The Untimely Death of Jimmy Gums Read Free Page A

waiting for him to wake up? It couldn’t have been that long, he reasoned muddily, if the parking lot still had a couple cars in it.
    “Tommy!” William shouted, making mockery of feigned distress. “Oh, Tommy boy. Where ever have you gone? What will I do?” He examined the tree line at the edge of the parking lot. His brother was hiding among them, he knew, waiting to get a rise out of him. William wasn’t falling for it. Yet, still there was no response.
    “Oh, I wish I wasn’t such a drunk asshole. I’m sure sorry about it.” This he said with slightly less sarcasm. He got up from the hood and crossed a few yards of parking lot to examine the forest’s edge. “Come on, Tom. I said I was sorry. I almost mean it, too.”
    Now he was getting irritated. The remaining booze in his system helped to shorten his temper. His mouth was raw with stomach acid and it irritated his throat to yell. “Alright man. Enough of this horseshit. I’m sorry, alright? Now get your big ass back over here and take me home so I can get cleaned up.”
    And then he realized that the ground beneath his feet was shining with wetness. He followed the slick, foot-wide trail with his eyes into the pine needle-littered ground at the end of the lot. It looked like… Puzzled, he leaned down and brought up a finger coated in crimson syrup. William’s stomach tightened.
    “Jesus,” he said. It was blood.
    The trail looked like something had been dragged out of the forest. So quick he staggered, William spun toward the car, reaching for his gun simultaneously. Indeed, the trail of bodily fluid led right back to the tail end of the continental. His heart bounced madly in his chest. William Zatel found himself wishing at that moment he’d had six or so fewer drinks that evening.
    “Tommy?” he said, softer now. Suddenly, his confidence of a practical joke waned. There was too much blood on the ground. Something big had been opened up and bled out. With his own pistol gripped tight in hand, William made his inspection of the car. Besides the large pool of blood, there was no sign of his brother. The trunk itself was empty.
    He found Tommy’s handgun on the front seat and winced. The air in his lungs felt heavy, not breathable. William could not remember the last thing that had happened that evening. He had no recollection of how he’d even got back to the car.
    The bloody path drew his eyes once again. Its very existence stirred the unsettled state of his stomach. And then he understood the error of his initial diagnosis. Something had not been dragged out of the woods. A chill nibbled at the edges of his will. What the hell was going on here? William tucked his Tommy’s gun into his belt, took a deep breath, and thinking of his missing brother, felt anger flush his cheeks.
    “I’m coming, Tommy.”
    From the road hazard kit he had so wisely purchased three months prior, William removed a small, plastic flashlight with a weak beam. In his hurry, and for the thoughts of a drunk man, it was better than nothing. At least it worked.
    Adrenaline did a fair job of rousing William toward alertness, though his head still felt a little slow. He stopped at the pavement’s end, taking one last look at the congealing trail and listening. He could see nothing in the depths of the trees. His meager light cut across the darkness in a thin, yellow strip, but showed him nothing.
    The dirt and tree leavings at his feet had been disturbed recently. He followed the tracks until they faded almost completely, hidden by the soft ground. There was no further evidence of blood, or even that of a struggle. Tommy’s a big boy, he told himself. Ain’t no puny little shit that could put his brother on the ground, much less cut him bad enough to leave such a mess in the parking lot. And then he remembered Tommy’s gun in his pants.
    “Fuck,” he whispered, trying his best not to let panic set its hooks in. It was a struggle he was not winning. “Where are you,