“Damn it! Give me a break!”
JP just kept crawling
and cursing as he moved through the vents.
His balled-up hands (one of which clutched a screwdriver) and uncovered
knees bumped against the heating metal; between the darkness and the smoke
starting to fill the vents, his visibility had long since nosedived. He pulled his jacket and shirt over his
nose. “Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!” he growled,
making sure to slam his fists down with each motion. And for good measure, he added a quick “Son
of a bitch!”
If he’d been destined
to die in there, he’d do so with the comfort of knowing that no one could stop him from swearing freely.
Wait a minute. Brute force? He almost slapped himself. I
should have called Dad from the outset.
I know it’s a long shot, but that raw power of his has made plenty of
miracles happen! He tugged his cell
phone out of his pocket and hammered against the keypad. Come
on…come on…pick up already!
“…This is Patton.”
“Dad! Get over to my school now! I’ve got a situa-”
“Sorry, but I’m not
around right now. Taking care of some
errands. Leave a message, or call me
back…unless you’re trying to file a lawsuit against me, and you can just go
ahead and piss off. I warned you not to
get between me and that chicken coop, didn’t I?
What did I tell you, huh? And now
you’ve got a rooster stuck in your --”
JP groaned. Normally
I’d find his reckless violence cute, but since I’m pretty much about to die here, I’m not in much of a laughing
mood. Rather than pocket his cell
phone, he held it out before him as a makeshift flashlight -- not very
effective, but still leagues better than stumbling in the heating dark. Okay,
new plan. I started off in the janitor’s
closet and climbed my way over here. All
I have to do is visualize a map, and intuit my way to an exit. It’ll be even easier if I can find another
light source -- that’ll be a huge signal for an opening.
Okay. I started in the closet,
then moved forward, and then right…right again…left three or four times… He swiveled his head around. I think
I took some turns here…or maybe there…and…oh, I think I remember going that way
about eight or nine swears ago…
He slammed a fist
against the vent. “Damn it to hell! There aren’t any landmarks in these
vents! Everything looks the same -- how
am I supposed to figure out where I am and where to go?!” He paused for a moment, trying to get some
fresh air out of his jacket. And then
for good measure he shouted, “Ass!”
For a second he thought
about slamming his head against the wall -- if only to give him amnesia and
allow for a slightly blissful death -- but decided against it at the last
second. All right. Enough of this crap
-- I’m just going to wing it and hope for the best. I may not have much of a chance, but I’ll be
damned if I die in here like a rat in a cage!
He glanced aside. Not that I’m a rat or anything. Or any kind of animal besides a human. Although dragons are pretty cool. He glanced to the other side. I should
get out of here before my brain shuts down.
He started crawling at
double speed, forging ahead without any sense of direction, planning, or
hope. He trekked down a straight lane;
he made a right turn, then a left, and then another straight drive. The only thing that could stop him was a dead
end, and the occasional wall of smoke that nearly made his eyes shrivel like
raisins. And then…
Wait a second. Is that it?
It wasn’t much to go
by, but at that point JP was more than willing to believe. A light at the end of the tunnel lay before
him -- the saving grace that he so desperately needed. No
choice. I’ve gotta go all in! JP
thought; he charged forward, leaving a rush of wind in his wake. I’m not
going to die in here! I’m gonna live!
I’m gonna live!
He crossed the
threshold, and tumbled out of the vent; if not for a quick tuck and roll, he
would have landed on the ground head-first.
But he regained his footing and balance quickly, and shook off a bit of
the dizziness that plagued him. All right.
Not sure how I made it out of that one, but it looks like I’ll be --
“JP? What in the hell’re ya doin’ back here?”
With his brain sorting
itself back out, JP took a look around.
Trixie stood before him just five feet away, unfazed by the janitor’s
closet they now knew so intimately. “Oh,
son of a hell-damned ass-bastard bitch!” he yelled. “With a fat cup of piss!”
“Hey, you watch your
mouth!”
“What for? If I’m gonna die, then I plan to get in
enough cursing for a lifetime in the minutes I have left!”
“Never mind that!”
Trixie shouted, shaking her head rapidly.
“Jeez! I went and did one o’
those heroic sacrifice thingamajigs, and ya go and screw all that up? I thought ya were smart! What, don’t tell me ya ain’t got a sense o’
direction!”
“A sense of direction
won’t help if I can’t tell which direction I’m going!” JP thrust a finger at the vent. “You think you can do better? Then get in there and try it for yourself!”
“You know I can’t fit
in there!”
“What’s wrong? Too fat?
Is that it, fatty?”
“Ya seriously think I
look fat?”
“Yeah, a little
bit! And anybody that’s heavier than me
has gotta be fat!”
“Yer brain’s broken or
somethin’, pal! And --” Trixie
winced. “Aw hell…maybe yer brain really
is broken. Can a lotta smoke do that to
a guy? Or maybe yer just havin’ one o’
those panic attacks?”
“Get over here so I can
kick all eight of your fat asses!” JP yelled, swinging his arms like a drunken
orangutan. “I don’t care if you’re
upside-down…you’re all…you’re all gonna pave me a golden road with your lunch
money…and your blood! Lots and lots of
blood…with a side order of…sauerkraut…”
He slumped down and started nodding off.
“Should’ve gone to law school…”
“JP! Hold on!
Don’t let the whole no-oxygen thing get to ya!” Trixie ran towards him, and seized him in her
arms. “We’re down, but there’s no way
we’re goin’ out like this!” She looked
back at the door. She had to have
loosened it a bit by now; maybe if she tackled it while holding JP, she’d have
enough inertia to break out.
Ka-Rumble…
“What the…? Aw, what now?!” Trixie looked around. Had the fire started creeping up the outside
walls? Even if she managed to break out,
would she end up greeting a pillar of flame?
Or did the second floor just start collapsing?
Ka-Loudening Rumble…
Trixie clutched JP
tightly. She didn’t know what new threat
approached her, but she’d made her stand and her declaration.
Ka-INCREASINGLY OMINOUS
RUMBLE…
“Don’t worry, pal. I’ll keep ya safe, no matter what.” She would have said more if not for the…
Ka-REVELATION!
The door -- and most of
the wall holding -- blew into the closet, reduced to jigsaw-like rubble in an
instant. For a moment Trixie thought the
school had started exploding, but quickly realized that was far from the
case. Neither flames nor smoke had
caused that explosive entry. The true
culprit? A hefty white van, its paint a
bit scraped by the blow, but the armored bumper still holding tight.
The driver’s window
rolled down -- and from it, Patton’s head appeared. “Come with me if you want to live.”
“M-Mr. Hoigleheimer?!”
Trixie said with a gasp (not the wisest choice, considering the poisonous
fumes). But she knew that mighty body
and square head all too well by now; she just had trouble believing that he’d
not only torn down the wall, but parked more than half the van horizontally
inside the room. “Wha- how did ya --?!”
“I wasn’t trying to
quote a movie. Get in the van, or you’re
dead.”
Trixie didn’t know if
he was warning her about the fire, or his dwindling patience. But given her luck so far that day, she
wasn’t in the mood to find out.
*
Sondheim Middle School
-- what remained of it, at least -- smoldered in the distance. The fire had done more than its fair share of
damage, having torn through the left half of the main building. Even as the firefighters worked on putting
out the last few embers, a tower of black smoke still stretched into the
sky. Thankfully, the school’s alarms had
sent its students and faculty outside long before anyone (besides Trixie and
JP) could get trapped outside; even with the distance they’d gained and the
time that had passed, Trixie spotted more than a few students gawking and cheering
at the school’s destruction in the van’s side mirror.
“Sounds like you two
had a pretty exciting day,” said Patton.
He rubbed the back of his head.
“Sorry. I would’ve gotten here
sooner, but --”
“I’m just glad ya got
there when ya did,” said Trixie (a little surprised she’d interrupted Patton
without him deciding to take a swipe at her head). “So how’d ya hear ‘bout the school?”
“I didn’t. JP called me earlier, and I’ve been on my
toes since -- just in case he needed me to punch out a few bad dudes.” He patted a hand against the steering
wheel. “I was working on turning this
baby into an all-purpose assault vehicle, but then my Daddy Senses started
tingling, so I figured I’d check things out.
And wouldn’t you know it, the school’s on fire.”
“That…uh, that makes
sense. But how’d ya know where to find
us? We coulda been anywhere in there.”
“I didn’t know. I just started driving through.”
Trixie gave him a
quick, jerky nod. The thought that
Patton could have plowed through them just as easily as he could have saved
them made her stomach start to quiver…but at the very least, being able to take
a whiff of clean air put her at ease.
She peeked at the back seats; JP lay on his back and stared at the
ceiling, still breathing, but more than a little out of it. “B…Bismarck, North Dakota…” he mumbled.
“Listen, I, uh…sorry
about gettin’ yer son involved in this whole mess,” said Trixie. She lowered her head. “I did everythin’ I could to try and get him
outta there safe and sound, but I guess I blew it.”
“What’s important is
that you tried. You did all you could,
and even put JP’s safety over your own.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “I
like that. Shows that you’ll make a
great mom someday.”
“Mom?! That’s…uh, thank you kindly, sir.” She pouted a bit. “I just wish I coulda done somethin’ more
useful for him.”
“Don’t worry. We will.”
“Right. So I guess the next thing we gotta do is get
him to a hospital, right? All that smoke
can’t be goo-”
“Nope. We’re going straight to Canada. So make sure your seatbelt’s on tight.”
Trixie left her mouth
hanging wide open -- a move that caught Patton’s eye. “Or do you wanna go to Mexico instead? Ladies should get the first choice.”
9:59 A.M.
Time Until JP’s Kidnapping: 9 Minutes
TO BE HEARTINUED…
He's so adorable in his despair when he realizes a dragon could not be so bad :))). This is a very lovable character .
ReplyDeleteIs that right? Funny -- I never would have thought of JP as lovable...but maybe that's just because I've never seen the appeal of surly, miserly twelve-year-olds. Or would this be one of those "different strokes" situations?
ReplyDeleteWell, whatever. Glad you enjoyed him; my intent is to switch back to Lloyd's perspective in the next few chapters, so enjoy the young Hoigleheimer heir while you can.