Steven Gould - Jumper:Griffin _s Story

He was older than the kids around him, dressed grunge, but he'd been stepping forward when I saw him, his left hand held out slightly, chest high, his other hand held low by his leg. He lunged as the stage strobes were flashing and the knife cut upward in discrete stop-motion steps.

I stepped back, bumping someone dancing, and threw the coffee straight out. He jerked back, clawing at his face and shirt. There was other movement, sudden, not the puzzled reaction of bystanders but deliberate motion among the dancers, and I turned. E.V. was fumbling with something, but I grabbed her and jumped.

Electric current, burning, contracting my entire body. I spasmed away from E.V. The bright blue sky dimmed and flared. My hands scrabbled across gravel and sand but I couldn't make them do anything.

E.V. screamed, "No! No! NOOOOOOOOOr I blinked hard trying to get my sight to behave. We were alone, in the Empty Quarter. I thought she'd been attacked- was being attacked. She was on her knees, on the ground, hunched over, holding herself up with extended arms. Her pocketbook had spilled open showing a cell phone and money and a small-unlabeled prescription-medicine bottle. There was a black cylinder, perhaps seven inches long, clutched in her other hand.

"I'm okay," I said. I wasn't that sure, but she was horribly upset. I wanted to reassure her.

"Take me back! Now!"

She was suddenly leaning over me, one hand grabbing my sweater, the other shaking the black cylinder in my face.

"What?" My muscles were starting to work again and I tried to sit up but she shoved me back down again. She was crying and she looked desperately afraid.

She jammed the cylinder into my side and the current and the burning came again. My back arched so much my heels and head were the only thing touching the ground. This time I passed out completely.

The sun was dropping below the horizon when I came to. E.V. was coming down the ridge, stumbling, tripping over rocks. She was crying, her eyes so filled with tears she could obviously hardly see.

I sat up. My muscles felt like I'd run a marathon, lactic acid soreness, and there was a burn on my side and another on my back, but I felt like I could jump if I had to.

She had the cell phone in one hand. I didn't see the black rod.

"I didn't know you had a cell phone," I said. I felt insane. Surely this is what a psychotic break is like?

She stopped, then threw the phone onto the sand between us. "It's not mine. It belongs to them."

Oh, fuck.

She pulled the black rod out of her back pocket and I tensed, but she threw that down, as well. "And that. And those pills." She gestured to where her purse still lay. "I dropped the drink. Why'd I drop the drink? It would be over if I hadn't dropped the drink!"

I looked back at the purse, at the pill bottle. "What kind of pill was it?"

She looked away. "They said it would knock you out. So they could catch you." She looked back at me and winced. "Yeah, I know. If you'd jumped it wouldn't do any good, even if you passed out after. It had to be poison."

"You knew that?" It felt like my face was going to break. "You knew that and… maybe that's why you dropped it." Then the rest of it hit me. "They have your parents." I didn't ask it-I said it.

She dropped to her knees. "They killed my father. They cut his fucking throat right in front of me! And then they put the knife against my mother's neck!"

"Oh, God. I'm so sorry." I got up and walked over to her but she shoved me away. She kicked at me and clawed and I stepped back, then dropped down and sat on my heels. "How did they find you? Was it me? Did they track some of my jumps in Trenton?"

She was lying on her side, curled in. "He did it! Goddamn him. He did it. He wanted to check up on you. After he found that sketch, he got a friend to run a criminal check. They showed up with police badges and he answered all their questions. He gave you to them on a silver platter and then they cut his throat. Daddy, you idiot! The fucking phone won't get a signal! Oh, God. They'll kill them both!"

Oh. "They have your brother, too."

She screamed again and pounded the ground with her fists.

I understood, then. "You went up on the ridge to try to get a signal. If you'd reached them, what would you have done? Come down and finished me? Wait until they came and confirmed my death?"

She jumped up and ran down the arroyo, north. She was still sobbing. I pocketed the phone and, cautiously, the black cylinder, then took up her purse. I let her get about fifty yards away and tripped her, appearing beside her path with my foot outstretched. While she was still down, I hooked the waistline of her jeans and jumped her back to the Hole.

She looked at the bed and collapsed on the floor, sobbing, sobbing.

I couldn't stand it and I jumped away, to the Greenwood Shell petrol station across from her high school. There, in the light of the fluorescents, I looked at the rod. It had four projecting electrodes, sharp, for sticking through clothing, and a slide switch, like on an electric torch. I turned it on, but it didn't spark, so I suspected it was actuated when a partial conductor bridged the points.

I took out the cell phone and called, using the only number in the cell phone's call log.

"Speak." It was Kemp's voice.

"She's dead. I blame you."

I hung up.

I didn't want to hear his threats against Mrs. Kelson or E.V.'s brother, Patrick. I wanted to lower the bar, remove any reason for the bastards to kill them. The phone buzzed in my hand, vibrating, and I thought about throwing it away. Instead I held down the power button until it turned completely off.

I jumped back to the Hole. "Where did they have them?" She flinched at my voice and looked up at me. "What?" "Where did they have your mother and brother?" "They said they'd be moving them. Not to bother with a rescue since they wouldn't be there."

I looked at the ceiling and squeezed my eyes shut. "That's what they said. Where were they when they killed your- when they threatened your mother?"

"In the basement. They were all in the basement."

"How many of them were there? That you saw?"

"I don't know. None of the men at the club were the men at the house. There were four at the house." I jumped.

The house was dark. I'd walked from the petrol station, expecting them to show up in cars or on foot. Hell-I half expected them to parachute in.

But they hadn't.

I remembered the bomb at Alejandra's and I wondered if that's what they had in mind. I jumped away, to the Empty Quarter, and then back again.

Nothing.

I kicked the front door in and jumped away, to the sidewalk.

The dog began barking from the backyard.

I went around the side. There were covered stairs-storm-cellar type, just short of the fence. Booger danced on the other side, barking and wagging his tail at the same time. I tugged at the handle and it opened but I jumped back to the sidewalk before it swung to the side.

Nothing.

I remembered the bomb in San Diego, the one they'd set for movement in the house, unless a door was opened first. They'd used a cell phone trigger in Mexico. How about here? Surely they knew I was here. Even if they were all over at the Teen Club, they could surely feel my jumps.

Or they were waiting inside.

Standing just inside the front door, I flipped the light switch up and jumped back to the sidewalk. The light came on. Nothing exploded. No one jumped out of the coat closet with a knife or a stun gun. I jumped into the house, to the end of the hallway where it ended at the kitchen, then away.

Nothing.

I returned and flipped on the light switch in the kitchen and jumped away.

Outside, I moved down the cellar steps. The door was locked but it had a diamond square glass inset. I showed my head and jumped away.