Steven Gould - Jumper:Griffin _s Story

Nothing.

There was nothing to see-the lights were out and it was pitch black within. I found the inside cellar stairs leading down from the kitchen. There was a light switch at the top. I flipped it and jumped away.

A few minutes later I looked back in the glass inset from the outside cellar door.

Mr. Kelson was on the floor, facedown, his hands cable-tied behind his back. They'd done it next to the floor drain so there wasn't as much blood as I'd seen in Consuelo's kitchen. On the far wall, pushed up against a leaning pile of disassembled cardboard cartons, Mrs. Kelson and Patrick Kelson were in wooden chairs, their legs duct-taped to the chair's front legs, their arms duct-taped to the chair arms. Duct tape covered their mouths, running all the way around their heads, and there was duct tape across their eyes, too.

I couldn't tell if they were alive or dead.

I couldn't see anyone else through the door but that didn't mean they weren't there.

I jumped into the middle of the room and away, as quickly as I could, so sure I'd trip a motion sensor that I panicked, and arrived back in the Empty Quarter with shreds of cardboard flying around me.

Boy, haven't done that in a while.

I jumped back to the sidewalk, outside. The house was still there. Men with knives weren't popping out of the bushes or falling from the sky.

Back in the cellar I could see their labored breath. They'd both soiled themselves and for some reason that made me madder than anything. They taped them up and just left them. I wondered how long they'd been without water.

I went to Mrs. Kelson and reached for the tape across her eyes and then froze.

My sloppy jump had dislodged the cardboard stack behind them.

And that's where the bomb was.

It was a military thing, olive drab nylon bag, one end opened, exposing olive drab metal with screw-down terminals and two different multiconductor wires, each leading across the floor to a chair. The wires went up the chair legs under the duct tape and transitioned to the chair seat, tucked under the backs of their knees.

Pressure switch? When you freed them and lifted their bodies off the chairs, did it complete the circuit or break it?

And could the bastards still detonate it remotely?

Call the bomb squad!

Right. And do they detonate it then, when they see all the trucks pull up?

Fuck it!

I gabbed the back of each chair and jumped.

My arms hurt and I couldn't keep Patrick's chair from falling over, but I did slow his fall and we were there, in the Empty Quarter.

Alive.

The wires had broken at the terminals-there was a bit of stripped copper still showing. I wondered if the bomb had gone off or not. Maybe there'd been a delay set.

I took the tape off of their mouths first, and their breathing eased. The tape over their eyes was tricky-I felt like I'd damage their eyelids, so I left it.

Mrs. Kelson groaned.

Patrick stirred. "Who is it? What's happening?"

I thought about reassuring him, then shook my head.

I left them taped to the chairs and jumped them, one at a time, to the sidewalk outside St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton-it was right across from the east side of E.V.'s high school. Someone shouted and I heard footsteps but I didn't even turn around before jumping back to Euclid Avenue in Trenton.

The house hadn't exploded.

I heard the dog barking still, from the backyard, and I was glad.

"Nine-one-one operator. What is the nature of your emergency?"

"There's a dead man and an unexploded bomb in the basement of a house on Euclid Avenue." I gave the street address.

I'd used the cell phone to make the call and when I hung up on the 911 operator's questions, it buzzed again, and I wondered if the operator was calling back.

It was Kemp.

"We'll kill her mother and brother, you know."

Did he expect me to turn myself over to them? Or did they have some way of tracking the phone?

"By all means, kill them," I said. "They deserve it."

I went back to the cellar, quickly, before the bomb squad got there. I wiped the phone off and set it beside Mr. Kelson's body. I was about to jump away again, when I saw a baseball bat leaning in the corner. It wasn't full size-probably left over from Little League. I wondered if it had been Patrick's or E.V.'s.

I looked down at the body.

"Mind if I borrow this?"

The first sirens sounded in the distance and I jumped away.

Ends and Beginnings E.V. was at the table with one of her diet sodas and the bottle of pills. I dropped the bat and jumped across the room, snatching the bottle off the table. She flinched. In a flat voice she said, "I wasn't going to. I thought about it-I really did."

I threw the pill canister across the cave and into the old entrance shaft.

"Why?" I asked. "The bastards are already doing enough. You want to do their work for them?"

She just looked down at the table. She wouldn't look up.

Love me. Take me back to bed and love me. Make it like it never happened.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry about your fath-"

"Goddamn it! Couldn't you have lied? Why'dyou have to tell me your real name? Why couldn't you have lied! You lied about the other stuff!"

I'd already had the same thought. Her father would probably still be alive if I'd made up a name. Hell, I could've been Paully MacLand, the bastard. I took her elbow, to pull her up, and she lashed out at me. I blocked it automatically. Years of karate were good for something, it turned out. Keep your girlfriend from beating on you.

Something wrong there.

I shoved her back down into the chair and while she struggled to get her balance back, trying to keep the chair from tipping over backward, I stepped in and jumped her to the sidewalk across from her high school.

She twisted away, hunching in on herself, then looked around. "What-why here?" She was staring west, toward the high school.

I gestured behind her toward the medical center, at the large internally lit red cross with the words EMERGENCY ROOM beside it. "Your brother and mother are in there. They're okay-probably dehydrated, but physically okay." I shrugged.

Anger, rage, fear, terror, grief-she'd finally managed to hide those, to push them to the background-but this, hope, was too much. I had to walk her the rest of the way, supporting her through the waiting room door, to the first row of seats.

It wasn't crowded. A woman in scrubs came forward, concern furrowing her face. E.V.'s grief was extravagant, unmitigated, loud.

I saw her safely seated and turned to the nurse. "Her mother and brother were just dropped off here. Uh, there was duct tape involved."

The nurse's eyes widened. "The police are-"

I held up my hand and something in my face made her recoil and stop talking, midsentence.

I put E.V.'s pocketbook in her lap, touched her hair and said, "I hope you never have to lie about who you are, E.V." I took a deep shuddering breath and felt the tears coming.

I no longer cared who saw me or not.

"Good-bye."

I jumped.

I could still smell E.V. on the bedding. Hell, her coat was still lying there, with mine, on top of the dresser. I took it with me to the bed and buried my face in it.

It was all mixed up-stuff from Mum and Dad, stuff from Sam and Consuelo, Henry. E.V. E.V.'s grief for her father, a man who'd really just wanted to make sure his daughter was safe. I wish he'd left well enough alone. Everyone would've been happier or, at least, alive. I wanted to be angry with him but hard as I tried, it all turned inward.

After all, what was the common denominator, if not me?

It was the worst night, the longest night.

I'd jumped that day, accidentally, when Paully charged me. Mum and Dad were dead.