew on to his windowsill.

After all the excitement, it seemed that life had now turned mundane. The police only wanted Jimmy to do small and boring tasks. When he walked into the station in the morning, no one talked about the missing boy and no one discussed anything about it to him. It was not as though he disliked what he was currently doing. Mainly inconsequential tasks, carrying a cat down from a tree, helping the firefighters with their equipment, or feeding people’s dogs.

He was walking back home, late one night, passing by the café. Looking in the window, it was dark inside, the stools turned upside down on the counters and Barbara in the middle isle mopping the tiles on the floor. On the door, there was a sign swinging slightly reading “CLOSED’’. He sighed and moved on, when suddenly the bell above the door rang, and the door flung open. It was Barbara, in her waitress apron, tightly gripping the mop in both hands.

“You can come in if you like, we’re closed but you can help clean up.”

Jimmy headed inside, everything was shut off, with no sounds to be heard. She passed him a sponge and a bottle of liquid soap.

“Just go over the counters will you.” Her eyes looked down at his hand which was slowly recovering from the nettle rash.

“Ow! That looks painful! When did you do that?”

Jimmy stopped short. “Back when I… I found him...”

“Oh my! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have brought it up!”

“It’s alright, I don’t mind, actually I just want to talk about it, you know, get it off my chest.”

She didn’t say anything, she just looked troubled behind her eyes. “Oh Jimmy... cleaning is a good way to take your mind off… “

“But didn’t you hear? I just want to get it of my chest.”

She sighed. “Okay, but we’ll clean while we talk, I need to lock up by dusk.”

He nodded, looking out of the many large windows across the wall, were the booths lay. The sun was just setting over the town, it gave an orange and purple hue to the street and he began to talk as he wiped.

Later, as he lay in bed, he felt as if a weight had been lifted, just to have had a chance to talk to another human being, without any pressures, seemed to keep his mind at ease. However, it didn’t help him sleep. He looked out of his window, hoping to see the robin,

but it was still the middle of the night. Now he thought about it, he hadn’t seen a view of the moon since he had woken up in this place and it was odd to see a symmetrical ball of light stuck in the darkness. All the streetlights were off, the entire street was in complete darkness, apart from one streetlamp further down the street, which was glowing in the distance.

Suddenly the voice of a young woman screamed out. He saw her start to run, bizarrely, each of the streetlamps lit up as she went past them. He saw it was Barbara, she was a pale girl anyway, but underneath the night’s sky she looked just like a milk bottle, as if she had just seen a ghost. No more than a few seconds later, he saw a figure, all dressed in black, come racing behind her. Jimmy squinted behind his curtains, crouching slightly, with one hand around one side of his face, the other in full view. It was someone dressed as Zorro, as if in a Halloween costume. He was confused, there hadn’t been any buzz about it being Halloween in the town, but then he realised, the costumed Zorro was carrying a large metal chainsaw with both hands. He jumped back, running down the stairs, tripping over his own feet. He pushed the front door open but it was sealed shut, they must lock it at night. Even so, he kept pulling and pushing at the front door. Plan B, he ran into the kitchen and pulled at the back door, still there was no use. He grunted to himself, marching up the stairs and back to his room standing in the middle of the room staring at everything inside, then he turned to his bed sheets.

He didn’t even know if it would work, but he grabbed two sheets in his hands and tied them together to make a rope and flung it out of the window. Somewhere in his memory, in the back of his mind, he felt that this was what he should do. Jimmy jumped out of the window, white sheets tied around his waist, still dressed in his baby blue pjs, sliding down until he felt his feet land on the lawn. He stood up quickly, pulling the sheets away from him and throwing them on the ground, goodness knew why his family and the whole street hadn’t woken up. He didn’t have a weapon or even a flashlight, he thought as he walked the streets bare footed. He was glad that everywhere was so clean underfoot, each streetlamp lit up his path as though they were leading the way, right into the wood clearing.

He stopped just staring at the piece of grass, he had better not find anybody else’s body parts, he thought, especially not Barbara’s. He had formed a bond with her since he had arrived. He heard a faint scream, the grass grazed against his ankles. The mud and dust on his feet felt icky. The further he ran, the dirtier he felt himself becoming. The clearing led to a park full of children’s playground equipment, but nothing around him stirred. Suddenly, he spotted a small blonde figure in the distance. She was dressed in white and began charging towards him. As the figure drew nearer and came into view, Barbara’s face appeared, dressed in a white dressing gown and fluffy white slippers, her face hollow and sickly pale, her blonde hair straggly, her eyes circled with purple bags. This was the unruliest he had seen anyone looking in this town.

“Jimmy!” She fell to his grubby feet, clutching onto his pyjama leg, simpering softly.

“I shouldn’t have…”

“Shouldn’t have what?”

She looked up, her eyes puffy and bruised. “I’m so sorry.”

Something behind him pushed him on his back, like someone wanting to cut in a line.

The Zorro costumed person, still wielding the chainsaw, pushed past his shoulder, stalking Barbara. She tried to run backwards but tripped in a small goop of mud. The figure gripped hold of her tightly, just like a claw machine, raising her in the air and with his other hand, raised the weapon up, its mechanical sound filling the area, as he pulled the string.

Thousands of tiny teeth ripped into Barbara’s body, blood spurting everywhere, covering the grass below and covering Jimmy, head to toe. He was about to scream but forced himself not to. He just stood staring at this costume killer, dressed in black, with a black mask covering his face, the killer stared back at him. He knew it was the end for him, because of his own stupid bravery. The killer rushed at him with force. Jimmy held his breath, clenching his eyes closed, expecting to be shattered into bloody pieces, when the figure brushed past his arm and ran away into the night, his cloak trailing after him. The lights completely turned off and he was left covered in blood and pieces of Barbara, in the middle of the night.

“Jimmy!”

He spun around, his mother and father and what seemed to be the entire town was behind him.

“Mother? How did you know?”

“We just heard commotion and…”

His father suddenly interrupted, “Oh, my lord!” he cried out, seeing all the gore around him.

Two strangers, the same age as his parents, rushed ahead dropping down to the body in floods of tears.

“Barbara’s parents...” Mother said to herself.

Jimmy couldn’t do anything; he just watched her parents on the ground, in so much distress. He felt a tap on his shoulder, spinning around, there stood Sheriff Hall, already in uniform, all dressed in beige, holding a notepad that looked miniature compared to him.

“The second one this week.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose, it just keeps happening.”

He nodded and fixed his leather belt. “Come on kid, I want to talk to you...”

“I’m not in any trouble, am I? I can identify who they were... they ran” he pointed over to the dense bushes.

fact or fiction
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About the Creator

Elizabeth Butler

Elizabeth Butler has a masters in Creative Writing University .She has published anthology, Turning the Tide was a collaboration. She has published a short children's story and published a book of poetry through Bookleaf Publishing.

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