Edits poll

Hi! So, I've been editing my story a bunch as I read through prior to writing more. The story line has never changed but some details have. Would whoever's reading this story like me to post the revised versions on here? Let's take a poll (please tell me what you'd prefer via comments):

a) don't post revised version at all.

b) post revised version over previously posted version (so old version will no longer be visible, and then anyone who isn't aware new versions have been posted might not see them).

c) post revised version as newer posts (blog might get filled up with copies of chapters that way though).

d) something I haven't thought of (if you choose this, please suggest something).

A Worn Backpack Part 9

The three huddled together, finally falling down onto their knees as they backed into a large solid object. Catherine felt behind her, discerning the ‘object’ as the frame of a bed, and gathering her courage, she pulled out the stolen blade and stood up. The shimmering moonlight danced through the cracks in the blinds and fell onto the blade as both men held their breath.

“Fuck,” breathed Max.

“Shut up. Shut up. She won’t do anything. She can’t. You won’t do anything to us, Cathe-,” Jimmy pleaded through his anxious gasps before being cut off.

“Shhh. Don’t say anything,” Catherine looked not at them but at the opposite wall. She inched towards it carefully, holding out the knife. Finally reaching the hard plaster of the wall, she felt around with her free hand until she reached a piece of plastic jutting out. The room was suddenly illumined! Jimmy and Max breathed sighs of relief as Catherine whipped her head to glare down at them.

“Why the hell do you have a knife?!”

“Ca-calm d-d-down Max, I’m su-sure there’s a reasonable explanation. There’s no way she could be…”

“I only used it to cut my hair. I’m not a killer. I’m not an anything. I’d even forgotten about it until just now.”

The two continued watching her in fright-filled disbelief.

“I’m not lying! Really. But you know, at least we have it here now, you know, just in case…”

The ‘kinda’ brothers didn’t look away, but relaxed their muscles slightly as they stood up and walked towards her.

“Why don’t I hold onto that for now?” Max held out his palm.

“No way! If you keep it then next time Jimmy and I will find ourselves dead rather than stranded!” She clutched the knife closer to her.

“Well, then it’d be ok if I take it, right?”

Max scowled suspiciously at Jimmy, as he now also held out his palm. Slowly, reluctantly she gave it over. Jimmy wrapped it in a napkin that he extracted from some inner folding of his jeans and pocketed the blade.

All danger now averted, Jimmy and Max redirected their attention back to Catherine. Each man grabbed one of Catherine’s wrists and held her between them. She looked nervously between the two, trying to read their minds through their determined expressions.

“It’s time.”

“Fuckin’ right it is.”

The men pulled her across the room, thrust her through a door and swung it shut behind her. She spun back onto the door, leaning against it before realizing where she was. The sole purpose of their side trip to this “mulel” came down to this. They shoved her into the one room where the greatest burden remaining from the past several hours could be removed – the bathroom. Catherine slid down onto the gray tiled floor contemplating possibly courses of action. It seemed nothing remained as a possibility but to follow with their desires. She slid the lock on the door in place and let her dirty clothes fall to her feet.

“What do you think Sophie? Can we do it without her?” a slightly-higher-than-average-pitched voice murmured through a cord.

“I don’t know. I guess we have to now. The fundraiser is tomorrow. Life goes on, even if one piece disappears…” Sophie trailed off at the other end.

“Maybe I can get Johnny or Molly to volunteer to help. I haven’t heard from Molly since that day she and Johnny played video games, but Johnny’s just been sulking around the house the past week. Maybe… maybe I can ask.”

“Sure luc. Go for it. It’d probably be best for all of us too keep busy for now until life falls back to normal.”

The dial tone responded. Sophie hung up the phone and let her hand rest upon the glass of her window. She swung it open and climbed onto the bit of roof by her room. Pulling an old CD player off the ledge, she shut the window and leaned against the brick wall of the house, staring at the starry sky.

“Lucy’s in the sky of diamonds, but where are you Cath?” She grinned and answered her own question, “trying on a hand-me-down wedding dress. Oh, if only it were that.”

“Cath! She stands with a well-intentioned man…” a soft murmur of lyrical words broke beyond a steamy room, past a door, visiting two friends on a bed, conversing.

“Do you think we can really trust her Max?”

Max watched the steaming door intently, “Ya. I believe her.” His eyes flashed as he turned back to Jimmy and added, “Even if she is a fucking lunatic.”

Jimmy sighed deeply as Max continued, “Jim, you know you can’t keep that. Give it here, I’ll hold onto it til we get to New York.”

“But she doesn’t want you with it. You heard her. I think I should keep it for now.”

“No! Jimmy, you know what fucking hell you make with knives. Let me keep it.”

Jimmy felt the wrapped blade in his outer pant pocket, gazing at the floor. He glanced back at Max. “I won’t do it again. It was a one-time thing!”

“The fuck it was, Jimmy. You know as well as I that your shit was happening before we met up with pop in California. He’s fuckin’ dead now! You can’t undo that! But Jim, you can keep his memory. Don’t make a stupid mistake again. Let me keep the knife.”

Jimmy hesitated, but eventually retrieved the knife from his pocket and planted it in Max’s lap and leaned over his clenched fists, resting on his lap.

“You know it’s the ri-,” Max began.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, I don’t need explanation or a lecture. I know,” he smiled up at Max. “So what do you really think of this girl, Catherine?”

“You know what the fuck I think,” he shifted his eyes over to Jimmy. “She’s a nuisance. The bigger question is…” at this he paused and raised his eyebrows suggestively. “What do you think of her?”

“Me? I-I think nothing of her!” Jimmy stammered. “The sooner we get to New York and get rid of her, the better.” Jimmy tried to hide his red face as Max roughly teased him. Neither noticed the singing stopped.

Catherine stood against the tiled wall of the steamy room and listened, or rather heard, for she knew only the emotionless words as they drifted through the wooden door: “nuisance” “nothing” “the sooner we get rid of her, the better.”

She breathed deeply and swung the door open. The two stopped in mid tumble, now on the floor. Max sat up, completely disheveled, while Jimmy remained lying on the floor, but in a similar state.

“Where the FUCK are your clothes??”

“I-I… I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to wear the same clothes without washing them first. They smell too,” Catherine whispered as she held a towel closer around her.

“He-here!” Jimmy, now turning more red clumsily began taking off his own, also dirty shirt.

“Idiot!” Max stopped him and crawled over to a large duffle bag on the floor by the bedstand. “Wear this, and please, don’t fucking walk out here without wearing any shit again!” He threw a T-shirt and some jeans at her. As she caught them she hurriedly spun back into the bathroom and changed.

She walked out in Max’s black “California” T-shirt and skinny jeans onto a completely different scene than that which she left five minutes earlier. Jimmy was sitting, completely composed, with his usual complexion resumed, looking for something in the afore mentioned duffle bag, carefully folding things as he removed them. Max sat on the neatly made bed reading a partially unfolded map as if it were a newspaper.

“I’m done,” Catherine tried to get their attention. “Ummm… where should I sle- oh! Where’s my backpack?”

“We left all your crap in the car when we went back to get our stuff. Jim, you showering in the morning?”

“Mmm,” Jimmy nodded.

“I’ll go now then.”

Max left the pair as he made his way to his own state of cleanliness. Catherine beamed at Jimmy. “Can I have the car keys?”

“Fuck no!” Max yelled through the bathroom door.

“You heard him,” he glanced at the closed door. “I’ll come with you.”

Jimmy slipped the key off the bed stand and turned the door lock as they left. Catherine led the way as they climbed the steps, turned the corner, and followed the sidewalk to the parking lot.

“While we’re out here and out of earshot, can I have my knife back? I promise I won’t do anything with it, I just feel more comfortable having it since, well, you know, I don’t really know… what we’ll encounter and stuff.”

“Sorry Cath, I can’t,” She looked at him inquisitively. “I… lost it.”

“Oh. I see. So you lost it in the course of 20 minutes somewhere in the room?”

“Uh, ya.”

“And you have no idea where you lost it in the room?” Catherine sidled over to Jimmy and cornered him against the car.

“No. I’m sorry. Not a clue,” he held up the car keys before her face and smiled entreatingly. She snatched them and opened the door.

“And I’m Catherine, not Cath.”

“Oh, right! Sure. Catherine. I just thought because of the song-”

“You heard me singing?”

“The walls are thin.”

“Well, either way, that’s a song. I’m Catherine.”

“Right!” Jimmy grinned with relief as he followed her away from the locked car.

Catherine walked on along the sidewalk, around the corner, and down the steps, holding the car keys in one hand and swinging in the other a sketchbook, a few pencils, an empty water bottle, and an unexpected lightheartedness all crammed into her worn backpack.