"No one knows her last name."

"I'm sure G.o.d and her parents must know it." Cullen stood up and brushed off his pants. "I know it."

"You are lying." Jim licked his lips.

"I did some research about her, called in some favors from some friends of mine in the record business. It was pretty easy to find out the information."

"What is it?" Jim almost burst from his chair in excitement.

"Not so fast. I want the other half of your story first."

"There's not much to tell. My father was mean. What is her last name?"

Cullen grinned and wagged his finger. "Not so fast. Tell me about the first time he touched your private area."

"That never happened."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't want to talk about that. He was very mean to my mother; he would punch her, threaten her with a knife..."

"What happened to him?"

"He went to prison when I was fifteen." Jim covered his ears. "He finally went too far and shot my mother with his .357 Magnum."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Jim asked angrily. His hands dropped to his lap and clenched into fists.

"Why was it finally too far? Wouldn't beating your mother, humiliating her and doing that in front of her kid be too far to begin with?"

"I guess." Jim shut his eyes and tried to keep the images of his dead mother, her head split in two and blood and gore coating the kitchen floor, from his mind.

"Did you try to stop him?"

"How could I?"

"How could you not?!" Cullen began pacing. "If it was my mother about to die I think I'd try to stop the b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Cullen stopped and stared at Jim. "Unless you wanted her to die."

"Of course not. Why would you say that?"

"Because it might be true. She never protected you when he was touching you, never came to your rescue. I've seen it a million times. Poor little Jimmy with no one to protect him. It was probably a sense of relief when he finally did it. Now you could be free to escape with Kimmi Klub and go out into the real world."

"I loved my mother and not a day goes by that I don't wish she were still alive."

"I doubt that. I think your only regret is not having the b.a.l.l.s to get that .357 out of the old man's hand and blowing his head off. Am I right?"

"I wished him dead, not in prison."

"Did he ever get out? It's been almost thirty years."

"I don't know, and I don't care."

Cullen leaned on the desk, inches from Jim. "He did get out."

"You lie."

"Why would I lie? What would I have to gain? He was released six months ago and is living in Buffalo."

"There's no way you could know that."

Cullen wiggled his fingers on the desk. "The internet is a fascinating place, full of information. A last name of obscure singers, names of father's who killed their wives and raped their sons, all at your fingertips."

"He got out?" Jim asked. He felt like he'd been punched in the stomach.

"Yes, good behavior and all that. He ended up being a model citizen. There's a nice article about how he found G.o.d while on the inside and that he can't wait to reconnect with his son and show him how much he's changed."

Jim slammed his fist on the desk. "Over my dead body."

"That might be the idea. I hope for your sake the old man has changed his ways, or else he'll probably pick up right where he left off. That won't be good."

"I don't know what to do."

"You have two choices: you can get on a plane to New York and confront the b.a.s.t.a.r.d before he finds you here and touches you again, or you can pick up your search for Kimmi Klub."

"I can't face him," Jim said. Suddenly he felt ten again, balled up in the corner of his room with his tiny record player while Kimmi Klub drowned out the noise of his father beating his mother. "I can't go through that again."

"You need to face your fears, before your fear gets the better of you. Hiding on the top floor of this building isn't going to save you. Anyone can walk up here and sneak up on you. h.e.l.l, I came right up here without anyone knowing. Mister Croce banned everyone from this floor and told us to leave you alone, but I had to see what the great mystery was." Cullen tapped a finger on the left-hand drawer of the desk. "You need to be proactive for once in your life. Understand?"

"Not really."

"I didn't think so. People like you need to be bludgeoned over the head before you get it." Cullen tapped again on the drawer.

"Oh." Jim pulled it open. "How did that get in there?"

"You'd be surprised what gets misplaced these days."

"I guess so." Jim reached into the drawer.

"Wait, you should probably put your headphones back on. There's nothing better than a good tune before you go to work."

"You're right." Jim clipped the Walkman to his belt as he stood and pushed play. He sang along with his eyes closed.

"You do know that he's coming, don't you?"

"What?" Jim snapped his eyes open. "Here?"

"He'll be here soon. You won't be able to stop him."

"I have this." Jim removed the .357 Magnum from the drawer and held it in front of him. "I can kill him."

"You can't, you don't have it inside you. You're not a violent man, Jim, and you know it. He'll do bad things to you again, but worse this time. He's been in prison for over twenty years, just waiting for the chance to get revenge against you."

"He can't do this to me."

"He can and he will." Cullen stood behind Jim and placed his hands on his shoulders. "You know what you need to do."

When the door opened slowly Jim pointed the gun and pulled the trigger again and again until it was empty.

"Good job," Cullen said.

Jim dropped the weapon on the carpet, confused at the two bodies in the doorway.

"Miller," Cullen whispered in his ear.

"Huh?"

"Kimmi Klub was actually Kimberly Miller. The only reason she got that record contract was because her father paid a boatload of money to a producer. The song did so poorly that he purchased as many copies as he could find and destroyed them. She was wiped from the annals of music, forever lost. Not that it mattered to her in the long run. Her father was, of course, Arthur Reginald Miller, the owner of this very business you've been toiling in for sixteen years."

"That's not right. Mister Miller hired me."

"Yes, he did. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew you were such a huge fan of his daughter's work. If he had been up to your works.p.a.ce and saw the picture of his daughter, and if her career hadn't been pushed so far under the rug that anyone in this entire company would have known about her and commented on your picture."

"Where is she?" Jim asked but he knew the answer.

"She's with Mister Croce, of course."

"But..."

"Yes, lying right next to his body. You've killed her, your dream girl."

Jim couldn't move.

"They'll put you away, probably in the same prison your father is still in."

Jim turned on Cullen and pulled the trigger...but all the chambers were empty.

"You can't kill me, Jim. I only exist in your obsessively twisted mind. Maybe they'll put you in with your old man when you get there."

Jim heard movement on the stairs coming up.

"The worst part? They'll take your Walkman away. You'll never hear that song again."

Back to TOC.

There IS one situation in which "all bets are off", so to speak, and nearly everyone would be justified in snorting, shooting, smoking or swallowing every toxic substance they could get their hands on.

That would be: The End of the World.

DOOMSDAY DIARY.

By Scott Nicholson.

October 27.

f.u.c.k you, diary.

f.u.c.k you, f.u.c.k you, f.u.c.k you.

There.

I've been wanting to say that. I feel a lot better now. Actually, I don't feel that much better. The meth I spiked has me kind of wired. That's why I'm writing so fast and bad. Plus, you know, with time running out and everything, who wants to sit around and write stuff?

Me, I guess.

Maybe it's just some screwed-up desire to leave something behind. To touch something that doesn't turn to c.r.a.p in my hands.

Except this diary is c.r.a.p. Sentence fragments. Grammared wrong. Every rule in the book, broken. I bet that a.s.shole Ruggles would have a stroke if he read this. He was my Language Arts teacher the year before I dropped out.

But Ruggles doesn't matter, just like the diary doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. One of the fringe benefits of the end of the world.

Ah. Popped the tab on a cold one. Reneau, the b.u.m that lives behind the shopping center, bought me a six-pack. Of course, I had to give him money so he could buy himself some wine. No skin off my nose. I ripped off Dad's wallet for a twenty. Reneau's pretty cool, for a f.u.c.king homeless jerk. As a matter of fact, that's one dude who's glad the end is here. When you ain't got nothing, you ain't got nothing to lose. Those were his exact words. Double negatives. Ruggles would be rolling over in his grave, if he was already dead.

f.u.c.k Ruggles.

And f.u.c.k you, Diary.

October 30 Dear Diary, I lied.

Way the h.e.l.l back in September I promised that I'd write in you every day. But I'm as faithless as a wh.o.r.e.

So sue me.

I've missed weeks at a stretch, but hey, when you're young and doomed, it's hard to slow down long enough to sit at some desk with a pen in your hand. It's easy for you. All you got to do is lay there like a woman, all white and clean and blank.

I'm the one who has to come up with all the deep thoughts. But I'll try to do better. Acid today. Lonnie came up with some paper blotter from somewhere. The hits had drawings of Mickey Mouse on them. Can you believe that? A drug maker with a sense of humor.

The world could use more humor. Saw a guy in a business suit today wearing out the sidewalk on LaCroix Row, where all those fancy-a.s.sed shops are. He was carrying a sign that said, "Jesus Loves You."

I laughed, and the guy got this weird look on his face. He stops walking and says, "What's so funny?"