Preventable Abduction - Short Story

[Jaded_BasketCase]

Preventable Abduction
By Candace Argit

Jamie walked down the dark, abandoned alley, sneering at the filth as he kicked at the cans and wrappers surrounding him. "How do people live in this?" he thought, scoffing. "Probably explains why suicide rates are so high." Jamie was used to living in upper-class suburbia. His family was temporarily staying in downtown Chicago, Illinois with his grandmother, whom he viewed as nothing more than a burden. She was sick, nearly on her deathbed really, but this didn't matter much to Jamie. His only concern was getting back to his normal home and life. The arrogant 15-year-old would be quite content if his grandmother would just keel over so he could return to his wealthy house and friends in Carpinteria, California.

He had gotten bored with watching his parents attend to his deteriorating alcoholic of a grandmother and had decided to find something better to do. So far he had found nothing but poverty and pathetic, wasted lives. He was only mildly surprised when a little girl covered in dirt, wearing nothing but a ragged blue sun dress ran up to him. Tears were making streaks down her grimy face and she was clutching something beat up and dirty that he assumed to be a teddy bear. The little girl clutched at his expensive jacket, which he quickly pulled out of her muddy hands, glaring at her. He looked down at her disdainfully and impatiently asked what she wanted. She nervously tugged at her limp dirty blonde curls while her emerald green eyes stared down at her feet. "I got lost and don't know where my mommy is. I need help," she said, sobbing.

Jamie rolled his eyes at the young girl. He didn't like children. "I don't have time to help you, kid." As he began to walk away, he could hear the small girl crying. Despite his disdain for the messy little girl, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her. She didn't choose to live like this. He reasoned to himself that if he helped her, she might get him sick, or worse, ruin his lavish clothing. "Besides, someone will find her eventually," he told himself. He was nearly a block away from the girl when he heard a shrill scream that he suspected was her. After a moment's hesitation, he ran back as fast as he could to see a black car speeding away down the street. The little girl was gone. It was only then that it dawned on him what type of person may have "found her eventually." He shuddered with fear and regret as a cold sweat broke out on his neck and face.

The guilt washed over him as the full reality of what he had caused crashed down on him. "It wasn't my fault," was the mantra that he would mentally chant to himself for months. Back in California, he scanned Chicago papers every day, feeling more relief each day that nothing was reported about the girl. Three months from the day he left Chicago, he saw the story of her murder on the front page. There were two colored pictures accompanying the story, one of her alive, revealing her hair to be not dirty blonde as he had thought, but golden blonde. He thought of how beautiful the child looked when she was clean and smiling. The other was a picture of her murderer. The girl's name was Emily White. Two weeks later, he took his own life, unable to cope with the overwhelming guilt that doing nothing to help her had caused him.
 

[H20edDownAzn]

Haha, ummm...not to make light of the story or the issues presented or anything. I'm only laughing at how quickly you wrap it up. One second she's dead, the next he's dead (one second in a literary sense, not chronological).

I liked it though. Jamie wasn't a very likable character that you created. He was a spoiled brat seemingly filled with nothing but disdain. It can be hard for an author to make the protagonist a person that people won't like. However, he wasn't completely bad, just too weak to deal with real life. He couldn't handle the change from Cali to Chicago, couldn't get past his fear that he might get dirty, and then couldn't live with the guilt that he could have saved a life. (Although, the way you write it seems doubtful how much good he could have actually done. Murderous men in speeding black cars generally aren't too afraid of snotty 15 year olds)  

[Jaded_BasketCase]

H20edDownAzn

Haha, ummm...not to make light of the story or the issues presented or anything. I'm only laughing at how quickly you wrap it up. One second she's dead, the next he's dead (one second in a literary sense, not chronological).

I liked it though. Jamie wasn't a very likable character that you created. He was a spoiled brat seemingly filled with nothing but disdain. It can be hard for an author to make the protagonist a person that people won't like. However, he wasn't completely bad, just too weak to deal with real life. He couldn't handle the change from Cali to Chicago, couldn't get past his fear that he might get dirty, and then couldn't live with the guilt that he could have saved a life. (Although, the way you write it seems doubtful how much good he could have actually done. Murderous men in speeding black cars generally aren't too afraid of snotty 15 year olds)

Yeah, I know, I keep wanting to extend it to make it longer, but I'm not exactly sure where I want to go with that yet. The point was not that he could have saved her from the person by beating him up or anything, but if he had been with her, walking with her to find some help, it would be less likely that a kidnapper would snatch her. Thanks for the response. 3nodding  

[penandpaper67]

It was very interesting. I think it was a well thought out short story and I couldn't find any grammatical mistakes. I can see how you could extend it, but I don't think you don't really need to. It was fairly complete.  

[SilverLake]

I liked it. I could actually see it becoming a full novel, which I wouldn't mind buying and reading.