Under His Roof

chapter nineteen

Despite what she expected, time didn't seem to go slower as the two were stuck down in Eddie's cellar. Kimberly could feel the days and nights coming and going, she could feel her life zipping past her.

She didn't know what day it was anymore since she couldn't keep track of it, and Julian insisted that he didn't have any electronics either so that he couldn't be tracked down by Freddy. All Kimberly knew was that they came to Eddie's on a Friday, and she was meant to travel back to school the following Monday.

And if she didn't show up for school that Monday, she knew that the teachers would immediately contact her parents to find out where she was. Her parents would then go crazy with worry, and spend money that they didn't even have to fly over and see Julian, who wouldn't even be at his home.

Melitta would worry, Owen would worry, her friends back home would worry. Everything would blow up and go wrong if she wasn't at school when she was meant to be, and there wouldn't be any way for her to fix it from this cellar.

Kimberly could literally feel her life and her future slipping through her fingers. Her prom dress, her graduation cap, her diploma, her spot in uni. If she wasn't back to finish off her senior year then everything she had been put through for the past eighteen years of her life would be for nothing.

"Hey."

Julian came out from behind the furnace where the toilet was. He had a small towel – that he had to all but pry out of Eddie's hands – which he had wet from the tap on the wall and he used it to wipe himself clean as best he could.

That was another thing that made being in the cellar so unbearable for Kimberly: There was no shower, only a toilet and a small tap. A tap that they had to use for everything including drinking water. The smell of both Julian and herself were beginning to fill up the room with a thick funk that made breathing an undesirable task. If she breathed through her nose, then Kimberly could smell the stink, and if she breathed through her mouth she could taste it. She wasn't sure which was worse, but she knew that the little tap on the wall was definitely not enough to keep them clean.

Kimberly gave him a weak smile and then averted her eyes back down to the ground. Partly because she didn't really have anything to say to him, but also because he was wearing minimal clothing, and his naked body wasn't what she wanted on her mind right now. Eddie's cellar was very hot – thanks to aforementioned furnace – and so after a few hours of trying to tough it on the first day, they both gave up and took off as much clothing as they acceptably could.

Kimberly had suggested just getting naked since it really wasn't anything either of them hadn't seen before, but Julian was adamant in the fact that he didn't want Freddy Slim to see either of them naked. The possibility that Freddy would find them was undeniable and the more Kimberly thought about it, the more she realized that she would rather die in really musty underwear than with none on at all.

Julian sat down across from Kimberly and leaned against one of the balance beams coming from the ground. His hair was matted against his forehead from the sweat and humidity of the room. He wiped his face with the towel and then ran it down his head, brushing all of his hair back.

"It's Monday," Julian said, breaking the silence.

Kimberly looked up at  him. "How do you know?"

"I've been keeping a tally." He pointed to behind the furnace, where the toilet was. "Right by the water faucet," he said. "I've been using my watch to keep track of it."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So it's only been three days?"