Crash III: There's No Place Like Home Page 11

  All he’d wanted to hear since he’d lost his dad was that someone would look out for him. He’d never expected to hear it from George though. “How can you protect me? You said there’s nowhere safe to be.”

  “There isn’t; which is why I want to be the one to look out for you.”

  “The one to look out for me? You put me in this situation. Besides, what do you know about looking out for someone? All I’ve seen you do is kill. How do I know you’re not lying to me? How do I know you’re not still in with them?”

  “You don’t,” George said. “All I can do is swear to you on my dead son’s life that I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

  “Dead son?”

  George lifted his top up to show Michael the twisted scars that wrapped around his torso like the bark of a strange tree. It was like staring at melted wax, and the beginnings of a heave rose up Michael’s throat. “My son was two years old when he died. I fell asleep at home and left the oven on. By the time I’d woken up, he was burning in his bedroom. I killed him. It’s why I had to stay around with Dean’s gang. It was why I couldn’t give up on my sister before I had to. It’s why I don’t want there to be any more suffering. I’m tired of the suffering, Michael.”

  Lola stood up, put an unlit cigarette in her mouth, and walked to the patio doors at the back of the room.

  Michael turned back to George. “But all you’ve done is cause more suffering.”

  “And I will spend the rest of my life paying you back for it. I can never make it up to you, but I’ll make sure I look after you—even if you hate me forever.”

  The click of the back door cut through their conversation, and they both watched Lola walk out into the back garden.

  Flicking his head in her direction, George said, “Where’s she going?”

  “Cigarette.”

  “She shouldn’t be smoking.”

  “You can’t tell her what to do, Mister.”

  “Call me George. My dad’s Mister.”

  “I’d rather call you Mister. I don’t trust you yet. I’m only here because I don’t have any other choice.”

  With slumped shoulders, George nodded and sighed. “Okay. I understand.”

  Combat

  Time seemed to stop as Michael sat alone with George. He said nothing to the man, and George said nothing in return. The tense form of Lola had her back to them as she smoked a cigarette outside, her arms folded in front of her as if to ward off the cold.

  The best thing would be for him to get up and join her. It was just a matter of how he went about doing that. The silence had become so complete that it seemed impossible to penetrate.

  The unformed words stuck in his throat and he had no idea what he should say. When he stretched up to the ceiling, he noticed that George watched him with a tight-lipped smile. If he didn’t do it now, he’d never do it, and the evening would be spent in awkward silence. Michael stood up, pointed at the garden, and cleared his throat. “I’m, um… I’m… I’m just…”

  George nodded. “It’s okay, mate.”

  Thank god he spared him the awkwardness of coming up with a valid reason to join her. Michael walked away, the desire to run twitching through him. When he got to the patio door and pulled it wide, the cold outside air rushed in.

  At first, Lola didn’t look at him. Instead, she smoked her cigarette and directed a hard frown at the back wall of the garden.

  Michael laughed to break the silence. “Some garden, eh? There’s no grass or plants out here.”

  The sparks of Lola’s cigarette glowed when she flicked it away and it hit the ground. She then removed another one from the packet and lit it up.

  After several drags, she finally spoke. “I don’t trust him. I think we made a mistake coming here.”

  “But you were the one who said we should trust him. You pushed for us to come here.”

  A cloud of smoke joined the misted breath coming from Lola’s mouth. “And I thought we should, but I just don’t know if I can.”

  Michael rubbed his arms to keep himself warm. “I feel uncomfortable around him, but he seems genuine. I don’t think he wants to screw us over. I believe he’s sorry for what happened with my dad.”

  The start of a reply was forming on Lola’s lips until she looked past Michael and froze.

  The sliding patio door sounded out a few seconds later, and Michael spun around to see George step outside.

  After a moment’s silence, George said, “You shouldn’t smoke, you know, Lola.”

  Lola, wound even tighter, ground her jaw and snarled, “I’ll do what the fuck I like.”

  A flutter ran through Michael’s heart. That was no way to talk to George. If she’d seen his anger, she’d be keeping her mouth shut.

  But George didn’t rise to it. Instead, he relaxed and raised a half smile. It looked genuine. “You’re right. You will do what the fuck you like; it’s your body, after all. I’m just saying smoking’s not good for you.”

  “Duh.”

  A roll of his eyes and George spoke to himself beneath his breath. “So this is what it’s like living with teenagers…”

  Neither Michael nor Lola responded. Michael hadn’t planned to, but he expected Lola to retaliate.

  When George clapped his hands together, the sharp crack echoed around the enclosed garden area. “Now, as you know, this world’s fucking horrible… so I think you guys need to learn how to fight.”

  Lola continued to stare at George. “We know how to fight, thanks. How do you think we’ve survived as long as we have?”

  The pair held eye contact before George turned to Michael. “Do you know how to fight, boy?”

  Michael shook his head. When he looked at Lola, he saw her glaring at him. But he didn’t know how to fight; he couldn’t lie about it.

  Before George could speak again, Lola cut in. “Why don’t you just give us a shotgun like the one you have in there?”

  “Because it’s empty.”

  Michael gasped. “But you threatened those men with it.”

  “I know. Good job they didn’t force me to use it.”

  The conversation seemed to bore Lola and she turned her back to them again. George addressed Michael instead. “The first thing you need to know is where a person’s weak points are—”

  “Killing their family makes them pretty weak,” Lola said.

  Tension gripped Michael’s body and he stepped away from her. She seemed to be trying her hardest to get them killed.

  George sighed and pointed to his own body as he listed the parts off. “You should go for the eyes, throat, and nuts—if it’s a man; chest if it’s a woman. Bite, kick, scratch; do whatever you need to do to hurt them. Anyone who believes in fair fights ends up dead. This is survival, and you need to do what’s necessary to stay alive.”

  Because George faced Michael, he didn’t see Lola turn back around to watch them. When she opened her mouth, Michael winced.

  “I thought you were going to look after him. He’s only eleven; why does he need to fight?”

  George paused for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. He remained calm when he said, “I hope he doesn’t ever need to fight again. I’ll do my best to look out for him and do everything within my power to make sure he’s safe, but something might happen beyond my control, and I want to make sure he’s as well equipped as he can be.”

  A four-foot tall object stood in the corner of the garden with a white sheet draped over it. George pulled the sheet away and revealed a large cat-scratching pole.

  Lola walked over to it, smoking another cigarette as she looked it up and down. “What kind of pets are you keeping here? Lions?”

  George laughed. He seemed genuinely amused by Lola’s mood. “It’s tall, ain’t it? It was here when I moved in. I didn’t see any pets though.”

  The post had been wrapped in duvets and cushions. Rope bound them to it at various intervals.

  A green barrel, much like the ones used in gardens for catching ra
inwater, sat tucked away behind the pole. As George dragged it across the concrete, the shrieking sound ran straight to the muscles in Michael’s neck and snapped his shoulders tight.

  When George pulled the lid away, Michael peered inside at the assortment of baseball bats, croquet mallets, and hockey sticks.

  “Pick a weapon.”

  Why would he choose anything other than a baseball bat? Removing it from the barrel, Michael looked down the length of his new weapon, smiling as he did so.

  George stood aside and showed the dummy to Michael as if he were introducing them. “Okay, squirt; give it your best shot.”

  Michael hesitated, wringing his grip on the bat as he stared at his inanimate enemy. In that moment, it stopped being a dummy and it started being the man who had killed his father. George, sure, but not the George that had let him into his home and fed him.

  Adrenalin coursed through his limbs and Michael couldn’t look at George; if he did, he’d swing for him. Instead, he drove the bat as hard as he could into the dummy’s midsection. The sound of splintering ribs rang through his mind.

  He took another swing, harder this time, and the bat sunk into the duvet and connected with the firm post beneath. He pulled back and swung again, fighting for his dad’s life. Crashing into the improvised dummy again and again, swinging with everything he had, he yelled so loudly his throat burned. “Take that, you fuckers. Die, cunt, die!”

  When he couldn’t breathe any longer, Michael stopped and dropped the bat to the stone-covered ground. The clattering sound of wood echoed around the enclosed space. He rested his hands on his knees and pulled deep breaths into his skinny body as he cried. Despite the cold snap in the air, sweat stood out on his brow.

  As his breaths started to flow more easily, Michael looked up to see George staring at him with his mouth hanging open. But it wasn’t the George he’d just attacked; it was the real-life George—the George with an excuse for the way he’d behaved.

  Michael noticed Lola looking at the man too; although by the look on her face, she’d seen George the monster… George who had run her mother over—George the murderer. Michael felt safe for the first time in months. If Lola lost her shit, it could ruin everything for them.

  Before Michael could say anything, Lola spoke up. “Which room am I sleeping in?”

  George pointed back into the house. “The spare room is next to the bathroom over there.”

  Without replying, Lola walked off, leaving Michael alone with George again. His feeling of safety hinged on Lola being there too. Without even trying to make an excuse, Michael followed her.

  A Good Night’s Sleep

  Although he knocked, Michael had pushed the door open before Lola had a chance to reply. Sure, she was being a moody bitch, but a moody bitch was better than time on his own with George.

  The spare room had two single beds in it. That made life a lot easier; it would have been hard to convince Lola to share her bed again. It had been awkward enough in the last house.

  The walls in the room were painted white and the bedding had three thick stripes across it: beige, white, and brown.

  Michael shivered when he looked at Lola. Her stare was colder than the wintry breeze coming in through the open window.

  Michael walked over to the other bed and sat down. The bedsprings below the soft mattress creaked. As he smoothed the creases out of his duvet, he said, “What’s wrong? Why are you being so aggressive?”

  When she didn’t reply, Michael looked up to see her fall back into her bed. She placed her hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s been a long few weeks, okay? I’m just overtired.”

  “I don’t trust him either, you know.”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job pretending.”

  “It was your idea to come here, Lola, so why are you getting cross with me? Is it because I realized it was a good plan?”

  “I don’t think it was a good plan. I think we should take our chances out on the streets again. I think we’ll be safer. Who knows what that psychopath will do to us?”

  “I believe what he says about why he killed my dad. I hate him for it, but maybe he didn’t have any other choice. The letter from his sister seemed legit. I think we’re safer here than we are out there.”

  Lola stared at him through narrowed eyes. “And there it is; little Eleven wants to find safety again. When will you accept you’re never going to get it? It’s like trying to find happiness. It doesn’t fucking exist. All we can have is approximations of them—a sniff here and there. Just a taste so we know what it’s like before life rips it away from us.”

  It hurt Michael’s heart to be on the receiving end of her poison. “I don’t understand, Lola. You seem cross with me, but this was your idea.”

  Silence filled the room again, and when Michael looked at Lola, he saw the side of her face moving as she clenched and relaxed her jaw.

  “I’m not blaming you.” She drew a deep breath. “I suppose I just feel more upset about my mum and sister than I can cope with. Being around him is a permanent reminder of their deaths. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sad and upset. Happy?”

  The mattress springs groaned again when Michael got off the bed and walked over to her. Sitting down, he took one of her hands in both of his and stroked it. She was cold to touch.

  At first, Lola tensed up and looked away from him. After a few seconds, she relaxed, and her eyes started watering. Rubbing them with the heel of her free hand, she sniffed and laughed. “Jesus, will you look at me. I’m taking comfort from a fucking child.”

  Michael dropped her hand and walked back over to his own bed. He’d been through too much shit in this new world to be patronized.

  At the sound of a sparking flint, Michael turned to see Lola lighting up a cigarette. “You can’t smoke that in here.”

  Lola faced the window and blew her smoke at it. “Who’s going to stop me?”

  There was no point in answering that. Michael fell back into the bed, the natural light leaving the room as the daylight faded for another day. Despite it being months without it, he still wasn’t used to no electricity. To be able to turn the light on at nighttime, watch a movie, play a video game… all of it was gone. He may never be able to play Xbox again—ever.

  Tiredness ran so deep, it sat in Michael’s bone marrow. When he yawned, his mouth stretched wide enough to make his jaw ache. “I still think George can protect us better than we can protect ourselves.”

  “For now, though,” Lola said, “this world is dog-eat-dog. He’ll turn at some point. The sooner you realize that, the better.”

  “But—”

  “Go to bed, Eleven.”

  “But—”

  “Bed.”

  “B—”

  “Good night.”

  Michael closed his eyes. His body ached, but his brain raced. Maybe they weren’t safe with George. Maybe she was right. “Lola.”

  Nothing.

  He wasn’t letting it go. He needed to tell her. “Lola.”

  “What?”

  “The men from the truck are the ones from the warehouse. I don’t ever want to see them again.” He shook as he lay there. “They used to catch boys on the street. Just boys; they rarely took anyone older than fourteen, and some were as young as six.”

  The memory of wide and frightened eyes from those very young boys came flooding back and Michael winced. The grief inside of him tore at his throat. “They kept us all in a warehouse and…”

  The words left him, cut short by a hot rush of grief. Would he ever be able to talk about what happened to those boys in that warehouse?

  Watching Lola’s tense back, hunched over as she perched on the edge of the bed and smoked, he waited.

  At least a minute passed with no reply. “Lola.”

  “Just go to sleep.”

  “But…” Michael watched her smoke and stare out of the window. Before long, he shook his head and drew a deep breath. He mouthed the words, One, two
, three, four, one, two, three, four…

  Looting

  Other than the hum of the truck’s tires against the hard road and George’s heavy breathing, the drive was silent. Michael listened to the big man beside him; it sounded like the fire had caused permanent damage to his lungs as well as his body. He shouldn’t sound that way. He was a large man, sure, but not overweight. He was quite the opposite, in fact.

  With George driving on one side of him and Lola staring out of the passenger window on the other, Michael watched the road ahead. One day he’d be able to sit in a car without having to be on high alert.

  While rubbing his eyes, Michael briefly turned to Lola. Well, what he could see of Lola, anyway. She seemed so intent on staring out of her window that all Michael could see was the back of her head. Since they’d woken up that morning, she’d said very little.

  “The weather looks like it’s turning,” George said, breaking the silence. “Hopefully that’s the end of this cold snap. I’m fed up with this fucking winter.”

  “I hope so,” Michael said. “I’m sick of this weather too. I just want to feel warm.”

  George smirked. “I bet you’ll be glad to get out of that outfit too, eh?”

  Heat rushed to Michael’s cheeks, and he didn’t answer.

  After a brief look at him, Lola returned to looking out of the window.

  A quick glance in his mirrors and George pulled a hard turn. The sharpness of it threw Michael into Lola and Lola into the window she’d been staring out of. Michael only managed to pull away from her after George had turned into a small garage and stopped.

  As George switched the engine off, Lola glared at Michael.

  Before he could say anything, George clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Right, let’s go looting.”

  Lola finally spoke. “I’d rather go on my own. How about we meet back here in half an hour?”

  It took a second or two before George replied. “Okay.”