Down the Shrinking Hole

by Jamie Ott

  No time to waste, though. Starr grabbed the gun from Stephen.

  But then there was a terrible feeling in her gut, like acid. She could feel it burning up into her esophagus. It was the bullet, like it was melting inside her.

  She doubled over, fell to her knees, and then to the floor.

  “Starr?” Marla freaked out. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s –uh- the b-b-bullet. It’s d-d-dissolving inside me, and it hurts. It smells and feels like acid reflux, b-b-but a million times worse,” and she writhed about the floor, moaning in pain.

  “Oh my lord. You should be dead!” screamed Stephen, and he lunged for the gun and readied to shoot Starr again.

  Marla kicked him the balls, which sent him down in much the same fashion as Starr.

  “Kill him, Marla, or he’ll be back.”

  “I can’t,” and she pulled Stephen up by the neck, yanked back a fist and punched him in the face, knocking him out cold and spattering blood all over the floor.

  “Ugh! I think I broke his nose or teeth, or something,” and she wiped her hand on the carpet.

  They may not have been as strong as Starr, but they were still stronger than most men.

  “Come on, Starr. Get up! We gotta go!”

  Starr walked limply with her arm around Marla’s shoulders.

  The pain shot up to her neck, and down to her calf with every step they took.

  Sensing Starr’s pain, Marla slowed down their walking pace.

  “Let’s just sit here, for a moment,” said Marla.

  “No. If someone comes by, like a cop, they could force us to the hospital. We don’t know what they’d find about us, with medical devices.”

  As they walked, the pain began to, slowly, alleviate. By the end of three blocks, Starr was walking with a limp, but without leaning on Marla.

  By the time they were back at the clinic, Starr was completely fine.

  “How do you feel?” Marla had asked her over and over.

  “Stop asking me. I’m fine. You know that bullets don’t hurt us; Credenza said so, too. If they did, I wouldn’t be walking, would I? So don’t worry.”

  Inside the clinic, all was chaos as normal. A few of the kids were doing homework while others prepared for dinner and a movie, as they did on Friday nights.

  Mot was standing at the stove in the corner of the waiting room stirring a large pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove that Michael, Starr’s friend from the Salvation Army, installed months ago.

  Despite the way things went down with Stephen, Starr didn’t want Mot to worry. As she walked by, she winked and gave him a thumb up, as if everything was fine.

  “Well, everything is okay, unless that jerk knows where we live,” said Marla.

  “I know,” said Starr. “I’m worried, too.”

  Can’t Stay Home

  Chapter 4

  Although they wanted to stay home, in case Stephen or someone he worked with came by, they couldn’t; they had to work. Seeing as they, all three, worked in the service industry, Fridays were their biggest nights to make money, and they couldn’t afford to go without it, not even for a single night.

  Unfortunately, neither Mica nor Shane returned home before Starr and Marla had to clear off. They called their cell phones a dozen times, but they didn’t answer.Finally, they just had to clear off and hope for the best; they couldn’t risk losing their jobs! But, before they left, Marla gave Lily her cell phone and told her to call Starr if anything strange happened while they were gone.

  Lily was sharper than Starr thought, for, although they tried to tell her that everything was fine, she was extremely suspicious.

  Luckily, that night, everything was fine. No one came by, and the kids were alright. Mica and Shane were a little shocked to hear that Starr had been shot, but they were more fascinated than anything.

  “What did it feel like?” asked Mica.

  “Like getting a massage. What do you think, idiot? It hurt like hell.”

  “If bullets can’t kill us,” said Shane, “than neither can being stabbed with a knife.”

  “Yeah, but didn’t you see ‘Death Becomes Her’?” asked Mica. “What if we can lose our limbs?”

  “If we save them, we should be able to reattach them,” she walked over to the shelf and picked up a Credenza book.

  “Well, ladies,” said Marla. “We might just live forever. If our tissues regenerate and heal themselves from a bullet wound, time, bacteria or virus won’t have much luck.”

  ~~~

  A week went by without word or any sign of Mot’s dealer, Stephen. Starr and Shane went by the house, several times, to make sure he was still around, and he was. Shane couldn’t get any thoughts or feelings from him, though.

  “Maybe he’s drugged out,” she said. “It’s like a snowy radio station, up there. I hear various thoughts, but can’t make any sense of them.”

  Despite the appearance that the drug lord would leave them alone, they still felt vulnerable, so they took that following Saturday and made a special trip to the hardware store where they bought locks and wood, and then spent the day reinforcing the windows, locks, and the front glass door.

  Later, they entrusted the older kids to a special box for their protection, in case anyone wandered in while they were away. Inside were two 1000 fps bb guns; far from deadly but painful enough to make a person think twice, and maybe even need surgery. Also, there were two cans of mace and a stun gun.

  The others thought Starr was being paranoid, but Starr knew she wasn’t. Drug dealers don’t call the cops to right their wrongs: they handle their own business, violently. Maybe things were quiet, now, but Stephen could come around when they least expected it.

  Besides, Stephen didn’t look big time, as they say. It was likely he’d wait until his fingers were healed enough before coming, himself, to take revenge on them.

  Only Shane seemed to agree that it was in their best interest to prepare for the worst, so they spent the next Saturday, letting the kids practice shooting in the back of the clinic.

  Mot felt extremely guilty for bringing the situation down on them. He did everything he could to make up for it, like constantly cleaning and he cooked dinner every night that week.

  Mica got Mot a job, sweeping the floors of a salon on the East side. They figured out it would cost him $1500 to get a visa and, from there, he could work on getting permanent status. At minimum wage, it was going to take a while, but he managed to procure a birth certificate from his country and was planning to apply for a passport, once it arrived.

  Despite everything, though, Starr still felt like their place was vulnerable. She stood outside looking about, wondering what the place needed when she got an idea.

  That night, when mostly everyone was asleep, she put on her old jeans and dirty old sweater, tied her hair in a bun and ran to the nursery on the other side of town.

  Normally, this sort of trip would have taken an unfit human five or six hours, but she ran the distance in fifteen minutes.

  Leaping over the twelve foot fence of a parking lot nursery, she landed on a barbed wire net that served as a ceiling. Below was a huge stack of soil and to her right, a row of baby coniferous trees.

  As quietly as she could, she ripped the barbed wire apart with her hands; it was like snapping dental floss to her.

  She leapt through the hole she’d ripped and landed on the black tar.

  Starr picked up a potted tree, in one hand, and leapt up, through the ripped barbed wire, and landed on the black tar, outside of the fence.

  Starr did this three more times, and then, taking two plants in each arm, ran back to the clinic as quick as she could.

  Most of the fence that surrounded the clinic was blocked off with overgrown shrubbery, but the front was wide open, for the public to see.

  What Starr did, didn’t solve the problem of the missing gate that used to be a part of the chain link fence, but she would get Michael to help her wit
h that, later.

  That very night, Starr planted the trees, leaving enough space between them for them to grow outward as well as up. There was still enough space to see the clinic, but, in time, the clinic would be completely obscured.

  Funnily enough, no one noticed the trees until several weeks went by, and they had grown to be nearly as tall as the chain link fence.

  Halloween Disaster

  Chapter 5

  It was Halloween night, and although they would have rather stayed with the kids and had fun, they couldn’t. Next to New Year’s Eve, Halloween was the night they made the most money in tips, plus Starr still hadn’t been able to put a gate in the fence at the clinic.

  Danny, a sixteen year old who divided his time between his real home and the clinic, was planning to take them to the city’s Halloween block party for kids under eighteen.

  Starr, Mica and Marla felt extremely guilty about not going with them, but they could, at least, trust Danny. He was there, in the beginning, when they first moved into the clinic. He didn’t come from a broken home, like some of them did; in fact, Starr would have guessed his family was well-to-do, as they say. Something was missing from his life, though, to make him spend so much time there, at the clinic.

  Not that they cared. They only had two requirements for kids who wanted to stay with them, and that was they contribute when they can and tell no one that they were there, no matter what the circumstances or threat. Danny was a most helpful contributor, and he came through, for them, a few times when they were really down on their luck.

  Shane was planning to take the night off. With all the nights they got to party while she stayed on, they didn’t begrudge her. Starr and the others felt Shane deserved a night off.

  As Starr left the clinic, dressed like dark angel with black wings, the kids were having a blast with music and make up in the waiting room. Pizzas and soda was spread all about.

  Lily was drawing leaves on Marie’s face. Marie was a little Asian girl who, like Mot, was going to have immigration problems, in the future. According to her, her parents died as stowaways, and her real name was Misaki, but Starr got the feeling she was lying about either her parents or her name.

  Becky, a runaway from a children’s home on the west side, was smearing black paint around Lucas’, an abused boy from Harlem, face.

  “By guys,” Starr said as she grabbed a slice of pizza. “Have fun tonight. Lily, you call me if there are any problems, okay?”

  “Okay, bye!” she smiled, widely.

  That night was a typical rowdy night at work. It was too busy for her to think of anything at all, except the wish that Mica would hurry up and get her a job at The Gaul.

  About ten ‘o’ clock, she got a message from Lily saying they were on their way home from the mall.

  Starr texted back, ‘Okay,’ and to let her know when they made it back inside, safely.

  At eleven p.m., a couple bikers, at the bar, were kind enough to spray her, and everyone within a few feet of them, with beer. Immediately, Starr ran to the bathroom to fix her makeup which streaked down her face.

  At twelve a.m., a patron ran out, screaming, after he decided it was good fun to grope her ass, as she bent over to clean up a table.

  Starr, who was especially annoyed with the aggressive crowd, grabbed his hand too hard, and he screamed out like a little girl. His buddies just laughed at him because they simply didn’t believe that skinny Starr could have hurt the man.

  Finally, two a.m. approached and it was time to start clearing out the crowd. As usual, the bar stopped serving drinks, but many of the bikers did not want to leave.

  “What? It’s only 2am. What is up with this city. I remember when bars would serve until 4 a.m.!”

  At around 3 a.m., one guy decided it would be funny to stick his leg out and trip another guy who was on his way out of the door. It wasn’t a problem for Starr, who grabbed them, both, by the back of their necks and tossed them outside to fully engage one another.

  By the time two middle aged women tried to climb over the bar, because Starr refused to serve them, her nerves were highly peaked, and her patience, thinly stretched.

  She only meant to toss them back over, but, instead, they flew into the wall, knocking down several pictures: shards of glass flying everywhere and the motorcycle that was drilled into the wall rattled halfway free of its cage, knocking one patron completely out.

  “Starr!” her boss, Billie, yelled. “Do you realize how much that’s gonna cost me? You could get me sued! I’m sorry, Starr. I like you and I know it wasn’t your fault, but I gotta let you go.”

  She’d never been fired before. She felt sad, but relieved at the same time.

  “Let me finish out the night. You still owe me money and I earned those tips tonight. We all did. I’ve bailed you out of trouble time and time again. Think about all the bar fights I prevented, all the damage you could have been paying for!”

  Billie looked toward the door; several cops had just walked in.

  “Alright, alright, she dug into her pocket and pulled out $300. But you better go, now, if you don’t want to go to jail,” she said, eyeing the police who were headed her way.

  Starr walked out, from behind the bar, and made a right through the door that lead into the kitchen.

  The cops knew she was about to run because they bolted toward her, but she was too fast for them.

  Quicker than an eye could focus, she was through the kitchen, out the backdoor, and to the end of the alley where she watched the cops who were dazed and confused. They scratched their heads and were determined that she had to be hiding somewhere in the bar.

  She turned around and walked toward Mica’s bar, The Gaul. Starr couldn’t afford to be without a job, neither of them could.

  If it wasn’t for the bouncer who recognized Starr, she wouldn’t have gotten in because the line went on for blocks.

  Inside, the crowd was going off. The whole room moved and swayed the way a concert would. The new d.j. was making wicked tunes and people repeatedly stepped on her feet.

  She couldn’t hear or see Mica anywhere in the room, so she called out anyway, “Mica, I got fired today.”

  Suddenly, she appeared at her side.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”

  “Some trashy biker chicks tried to climb over the bar. I threw them off, a little too hard. I didn’t mean too! How the hell can you stand working here? Doesn’t it hurt your ears? Super hearing and all?”

  “Haha,” she laughed. “Sometimes, but no not really. My brain likes it, for some reason.”

  “So what about that job?”

  Mica grabbed her by the arm and led her to the office where her boss was watching a movie on television; he appeared to be totally bored.

  “Hi Gaul.”

  So he was Gaul, thought Starr.

  “This is my friend, Starr. She’s the one I was telling you about. She works fast.”

  “Have you ever bartended before?”

  “No, but I worked at the biker bar, Billie’s, so I can pour beer and make simple drinks. Mica showed me how to make quite a few drinks, the other night. I think with a couple nights, I could make a good bar tender. Maybe I could just waitress for you, for a bit, until you feel comfortable, but I could really use a job.”

  “You have your I.D.?”

  Starr pulled out her wallet.

  “Well, alright. Come back tomorrow, around 2 p.m. We will get you started when it’s quieter.”

  “Thank you.”

  Outside Gaul’s office, Starr said, “Thank goodness. I hate looking for a job in this city.”

  “Want a drink?”

  Starr looked around at the room, and fun as it looked, all she wanted was peace and quiet.

  “Nah. I’m gonna go home. I’ll see ya later.”

  Starr just wanted to go home, close the door to her room, and relax, but as she neared the clinic, she sensed that something was off. There was a lot of fear
in the air. The closer to the clinic, she got, the more she noticed the scent.

  Sniffing at the air, she looked all around her. Then, it was like someone planted a thought in her brain.

  Starrrr… It called.

  Shane? She thought.

  Can you hear me?

  “Yes, I can hear you,” she spoke aloud. “Where are you?” Starr asked the air as turned around and around.

  I’m reaching you, telepathically. It’s something I read about in one of my books. We need you. I think the guy who shot you is here, and he’s got us under gun. Mot is badly hurt, and they’ve upturned the clinic. Be careful.

  “Okay, I’m coming.”

  Starr picked up running along the street. She stopped at the light and took off her shoes so that she could run faster.

  She sent text messages to Marla and Mica because the chance of them hearing, or answering their cell phones, was slim. Besides, Starr was pretty sure she could handle the situation herself. The night she escaped them, she took out four men in one sitting. Now that she knew she couldn’t die from bullets, she felt even more confident.

  Still, she thought to herself, bullets slowed her down, considerably, so she needed to be careful.

  She stopped at the corner of the clinic’s fence and sniffed the air to suss out how many strangers were in the clinic, but she couldn’t tell from where she stood; she needed to get closer.

  Like a frog, she leapt over the fence, over the shrub that grew over the top, and landed on the ground.

  Her weapons were inside, and she could sense someone near the back entrance of the clinic, so she was going to have to use her hands to fight.

  Carefully, she crept along the clinic’s walls, smelling, calculating that there were, likely, four or five men keeping the kids hostage, inside.

  She could smell the most danger and fear coming from the waiting room, and assumed that most of them were there, except for the scent of a man in the back.

  Starr went around to the back where she noted the smell of gun powder, which meant the man, inside, had fired his gun.