Jonah Havensby by Bob Bannon Page A

third page, was a simple line:
    I Like her. That one’s a keeper. A little quiet for my taste.
    “She’s a keeper?’ Jonah said out loud. “Who’s a keeper?”
    He looked for more in the notebook, but there were only the three notes. He dropped the notebook on the floor and tried the door handle. It was still locked.
    This was getting annoying as well as frightening. The blanket, the food, and now the realization that someone knew where he hid the backpack during the day. Yet somehow they could get in through a locked door without him hearing and get out as well. Not that he suspected for a moment that the lock was the sturdiest thing, but just tampering with it would make a racket.
    He put on his coat and his boots and went downstairs. He found Grouchy at the bottom step with his head half inside a bag of popcorn. The raccoon had heard him coming and withdrew from the bag for only a moment, sized him up, and decided he liked the popcorn too much to bother.
    “Now you’re getting snacks too, I see.” Jonah said to him. “Care to fill me in?” Grouchy ignored him.
    Jonah stepped off the other side of the step, giving the animal a wide berth, and looked around the room. It would be impossible to guess if someone left footprints in here. Too much dust and debris shifted around the room in the wind. Nothing looked like it had been moved. The chains were still on the doors. He couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.
    He went back up the steps and into the office. He looked down at the notebook. The pen had been neatly placed in the spiral binding. He stared down at it. Then, with a huff, he bent down, picked it up and turned to the next page. He grabbed the pen, turned the notebook sideways and wrote in large capital letters:
    PLEASE TELL ME WHO YOU ARE
    He wrote from one end of the paper to another.
    He jammed his belongings one after another into the backpack, except for the tablet. He shoved the blanket into the roll top desk and shut it. The notebook he rested on the control panel with the note facing the entire room. If anyone came in, they couldn’t miss it.
    He wasn’t at all sure if he was coming back to his nest this time, but he put the backpack inside the little door under the stairs and took his tablet to the mall.
    The first thing he noticed on Main Street is that more people were talking to each other animatedly. Everyone seemed to be excited about something. He wondered if that something would be in the news headlines today. He felt it gave him something to look forward to.
    By the time he got into the mall. He noticed even more groups of people huddled together. Something was definitely going on. Still, he kept to his routine. He made a loop around the mall, wondering what had everyone so excited. He wanted to prolong it, but eventually sat down near the central fountain and opened the tablet.
    As soon as the internet signal turned green, he touched the local news button, which he had saved to the start page. What he saw startled him.  It was an artist’s rendition of a devil, drawn in red ink. It had dark eyes and dark lips and wore a long coat and board shorts.
    The headline read:
    Red Devil saves 2 during local robbery
    There was a picture of Jenna, from the diner, and the old man from the gas station talking to a reporter.
    The story went on to recount something that moved extraordinarily fast, with red skin and a long tail that foiled a robbery at gun-point. Jenna Worth, 17, was buying coffee after work when a young man, identified as John Hopper, 26, attempted to hold up the gas station owned by Jensen Nolan, 72. What the paper labeled the Red Devil appeared on the scene and subdued the assailant and then disappeared as fast as he came in upon hearing police sirens. The seventeen year-old Worth appeared to be in shock, but told reporters that it wasn’t a man, it was indeed a devil. “Not the devil,” she declared, “but a devil.” She also described him as short. Shorter than her,