Short Fiction 1

First of many short little story things. Dunno exactly what it's about, but something sinister to be sure. Enjoy :)
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It used to be called a “five-and-dime” when his grandmother was still around, or so she said. Now though it was called Two Bucks Two. He could still recall the first time he had been inside it, when it was first renamed some distant and short-lived title, and his mother had bought him a tiny bag of gummy pink candy he had never seen before. The same building, the same stagnant smell throughout like burning peanuts and rusting metal, but the name seemed to still change it somehow when he walked by it now. Illogical, perhaps, but it made sense to him at the time.

Usually he passed right by it on his way to the large gray building he spent twenty hours a day in, sometimes stopping by to grab a bag of some oddity to carry along with him in its brown paper sack. Often he’d inspect what he’d bought later and wonder at its usage. So much for two dollars, he would think. Today though was different. Today was a Wednesday, and Wednesdays were always different.

It was a sort of unplanned ritual. Every Wednesday he would awaken the same as any other day–0500 hours on the spot, slip on the same blue suit and the same black polished shoes, the same leather gloves and the same gold-plated watch–but every Wednesday he would walk a different route, and not generally of his own will. He ignored the phenomenon entirely, except perhaps in his sleep when the mind wandered and wondered alike; he never questioned why or how, but simply accepted its happening. Logically, today, being a Wednesday, was no different.

Today he started on the same route, taking the first left at 5th, then the short-cut alley over to Figs Street, where the Two Bucks Two stood. His mind was blank, and he walked with little (if anything) on his mind, hands swaying regularly at his sides as he kept a brisk formal pace. It was rare that he actually paid much attention to his footing or where he was going, just trusting the schema built within himself to find the way for him. That is, except on Wednesdays.

It was still a good half hour before he was due at work when he saw the little torn photo and the bold-print type beneath, attached neatly in the center of a lamp post:

LOST CAT
Have you seen me?
My name is Jimmy-boy, and they've been looking for me.
I have a torn ear, and my paw is broken.
I live on Winchester, and a little girl misses me much.
Find me? Call Maslow
234-9696

It was the one thing that could make his feet stop. Although is eyes roved without seeing, for whatever reasons the unknown had they were drawn to such abnormalities. That's how he found the store in the first place--such an oddity could not have gone unnoticed. Pausing, he peered up slightly to reread the words printed there in old browning ink.The rain spots were clear in the clean daylight. This poster's been moved, he concluded. It hasn't rained in over a week. Jimmy-boy, it says....odd name for a cat. With a single quiet sigh, very unlike him, he slipped a cigarette from out of his pocket and squeezed his lips around it, unlit. Again his feet moved and he wiped the poster from memory. Glancing at the Two Bucks Two with a brief and strange longing, he took a sharp right into an alley of back houses. A familiar old face greeted him, but he barely looked or stopped.

"New road today, Jim? Looking to be hot. Better be quick about getting home, yeah?"

"You know how it is," he replied, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and flicking it into the old man's hands. "New Wednesday, new road. Long way's home tonight. Hear they're looking for cats."

The man peered at him with twinkling eyes and a sage's nod.

"Then it's a bad night for us all."