Read Cheer Up, Jimmy: 3 Melancholy Short Stories Page 3

The knob would not turn. His flesh blistered into a fleshy, heat-stuck mass, smelted onto metal knob. Jimmy bit his lip hard and grasped his wrist with the other hand, steeling himself as he ripped his mangled hand away. Gobs of what had been his palm hung from it loosely. The hand itself was bloody but not yet disfigured, now just twitching, pleading, and leaking fluid from massive, blown-out blisters. He cradled it in the crook of his arm like a baby, blowing on it delicately, tears running down his cheeks. He was about to make for the stairs when he heard the scratching. It was faint at first, but definitely there, and as he listened he heard dry, choked little screams from behind the door.

  “Why didn’t you call anybody, Jimmy? Did you…” The doctor paused, cleared his throat, and crossed one leg over the other then readjusted his notepad. “Did you choose her, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy’s thumb fidgeted wildly with a lighter that wasn’t there, flipping it open, lighting it, and flipping it closed, over and over. He would not look at the doctor.

  The scratching grew louder, turned into pounding, and Jimmy heard her scream as the door knob, already caked with his flesh, wiggled. His mind was a mess, giving him directions he could not follow: open the door, break it down, call somebody, get out, tell her you’re sorry, run away. Instead he stood there, nursing his poor hand, watching as grey tendrils of smoke fed newly forming black acrid clouds around him. He could only stare at the door, that immovable thing, swollen with heat, the doorknob shimmering hot and sagging as if installed by Salvador himself. His small dancing friend had become an untameable fire god, intent on destroying everything it saw, touched, tasted.

  But as he began to lose hope and feeling in his injured hand, the scratching stopped and instead of a child’s delicate fingers seeking salvation, he saw fiery appendages under the door leaving dark sooty fingerprints. It had claimed her and now it was coming for him.

  “You should have seen her, doc.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The kid, she was burned alive, and somehow…” Jimmy leaned back in his chair.