The Understorey

I chuckled, but not out of humor. I was close to becoming violent. ‘Goodbye Jules. I’ll see you in twenty to life’ violent.



She sucked in a harsh breath, “Elliott, listen to me. If you so much as look at Jesse our chances of catching him will be lost. If you hurt him, you won’t be able to protect me.”



That put everything into perspective. She was right. If I did hurt him, I would feel better, but I would also lose the opportunity to protect Jules. I was blinded by hate, but no longer. Jules released that feeling from me.



“I’m so sorry Jules. You’re right. I’m an idiot.”



“No, you’re not. You’re just in love with me and want to stop the problem that’s threatening me. It’s only natural, but you’ve got to tame the urge.”



“Why are you so damn smart?” I asked.



“I’m not. I’m just........intuitive.”



“And just as in love with me as I am with you,” I said in complete confidence. “That’s why I’m determined to get you back here by new year’s.”



“I won’t hold my breath, but,” she paused, “I will hold a kiss.”



“I’m counting on it.”



“Alright, Elliott. Call me when you see the entire video.”



“Okay. Hey, Jules?”



“Yeah?”



“I’m so in love with you.”



“As I am with you.”



“Bye.”



“Bye.”



I set the phone on its receiver and walked back over to the laptop with a surprisingly clear mind and calm body thanks to Jules. I took a deep breath and pressed play. I watched a masked Jesse climb through the window and check for Jules under her bed and closet.  He was wondering where she was. I felt the rage again but remembered Jules’ words. He started rummaging through her things. I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to do. This wasn’t his usual routine. I think he was looking for information that could clue him in on why she wasn’t in her bed but what he did next surprised me.



He sat at the edge of the bed and looked toward the window, like he was talking to someone but I couldn’t hear anything and I could have kicked myself for not thinking of microphones. He was signaling toward the living room. He must be telling Taylor to check the living room windows to see if Jules was sleeping on the couch. But she wasn’t there. She was a cool five hundred miles away from their insane asses, probably sleeping in a down comforter. That warmed me on the inside.



Finally, something got to them but I started to realize that they were looking for her for a reason. I was desperate to know why. I knew something for sure though, I knew if they came tonight that they’d know something was up and stop coming altogether and my efforts would have been for not. I needed to sleep here tonight. Jules’ parents would have never agreed to it, neither would mine, or my Uncle Danny, especially not Danny. They knew the potential danger. I’d have to do it on my own. Before I left Jules’ house, I made sure to unlock one of the window’s in the living room so I could get in easily.



That night I readied myself for battle, so to speak. I ate dinner, casually tried to have a conversation with Jules and then my mom and went to bed late. My mom didn’t suspect a thing. Jules, on the other hand, took some convincing. She told me she could hear something in my voice and I spent the entire conversation reassuring her I wasn’t going to do anything stupid.



I’m an impeccable liar the rare times I have to do it but Jules knew me so well the charms of it escaped her. I hung up the phone not entirely sure she wasn’t going to call Danny. It was still a risk I was willing to take because I knew it was my last chance to catch Jesse and stop this entire thing in its snowy and dangerous tracks.



I laid in my bed, not sleeping. I thought of Jules to pass the time and around one in the morning I slipped out my window just as I had a few nights before. I reached the street and ran as fast as the cold would let me to Jules’ home, pulling my coat tightly into my chest and raising the collar to protect my neck. My wool cap, the one that always kept me warm in the coldest weather, was doing nothing to keep the cold from my ears. It was bitter weather, blizzard like. I could barely see ten feet in front of me. Please, let this be the last time I have to do this, I begged myself. I knew my boots would leave a trail through the snow and needed to find an alternate way around her home and I’d need to enter through the opposite side so my boot prints would not tip Jesse and Taylor off that someone else, me, might be there waiting, so I looped far around the bit of forest by Jules’ home and approached from the back right portion of the house, jumping their neighbor’s fence. I needed to get through the living room window furthest from Jules’ room and was praying that it wouldn’t be too difficult or too loud so as not to wake her parents.



I took a deep breath before trying, hoping Jules’ dad didn’t check the windows before they went to bed and miraculously it opened. I almost jumped in excitement I was so happy. I clumsily climbed through the window and landed with a thud on the living room floor. Great, I thought, all this effort just to get shot by Mr. Jacobs. But it was quiet. I closed the window and laid there without a peep just in case. When the ice from my boots had melted into small puddles on the floor beneath them I knew it was okay to make a move.



I looked at the laptop and it was recording everything. I’m glad I checked. The last thing I’d want to happen would me be exposing Jesse for what he was and not get it on film. I tiptoed, well tiptoed as much as a guy in boots could, and entered Jules’ room. Mission accomplished, well, sort of. I was in the room at least.



Then came the hard part. I waited. I waited and waited. Then, waited some more. At three forty-five I heard commotion outside.



“Jeez, Jules really does sleep like the living dead. I can hear them coming from a mile away,” I whispered to myself.



When they seemed to be approaching, I hid in Jules’ large armoire. I had taken out all her clothing and shelves and hid them underneath her bed. I knew, there, he’d never suspect a thing.



Eventually, I heard the window slide open. My heart raced into my ears. I felt the thudding pulse of blood in my neck and almost vomited from the sheer anticipation. This was it. This was my opportunity to expose him for who he truly was. I needed to expose his face as soon as possible to the camera. That was the first on my list of priorities. The next? Beat the bloody crap out of him? It sounded like a plan to me.



I left the door of the wardrobe cracked open and watched his every move through Jules’ vanity mirror. The next part took all of five seconds but it seemed like an eternity to me. I could hear Jesse breathing and I could see him squinting as if he were trying to see something that wasn’t there.



Jules’ bed was empty but he didn’t seem surprised, or angry, or anxious, more like he was just searching. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I needed to catch him off guard and immediately so I didn’t waste any time.



In a fraction of a second, I was on his back desperately trying to remove his ski mask. I got just enough of it off to expose the chin and mouth but he shrugged me off of him before I could remove it in its entirety. I had to get the entire thing off if this was going to work.



He yanked the mask back onto his face and turned, his back toward the camera. I’ll admit, it wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d like it to. We were both being extremely quiet, a silent fight. It was a riddle of a clash, urgent, raging and totally soundless. As much as either of us wanted to yell and throw the other into the wall we fought a restrained battle, neither wanting to wake the Jacobs. I, because I wanted to keep the danger from them and he, so he couldn’t get caught. What should have been exaggerated movements became minimal. I hated it, every second of it.



The adrenaline pumping through me would have produced a hit the equivalent of a Mack track going a hundred miles an hour. He should have been dead weight on the floor by now but I just couldn’t risk waking the Jacobs. He held the slightly upper hand only because I let him have it. A woke Gerry and Ann Jacobs could mean a hurt Gerry and Ann Jacobs and that was not worth it. This situation was my fault and I was finally starting to regret the risk of it. I still hadn’t exposed his face and things were quickly spiraling out of my control. He was catching the remnants and gaining the upper hand.



He pinned me to the ground and hit me brutally across the face with something hard within his reach. It was too dark to see what it was but it made me too dizzy to fight back. I watched him stand up, walk to the window and mumble something under his breath. He walked back and my eyes barely reached the six feet to his masked face.



“This is how I win,” he said and that was all I could remember before he stuck me with a four inch needle in the neck.



Chapter Eight



Rubber Ribbons and Jellied Arms



When I woke, the morning sun branded itself into my eyes. All I could see was the blinding yellow rays of light that gave me an instant pounding headache. I went to block the sun with my hands but couldn’t pick up either of my arms. I was freezing cold. My teeth had to have been chattering unconsciously for hours because even my teeth felt sore.



My jaw was so tender, too pained actually, and I realized that whatever Jesse had hit me with had actually broken it. I was in excruciating pain and worse yet, I couldn’t move. I started to panic. Why can’t I move! I felt paralyzed and worried that Jesse may have broken my spine at the neck no less, but if that were true how was I able to feel everything? The tears were beginning to well up but I fought back. I wasn’t going to shed a single drop for the psycho.



I tried to turn my head to see where I was but wasn’t able. I did recognize a very large tree from the school parking lot and wondered what Jesse was up to in putting me here. For several hours, I remained paralyzed, but somehow in incredible pain.



I tried to remember what had happened during the struggle but was having difficulty. I finally recalled a needle and couldn’t comprehend where Jesse had gotten something like that.



He’d drugged me. I wondered if he was trying to kill me and it just didn’t work. I tried moving my body again and again and eventually found I had regained the use of my toes. I sighed in relief when I heard Danny’s police cruiser. I could tell it was him because it was moving along at a snail’s pace and his windows must have been down because I heard his dispatcher spout some code.



It was difficult to see properly through a window when the temperature on the inside of your vehicle was almost thirty degrees higher than the temperature outside. He was looking for me. I tried yelling but found that I couldn’t. A new panic rushed through me. I hadn’t tried using my voice before when analyzing what I was able to move on my body.



I waited an agonizing five minutes to be discovered. I heard Danny’s car screech to a halt despite his sluggish pace. I heard him flip his cruiser into park and jump out. His boots clamored up the sidewalk and ran up to me. It was so cold, the moisture from his breath froze in the air and billowed into tiny clouds above my face.



“Are you alright son?” He asked, desperate for a reply.