Jimmy (32 page)

     Heart racing, Megan waited for him to get down and start cleaning the leg.

    
One chance at this!

     Jimmy took the cold wash cloth and started rubbing her leg, his hand purposely pressing hard while the other held the leg in place. 

     For a moment Megan feared he would keep hold of the leg the entire time, but then he started to kneel to get at her ankle and let go.

    
Now!

     Her limp body sprang into action, her legs quickly hooking Jimmy by his throat and pulling him directly into her groin.

*  *  *

     One moment Jimmy was leaning forward to clean off Megan’s foot, the next she had her legs wrapped around his throat, choking him, his mouth pressed right into her exposed pussy, his lips gasping for air.

     It happened really fast, so fast that Jimmy couldn’t even really evaluate the situation.  Instead he just reacted, his hands trying desperately to pull her legs free.  Unfortunately, despite his strength, his arms were no match for her thighs, even in her weakened state, and the more he pulled the tighter they seemed to become, almost as if she were fighting his attempt by squeezing harder.

     Without thought his fingernails plunged into the flesh of her legs and sliced toward the ground, his nails like a farm tractor tearing up packed in dirt.

     Megan screamed but didn’t let go.

     Jimmy felt her flesh curled beneath his nails as it ripped free, but still her legs would not loosen.

     A fuzzy darkness began to appear around the edges of his vision.  At the same time he heard his own lips trying to suck in air, but getting nothing but pussy hair and sweaty fluids.

     “Die you bastard!” Megan cried.

     Her legs got even tighter.

     He tried punching her in the kidneys but couldn’t muster enough force.  From there he tried reaching up toward her eyes but couldn’t make it.

     Her legs continued to squeeze and suddenly the darkness because to cloud his entire vision span.

     His arms flailed around looking for something, for anything, but finding nothing. 

     The darkness got thicker.   

     His lungs screamed for air.

     He continued to flail his arms.

     Up above he heard laughter.

     A horrible dry gasp echoed from his lips.

     Urine flooded his pants.

     This was it, he was about to go -

     His knuckles crashed into something hard, something that
PINGED!
when he hit it.  Without any thought he grabbed the object by the thin handle and swung it upward.

*  *  *

     “Die you bastard!” Megan cried, her lips working without her mind processing anything, her only real focus being her legs and keeping them tight despite the pain in her wrists - pain that was intensified because Jimmy was adding weight to her body. 

     An eerie laughter followed one that she never realized was her own.

     Jimmy’s struggles started to cease.

     She had no idea how long she had been holding him like this, but knew to hold on for a long time, even after he blacked out because he could be faking.

     To emphasize this she squeezed her legs harder and harder, her mind thinking this would be much easier if his neck would just break.  The added force within her muscles inflamed the cuts his nails had made and caused more blood to well up, but she didn’t care.  Later, once she was free, those scratches would be minor annoyances, ones that failed to cloud her happiness.

     Something came toward her, something big.

     She tried twisting out of the way at the last second but couldn’t and felt everything flee her mind as the object crashed into her face, her nose audibly crunching beneath it as the object pulped the cartilage, a heavy
THUNCK!
bouncing back and forth within her skull, scrambling her brain.

     She felt her legs loosen even as her mind tried to hold them in place.

     A second blow landed.

     Blackness followed.

*  *  *

     Jimmy fell to the floor after the second blow, his left knee and right ankle tangling together and soaking up most of the landing.  The metal bucket followed him down, its impact echoing through the small room as it was ripped from his fingers and sent bouncing across the cement.

     For a moment he knelt where he had landed, his mind and body trying to focus, but then a foot came into view and crashed into his face - not hard, but enough to knock him off balance - and sent him scurrying away, his left knee screaming each time it pushed off from the floor. 

      The heavy metal door stopped his retreat, and rather than standing up and fleeing the room Jimmy flopped over onto his side, closed his eyes and gulped in one giant lungful of air after another.

     He lay there for a long time, his mind barely able to comprehend what had just happened, his only focus being the ability to breath again, the sting of the air on his raw throat a welcome pain because it meant he was still alive.

    
You have survived every escape attempt.

     Jimmy thought about this for a few seconds but then let it fade from his mind.  Later the observation would return and when it did he would really wonder about it, but now all he cared about was laying back and taking the deep breaths.  Nothing else mattered.    

*  *  *

    
Oh God!
Tina thought to herself while watching the video Brett had given her, her eyes having not expected to see what they saw, her fingers franticly trying to find the MUTE button so her mother would not hear the screams that echoed from the screen.

     Disgust quickly followed and drove her fingers toward the STOP button. 

    
Wait.

     She continued to watch, a strange fascination coming over her as the scene unfolded.

     A moment later she turned it off, the disgust having returned.  Anger followed and for a few minutes she actually considered heading over to Brett’s place and demanding to know why he had given her the tape.

     The darkening skies outside stopped her in her tracks.  Why risk ending up like the other two missing girls because of a stupid tape?

    
Why does Brett have tapes like this?

     The pig had said they belonged to Jimmy, but that probably was a lie, one designed to hurt Jimmy because that seemed to be Brett’s main goal in life. 

     Besides, if they belonged to Jimmy how would Brett have known about them?  It didn’t make sense.  Instead Brett was probably the one who owned the tape and realized he could use it against Jimmy.  However, if he owned tapes like this that probably meant he was interested in this - or someone he knew was - and if he was interested in seeing it on screen it only made sense he would be interested in seeing it in real life too.

     The first scene from the video appeared in her mind, one which showed two girls in a dark dungeon, one in a cage, the other standing with her wrists chained to the wall.  After a few seconds a leather clad man in a black mask walked in and started ripping the clothes off of the girl chained to the wall, the girl in the cage forced to watch as he then sexually molested her.  Finished with her, the man had left her dangling in her chains and went over to the one in the cage, who fought like a cat at the vet to stay inside, but was eventually ripped free and dragged kicking and screaming to a table where she was locked down, stretched and raped.  The faces of the girls in her mind were different than the ones who had been on screen.  The faces in her mind belonged to Samantha King and Megan Reed.  And the man in the mask, well, that was obviously Brett Murphy. 

    
You should give this tape to the sheriff and tell him Brett gave it to you.

     She remembered the look the sheriff had had when taking in Scott after he had followed her into the school yesterday and knew he would probably be even more aggressive with Brett once he saw the video.  At the same time she wondered if the video really was connected with the two girls disappearing and if it really was Brett’s. 

    
What if it does belong to Jimmy?

     But how would Brett have gotten his hands on it?

     Unfortunately this didn’t push the idea away completely, and even worse it kept interfering with her thoughts on what the two had done this afternoon.  Rather than relishing the recent memory, some of which she could still almost feel on her skin, she kept seeing Jimmy yank her from the bed and pull her into the dungeon of the video; one where he ravaged her like the man in the video had done to the girl in chains.

     Tina shivered.

     The horrible vision would not leave.  In fact, the more she tried to push it away the more determined it seemed to become and not only did it recreate what the two had done in a dungeon like setting, it added several more scenes as well, scenes that she would never in a million years want to take part in and felt herself growing sick just thinking about.

*  *  *

     Jimmy didn’t remember falling asleep, nor did he know what time it was when he woke later.  He also didn’t care, his only real thought being the pain as he tried to move, his neck and back feeling as if he had spent days on the concrete floor rather than whatever short amount of time he had actually been asleep.

    
What if it was days!
his mind cried. 
What if you missed the dance and everyone is looking for you?

     Jimmy shook the thought away while standing up and looked over at Samantha and Megan.  The last image he had of them had been the lifeless poses each had succumbed too, Samantha on her knees with her head hanging down against her chest, the ropes seeming to barely hold her up, and Megan dangling from the ropes, the blow with the bucket having knocked her into unconsciousness so that her feet no longer supported her body and instead just acted like two flesh rudders as she slowly swayed back and forth, her weight never seeming to be able to settle in one spot.

    
Is she still unconscious?
Jimmy wondered and realized he should check.

     His neck protested the upward movement as Jimmy forced his body to its feet, his hands having to guide it up the door due to the dizzy spells that swirled the room.

     Once up he stood with his eyes closed for several seconds fighting everything that threatened to knock him back down, and then, once recovered, carefully walked across the room to check on Megan.

     Her back was too him.

     Jimmy took hold of her right arm, his hand slowly but forcefully twisting her around to face him.

      A gasp erupted, followed by the sound of the bucket once again bouncing across the floor as Jimmy backed away from the grisly image and tripped over it. 

     The metal door stopped his fall, his poor elbow taking all his weight as he crashed into it, pain messages reaching the brain quickly along with the order to cry out.

     The sound faded.

     Samantha and Megan did not react.

     The urge to vomit followed, but nothing was in his stomach, the lunch Tina and he had eaten earlier long since digested.

    
God, what did I do to her?
he demanded while leaning against the wall, the image of Megan’s busted face refusing to leave.

    
You did what you had to do to survive!

     The sensation of the bucket connecting with her face returned to his arms, as did the sense of satisfaction that had momentarily followed - until he found himself falling.  At the time, however, he had had no idea just how hard he had smashed the object into her face, his only thought being to free himself. 

    
Is she even alive?

     The question did not sit well and despite not wanting to look at that face again, he knew he had to check, and forced himself to cross the room again.

     The face wasn’t as shocking the second time around, but was still repulsive, the metal side of the bucket having completely flattened her nose.  Her mouth had suffered as well, the upper lip having busted like a fat blood filled leech and her teeth knocked loose into her mouth. 

     The snot filled blood was the worst part though, and it pretty much covered her entire lower face and breasts, which were large enough and thrust out far enough to catch most of the drippings.

     In the midst of all this destruction a slight wheeze could be heard, one that signaled the work of her lungs as her body struggled to breath.

    
She’s alive.

     But would she stay that way?

     Only time would tell.

Chapter Twelve

     Alan was in the middle of making a pot of coffee, his body still fighting the urge to go back to bed, his eyes barely able to stay open, when Jimmy walked into the kitchen and said, “Remember, only five scoops.”