Case Closed: A short Story

Jackie dropped her blue fountain pen and relaxed her aching wrist. She had been reading and adding to the notes of her client’s case for the last two hours. It was taking place the next day and she hadn’t even read halfway through yet. Laying back in the comfy black office chair she let out a long yawn and stretched out her legs under the desk. Her neck and back were as stiff as a board and she let out a low moan as she turned her head from side to side. Jackie loved her job as a lawyer. Eating, sleeping and drinking her work she would often receive criticism telling her that there was more to life than just work and that you where supposed to work to live not live to work. She was so bored of hearing it. That’s why she lived alone, she was able to get on with extra work and block people out. She knew that they just didn’t understand how passionate she was about her job. Well for most aspects of it. She hated doing all the written work and the notes on the cases.

After hours of relentless writing, her skinny arm felt as if it was about to drop off. She slowly unhinged her sore arms and stretched up towards the ceiling letting out another deep yawn. She new she would need motivation if she was going to continue with her work. She rose from her warm, moulded seat and dragged herself over to her immaculate, open plan kitchen. Although Jackie’s job took up most of her life she had always been a bit of a clean freak. She couldn’t bear the sight of untidiness and she always found herself putting things away and cleaning up. Her indolent arms reached up to the wooden shelf and she grabbed a wine glass. Filling the glass up to the brim Jackie took a long gulp and returned back to her study. As she sat back down in her cosy chair she was disturbed by the irritating ring of her telephone. Sighing and reluctantly getting up again, she walked across the room to the phone and clearing her sore throat she picked it up.

“Hello?”

No answer.

“Hello?” she repeated herself rolling her exhausted eyes. Still silence. Slamming the phone down she returned back to her desk feeling annoyed that someone had disturbed her. She took another sip of her wine and unwillingly picked up her fountain pen again. Jackie sat in her warm office in deep concentration. She had no longer sat down that she was bothered again. But this time it wasn’t her annoying telephone. The noise that filled her ears made her jump out of her skin. It sounded like a lost soul shrieking from the depths of hell. It was her car alarm. Jackie strided through the narrow hallway and wrenched open the front door causing a gust of icy wind to hit her and enter the house. She cautiously walked down the footpath, biting her dry lips, her once warm feet slapping against the smooth glacial pavement. Pushing her tangled curly hair out of her face she bent down and checked underneath her car. Nothing. She glanced across the drive and not wanting to catch a cold for her big day tomorrow she hopped back up the footpath and back into her heated house.

Turning the heating up on the wall she returned back to her work filled desk. She picked up her glass and stopped. The glass that she had left on the desk to go and investigate her car alarm going off had been half full. Now it was empty. She stood up, heart racing and stared around the room. She looked back at the glass suspiciously and rubbed her weary eyes.

“I’m going mad” she muttered to herself. Jackie tried to dismiss that somebody had drank from her glass but she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact she was sure she hadn’t drank it all. She glided over to the front door and pulled across the top lock. She felt slightly easier and safer now. Positioning herself in her chair she went to begin her work. Again she stopped. Her fountain pen that she always kept on top of the mountainous piles of work had gone. Puzzled, Jackie began moving her papers out of the way and searching the whole desk work top for the pen. Giving up and becoming very stressed out because of all her disturbances she furiously got up again and went in search of another pen.

She stomped in to the kitchen opened the white sliding draw looking for a biro or something of that sort that she could carry on scrawling her notes with. With no look she slammed the drawer shut and spun back around to have a look in the sitting room. She froze. There was her fountain pen propped up against her porcelain vase on the corner table. The hairs on the back of Jackie’s neck stood up. She was positive she hadn’t even been in the sitting room all night. She attentively moved across the room towards the pen. When she got there she stopped for a moment and just looked at it, it had been balanced against the vase. She was so bewildered that her heart started to race. She heard a deep breathing sound coming behind her.

She couldn’t move as her legs had gone numb with terror. Slowly she turned her head but before she could catch sight of her intruder she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. Jackie fell forward knocking over the vase and hitting her face against the solid wall. She fell to the floor in a state of shock. The stranger dragged Jackie up by her long, blood-soaked hair. Without thinking she grabbed the man’s thick, hairy arm and sunk her teeth deep into his flesh. His grip loosened on her hair and she stumbled across the room falling against her desk. Hitting the floor again Jackie began to crawl towards the door in hope to get away from the attacker. She lunged for the handle and tried to turn it. It didn’t move. She remembered she had locked it minutes before. Frantically trying to unlock it she could hear him breathing behind her. The lock clicked open but it was too late. She felt another piercing blow to her head, then darkness.

Jackie woke up with a start. The pain in her head was unbearable. She was trying to catch her breath but she couldn’t, her lungs felt as if they were about to explode. She attempted to sit up, but hit her head on what seemed like a wooden surface that was inches in front of her face. She was terrified; she needed to know where she was. She hated not being in control of situations. She tried to move her arms. They were pressed tightly to her sides. She was in some sort of box. She let out a long, high pitched scream. Little did she know that there was no chance any living person would ever hear her.