Free Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero by T. Ellery Hodges

from afar by some blond man in dark clothing. It was a fleeting distraction gained only from the act of engaging in something that required him to pay attention to what he was doing.
    When the thoughts started to leak back in, he let his legs pull him into a sprint and ran as hard as he could, and the effort pushed them away again, but only until the need to breath overcame the desire to forget.
    As he paced to a stop and put his hands on his knees, the rush and energy of the run started to fade with the slowing of his pulse. He started the walk back to the house, in a better mood than he’d started with.
    His mood stayed positive until he stood in front of the house again. Immediately he felt uneasy. Nothing was blatantly wrong. There was no blond man holding a syringe staring out the front window, but Hayden’s car was gone.
    Dammit Hayden .
    It wasn’t like him to be untrustworthy.
    Jonathan stared at the house. He wondered, really considered, if he was going to stand outside just to avoid being alone inside. The answer was simply no. Whatever normal was going to be, he wasn’t going to set the bar that low. He could spend weeks being afraid on the inside; he’d endure that, but there was no way he was letting his behavior be governed so drastically.
    He hesitated a bit longer, but eventually he opened the front door and walked in.
    The scene in the house was surprising, if not of a horrific nature. There was a child, maybe six years old, sitting pretzel style in the middle of the kitchen floor. The boy had a small pile of toy vehicles in front of him. They were pouring out of an overly colorful and hardly functional looking child’s backpack on the ground near him. The kid had singled out two cars. He was pushing them in circles around him as though they were having a race. He made sounds of tires peeling out and vehicles ramming each other for effect.
    Jonathan was disturbed for a moment, not by the child, but that the kid sat on the linoleum where he’d lost so much blood.
    “Hello,” said the boy, looking up at him, “I’m Jack.”
    The kid was smiling at him. The innocence of it brought Jonathan back to reality. Jack had short brown hair and a thin frame. He seemed alert, aware, like Jonathan’s presence was an exciting turn of events. It was sad, Jonathan thought, but even the presence of this child in the house gave him comfort, it was better than being alone. Still, who was Jack and why was he sitting in Jonathan’s kitchen?
    “Hello, Jack,” he said politely. “I’m Jonathan.”
    Jonathan looked around the room again and searched for an explanation for the kid. When he didn’t find one, he spoke again.
    “Those look like some cool cars you’ve got there. I used to have ones just like them when I was younger.”
    “Yeah? I like cars, but I like motorcycles more. I can’t wait till I can have one. I mean a real one, not one with pedals,” Jack said.
    “I have a roommate who likes motorcycles. He has one. Maybe you can come see it sometime,” Jonathan said.
    Jack’s eyes grew wide.
    “Speaking of roommates,” Jonathan said, “have you seen a big man with a beard around here today?”
    “Yeah, he left in a big hurry,” said Jack.
    “Oh,” Jonathan said. “Did he say where he was going?”
    Jack thought about it for a moment but shook his head no.
    “He might have told my sister.”
    Jonathan realized then that he’d heard the sound of water running from the upstairs bathroom. Had Hayden somehow managed to invite two neighborhood children into the house, then leave, in the span of Jonathan’s half hour jog? Was he trying to show him what it was like to babysit someone?
    A moment later, Jonathan heard the bathroom door open followed by the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. An attractive woman was suddenly in his living room. When he looked into her eyes she appeared to be as confused as he was.
    The woman’s face said she’d been put in a strange predicament, but was just