Tom Jason

Tom had spent the rest of his weekend mourning the departure of his best friend. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even his mom. He had received several calls from his other friends but he just stayed locked in his room lying on the bed and watching T.V without really paying attention to what he was watching.

“Tom, open up,” his mom’s voice came from the other side of his door as she knocked.

“Coming” Tom said, getting up and opening the door.

“Hey honey,” she said, she was holding the house phone in her right hand, “it’s Jane, she wants to talk to you.”

“Tell ‘er I’m not home.”

“But I already told her you were, so here, talk to her.”

Tom grabbed the phone from his mom’s hand and talked into the receiver, “Hello.”

“Hey Tom!” Jane’s voice rang through the speaker, “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to call you all day but your mom said you were busy, what were you doin’?”

“Oh nothing much,” he said, “just cleaning and other chores, you know.”

“Yeah, anyways, I wanted to know if you wanted to come over to my house, we’re having a party, not a very big one of course, but Lily will be there.”

“Ahh, nah, I can’t, not today.”

“Why not?”

“I’m too tired, and I wanna rest.”

“Oh, ok” she said, not hiding her disappointment, “well then, good night I guess, I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

“Sure will, night” and he hung up.

Tom then stood up and went downstairs to put the phone back when his mom popped out of nowhere.

“What did Jane want?” she asked.

“Oh nothing, she just wanted me to go to some party she’s throwing tonight.”

“On a school night?”

“Don’t worry, I said I wasn’t gonna go.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Why? You want me to go?”

“Well, if it will get you out of that funk the yea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, as long as you don’t drink any alcohol or smoke anything strange, and you don’t come home too late, tomorrow is a school night after all.”

As Tom was making his way to Jane’s house he walked past the park where he and Jimbo would always play. He just stood there for a little while and basked in the old memories of their childhood together, and then he heard other footsteps. He turned around and saw Lily Estrada, the girl of his dreams.

Lily had long black hair, shiny brown eyes, she wasn’t very tall but had a very pretty face. She always walked with posture, and her smile always lit up the night sky. She walked past Tom pretending to notice him, and then Tom started walking after her. She seemed to have noticed that she had an unwanted visitor because then she started walking even faster. Tom kept his regular pace but wasn’t really falling behind. After a few blocks Lily seemed to have lost her temper, she stopped and then turned around.

“What!? What do you want?” she yelled at him.

“Nothing” Tom said, “why would you think I wanted something?”

“Um, I don’t know! Maybe because you always do.”

“Maybe, but not this time, I’m just heading to Jane’s party, or do you have a problem with that as well?”

“Uh, well no, not really” she said, she was starting to calm down and then Tom started walking and she followed him. This was kind of an awkward moment for her, as she sped up and caught up to Tom and they walked with the sunset in the horizon.

When they reached Jane’s house it was dark outside and the house was shaking from the loud sound of the music and flashing lights could be seen through the windows. They both walked up to the door and when Tom reached for the doorknob so did Lily and their hands met. Tom flushed, but then Lily pulled away her hand and slapped him across the face, Tom looked at her and she was red with anger. She opened the door and walked inside.

The sound of the music rang through the doorway where Tom stood, speechless. Tom just stood there like an idiot until one of his best friends Jane came over to see what was wrong with him.
“Hey, what’s up Tom? I thought you weren’t coming,” she said.

“I- uh, changed my mind.”

“Good!” she said smiling, “Come inside, you’ll catch a cold out here.”

Jane led Tom indoors and she closed the door. As Tom walked in he saw many people just dancing in the middle of Jane’s living room. Someone (obviously Jane) placed a multi-colored sphere right over the light bulb in the middle of the living room ceiling; it would spin so it would give an effect of flashing colored lights. Tom recognized a lot of the people in the room: Lily (of course), her friend Crystal, one of Tom’s friend Frank, Crystal’s older brother Lance, Lily’s older brother Matthew, another one of Tom’s friends: Brian, and many more.

“Well, welcome to Casa d’ Jane, party to your heart’s content,” she said and walked away.

Tom spent most of the party night just walking around Jane’s living room; he just passed by the dancers, all of them having a good time. For some reason Tom couldn’t bring himself to dance or mingle with the crowd, then Lily’s older brother walked over.

Matthew was tall, dark, and handsome. He had curly brown hair, dark and clear complexion, and towered like a giant over the rest of the school. Matthew had been one of Tom’s best friends and was the reason he met Lily in the first place. Now Matthew is a senior in High School and this was his graduation year, after this spring he was going off to college.

“Hey Tom,” he said, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you dancing?”

“I just don’t feel well,” Tom responded, “I came thinking I would feel better but it didn’t work.”

“Well, all I can tell you is to go home” Matthew said as he lightly punched Tom’s shoulder, “you should go, don’t worry I’ll tell Jane where went off to.” Tom started to walk away and then Matthew called out to him, Tom turned around and heard Matthew say, “Don’t forget that there’s a meeting tomorrow after school, I know what’ll cheer you up!”

After saying good bye to some people who would try to convince him to dance he left and headed down the street. He walked along the road, no sound was heard other than the sound of his hollow footsteps, but then he heard something weird. A voice.

“Tooom,” it whispered lightly, almost as if it were the wind itself.

“Who’s there? Is it you guys again? Come out Dragons!” Tom yelled into the empty street around him, he saw some of the lights inside houses turn on and he started walking again.

He had walked for like ten minutes when the voice rang through the air, sending chills down Tom’s spine.

“Toom,” it said, “the beginning…..it’s near. The end is…..nigh,” and the voice faded away.

What was that? Tom wondered and he continued walking. He walked for ten minutes without hearing the voice again, and he arrived home safely.

“Mom! I’m home,” he said.

“Okay then” his mom’s voice came from inside her room. Tom went up to his room and changed into his sleeping garments and went to sleep.

Tom was standing in a dark room again, no sound was heard and nothing could be seen. He looked around, he was scared, scared to move, and scared to make a sound. Then he heard something.

The sound was a song, the song seemed to be played on a flute of some sort, and the song was beautiful. Its sound was hypnotizing, and before he knew it Tom was walking towards that sound, forgetting that he was scared in the first place.

The more he walked the louder the song seemed to get, then he stopped. Tom stopped at the spot where the sound seemed to resonating from, but there was nothing. No one was around, the sound seemed to be coming from the space itself, and then the music stopped.

“Hello?” Tom called out, “Is anyone there? I know you’re here somewhere!”

“The beginning,” a female voice whispered.

“The beginning? What beginning?! Who are you?!” Tom yelled at the darkness.

“The beginning is near, and the end is nigh.”

“What?!”

“She will suffer, you’ll make her suffer,” the voice said, giggling.

Tom was starting to get scared, “Okay, you better tell me what’s going on!” he yelled at the voice.

“Don’t worry I will.”

Tom woke and found himself in the floor beside his bed; he got up and walked towards his dresser. Hanging on a hook in his dresser was the golden talisman; he reached towards it and picked it up.

I don’t know what’s going, he thought, this talisman just gives off a bad feeling, it has something to do with this, I know it!

He put the talisman back on the hook and examined his reflection; the scars on his face looked horrible. His hand reached towards his scars and as soon as he touched them he flinched from a little sting coming from his scars. They looked as if they were recently cut in his face, the wound looked fresh, and when he touched it, there was a bit of blood on his fingers.

After taking a shower he walked downstairs and ate the breakfast his mom had left in the microwave.

Mom’s gone? Tom thought, What time is it? He checked his watch and saw that it was ten minutes before eight. Oh shit! The bus comes in like five minutes!

Tom ran up to his room to get his book bag, when he opened the door he saw someone already in his room. It was a girl, or at least looked like a girl. She was transparent and seemed nothing more than a shadow or an illusion. He couldn’t see any feature of her face or what she was wearing, but she had the figure of a woman, so Tom just stood there, frozen.

“Who-what are you?” he asked.

“It’s time Tom, use the object” she said.

“What object?”

“You know what object, the finder, the package.”

“Oh, uh, you mean the package Jimbo gave me?” she nodded, “Uh, right. The package, I have it right here,” Tom awkwardly sidestepped towards the drawers next to his bed, all the time not taking his eyes the weird creature. He opened the drawer and rifled through it, but the box was not there. He checked the drawer beneath it, but the package was not there either. It wasn’t under his bed, in his closet, the bathroom, or the living room, when he came back to the room the girl was gone.

“Uh, hello? Um, I’m sorry but I couldn’t find it!” he yelled, then the phone rang downstairs, he ran down and answered it, “Hello.”

An automated voice answered back, “Hello,” it said, “your son, Tom Jason, has been marked as an unexcused absence. If he was absent for a good reason please send a signed note about his absence or you can call us at five, five, two…” and Tom hung up.

Oh shit! I missed school! He thought to himself, he went upstairs and grabbed his backpack and ran out the door.

Tom ran down the street that led to the school but it wasn’t necessary because all the kids were all walking back to their homes, school had ended. He turned around and started walking back home when he heard his name getting called out.

“Tom! Hey Tom!”

Tom turned around and saw Jane running towards him, “Hey Jane, what’s up?” he said.

“Why didn’t you show up to school? I thought you were sick or something.”

“Oh, uh, no, I overslept” Tom said, sounding embarrassed.

“Until 4 O’clock?”

“Uh, yeah”

“Anyways, I also came to tell you that there’s a meeting tonight.”

“Oh yeah! I totally forgot, Matthew had told me last night, ok then, let me drop off my things back home and we can head out to the Factory.”

When Tom got home it was still empty, he went upstairs to drop off his backpack in his room, when he dropped the backpack on the floor the wind it created blew to pieces of paper that seemed to be torn. When he picked them up he noticed it was Jimbo’s letter, the one that had been attached to the package.

“Tom, hurry up!” Jane yelled from downstairs, Tom snapped out of his trance and put the torn letter in his pocket and ran downstairs.

“There, I’m ready, let me just leave my mom a message to tell her where I’m gonna be.”

After leaving the message they both headed down the street, passed the school twenty minutes later, and after thirty minutes they arrived at the Factory. The Factory was an old run down can food factory that was abandoned twenty years ago, it served no real purpose until Matthew, Lily’s brother, decided to make it into their base of sorts. Matthew, three years ago, decided that, after Tom was jumped by a gang of kids, he would form a “club” so that they could look out for each other, and since Matthew was the leader nobody dared mess with them. Their “club” didn’t have a name but about twenty kids attended the meetings, including Lily, Jane, and Jimbo. Now that everyone was unthreatened the “club” turned into a real club, there were meetings whenever Matthew had to announce news he thought were important, they would help each other out whenever they were in trouble, be it family or school they were all there for each other.

Tom and Jane walked in and saw that everyone was there, they were all seating in crates, old chairs, or the floor and they all faced the empty podium at the end of the room. When they all heard the doors open and close they looked back to see who it is, when they saw it was just Tom and Jane they all went back to talking amongst themselves. Tom and Jane walked past the already familiar crowd and Tom sat down on the floor while Jane donned a old crate and sat on it.

As far Tom could see, everyone was there. Michael Newman, Jennifer Hobs, Angel
Lopez, Cindy Cassady, Janika Rhodes, Raul Rembrant, Neville Baker, Lily Estrada, Crystal Garcia, Jude Bloom, George Castillano, Caesar Garcia, Alex Johnson, Grant Bell, Alyssa Foster, and many more. They all sat together and talked amongst themselves, every once in a while they would look up towards the empty podium as if waiting for it to catch fire, and then the doors opened once more.

Every head turned towards the door, in the doorway was a tall figure, and as soon as it walked in everyone in the room went quiet. The figure passed the crowd and stood behind the podium, Matthew, the leader, had just made his entrance.

“Evenin’,” he addressed the group, “nothing very important today, I just wanted to let you know that this will be the last month I will be with you guys.” at this everybody started to talk amongst themselves until Matthew raised his hands and everyone quieted down. “Calm down, calm down everyone, I will be going to college next year, I will miss you guys a lot but I do have good news.” Everyone fell quiet and they stared at Matthew with an intensity that could melt metal, “I called you all here to announce who will be the new leader I after I leave, I am glad to announce that I chose Tom Jason to be your leader after I depart for college next month.”

Tom didn’t know what to expect when he heard his name being called up. He got picked, Matthew trusted him above all others, it was weird but he liked this feeling. Being trusted the one person he looked up to was such an honor for him, for someone who never got his way, who had more problems than half of his class put together.

Tom finally came back to reality and noticed that everyone was clapping and cheering for him, Jane put her hands on his shoulders and forced him to stand up. When he stood up they clapped and cheered even louder, and at this Matthew said, “C’mon Tom, come up here,” Matthew waved him to come but his legs wouldn’t move, Jane saw this so she pushed him.

“Go,” she whispered.

Tom just nodded, gulped, and walked up to the podium. When he reached the podium Matthew said to the mass of cheering kids, “So, yeah, here’s your new leader. His word is law, understand? If he tells you to jump, you jump; he’s the boss, the big cheese, and big kahuna, well I’ve made my point. Do you want to say anything Tom?”

“Uh, I guess” Tom mumbled, Matthew stood down from the podium and signaled Tom to take his place. Tom stumbled on his short way to the back of the podium and when he was standing there he cleared his throat.

“Hem, hem” he cleared his throat, “I- I don’t really know what to say, I- I don’t even know if- if I deserve this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! It’s because of you that this group exists at all, of course you do.” The voice came from the back of the crowd and Tom recognized the squeaky little voice of little Addison Waters, she was a sixth grader that happened to be good friends with Matthew, so because of that she is the youngest person in the group.

Tom was flattered, he chuckled, but then he said, “I didn’t do much other than get beat up by another group of kids, I didn’t make this Matthew did. It’s thanks to him that we have this ‘group’.” At this he lightened up and said, “Okay, maybe I do deserve this, maybe not, but that’s up to you to decide”.

“We’ve decided!” Brian yelled, “You’re the new leader, right everybody?” he stood up and everyone yelled and cheered, Tom just blushed.

Tom looked at everyone and just said, “Ok then, I accept.”

The crowd cheered even louder, they yelled his name, and he heard whistling coming from somewhere. Tom stepped down from the podium and sat back down where Jane gave him a pat in the back. Matthew stepped up to the podium and raised his hands to signal silence and everyone got quiet.

“I have another set of rules which aren’t as happy as well,” Matthew said with a somber look on his face, “Our friend Jimbo is no longer with us, he has moved to New York.”

The crowd started to look around, they finally noticed that Jimbo was nowhere to be found and when the shock finally set in they all just fell into an awkward silence.

After everyone had come over to Jane and Tom, saying they were sorry that Jimbo was gone, they all left for home. Tom left the building and caught up to Jane, but when they arrived at her house he continued off by himself. He walked farther down the street, he had reached the park when he noticed someone there, and the face was covered in shadows so he couldn’t make out who it was. He got closer and noticed that it was Lily sitting there; she looked at him and gave him the “leave me alone” look.

“Lily? You okay?” he asked.

“Leave,” she growled, “now.”

Tom not wanting to upset her left and continued on to his way home. When Tom arrived home everything was turned off, he went up to his mom’s room and saw that she was sleeping.

That’s strange, he thought, it’s still too early, it’s barely six o’ clock. He went and ate some of the leftovers from the night before and went upstairs to his room. He just sat there in his bed watching T.V when he suddenly went to sleep.

Again he had the same dream. The dark room, the song, and finally when the he reached what seemed the source of the music and then came a female voice. It was different from the original and it only whispered one thing.

“It has begun!”