The Jumper (SF Mystery)

The Jumper: Prologue

"Jumper!" a man yelled. A woman screamed, and a crowd began to gather. In less than a minute, a hundred or more were pointing, shouting, and watching from the street below.

Eight floors above them, a man stood on a ledge in front of a window, looking down. His snowy hair blew about in the cool Pacific air.

Those on the far side of the street could see that the window behind him was partly open. The glass in the lower half was visible, but not the top.

The crowd gasped as a pair of arms reached through the open upper half of the window. They pulled the man back against the sash, and held him there. "Don't let him go!"shouted a man in the crowd.

The man on the ledge did not seem to be struggling, and the crowd held its breath. He stood that way for a minute or so, held back by a pair of arms around his shoulders. A few on the edge of the crowd could see a face to go with the arms, next to the head of the old man. In a moment, the man would be pulled back inside, and the little drama would be over. Some of the tension in the crowd began to ease, and a few began to look around, thinking about getting home to dinner.

The still life on the eighth floor ended as quickly as it began. The second face vanished back into the window, and the arms and hands followed. The old man appeared to stand still for several seconds, then slowly leaned forward and pitched off the ledge.

"He dropped him,"said the man who had shouted earlier, just before a second person screamed. The man tumbled silently to the street below, as the crowd watched in fascinated horror. Several more people screamed when he hit the sidewalk, but the man himself did not scream as he fell, nor did he flail his arms.