Jay-Bo

Nobody knows how Wade came into caring for the boy, the little boy with the eyes that went red, blood red, when scared or alarmed. Nobody knew when, or exactly why, the boy and Wade always hung together so tightly, like father and son, even though they weren’t, supposedly. Small town, Deep South, about 1994—it was a thing that simply was. All the whispers from the townsfolk had stopped years ago. All the women who had offered a hand up on child rearing, taking care of some of the more motherly-type duties on behalf of poor Wade and his previously solitary existence, all of that had stopped too. All the hush hush about scandals and secrets and if the authorities had ever been involved, even the mutterings about color-difference between Wade and his kid, it was gone, faded into the background, like the clouds of a sunset in a pretty picture. It simply, and ostensibly, was.

I usually drove past Wade and the boy walking on the highway coming in to work. Wade, with his big feet and long limbs, plodded along, one hand offered to the boy, Jay-Bo, he called him, or sometimes just Jay, like the bird not the letter. They both linked fingers and trudged through the thick grass alongside the road.

Rain was on the way. I wondered how they might get back home if a storm brewed up. Maybe I’d offer them a ride.

It was Saturday morning and people were waiting at the doors. Well’s General Merchandise, “W-Gee-M” to most everyone, we had all the goods crammed in, piled high, somehow managing to maintain a brisk business despite the threat of the big blue and white super-monster, megastore gaining traction across town, over by Interstate 20. Some of us talked about “defecting” sometimes. However, to leave, in our minds, was tantamount to treason. So most stayed on, including myself with my quiet existence out of sight and mind in the merch receiving room.

It was three of us, Kev, Darrell, and I, keeping up with the inflow from an early morning delivery truck, mostly clothes and some hardware. All of it needed to be price tagged and wheeled to the floor for hanging or shelving. Kev kept his headphones on most of the time. He liked the metal, Iron Maiden, Megadeth. Darrell took more than his share of breaks, thought, most likely, to be palming some minor drugs, weed and stuff, off the back of the loading dock. We had our jobs, our disagreements. Kev almost slapped me one time for talking in too much detail about the way his girl looked in her new low-rise jeans. But for the most part, we got along just fine. Hushed agreements, we kept, to let our differences stand. Idle talk, we made, mainly about fishing, hunting, or whatever sport was in season at the moment. I was biding my time, collecting a stash to help pay for another few semesters at JuCo. I wanted to be a welder.

But that doesn’t matter to this story. Not much does anymore.

This is about the kid, and the eyes, like halved cherries with black pits, staring back at me that afternoon when I rolled a readied Z-rack of pantsuits and skirts through the stockroom on my way to the sales floor. The kid always hung out somewhere in the building. That’s how Wade did it, never leaving him at home alone. Wade claimed special needs and attentions for the boy. He even brought some papers one time, to the manager and assistants, and that was the end of that. Wade worked his place in the hardware department, mostly behind the gun counter, or getting stuff off the top shelves for little old ladies, hunched over their buggies. And Jay-Bo, the kid, snuck around, in the toys or on the lawn mowers displayed in the parking lot. Management said nothing more about it. We tried to make friends with the kid, sometimes, but it seldom worked. He was skittish and timid like a bird or a squirrel. Often, you’d turn, and he’d be standing nearby, out of nowhere, a little ghost. He’d blink, normal white eyes, like everybody has. Then he’d blink, once more, a change, a film, something behind his eyelid like a shark or an eagle’s protective membrane, a second eyelid slid in from the side. That was the red. He moved away fast after that. I felt scanned.

But today, I had him cornered. He was tucked up in the racks, at eye level, between unopened crates of paper towels. The eyes were already red, almost glowing, and wide. Little Jay-Bo scrunched himself tighter, pulling his legs and arms close. “They’re here,” he whispered. “And the big one’s on the way too.”

Rain began pelting the warehouse roof, the noise like a loud radio without any signal.

Something brushed the back of my neck. I turned and saw nothing.

“That was one of them,” Jay-Bo continued, almost yelling now, over the rain. “They’re everywhere today. Some of them float around in the rafters and stuff. Some of them walk along the aisles, smelling the hair and the fingers of people while they shop. They don’t even know they are there. But I see them. They’re coming in droves, ahead of the storm, the dust devil, the demon wind. They want to suck out the dead, red suffering of the wounded and dying. They got fish mouths and triangle teeth that latch on and feed.”

Scavengers, I thought.

Then I came to my senses. What the hell? This kid’s creepy. Got an active imagination, one hell of one at that.

Over the intercom they called a Code Black, which is incoming bad weather, maybe even strong winds, a tornado nearby. Jay-Bo pulled at my vest, getting me up in the stockroom rack with him. Wade came calling for the boy, and I motioned him in too, the three of us hunched, scared, and curled up in the back stocked paper towels and tissue paper. It seemed as good a place as any to shelter the storm. And it was, fortunately for us.

They say storms sound like trains, the big ones do, tornadoes strafing the ground, sucking up trailers and trees, power lines and cars. But this was a boom, over and over, like giant feet on thick legs, stomping over the landscape, blowing up loads of red dirt from the abandoned quarry nearby. Stones were thrown into the parking lot, taking out windows, making craters. The wind, the momentum, smashed holes in the walls, and took most of the ceiling. We waited it out. With the damage we could now see up above as the stygian clouds swirled away. I saw a giant hand, or so I thought, just an impression. God only knows what poor Jay-Bo saw. He had screamed so much he had lost his voice. Nevertheless, he kept trying. Wade gathered him and calmed him as best he could.

And the blue sky leaked in, and the sun kissed the water falling down to the floor. It was beautiful, in a way. Then I realized what was probably all around us. Somebody, somewhere out there in the store didn’t make it today. They were dead or dying or wounded really bad. Maybe Kev, maybe Darrell, I hoped most had survived. Wade grabbed the boy and they left. He kept his thick hand clutched firmly over the boy’s eyes. I stumbled out myself and watched them go. Behind me, in the rubble, noises began as people pushed away debris, looking out for the others.

“Over here,” someone yelled. “We got some others over here.”

I knew it was time to pitch in and help.

And that whole afternoon, well into the evening, I couldn’t avoid thinking, and sometimes even swearing I could hear it—the sucking, the things, whatever Jay-Bo saw with his bloody, red eyes—they were there, had to be. I saw pain. I saw dying. I saw things a young man keeps with him for the rest of his life. And on top of it, the knowing, about the feeding, red beasts—it keeps me up nights, haunted eyes gone glassy and vacant. The weather radio blurts hot static at the side of my bed. Storm clouds move in. They come and they go. Sometimes something touches me. I shrink and I hide. Sometimes nothing happens, and I wonder what Jay-Bo, is doing, how he’s handling it, wherever he is.

©2024 J. Brian Reed

Originally published on Crystal Lake Entertainment's Patreon site.