Crash III: There's No Place Like Home Page 3

  The Darkness

  “I’m going to check again, okay?”

  They’d left the video game store as soon as they’d come out of hiding and had moved to the storeroom of a shop down the road. It was pitch black and the temperature had dropped so drastically that Michael couldn’t stop himself from shaking.

  “Okay?” Lola asked again.

  With his jaw locked tight, the cold gripping onto him, Michael stammered, “Y-yeah, t-that’s f-f-fine. S-sorry. J-just c-c-c-cold.”

  The bright glare of Lola’s lighter hurt Michael’s eyes, and he had to blink several times to clear the flashing patches from his vision. He hugged himself for warmth as he watched her walk over to the door. The flickering flame brought the shadows to life. They’d been in here too long. The men from the video game store could burst in at any moment, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The sooner it got dark, the better.

  When Lola got close to the door, she cut her lighter and Michael held his breath. Every time she opened the door to check outside, they risked being caught. The men could be waiting, ready to throw a sack over her head and take her to the warehouse.

  Before she opened the door, Michael called out, “Lola.”

  Silence.

  “Lola.”

  “What?”

  “What if there’s someone out there?”

  “You’ve said that every fucking time. If there’s someone out there, they’ve probably already heard you. Shut the fuck up, yeah?”

  The slow creak of the door handle stretched through the silence and called out to anyone in the area.

  As she pulled the door open a crack, the light from outside flooded in. They didn’t need to know anything else. It was still light out, so they couldn’t leave yet… but she didn’t close the door.

  Michael sat tense as he watched Lola peer through the gap.

  It seemed like an age passed before she pulled her head back inside.

  She closed the door, sparked her lighter again, and walked back toward him. The flame turned her face into a Halloween mask of deep shadows.

  The unfolded cardboard boxes on the floor offered very little padding and no warmth, but Lola still chose to sit down on them anyway. She turned her lighter off and plunged the room into darkness again. “I’d say we still have a few hours left.”

  Michael sighed. “All I want to do is get out of here. I’m scared.”

  “I know you are. Don’t worry; it won’t be long now.”

  “It’s a good thing that we moved to a different shop. It was stupid of me to suggest a video game store as a good place to hide.”

  The dry rasp of the cardboard rubbed together as Lola shifted around on top of it. “The thought made sense; there was nothing worth stealing there. Although it’s not technically stealing now, is it?”

  Michael stared into the darkness in Lola’s direction. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if there’s no punishment, is there any crime?”

  “Huh?”

  “If a loaf of bread disappears from a shop and nobody sees it taken, is it stolen?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Lola laughed. “Don’t worry.”

  The girl made no sense.

  In the silence that followed, visions of the warehouse returned to Michael’s thoughts, tormenting him as they always did. It felt like he’d never get to a point where he could shut them out.

  Lola’s voice pulled him out of the dark pool inside of him. “Michael.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You talked earlier of getting somewhere where the men can’t find you.”

  He heard the screams of the other boys. “Y…yeah.”

  “What men are you talking about?”

  Michael rocked where he sat and shook his head. The surrounding darkness fed the grim memories. The boys who returned from a visit to Julius came back different. Something had changed. They weren’t boys anymore. Michael pulled his knees to his chest and continued to rock. “Can you please light your lighter, Lola?”

  “But it’ll waste the fluid.”

  “Please, Lola?”

  She did as he asked and stared at Michael for a moment. She then moved over next to him and put an arm around his hunched shoulders. Pulling him close, she rocked with him. “There, there. You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  Michael leaned into her, and they rocked together.

  Hanging Out

  The flashing light woke Michael, and a surge of adrenalin pulled his stomach tight. The light, no more than a blur, cleared quickly and his pulse settled when he saw Lola. The damp smell of the storeroom filled his sinuses as he watched her light her lighter again before she got to her feet and headed for the door.

  Tiredness sat like lead in his body, and his tremble returned.

  When Lola opened the door this time, no daylight flooded in. Now that the moment to leave had come, anxiety fluttered through Michael’s chest. He’d spent the day willing it, but now it was dark; did he really want to leave the storeroom? What if he ran into the men?

  After pushing the door closed, Lola walked over and flicked her lighter on again. She held her hand out to Michael. “Come on, let’s go.”

  It took Michael a few seconds to sit upright. Once he’d managed it, he took Lola’s outstretched hand and let the older girl pull him up. When she let go, he rubbed his hands together and blew into them. “You’re freezing.”

  “Duh! It’s cold.”

  When they got to the storeroom door, Lola let her lighter go out and said, “You ready?”

  Michael swallowed hard and nodded.

  Silence.

  Of course she was silent; she couldn’t see him nodding in the darkness. “Yes, I’m ready,” he said.

  When Lola opened the door, the hinges creaked.

  The massive shop seemed even larger in the dark. The moonlight from outside beamed down on the row of huge windows that made up the shop front. It used to be a clothing store but now it stood empty. Many of the railings remained in the building, but most of them were bent, buckled, and wrecked in one way or another.

  Michael remembered his dad saying that looting and wanton destruction seemed to go hand in hand. He didn’t know what wanton meant, but they’d chosen this place because of the mess left behind by the looters. With nothing worth taking, it seemed like the ideal place to rest. But then again, so had the video game store.

  Although he hugged himself tightly to conserve his body heat, the icy cold cut straight to Michael’s bones when he followed Lola outside. The narrow street had been turned into a wind tunnel. He held back his complaint and followed Lola; nothing could be done about the cold and at least they were moving.

  The buildings on either side were both empty and dark. Although Michael stared into them, he couldn’t see what lurked in the shadows. Each building held the potential for gangs to hide out in—gangs and monsters. He’d met enough of the latter to last a lifetime.

  ***

  They left the main street the second they could and walked alongside the River Thames. The sound of flowing water put Michael on edge. It masked the noise of approaching predators. Michael jogged to catch up with Lola and fell into stride next to her. “Should we be walking here?”

  Without looking at him and squinting as she scanned their surroundings, Lola shrugged. “Why not?”

  “We’re a bit exposed.”

  “True, but at least we’ll be able to see anyone coming for us. I don’t know about you, but walking down dark streets full of doorways, alleys, and empty buildings doesn’t make me feel very safe.”

  It made sense. “I always travelled at night when I was on my own,” Michael said.

  “Me too. We’ve already discussed this, right?”

  “But I’ve always been scared of the dark. I still sleep with the light on at home.” He then added, “Or at least I did.”

  “Even though you’re nearly eleven?”

  “I know,”
Michael said. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? It’s just… I dunno; I feel like there are things lurking in the dark.”

  “Your mind loves to play tricks on you. You just need to learn to stop listening to it.”

  “I used to pretend I was Batman so I wasn’t scared. Batman is a badass in the dark.”

  Michael jumped at the sound of a heavy splash on the river.

  “It’s just a fish, Batman,” Lola said.

  Michael didn’t reply.

  “And did it work?” Lola asked.

  Still peering in the direction of the river, Michael scanned the bank on the other side. “Did what work?”

  “You pretending to be Batman.”

  “No.”

  Lola gripped his shoulder. “Look, I think it’s okay that you’re scared. It’s good that you’re scared. There are bad men and women in the city, and you need to be ready to run away from every one of them.”

  Another loud splash came from the river.

  “It’s just another fish,” said Lola. “Anyway, like I said, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be alert. One of the good things about the dark is it turns all of your other senses up to eleven—” giving him a playful punch on the arm, she laughed. “—or Nearly Eleven.”

  A smile crept onto Michael’s lips. As much as he wanted to hate being called “Nearly Eleven,” she wasn’t mean about it. Not mean like the kids in his last school were mean; the kids who got Tilly alone in the playground. Instead of responding, Michael let the conversation drift away and listened to the flowing water.

  ***

  The pair walked for about another ten minutes before Lola put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. The tip glowed in the darkness; it likely made them stand out from a mile away.

  “I didn’t realize you smoked,” Michael said, keeping his voice low.

  Lola put the packet back in her top pocket and laughed quietly. “That’s because I have to ration them. It’s the end of the fucking world as we know it, and smokes and booze have run out quicker than food. What kind of a fucked up life do we live where people take cigarettes and alcohol before they take food? Maybe the collapse of society is a good thing.”

  A shudder ran through Michael as the crunch of the hammer that cracked his dad’s skull came back to him. He looked at the ground. “I don’t think it is…”

  As they walked, Lola puffed on her cigarette, and Michael watched her. “Have you always smoked?”

  “Since I was fourteen, I have.”

  “Fourteen?”

  “Jesus, Nearly Eleven, what are you, my fucking dad or something? I used to hang out with a lot of older guys. I managed to get a fake ID and school suddenly seemed much less interesting. I was in pubs and clubs at fifteen.”

  “I’ve never even been in a pub. My nana and granddad took my dad to the pub all the time as a kid while they got drunk. They were alcoholics. He didn’t want Tilly and me to have that lifestyle.”

  “Tilly?”

  Just hearing her name spoken aloud choked him.

  Lola took another drag on her cigarette and didn’t push him. Instead, she said, “I used to drive my mum insane with worry. Some weekends, I wouldn’t come home from school until Sunday night. I’d take a bag to school on a Friday and sleep wherever I could or wherever I found myself. It was fun most of the time, but I did get myself into some scrapes though.”

  She seemed so old for seventeen. She’d done so much already that it made Michael feel even more like a baby around her. Nothing exciting had happened to him until his world collapsed. “What kinds of scrapes?”

  The sides of Lola’s cheeks pulled in as she took another drag on her cigarette, and she shook her head. “Don’t wanna talk about ’em.”

  Maybe that was Lola’s warehouse—somewhere she would never forget but didn’t ever want to revisit. “Why didn’t your mum ground you?”

  “She did; I just managed to find ways out of the house. Her mistake was that she never tied me to the bed. If I could move, I could escape. To be honest, she could have tied me down and I would have found a way out anyway.” She followed her statement with another deep drag and a hard exhale.

  Michael looked to the other side of the river. The darkness made it hard to see anything as more than a bunch of shadows. None of the dark shapes moved—at least not that Michael could see. “We’ll find somewhere safe soon.”

  The tip of Lola’s cigarette glowed red again. She then flicked it, and the splash of glowing ash hit the ground a few feet away. “You really need to let go of that dream, dude. Nowhere is safe; the world isn’t safe…”

  Smothered in a cloud of Lola’s exhaled smoke, Michael screwed his face up and tried not to cough. “I’ll find somewhere.”

  Silence.

  ***

  The silence didn’t last long before Michael broke it. “So, if I’m looking for somewhere safe,” Michael said, “what are you looking for?”

  Lola didn’t reply right away. She took a deep breath and finally said, “My dad.”

  “He wasn’t with you when the world fell apart?”

  “He hasn’t been with me for the last five years. Mum and Dad were separated.”

  “And you’ve not seen him since?”

  As they continued to march alongside the river, Lola shook her head.

  “And what makes you th…” Michael stopped.

  Throwing him a look, Lola raised her eyebrows. “Just say it.”

  “What makes you think he wants to see you now?”

  “I figure that with it being the end of the world and all, he might want to step up to his parental responsibilities and help keep his daughter alive. God knows he owes me.”

  The last hours Michael shared with his dad would stay with him forever. “I dunno, Lola, this world turned my dad into even more of an arsehole.”

  “Thanks for filling me with hope.”

  “Sorry. What happened to your mum and sister?”

  A film of tears covered Lola’s eyes, and she looked away. “I’m not ready to answer that one yet. I’m not sure I ever will be.”

  ***

  The silence lasted longer this time before Lola finally broke it with her soft voice. “I would have killed to find somewhere so quiet in London before all of this. Now all I want to do is find people. Nice people.”

  Michael saw it before he could reply, stopped dead, and stared straight ahead. “What the fuck?”

  When Lola stopped next to him, Michael pointed up the river. “That’s London Bridge, right?”

  “It’s not a fucking sight-seeing tour, Nearly Eleven. What’s your point?”

  Staring at the bridge’s dark silhouette and the movement beneath it swinging in the gales, Michael’s throat dried. “What’s that hanging over the edge?”

  At first, Lola didn’t reply. When she finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “It’s people… hundreds of fucking people.”

  Tassels

  When they got closer, Michael froze and stared at the bridge. It took a moment for him to find his words. “There are so many bodies it looks like the bridge has tassels.”

  Although he turned to face Lola, he couldn’t stop looking at the corpses. “Do you think it was suicide?”

  When there was no reply, he looked across to see Lola frowning as her eyes scanned the hanging people. Her heavy breaths fogged the air around her face. “I doubt it. I’d guess they were murdered and put there to scare people.”

  “Who would they want to scare?”

  “This isn’t the London you or I lived in, you know? The city’s run by bloodthirsty gangs now. Seeing this kind of fucked up shit would make you think twice about staying, wouldn’t it? They don’t want people here.”

  A strong wind barreled down the Thames and rocked the corpses where they hung. It was like watching his mum and sister all over again: faces bloated, tongues stuck out, arms limp. A painful lump rose in Michael’s throat, and his eyes stung.

  Lola released a dismal laugh. “Those are so
me pretty macabre wind chimes, wouldn’t you say?”

  Michael didn’t know what macabre meant, so he chose to not reply.

  “Wow, tough crowd.”

  At that moment, a crow flew down and landed on the head of a corpse. It pecked at it so quickly, Michael nearly missed it. And maybe he would have had he not heard the wet squelch of its beak digging into the dead man’s face. After several more pecks, it pulled a slice of flesh away with a damp tearing sound then flew off.

  Lola coughed. “Anyway, isn’t that the wrong fucking bridge? I thought Tower Bridge was where everyone was hung?”

  It took several swallows for Michael to clear the dryness in his throat and for his nausea to pass. “We did a project last year on the Tudors; they hung a lot of people from London Bridge in their times. Because of all the beheadings at Tower Bridge, people often overlook London Bridge’s dark history.”

  “Fucking hell, Wikipedia, if I’d known you had a mind full of this shit, I would have hired you as a tour guide.”

  Lola then punched him at the top of his shoulder and said, “Come on; let’s get going. I want to get away from this godforsaken place as soon as possible.”

  ***

  Despite his better judgment, Michael followed Lola toward the bridge.

  When they got closer, the creaking of ropes groaned like wooden floorboards as the corpses continued to swing in the strong wind.

  They were so close that when Michael looked up, he saw blank eyes in bloated and rotting faces that stared down at the river. Some of them had clearly been there for weeks, if not months.

  Lola sucked air through her clenched teeth. “Fuck me. Some of them don’t look too clever. I thought they were all just hanging.”

  A shake took ahold of Michael as he looked more intently at the bodies. Some of them wore suits and had big, bloody holes where their genitals once were. There were policemen and women still dressed in their uniforms, every part of their exposed skin lacerated from knife wounds.