Jimmy - By William Malmborg
Chapter One
Sometime during the night the violent storms were broken and replaced by a calm, gentle rain. Later people would say the rain had been there to cleanse the town, and had, in fact, washed away the terror and madness of the previous week. For many, however, this was not the case. For them the terror and madness would remain forever, and no rain, no matter how powerful, could wash anything away.
* * *
It began on a clear cool Monday in May of 2010. Samantha King, an eighteen-year-old senior, was walking home from school. It was a pleasant walk, one that usually didn’t take more than fifteen to twenty minutes. Today was looking like twenty because her backpack was full, the teachers having loaded her down with homework despite the fact that there were only two weeks left before graduation. It was insane.
Graduation. The word sent a chill down her spine as she walked along the wooded road. It seemed like just yesterday she had been in third grade drawing pictures of Santa and his reindeer for the class Christmas book. Amazing how quickly time went.
Graduation in June, and then in August she would be heading to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Then, after four years of that, she would finally be able to live on her own, supporting herself with a career she loved, and possibly raising a family with a man who cared for her deeply.
The thought of graduation wasn’t the most exciting event floating around her mind though. That spot was reserved for the upcoming Saturday night, which would be spent in the school gymnasium. Prom. Not only would the dance be enjoyable, but it also was the night she planned to lose her virginity. At the moment, Steven, her boyfriend, was not in on this plan, but she doubted he would have any objections. The two had been going out the entire year, and it was time they did more than just kiss and lightly touch each other. The question was how would she present herself to him so he would make a move on her? Or would she make the move on him? No. The guy needed to make it or else it wouldn’t be right. But what would she do?
In her mind she always pictured the two of them in a motel room sitting on a bed. She would have loosened her dress a little and let it hang down from her breasts. He would then put his hands and lips on her. The lovemaking would progress from there.
A car sped by along the road and pulled her from the thoughts of that future night, which was probably for the best since a warm tingle had begun building between her legs.
Now, rather than thinking about that night, she looked ahead and saw the rotting mailbox for the old Hood place jutting up from the roadside weeds. A shiver went down her spine.
The Hoods had been a strange family that thought World War Three was imminent. For years they had been preparing themselves while trying to recruit town and county members into their small militia. September 11, 2001 had been the start of the war according to them, but rather than stay and fight, they had retreated to a more secure location somewhere in the Rockies. No one had seen them since. Their house had remained, and because no FOR SALE sign ever went up, everyone assumed they still owned it. Even if a FOR SALE sign ever did go up it was doubtful anyone would buy the place. Nine years of abandonment had ruined the structure, and one would have to invest more than the property was ever worth just to make it livable.
Samantha slowly walked up to the driveway and turned her head. Long grass and overgrown bushes between the house and the road made it nearly impossible to see the first floor. On the second floor she noticed a new broken window.
Something moved in the bushes to her right.
Samantha’s heart jumped as she spun around, her eyes expecting to see a cat or some other small creature from the woods.
Nothing.
A kid perhaps? Someone who had been throwing stones at the house and then hid when she came walking around? Perhaps he was even responsible for the broken window?
“Hello?” she called.
Nothing.
Samantha decided not to stay and find out who was lurking in the shrubbery. The house was creepy enough without the added threat of someone jumping out at her; so creepy in fact that going inside and taking something on Halloween night had been a childhood rite of passage for many years, one the sheriff had finally been forced to put a stop to after a kid cut himself badly when climbing through a broken window.
She turned away from the house and started walking toward home again.
Something crashed through the brush. Samantha twisted back around and screamed as a figure lunged for her, a hand grabbing her around the throat.
“No!” she cried while pushing against him, her overfilled backpack forcing him to let go. A second later his hands were on her again, and flung her around to the right. This time her backpack worked against her, its weight knocking her body off balance and causing her to fall to the ground.
The attacker came at her with a long, gleaming knife.
“Ahhh,” she started, but then he put the knife to her throat. The blade was cold and indented her skin with its razor edge.
Warm liquid suddenly gushed between her legs.
“Get up.”
Samantha recognized the voice and for the first time focused her eyes upon her attacker. It was Jimmy Hawthorn.
* * *
Okay, this is it, stay calm and focused, Jimmy Hawthorn said to himself while carefully pressing the knife into Samantha King’s throat, a knife he had hidden by the back door of the Hood place this morning so he didn’t have to carry it around with him all day at school. Don’t lose control, and for God’s sake don’t cut her!
Slitting her throat was his biggest fear right now; followed closely by some unforeseen Good Samaritan coming to her rescue. Unless it is another girl, then maybe I can get them both. It was a pleasant fantasy, but one he quickly subdued to focus on the present situation.
“Get up.”
Samantha didn’t move.
For a moment he worried that she was defying him, and that he would be forced to drag her into the fallout shelter while she fought him, but then he realized her body was simply paralyzed with fear.
You’d be scared too if someone like me came at you with a knife all the sudden.
At the same time he knew he had to get her into the fallout shelter, and that with each passing second the risk that someone would come by grew, so, without too much thought he moved the knife from her throat to her groin and pressed the blade up against the seam of her jeans and said, “Get up or I’ll slice open your p-ssy!”
The bluff worked.
* * *
“Stop! Jimmy no! Ahhh! Please stop!”
Jimmy ignored her cries and pulled on the rope until her toes barely touched the concrete floor, and then tied it off to a pipe that jutted from the wall. Once that was done he walked into the middle of the small room and stared at her, his eyes seeming to examine every inch of her stretched figure.
Samantha stared back for a moment, and then looked up at her wrists as she tried shifting them within the knots into a more comfortable position. Meanwhile her toes began to ache so she tried resting them, but this increased the strain on her wrists and within a minute she was forced to lift her heels back up.
Jimmy continued to stare at her.
“Jimmy . . .” Samantha started. She wanted to say more but was forced to take a deep breath first, her body having not noticed how much pressure this position had been putting on her lungs. “Please let me down.”
Jimmy ignored the request.
Samantha closed her eyes.
What is he going to do to me?
Rape was the first thing that came to mind, but wasn’t the last. Unfortunately the possibilities were endless.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jimmy said.
Samantha opened her eyes.
“Not unless you try and hurt me or get away,” Jimmy added.
His voice caused something within her to snap and before she even realized she was going to say it the words, “What the f*ck are you doing?” echoed.
Jimmy actually seemed to consider her question for a moment, but didn’t answer it right away. Instead he just shrugged. It was a simple gesture, yet one that caused a chill to race down her arms. He then started to undo his belt and the chill turned into genuine fear.
No, Samantha thought, her voice unable to muster any actual words. Please don’t.
Jimmy didn’t take off his pants, however, and fear of rape was suddenly replaced by a different worry as he coiled part of the belt around his right fist.
“To be honest with you,” Jimmy said. “I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve never kidnapped anyone before, and since you’ve never been kidnapped before it will be a learning experience for both of us.” A second shrug followed, along with a smile that added to her fear. “Just remember that I’m in charge.”
With that Jimmy disappeared behind her.
She struggled to twist around to see what he was going to do, but before she could even move the leather belt cracked across her back and unleashed a terrible line of pain.
Tears began falling from her eyes.
She expected more but nothing happened, and then Jimmy walked back into her line of sight. The buckle end of the belt was still coiled around his fist.
“That was gentle compared to what I could do. If I wanted to I could spend all afternoon hitting you like that and there is nothing you could do to stop me.” He sighed and started to put his belt back on. “And just think what it will be like if I cut your shirt off and hit your bare flesh?”
Samantha couldn’t imagine the pain being any worse than what she had just felt, but knew it probably would be. She also knew his words were true. He could and would do anything he wanted to her. What would those wants be?
* * *
Though he could have stayed with Samantha for hours, his mind and body enjoying the wonderful situation he had created, Jimmy knew that word of her disappearance would spread once her family realized she wasn’t coming home and that the forty minute or so period between the end of school and her expected arrival home would be the target time used by the police to determine who had taken her. Because of this he wanted to be home for most of that time period, his body looking completely relaxed and seemingly relieved to have finished another day at school. Adding to this illusion that he had been home all along would be his little brother Alan. Normally the two would walk home together, but that day Alan had needed to stay after school for detention, and therefore wouldn’t be home until four. Upon his arrival Alan would see Jimmy and just assume he had been there since school let out, which in turn would aid in his alibi if one were ever needed. Then again, no alibi would ever help him if Samantha were found and told everyone that he was responsible. Thankfully Jimmy didn’t think that would ever become a reality.
The walk home from the Hood place didn’t take long. Once there, however, he had trouble relaxing because he kept thinking about Samantha and all the things he could do to her, which in turn caused an erection to press against his pants, one he didn’t want to deal with because later that night he planned on going back to the fallout shelter, and he didn’t want to be depleted. Unfortunately he couldn’t hold back and after looking at the clock and realizing his brother still had about fifteen minutes of detention time left, he headed up to his room and opened up one of his downloaded videos.
On screen a girl in a leather outfit was standing with her wrists tied over her head, a large ball gag in her mouth. Having watched the video many times Jimmy knew that it wouldn’t be long before the girl was lowered to her knees and forced to suck dick, the ball gag having been removed. Later it would be put back in place once the man had deposited his load in her mouth. Jimmy didn’t make it that far into the scene before he found himself burying another pair of underpants in the hamper, one which already had three pairs at the bottom despite his doing laundry two days earlier, crusty patches of semen clinging to each.
An odd but familiar disgust greeted him once he was finished, only this time it was not a result of how much money he had wasted on the kinky video downloads. Instead it was the knowledge that he had finally given in to the desire. All his life he had dreamed of kidnapping and tying up a girl so she had to stand with her wrists pulled over her head for days at a time, but had always been able to keep the desire a fantasy. Now it was a reality, one which he had often feared finding himself in because it would mean he had crossed the line.
Of course the feeling would pass. It always did with the videos and would with this situation as well. Also, deep down inside Jimmy knew it would only have been a matter of time before he did something like this anyway; once a fantasy was firmly in place in a persons brain there was no getting around it. He couldn’t suppress his sexual desire anymore than a homosexual could suppress theirs and no amount of ‘sexual reeducation therapy’ would have helped.
* * *
Her hands began to tingle half an hour after Jimmy left, and she desperately wanted free. Never before had Samantha stood like this for so long and already her legs were feeling weak and her lower back tired. Her hands were the worst, however, because whenever she relaxed her feet or legs the rope would tighten around her wrists and cut the blood flow off. Even when standing tall, her toes holding up her entire body, the ropes were uncomfortable.
The spot where Jimmy had hit her with the belt also hurt, though the pain from the lashing had faded considerably since his departure. What would ten hits feel like? Or twenty? Or thirty? And what would the other things he did to her be like? Thinking about this chilled her to the core.
Tears once again began falling from her eyes. She managed to brush some of them away with the inside of her arm, but most ran down her cheeks and fell to the floor.
She shifted her position. The pressure on her wrists grew. She tried raising her arms higher than the rope but it was an impossible task. Even if the rope were removed her exhausted muscles would not allow such an extension. Already they were screaming to have her arms lowered.
Curious as to what her hands looked like Samantha forced her head back and looked up. The rope that bound her wrists had been wrapped around several times before being knotted. A second rope was then tied to the first and then ran over a pipe in the ceiling before being tied to the one coming out of the wall.
Jimmy had said something about punishing her if she tried to escape, but really, given the tightness of the ropes, it was something he didn’t need to worry about. There was no way she would get free without help.
Her neck began to ache so she let it fall toward her chest again. Her eyes studied her shoes, yet her mind ignored them, and instead focused on her parents.
What were they thinking?
Were they even home yet?
Samantha had no idea what time it was. It seemed as if hours upon hours had passed, yet she knew this probably was not the case.
Her eyes moved from her feet and looked around the room. There was no clock. The place was not barren though. Fear of some sort of world war outbreak had caused the Hood family to stockpile many supplies inside the small fallout shelter. Wooden shelves ran the length of the entire wall to her left, canned foods, dry goods, and bottled water piled high upon them. The other side of the room had several coils of rope stacked one on top of the other. There were only two shelves on the right side, and upon them sat light bulbs and cleaning supplies. Between the two walls was a simple doorway, the opening closed off by a huge steel structure that had no window or openings of any kind. On the other side was the stairway, and the world she had once taken for granted.
* * *
“I really don’t know why I even try anymore,” Alan said after cracking open a bottle of Coke from the fridge. “The teachers are so focused on being right that they can’t stand to see a ‘kid’ like me correct them.”
Jimmy smiled. Alan’s detention had been a result of being disrespectful to a substitute teacher in math class the Friday before. According to Alan, a girl had asked if he had an extra pencil, which he did, but then accidentally dropped while handing it to her. It was his vocal apology that had landed him in trouble, the substitute teacher deciding to scold him for speaking when they were supposed to be quiet. Alan had tried to explain that he was simply apologizing for dropping the pencil and the substitute had exploded. Not long after that Alan had been in the assistant principal’s office learning his unjust sentence for being polite. “I think you should write to Oprah about it.”
“Yeah, but then I’d probably get suspended or something. Remember that kid that got in trouble with Facebook?”
Jimmy remembered several stories of kids getting in trouble for things they had written on Facebook, which the school tried to monitor either with fake profiles or reports from kiss-up students, and not just in Ashland Creek, but in places all across the country. Actually teachers were getting in trouble too, the memory of a California teacher being fired for posting pictures of herself drinking while on summer vacation coming to mind. It was ridiculous. “Which kid?”
“Oh it doesn’t really matter,” Alan said with a wave of the hand. “I’m just glad summers almost here so I don’t have to deal with this bullshit anymore.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said, his mind suddenly focusing in on the fact that he had no idea what he was going to do now that he was almost finished with high school. Most of the other kids in his class had plans, the majority either going to college or the military. Some had jobs lined up. Jimmy had none of that, though his grades would have been good enough to get into most colleges. The trouble was he hadn’t applied anywhere because college just didn’t seem right for him. He also feared going into the military, not because he was scared of going to war – he actually relished the idea of going into combat -- but because he worried that he would have no outlet for his bondage fantasies.
Then again, up until today, he had never had an outlet anyway, the movies online and the videos he ordered from catalogs having been his only release since hitting puberty.
“You hungry?” Alan asked.
“Um, yeah,” Jimmy said. Earlier during lunch he had been too nervous to eat, the thoughts of grabbing Samantha after school having taken over his mind.
“Let’s go to Taco Bell.”
“Sounds good.”
With that the two started walking into town, a trip they often took when they were bored or hungry. The journey took them by the Hood place. Jimmy looked toward it, his mind picturing Samantha suffering in the secret fallout shelter. Once beyond the house, however, he went back to thinking about Taco Bell and the tasty Cheesy Gordita Crunches he would be devouring.