Girl Jacked by Christopher Greyson Page A

what she always called us.
    He remembered the first time he headed down this road. He had been numb. His real mother was a whore. If he ever talked about her, he used that word, ‘whore’. There was no other way to describe it for him. He tried to use ‘prostitute’ but felt it covered her sins and sounded too kind. It wasn’t just that she sold her body for money. No, it was because of what she had done to a child – done to him.
    Jack hadn’t thought about her for a while, but as buildings and surroundings became more familiar, the thoughts slammed into his already overloaded brain.
    Why?
    He didn’t know the answer.
    Why keep a kid seven years and then give him up?
    He would shout these questions at the therapist who tried to get him to face his feelings.
    My feelings? What feelings? Most of me is just numb. Dead. Then there is the other part… The dark part of me that just… hates.
    “You should have taken that right. Take a right up here.” Replacement pointed with a frown, upset that he missed the street.
    She thinks I forgot about the town. She thinks I forgot about them. I didn’t. I’m just remembering too much.
    Hennessey’s, the little Bait and Tackle, Bob’s Coffee and the old candy store. It was almost all the same, yet everything had changed.
    He turned down the familiar road.
    “This is it. Right here is fine.” Replacement’s hand was on the door handle as he pulled over.
    “Here,” She handed him a folded piece of paper. “Read it when you get home.” She hopped out and ran up into an apartment building without a backward glance.
    Jack unfolded the note written in a delicate script on a piece of scrap paper. CHECK THE STOVE. TY FOR HELPING.
    No signature .
    He still didn’t know her name, and he forgot to try to get it from her.
    Check the stove? What the hell does that mean?
    He floored it and broke the speed limit all the way home.

Chapter 6 – Perpetually Weird
     
    Jack stood in the hallway and let the door of his apartment swing open. He was relieved that he didn’t smell gas. Even so, he was glad the light from the hallway and windows gave him enough to see by. He wasn’t going to risk switching anything on.
    Damn!
    Someone had turned the place over, or that’s what it looked like at first. Then he noticed what was missing. The pattern of destruction meant Gina had come back.
    Now she is gone for good.
    Jack could see that she had worked the place over. The worst of it was in the bedroom.
    No bedding. The pillows, sheets and the super warm comforter were all gone.
    She had pulled all the drawers out and strewn their contents across the floor. Jack figured there would be a message in the bathroom, and he was right. It was now past the odd stage that this had happened to him before and moved into the chronically weird category. It was at least the third time a girl had left him a message scrawled across his bathroom mirror.
    He looked at the message written in red lipstick in massive letters scribbled across the mirror, ‘YOU SUCK!!!’
    She didn’t make a little smiley face out of the periods on the bottom of the exclamation marks. Erin had done that. Erin had a little more class.
    His gun and important papers were in the safe, so he knew they were secure. He stood looking into the kitchen, across the broken plates littering the floor.
    The stove! Replacement’s note! Jack swallowed. What did she do?
    What remained of the shattered plates crunched under his feet. He approached the stove with almost the same trepidation as opening a door when clearing a room with SWAT.
    All of the dials on the stove were turned off. He did not smell gas but the black glass of the oven door seemed extra dark. He looked and could see there was something in the oven. The light had never worked so after a moment’s hesitation, he yanked open the door.
    Stuffed inside the oven was a large green trash bag. He pulled the bag out and set it on the counter. When he looked inside, he laughed out