There's No Place Like Home
Author: Michael Robertson
Date: 2015-04-05 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Dystopia
Description: Crash 3: There's No Place Like Home - A dark post-apocalyptic tale After seeing his father killed and his house burned to the ground, Michael is left wandering the violent streets of London alone. Having been captured, he's managed to escape from the bad men once. He cannot get caught again. With no family and no help available to him, he meets someone who offers him hope. Someone who's different from all of the other people in this broken and violent world. Someone who can help him find what he's looking for. All Michael wants to do is find somewhere safe. Somewhere he can call home. To do th

Contents

Title

Copyright

Zombies, Vampires, Aliens, and Oddities - FREE

Cookies

Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo Lola

Shelter

The Darkness

Hanging Out

Tassels

Hang On

Waiting Game

Greasy Pole

Snap

Wind Chime

No Rest for the Rich Kid

Run, Lola, Run

Morning

Watched

Chain Gang

Moving On

Disposal

Stay With Me

Secret Stash

If Your Name's Not Down

House Guests

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Supply Run

Visitors

The Wanderer

The Note

Stand Off

Knock Knock

Guests

Combat

A Good Night's Sleep

Looting

Sell Out

The Warehouse

Escapee

Rat

Vultures

One Fucking Eye Open

Scrambles

Power Shift

Confidence

Plan B

Baton

Attack

Escape

Pretty in Pink

Barbecue Sauce

Breakfast

Sowing

Trade

Community

Ding Dong, the Witch Ain't Dead

Shopping

Trust

Safe

About The Author

Crash III

There’s No Place Like Home

By

Michael Robertson

Website and Newsletter:

http://michaelrobertson.co.uk

Email: subscribers@michaelrobertson.co.uk

Edited by:

Terri King - http://terri-king.wix.com/editing

Sara Jones - www.torchbeareredits.com

And

Amanda Shore of By The Shore Editing

Cover Design by James at GoOnWrite.com

Crash III: There’s No Place Like Home

Michael Robertson

© 2015 Michael Robertson

Crash III: There’s No Place Like Home is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, situations, and all dialogue are entirely a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously and are not in any way representative of real people, places or things.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Cookies

Michael shivered as another frigid gust of wind tore up the abandoned street, cutting through his many layers. He wouldn’t be able to move if he put any more clothes on, but if the temperature dropped any further, he’d freeze to death.

With his head dropped to avoid the cold blast hitting his face, Michael clenched his jaw and continued doing what he’d being doing for weeks now… he walked. One foot in front of the other—just keep going and things would change… they had to.

The moon hung as a sliver in the sky—a fingernail his dad often called it—surrounded by pinpricks of light in the vast expanse of darkness above. For the first few weeks after electricity had stopped working, Michael would go outside each evening and look up at the stars. The light pollution in London before the crash made stargazing impossible.

It wasn’t long, however, before he gave up on that. Knowledge of every constellation visible to the naked eye didn’t have much use in this world.

As Michael walked, he distracted himself by counting his steps. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four… It didn’t take his mind off the surrounding buildings though. Burned out and abandoned, anything could be inside them, watching him as he passed, lying in wait for the right time to pounce. The monsters and murderers used to live under the bed; now, they lived everywhere.

Before he’d heard the engine, Michael caught the glint of headlights behind him. A quick glance and he saw the truck in the distance. “Damn it.”

If he ran, it would look like he had something worth taking. Instead, Michael looked at the ground as he walked. His back wound tight as the approaching sound of the big engine reverberated off the derelict shop fronts.

With his shadow stretching out before him, he continued counting, adrenalin adding a wobble to his already shivering form. One, two, three, four…

The tension in Michael’s back drove a sharp pain up to the base of his skull.

With the vehicle getting closer, the need to run twitched through every muscle in his body. It was them. It had to be them. Should he just run? But what if it was someone else? The last thing they’d care about was a random kid wandering the streets.

When the truck slowed down next to him, Michael fought the urge to look across. They didn’t need to see his face.

The truck got so close he could touch it if he’d wanted to. It slowed to Michael’s walking pace, and the smell of exhaust fumes caused him to scrunch his nose up.

One, two, three, four…

The scrutiny of the truck driver burned into the side of Michael’s head. If they stopped, he would run. Whatever happened, he wasn’t going back there. Now that he’d escaped, they’d never take him again.

Michael saw a park to his left and shook as he glanced into it. The inky blackness seemed impenetrable, but if it meant avoiding the warehouse again, he’d damn well try…

The loud revving of the big block engine made him jump, his heart damn near exploding, but he kept his eyes lowered. As long as they didn’t recognize him as the escapee from a few weeks ago, maybe they’d leave him alone. What would they do to him if they did realize who he was? What would Julius do?

Seconds later, the driver sped up and the truck peeled off. Enough tension fell from Michael’s back that he heaved a heavy sigh. Thank god.

Although the cold burned his face, Michael kept his head lifted as he watched the red lights of the truck disappear. It can’t have been them. They would have stopped and tried to take him. Sharp panic ran through his chest. Could it be an ambush? No, of course not. Why would they need to ambush a ten-year-old?

Michael cast another glance into the park and bit his bottom lip.

The lights on the back of the truck suddenly glowed bright red. They lit up the street, highlighting the litter skittering across it in the frigid wind. With his breath catching in his throat, Michael shook his head. No way! Not this time. No damn way!

A white light on the back of the truck punched through the thick fog. Didn’t that mean reverse?

The whine of the reversing engine calling out in the still night made his pulse rage. He looked into the park for escape again.

When the truck stopped next to him, Michael fought the urge to look at it. The sound of the electric window on the side closest to him caused him to lift his tense shoulders to his ears.

“Hey, kid.”

The voice was deep—an adult for sure—but it didn’t sound mean like the men he’d escaped from.

Ignoring the man, Michael continued on.

“Kid, what are you doing out this late?”

What was he going to do next, ask him where his parents were? His mum was hanging from the banister at home, and his dad was a frozen corpse on his driveway. What did this man want from him? Why didn’t he go away and leave him alone? Wasn’t it obvious that he didn’t want to talk?

“Hey, boy, do you want some food? I have cookies.”

Shaking as he walked, Michael still didn’t look up. The others used the same trick except they offered cake; a large slice of sickly sweet chocolate cake to entice you into their car—the perfect bait for a hungry and lonely boy. Cake was the only pleasure they offered; one sugary treat got you locked in Hell with the others. The memories of the boys’ screams spun through his mind.

Michael jumped when the man sounded the horn. With his hand on his chest, he felt his heart pounding through his many layers of clothes as he turned to the driver of the truck. The man’s lips moved, but the words didn’t register with Michael. George?

The man didn’t seem to recognize him. “That got your attention then? Good! Who are you? What are you doing out this late?”

Michael panted as he stared into the truck, his breath turning to fog in the cold air. Warm urine ran down the inside of both of his thighs and the cold turned it frigid in an instant.

The man’s face changed, and he pointed at him. “Fuck! You’re the boy; the boy in the burning house. The boy whose dad…”

When George popped his door open, Michael bolted into the dark veil of the park next to him.

As he ran, tearing through the darkness at a flat-out sprint, the sound of his own ragged breaths drowned everything else out.

As he risked a look over his shoulder, something snagged his foot. It was like falling with his eyes closed, and all he could do was throw his arms out in front of him.

Fire tore through the palms of his bare hands, and a jolt ran up his arms into both shoulders when he hit the frozen ground.

Despite the pain, Michael crawled forward through the long frozen grass and found a large bush to hide next to. He sat up and gathered his knees into his chest as he watched the entrance to the park.

The light from George’s truck made it easy for Michael to see the man’s silhouette. George threw his hands up and called into the darkness, “Hey, kid, there’s some food on the grass for you.”

The chocolate cake trick all over again. They wouldn’t get him a second time. Fool him once… Michael held his breath as best as he could, his heart aching from the effort, and watched George walk back to his truck.

Michael’s eyes stung as he continued to stare.

The echoed slam of the truck’s door made Michael jump. Seconds later, the engine revved, and the truck pulled away.

Alone and surrounded by darkness, Michael listened to the night. When a fox screamed, he pulled himself into a tighter ball. No matter how many times he heard the chilling sound, he’d never get used to it. It reminded him of a woman being tortured; although foxes seemed to have a better life than most other living creatures now. London had been turned into a place for scavengers—scavengers and abusers.

***

Michael sat on the grass long enough for the frost to melt and soak through his clothes, turning his skin to ice. The sting of pee had left his legs, but he shivered harder now than before.

The cold had wormed into Michael’s joints, sending deep aches into his fingers and knees. If he didn’t get up soon, the sub-zero atmosphere would encase him in its rusty grip.

Even craning his neck hurt, but Michael did it anyway as he looked at the dark exit from the park. Had George really left some food? He certainly got something from his truck and bent down to put it on the ground.

He had to move. If he stayed there much longer, he’d be a frozen corpse by morning. He could go farther into the park and see where he ended up. A shiver snapped through him when he looked behind into the darkness. The utter absence of light pushed against his eyeballs as if trying to take even the concept of visibility from them.

If he went back to the road, he could be a few streets away in no time. No one would find him then; London was a big place. Besides, there might be some food out there.

Michael got to his feet and stretched the aches from his tired body, his bones popping as he reached to the sky.

Despite the combination of tiredness and the fierce wind stinging his eyes, Michael kept them open as he walked. If he blinked, he might miss something. If he missed something, he could be back in the warehouse before he knew it.

Surrounded by shadows, and with the moon too dark to reveal the details of each shrouded form, Michael continued scanning around in case any of them moved. As he walked, the long grass brushed against his legs. It felt like slim fingers grabbing at his ankles.

***

When he got to the edge of the park, Michael looked down at the packet of unopened cookies. A loud gurgle rolled through his stomach, and his mouth watered. He could almost taste the sugar on his tongue.

He heard the footsteps too late. Before he had time to look up, someone crashed into his side, the sting of the impact exploding through his right shoulder.

The cookies slipped from Michael’s hand as he fell. Pain shot through his left side when he landed on the ground, and the weight of the person who’d run into him fell hard on top of him.

Michael’s world went dark.

Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo Lola

A diet of sugar and fizzy pop had left Michael with a permanent headache. It was at its worst when he woke. When he opened one of his eyes, a sharp pain stung his eyeball like he had a metal spike wedged into it.

The first signs of morning lightened the dark sky. Disorientated and freezing, Michael stared up and tried to find his bearings.

When he looked to his right, he saw a girl standing next to him. His entire body snapped tight. Suddenly, the night before came flooding back—the truck, the cookies, the person crashing into him…

Weeks had passed since he’d last seen a girl. Julius didn’t have any at the warehouse. She looked about eighteen years old, but she had her back to him so he couldn’t be sure. A long, brown ponytail rested between her shoulder blades, and she seemed anxious as she watched the road. If he got up now, could he get away from her?

The pain of keeping both eyes open was too much, so Michael closed one. It eased his headache but his heart beat a staccato as he looked up at the tall girl.

The girl brushed her hair back from her forehead and held it there. She turned far enough around for Michael to see her side profile. She was chewing the inside of her mouth.

When she turned to face him, Michael snapped his eyes shut. He pressed them closed so tightly, it had to be obvious he wasn’t still passed out.

The coldness of the ground gripped him and he couldn’t suppress the shiver that forced his breath out with a shudder. When Michael opened his eyes again, he found the girl staring down at him.

The side of her mouth had lifted in a sneer. “I thought you were awake, you little fucker. Nice try though.”

Everything he’d been holding back rushed forward and he shook violently; his voice wavered as he whispered, “Please don’t hurt me. Please.”

The sneer turned into a broad grin, her eyes sparkling as she looked at him. She then lifted her leg up and pressed her foot against his throat. The grit on her boot tread stung his cold skin.

After another quick look around, she returned her attention to him and the smile slid from her face. “A boy like you, out all alone in the city, could fetch me a pretty penny; don’t you know?”

Michael looked up the girl’s long leg to her face then focused on her standing foot.

“I reckon if I found the right people, you could earn me a fortune. The world’s a very different place now, boy. If I were to guess, I’d say I could trade a month’s worth of food for you. I’ve seen the men in their trucks; you’re fresh meat to them.”

Michael shook his head and the dirt on the bottom of her boot scratched like sandpaper on his skin. He looked at her standing leg again.

The girl laughed without smiling. “You were so easy to catch too. You’re the best meal ticket I’ve found in months.”

In one fluid movement, Michael caught the ankle of her standing leg and yanked hard. The pressure lifted from his throat, and she shrieked as she fell backward, hitting the ground with a wheeze.

When Michael scooted away and tried to jump up, his foot slipped on the frozen grass, and he fell to the ground again.

She grabbed his foot in a tight grip. Her face was red, and she grimaced as she kept ahold of him. Kicking out did nothing. If anything, it enraged her further, and she squeezed harder.

The girl flipped him over onto his back and jumped on top of him.

She landed on his chest; the force cut his breath off completely and Michael’s headache returned with a vengeance. The thick throbbing pulse made it feel like his skull would pop.

The weight of her on top of him also drove pain through his shoulder blades. What little energy he had in his body vanished as he tried to buck and writhe to throw her off. “I’m not going back. I’m not,” he cried out.

The girl tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow. “Feisty little fucker, ain’t ya?” Fury replaced her sarcasm. “Although clearly not feisty enough.”

His view of the girl above him blurred as he screamed through clenched teeth. “I’m not going back. No way!”

The girl scoffed and shook her head. “What’s wrong with you, boy? You need to toughen up. There ain’t no room for tears in this life.”

Powerless to his buckling lip, Michael’s voice cracked. “I’m not crying.”

When she got off his chest, he wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

Throwing the packet of cookies down at him, she said, “Here’s your share.”

The red, shiny packet rustled as he held it. His eyes continued watering. “Share? They’re all mine.”

“What the fuck? You’re lucky I saved any for you.”

“Fuck you!”

Laughing, the girl sighed. “You find that approach works often, do you? I should sell you to a gang of nonces, you know.”

When Michael didn’t reply, she laughed again. “Besides, you’re too young to swear.”

Looking him up and down, she shrugged. “What are you, eight or something?”

“No, I’m ten. Nearly eleven.”

“Woo, check you out.”

Michael sat up and ground his jaw. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I don’t trust or like you. You just robbed me, so I don’t care what you think.”

When he turned and saw a coat rolled up on the ground, some of his rage subsided. “Is… um… Is that yours?”

A dark scowl sat on her face as she leaned down and snatched the coat away. “Listen to me, Nearly Eleven—”

“Michael.”

After rolling her eyes, she continued. “Listen to me, Nearly Eleven, I was hot, that’s why I gave you my coat.”

Michael noticed the gooseflesh on her exposed arms and the steam that came from her mouth, so he didn’t respond. She couldn’t possibly be hot in this weather.

“Okay?” she snapped.

Michael nodded. His stomach rumbled and he looked down at the cookies in his hand. When he slid the black, plastic tray out, he said, “There’s only two left in here.”

“That’s your half.”

Another check of the wrapper and he looked up at her. “But there were six in the packet to start with.”

“You’re lucky you got anything, Nearly Eleven. You should consider yourself fortunate. I could have taken everything and left you for dead.”

“But why don’t I have three?”

“You dropped one.”

After a quick look around, Michael looked back up at the girl. “So where’s the dropped one?”

“I ate it.”

“So you had four? You’re a fucking arsehole.”

The girl gripped the front of his coat and tugged. His head snapped back. The sweet smell of cookies rode her breath when she leaned into his face. “Listen, Nearly Eleven, I’m much nicer than a lot of people out here. You keep giving me shit, and I’m going to leave you on your own again.”

“I was fine on my own.”

While pointing at the park, the girl laughed. “Hiding in the fucking bush? Walking down the middle of the road?”

“How long have you been following me?”

“Long enough to know you ain’t fine on your own; you’re a fucking liability, in fact.”

“I was only walking down the road because there was nowhere else to go.”

“Because you didn’t find anywhere else to go; I’m surprised you’re not dead already.”

Michael didn’t reply.

“What are you, a rich kid or something?”

A hot flush spread over Michael’s cheeks, and he looked in the other direction. Not this again. The posh jokes had grown tiresome at school—especially when things turned nasty.

Watching him through narrowed eyes, the girl smiled again. “Oh you are, aren’t you? This world must be hard for you then.”

The burn of tears stung his eyes again, and a lump swelled his throat. “I’ve lost my mum, dad, and sister; that would be hard for anyone.”

“Jesus, Bambi, parents die. Get over it.”

Hot grief rushed down his cheeks and his jaw fell loose. “I can’t believe you just said that. I’ve lost my entire family. I went to my auntie’s house and she was gone too… I’ve got no one.”

“You need to toughen up, kid.”

Michael’s bottom lip trembled. “I’m just so scared.”

The girl sighed, dropped down, and gave him a hug.

The unexpected warmth of her embrace made Michael cry harder than ever. He missed his mum.

After a few seconds, she pulled away and cleared her throat. “You need to toughen up. Now isn’t the time to be grieving for what’s lost. We have too much to do to dwell on the past. You need to keep your wits about you in this world.”

“But… I saw my dad die… I watched someone kill him.”

A confused frown crushed her face. “I’ve got enough of my own shit. I don’t need yours too, okay?”

Michael wiped his running nose and said nothing.

“We need to think about what’s ahead of us.” She then offered him her hand. “My name’s Lola. Lola Jackson.”

“Michael. Michael Power.”

Snorting a laugh, Lola raised an eyebrow. “Mike Power? You sound like a porn star.” She shook her head. “I can’t call you that. I’ll have to stick with Nearly Eleven. That okay with you?”

Did he have a choice?

“So, Nearly Eleven, where are you headed?”

“Anywhere. I just want to find somewhere safe… somewhere to call home.”

Although she looked like she wanted to laugh at him again, she refrained. “The illusion of safety has well and truly gone now. We never had safety before; it was a fear of punishment that kept society in check. Now that’s gone and we have nothing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry about it; you just need to let go of the idea that you’ll find safety. No place is home, and if you settle for too long anywhere in this new world, you die.”

Before he could reply, Lola looked up at the sky and said, “Anyway, the best time to travel is at night. It’s getting light, so we need to find somewhere to hide for the day.”

Shelter

Michael, still soaked from lying on the grass, followed Lola as the sky grew lighter. The blue tinge of morning permeated the darkness. He had only eaten one of the cookies and held tightly to the packet containing the other one. It made sense to save it for later, but his body seemed to have other ideas. His stomach pulled toward his spine as if it would start eating itself if he didn’t hand over the goods.

As he slid the plastic tray from the wrapper, a loud rustling sounded out.

When Lola spun around and glared at him, Michael froze.

Without saying a word, she turned and moved off again. Michael followed, sliding the cookie tray out some more.

She stopped again, raised her eyebrows, and planted her hands firmly on her hips. “Can you make any more fucking noise?”

As he stood with the tray half out of the empty packet, Michael said, “Sorry.”

Lola didn’t reply. Instead, she spun around and set off again.

This time, Michael upended the packet and let the cookie slide down out of the tray. He put it into his mouth whole and bit down. The anticipated crunch never came. The cookie was as stale as the first one.

When Michael dropped the packet onto the pavement, the wind caught it and dragged it along the ground with a skittering sound.

Turning on him yet again, Lola threw her arms wide. “What are you doing, you idiot?”

Despite opening and closing his mouth several times, Michael couldn’t find the words.

Lola pointed down at the rubbish on the ground. “Why are you dropping that there?”

Michael shrugged. “There’s rubbish everywhere. What does it matter?”

Lola stormed over to him and picked the wrapper up. “‘What does it matter’? First, you make so much fucking noise that anyone within a square mile can hear us, and then you drop the wrapper in the middle of the street. Look at the rubbish around us.”

After doing as instructed, Michael looked back at her.

“It looks like it's been there for months, right?”

Time had bleached the colors on the older packets. “I suppose so.”

Lola held the empty packet of cookies up. “And does this?”

Instead of replying, Michael sighed and looked at the ground.

“Exactly!” Lola said. “This tells anyone who’s looking that there are people around and they have food.” Lola pointed at a bench on the side of the road. “You might as well go and sit over there and wait for someone to come along and murder you… or worse!”

The warehouse dominated his thoughts—the other boys, the smell, the cries. When he regained his focus, Michael watched Lola march to the overflowing bin next to the bench and stuff the wrapper into it. Without another look at him, she marched off again.

***

The pair walked in silence. Michael held back far enough so she couldn’t shout at him again. Anyone could have made the mistake of dropping litter. She didn’t need to go so nuts on him.

Morning had well and truly settled in and only the slightest trace of night still hung in the air as a slight haze. It used to be exciting to stay awake all night. Now, Michael hated everything about it—from the tiredness he felt in his bones to the headaches that came from not having enough rest.

When Lola stopped in front of him, Michael hesitantly walked up beside her.

Lola kept her attention on the sky. “Another good thing about sleeping during the day and traveling at night is it’s warmer during the day. If we’re going to be lying around doing nothing, now’s the time to be doing it.”

“And the night keeps us hidden,” Michael said. “We can live in the shadows like Batman.”

“What the fuck?”

Michael shook his head and looked down. “Never mind.”

“Anyway,” Lola said, “it’s getting light. We need to get off the streets. Where do you want to sleep?”

Despite the choice of shops, Michael only focused on one—a video game store. “There.”

Lola looked at the shop and then back to Michael. “You do realize that games don’t work anymore, right?”

“That’s my point.”

Continuing to glare at him, Lola remained silent.

“There’s nothing worth stealing in there. It’ll be one of the safest buildings to hide in.”

The slightest smile cracked Lola’s stern face. “Wow, that’s actually a good idea!”

As backhanded as the compliment was, Michael took it with a smile.

“You know, you’re not a pretty face, Michael.”

“Wait,” Michael said. “Don’t you mean, ‘Not just a pretty face’?”

The grin fell from Lola’s face and she shook her head, her tone dry. “Nope.”

***

The crunch of broken glass popped beneath Michael’s feet as he walked through the open doorway of the video game store with Lola at his side. He looked around with his mouth hanging open. “Wow. It feels so strange to be in here with no workers around. I know that games don’t work anymore, but I sure as hell wish they did. Imagine being able to have all these games for free.”

Lola rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Heat flushed Michael’s cheeks. What a stupid and childish thing to say. Computer games and an unlimited supply of sweets clearly didn’t dominate her dreams like they did his.

As they made their way to the rear of the shop, they took slow and deliberate steps. The stillness lifted the hairs on the back of Michael’s neck, and he shook. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Lola.”

“Jesus, kid, do you ever shut up?”

Michael opened his mouth to reply but stopped when he heard the voices of men outside the shop. Although he heard them, when he glanced over his shoulder, he couldn’t see them yet. He looked at Lola, who jabbed an urgent finger toward the back of the shop. They had to move now.

The pair ran on tiptoes down the aisle to the counter at the end. A section of the countertop had been lifted and gave them access to the door in the back wall.

As the men’s voices grew louder, Lola opened the door and slipped inside with Michael close on her heels.

Breathing heavily, Michael watched Lola bite her bottom lip while slowly pushing the door closed. Tension lifted her shoulders as she held the handle down. Her face twisted when she let the handle up and the springs inside it creaked and groaned. She only relaxed when it finally clicked home.

Lola then turned on Michael and spoke in hushed tones. “I thought you said it was safe in here.”

Before Michael could reply, a loud crash echoed through the shop.

Michael looked at Lola. “What are we going to do?”

There was another loud crash.

Lola scanned the storeroom as if looking for somewhere to hide.

Another crash outside, this time closer; Michael heard his own pulse pounding in his ears. “Lola, what are we gonna do?”

The tiny storeroom had a small desk covered in old paperwork and boxes of old consoles littered the floor. When Lola still didn’t offer any ideas, Michael pointed to a pile of PlayStation boxes in the corner. “Over there.”

From outside the storeroom, the rattle of a shelf collapsing was followed by a rush of video game boxes sliding to the floor.

“Quick, Lola.” Michael grabbed her cold hand and led her to the corner. After he pulled some boxes away, he pointed at the den he’d made. “Get in that hole.”

Lola frowned at him but still didn’t move. Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths.

Putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, Michael coaxed her down and pushed her into the space he’d cleared. He then blocked her in by putting the boxes back.

Several loud whacks pierced the air. Each one made Michael flinch. It sounded like baseball bats against the counter on the other side of the door.

After sliding the last box into place, Michael ran across the storeroom and opened the door to a small cupboard. Half filled with packs of paper, Michael slipped in anyway and pulled the door closed. As he sat in the cramped darkness, his pulse thumped and he listened to the sounds outside.

A second or two later, the hinges to the storeroom door creaked, and the sound of heavy boots stepped inside. Nausea ran through Michael in a hot wave.

Michael shook as he listened to the two men walk across the room. The cupboard reeked of dust, so he pinched his nose; if he sneezed now…

Boxes clattered and Michael jumped. Although he held his breath to listen, he didn’t hear Lola.

The crack of a bat and the sound of splintering wood signaled the demise of the desk. Heavy footsteps walked across the room and stopped outside the cupboard.

Michael couldn’t control his shaking body.

“Come on, Trev,” one of the men said. “I fucking hated video games when they worked. Now, they’re even more fucking useless. This place is boring the fuck out of me. Let’s get out of here.”

The other one, the one just inches away from Michael on the other side of the cupboard door, replied, “To catch kids, we need to think like kids. That means checking every fucking toy store, video game store, and old sweet shop in the area.”

Why had Michael suggested this place as somewhere to hide? Could he have made a worse choice? So much for gaining Lola’s trust.

“Well, there ain’t any here, so let’s fucking go.”

Trev grumbled to himself for a moment.

Despite his closeness, Michael couldn’t hear what he said.

He then spoke louder. “Maybe we should torch the place just to give them one less place to hide.”

The smell of smoke returned to Michael’s senses along with the image of his dad being killed in the driveway as he watched from a burning house.

“Is torching the place really worth the hassle, Trev?”

After a long pause, Trev offered a petulant reply. “Whatever… let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The hinges on the storeroom door creaked again, the door clicked shut, and when he heard the crashes and bangs of the men as they left the shop, Michael heaved a heavy sigh. He leaned against the back wall of the cupboard and waited. Those men needed to be long gone before he risked stepping out.

***

Michael had sat on the stacked paper for so long, his back ached. Surely the men had left for good. Pins and needles tingled through Michael’s cramped legs. If he didn’t move soon, he’d fall out of the cupboard anyway. Michael stretched out and pushed the cupboard door open.

The hinges released a yawning creak as the door swung out into the room. When he stepped out, his legs nearly gave way beneath him. Aches sat deep in his lower back, so Michael leaned forward to try to ease the pain.

He then walked over to the pile of PlayStation boxes. When he pulled several away, he found Lola curled in the fetal position. She didn’t move, so he prodded her with his foot. “Lola.”

Lifting her head, Lola looked at him, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. She'd either been sleeping or crying.

“It’s okay; they’re gone now.”

Lola rubbed her face, rolled out of her space, and stood up. “See what I mean?” she said. “Nowhere is safe.”

“I’ll find somewhere safe. Somewhere I can go to bed at night and know I’m going to be able to sleep without being scared. I’ll find somewhere where the men won’t get at me.”

Lola frowned. “What men?”

The sounds of the warehouse filled his mind again. The cries of the older boys rang the loudest. They were the hardest to listen to. They were strong, tough lads, and the warehouse had reduced them to nothing but babies. It had reduced them all to babies. Michael stared at the floor. “It doesn’t matter.”

When Lola dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, Michael looked up at her.

“I’ve been a bit on edge,” she said, “and I’ve been taking it out on you. That isn’t fair. I’m scared, but that’s not your fault.”

Nodding, Michael let her continue.

“Also, I froze when I needed to make a decision. You saved us back there.”

Pride swelled in Michael’s chest, and he pushed the sadness back down.

“That was the first and last time it will happen. I won’t freeze like that again. If for no other reason than I don’t like apologizing.”

Michael laughed. “That was an apology?”

Lola pointed at him and smiled despite herself. “Don’t push it, Nearly Eleven!”

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 some 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.

Lola pointed to those hanging in the middle of the bridge. “They even took some soldiers out. Wow, if we ever needed a sign that the old world had gone, this is the fucking postcard for it. Maybe they should write ‘London’ in big letters across the bodies, take a picture, and sell them in the gift shops. I’d send that to my nan in Dorset, but she’s a cunt; I’d send her a steaming turd in the post. I bet the bitch is still alive, too. She’ll probably be the last to go.”

“How can you joke about it? They were real people, you know.” Real people like mum and Tilly. “They had families and loved ones.”

“I’m just trying to lighten the mood, dude.” With a shake of her head, Lola walked toward the bridge.

Michael followed her.

***

The chorus of creaks grew louder the closer they got. “Sorry for getting upset, Lola. I was thinking about how my mum and sister died.”

“I’d try and block those thoughts out if I were you. If you go down that rabbit hole, you won’t ever come back.”

“My dad hung them from the banisters at home.”

Lola stopped walking and turned to face him. “What the hell?”

“They were already dead. We found them in Dad’s car. Both Mum and Matilda were sitting in the front seat. I don’t know how they died.”

“Was there a hosepipe attached to the exhaust?”

It took a few seconds for Michael to find his words. “How do you know that?”

“Seriously?”

Michael nodded.

“It’s a classic suicide technique; tape a hose to the exhaust of a car, put the mouth of the hosepipe into the vehicle, and start the engine. The car’s fumes will kill you pretty quickly.”

The world around him blurred as Michael lost focus and shook his head. “Mum wouldn’t do that… not to Matilda.”

With a gentle squeeze on his arm, Lola looked into Michael’s eyes. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. Her soft gaze said it all.

“She killed them both?” Michael said.

“Come on, dude, you can’t blame her.” After spinning full circle, Lola turned her palms to the sky. “I mean, look at this place; we’re living in Hell. Who in their right mind would want to stay around during this?”

Before Michael could reply, Lola said, “But why did your dad hang them?”

“We had looters about to burst into our house. He said that if we left Mum and Tilly there, they would think the owners of the house were dead and not look for us.”

“Did it work?”

While staring at the ground, Michael’s bottom lip turned down. “No, they had dogs with them. They sniffed us out as soon as they came into the house.”

“Your dad didn’t think that one through then?”

It hurt to speak with the lump in his throat. “No.”

***

“One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four…”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Lola said.

“I’m counting.”

“I can hear that, but why?”

Although Lola walked by his side, Michael stared at the ground. “One, two, three, four… It helps me keep my mind off other things.” Whenever he woke in the middle of the night, he’d count. Counting kept the monsters away.

“But they’re dead. They can’t hurt you.”

Something fell from one of the corpse’s bodies. Although Michael saw it in his peripheral vision, he didn’t turn to look. When it hit the water with a splash, he flinched. It sounded heavy enough to be a limb.

The roar of a loud engine spiked Michael’s pulse, and both he and Lola stopped dead. Despite looking around, they couldn’t see them. “Where are they?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Lola said, “but we’ve got to get away.”

“Where? There’s nowhere to hide around here.”

When Lola looked at the bridge, Michael shook his head. “No way; there’s no way I’m going on there.”

The sound of the engine got louder. “Where else do you suggest we go?”

“Um…”

“We don’t have time for ‘um.’ Where will we go?”

“All right, don’t shout at me.”

Red-faced and wide-eyed, Lola threw her arms up. “Where… will… we… go?”

Where could they go? The vehicle would be in view any second now.

“Fuck this,” Lola said and ran for the bridge.

Hesitating, Michael looked from Lola to the direction of the noise and back to Lola again before he took off after her.

The sound of a vehicle’s horn blared out through the quiet night. Whoever was driving that car didn’t feel the need to hide in London. It didn’t matter who they were, Michael didn’t want to meet them.

The cold burned Michael’s lungs as he sprinted after Lola onto the bridge. Trying to stay out of view, they ran close to the side in a low crouch.

As he ran along the wide pavement, Michael looked at the barrier next to him. Thick, stone pillars were topped off with a concrete plinth and a metal railing. There were hundreds of ropes tied all the way along the railing but the barrier hid the dead from sight. Not that he’d forget what he’d already seen.

Then he saw the lights. “Run, Lola, run.”

When Lola looked back in the car’s direction, she stopped. She then hunched down next to the barrier, plunging deeper into its thick shadow.

Michael dropped down next to her and caught his breath. Being this low down made it impossible to ignore the slow and steady creak of the ropes; it was almost as though the bridge was talking to them. As if it was laughing at them.

The vehicle got close enough to see it was an old truck with maybe three men on the back. When Lola touched him, Michael jumped.

“Get down some more,” she said. “We can’t let them see us.”

Michael pressed himself against a cold, stone pillar.

The vehicle got closer to the bridge and slowed down.

Then it turned onto the bridge.

Fuck! Michael’s heart hammered so hard he felt like it would burst. He shook as he waited, vulnerable and rooted to the spot.

The truck stopped.

“What are they doing?” Michael asked.

“I—” But before Lola could reply, the sound of another engine roared in the distance. “They’re waiting for their friends.”

The burn of tears stung Michael’s eyes and within seconds they dampened his cheeks. “We’re done for, Lola. They’re going to catch us and take us with them. There’s no way we can get away.”

While keeping her eyes on the truck, Lola stood up slowly. She kept close to the side of the bridge and peered over the edge. When she dropped back down, she grabbed Michael by his shoulders and spoke in a whisper. “While they’re stopped, this is our chance; we have to climb down.”

“Huh?”

Instead of answering him, Lola looked at the men in the truck at the end of the bridge, hopped up onto the barrier, and disappeared over the other side.

Hang On

“Hang on, Lola,” Michael said, but she’d disappeared from sight already. The loud tick of the engine and the bright lights waited at the entrance to the bridge. If he had any chance of escaping the men, he had to follow Lola over the side.

The misty air made the truck’s headlights seem blurred. Although, blurred or not, they would be pointing directly at him if he didn’t move.

With the men on the back of the truck all focused on the approaching vehicle, he had the perfect opportunity to follow Lola.

Unfortunately, Michael’s leaden legs disagreed with him. Hopefully, his body would respond when he needed it to… three, two, one.

Michael vaulted up onto the side of the bridge and lay against the cold railing. Visibility may have been low but not so low they wouldn’t see a silhouette on the bridge if he stood up.

A glance at the river thirty feet below made his stomach lurch. He then looked at Lola. She swung more than the other bodies, despite what looked like her best efforts to remain still. A deep breath did little to calm his shaking limbs.

Michael found the thickest rope close to him and hung his legs over the bridge. As he eased himself down over it, he gripped onto the railing with cold-weakened hands. The weather had wormed so deeply into them it felt like his fingers would snap as if his joints were made of glass.

It was hard doing it blind, his face pointing back onto the bridge, but he tried to scoop the rope in with his dangling legs.

With the rope between his feet and his legs crossed at the shins, he gripped on tightly and slid slowly down it.

Once his head was lower than the side of the bridge, he stopped. He’d gone far enough to be out of sight. He didn’t need to go any farther.

***

The burn in Michael’s knuckles went from discomfort to needles wedged into the joints within just a few minutes.

The thick mist surrounding him turned the air moist. The dampness found its way into the fibers of the rope and the cold air turned it to ice. If he gripped any tighter, it felt like his hands would shatter.

Suddenly, he slipped a little. The cold and coarse rope burned his palms as he held on.

It didn’t matter how tightly he gripped it, Michael started to slip again. If he fell into the river, he’d freeze to death. If he slipped even a little farther, he’d be touching a dead body.

Another slip and he snapped his legs up.

When he looked across to see Lola staring at him, her eyes wide, Michael shook his head. “I can’t stop it, Lola. Help me, I’m slipping.”

Lola looked down at his feet and then back up at him. “Stand on it.”

“What?”

“You’re going to slide to the bottom anyway, so you may as well stand on it. It’ll stop you falling into the river.”

Michael shook his head so hard the entire rope shook. “I’m not standing on it. It’s a dead person.”

“Exactly! It’s dead, so it doesn’t give a fuck.”

Michael looked down at the limp form. It hung as if everything was trying to drag it toward the river. Its arms limp by its side, and its toes pointed to the water. With its face angled down, Michael only saw the back of its head. An angry wound glistened through its dark hair. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.

When he finally looked back at Lola, she said, “Do it; it’ll stop you from sliding down.”

Although he started crying again and the freezing wind crashed into him, Michael stretched his legs out.

Just before his feet touched the corpse’s head, he stopped, a weakness cringing through his legs. “I can’t, Lola.”

“It’s already dead. If you don’t do it, you’ll fall into the river. There’s no way you’ll survive that.”

Hearing it from Lola made it more real. He would die if he ended up in the river. If he didn’t drown, he’d freeze.

A long exhale produced a cloud of condensation in front of him. Then he stretched his legs the extra few centimeters needed to reach the head of the dead person.

Tense from the anticipation of it giving way like a rotten melon, Michael pushed against it.

It held.

Michael then stood up. The pressure he put on the back of the thing’s skull made it pivot on its neck and pushed its legs out behind it. It was stiff like it was made of wood.

A few seconds later, he nodded at Lola. “It’s works; it actually works.”

Lola slid down her own rope, copying what Michael had done.

“So you were waiting for me to test it before you risked your life? Thanks!”

Shaking her head, Lola looked down at the body Michael stood on. “No, you were falling; you had to stand on it. I didn’t. But since you’ve done it, it looks much more comfortable than hanging onto the rope. We don’t know how long they’re going to be up there for.”

Instead of responding, Michael looked around. He’d never seen London bridge from this angle before. The bridge’s arches, each one a small tunnel, amplified the sound of the rushing water and wind.

Michael swung like a pendulum on the end of the rope as he listened. The water rushed beneath him. The wind tore over the river. The rope creaked like it could snap at any moment. The engine of the truck idled. The men laughed and joked… what would they do if they knew the boy who’d escaped them hung directly beneath them at that moment?

Waiting Game

Unable to suppress the whimper that the cold forced from his body, Michael clasped onto the rope. Let Lola think he was weak; he didn’t care. His hands felt like they could break, and he was standing on a damn corpse!

At some point, he’d have to climb the rope again. The longer he waited, the less capable he’d be of getting back up to the bridge. Before long his hands would seize like rusty hinges. Another look down at the dark river below made his stomach twist.

With his muscles tense enough to shatter, Michael leaned back and looked up at the bridge. The sound of the throaty engine ticked over. It wouldn’t be long before the second vehicle caught up.

When he looked at Lola, he saw his own sharp pains playing out across her grimacing face.

A loud roar came from above, and Michael looked up again. The lights from the truck swung out over his head as it turned onto the bridge.

Despite the bridge being both clear and wide, the trucks moved slowly as if taking in the sights. The rope wavered as Michael shook and his footing on the copse’s head slipped a little.

As he swung in the wind, Michael closed his eyes and waited.

***

A few minutes later, Michael opened his eyes. The trucks had travelled about halfway across the bridge—far enough away for him to speak safely. “Why are they taking so long?”

Lola clung to the rope, pale and with her jaw locked tight. “Dunno, maybe they’ve had problems on the bridge before. Maybe they’re paranoid.”

“Do you think they know we’re here?”

Lola shook her head. “I doubt it. I think they would have stopped if they did.”

A loud horn sounded and caused Michael to lose his footing. The rope scorched his hands as he slid down it, but he hung on tight enough to halt his fall.

With his legs hanging and the dead nose of the female corpse pressed into Michael’s crotch, a slow shiver rolled through him. Using what little strength he had, he pulled his knees up to his chest and placed his feet on the thing’s shoulders. It burned his thighs but Michael stood up again, grimacing through the pain.

With his footing sure, he took a moment to catch his breath.

The cold and rough rope offered little comfort for his now throbbing palms. Although he clenched his jaw, it did little to stop him from shaking as he watched the two vehicles speed off the bridge.

He could see them clearly now, but they probably couldn’t see him. To them, he and Lola were just two of many bodies. Copying Lola, he remained as still as possible.

***

A few minutes after the vehicles had disappeared, Michael looked across at Lola. “Should we climb back up now?” Not that he had the strength or inclination to do it.

Lola tilted her head back and looked up. “Yep, let’s do this.”

It looked easy when Lola pushed off from her corpse and shimmied up the rope. Drained from his fall, Michael tried to do the same, crossing his shins to pinch the rope between the outside of each foot.

Fire burned through his knuckles as he pulled himself up. Regardless of how bad it felt, he had to get to the top. He had to keep going.

Lola had already made it halfway.

When Lola reached up to the metal railing and pulled herself over, Michael lost even more strength. He looked down at the dark river again, which didn’t help.

He had to snap out of it. It didn’t matter what Lola was doing. It only mattered that he needed to be at the top of the rope.

Every muscle in his body strained and ached as if tearing. When he glanced down again, he saw the corpse swinging and flapping around from his struggle.

“Come on, Nearly Eleven, you’re almost there. Grab my hand.” Lola reached over and held a hand out to him.

The gap was too great for him to reach.

Pausing, he took deep breaths to regroup. With a loud grunt, he resumed his climb.

Then he slipped.

When he caught himself again, he looked up at Lola. She’d visibly feared the worst too.

“Come on, Nearly Eleven,” she said. “You can do it.”

When he tried to push up with his feet, the rope slipped through them again. “I can’t, Lola. I can’t do it. The rope’s too slippery.”

Leaning farther down, Lola stretched out to him. “Come on, keep climbing.”

What little strength he had drained from his limbs as he tried to push on, and he couldn’t get a grip on the icy rope.

After another small slip, Lola shouted, “Grip tighter.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?”

The rope slipped through his grip again and he fell another few inches. “I can’t do it.” When he shouted up, his voice cracked. “Help me, Lola. Help me.”

Michael watched Lola flap an arm in his direction. “I can’t reach that far.”

The dark river below looked like blood. The corpse shook violently on the end of the rope like the last of its life was thrashing from it. He had nothing left to give. “Help me, Lola.”

Then he slipped again.

Greasy Pole

Panic battered Michael’s insides as if it were a beast trying to escape. It worsened with every inch he slipped. The cold air had turned the rope into a greasy pole. A scream threatened to burst from his lungs, but he kept it in. The men may be out of sight, but in the near silent night, his cries would carry like a church’s bell.

He slipped again and the rope between his legs pulled his trousers up. It burned his shins as well as his palms.

“Michael,” Lola called down to him.

Unable to look up, Michael slipped again. His feet now rested on the head of the corpse. A groan shuddered through the rope only seconds before a crack rang out as it snapped. Michael’s stomach lurched as both he and the corpse fell.

Snap

Michael caught the thick knot at the end of the rope, a jolt snapping fire through his shoulder blades and down his back at the sudden halt. With his legs hanging, he watched the corpse hurtle toward the river. It dropped with everything pointing south. It fell like it had hung from the bridge… dangling toes, limp arms; even its face watched the water as it plummeted.

The loud splash disappeared almost instantly. The river consumed both the corpse and the disturbance. Another casualty meant nothing for the powerful body of water.

As well as the searing pain in his back, the sudden halt felt like it had broken his hands, but Michael held on to the thick knot.

As Michael swung with the other corpses in the wind he saw where the rope had snapped.

The break happened at the point that would have been level with the corpse’s Adam’s apple. Two separate strands, both frayed where it broke, hung loose. Even in the darkness, he could see the stain where it had snapped. It must have been where the body had started to rot around it and the juice of fleshy decay had weakened the fibers.

The sour tang of rot filled his senses. It may have been from the freshly snapped rope or the bodies surrounding him. It didn’t matter; it stank and he needed to get away from it. A few weeks ago, Michael had never smelled the reek of death; now it seemed like he couldn’t avoid it.

Still gasping from the fall, Michael’s lungs burned as he breathed in the freezing air. The rope above creaked. Please don’t let that snap too. The corpses next to him hung limp and lifeless; their downcast faces emphasizing his fate.

A particularly strong breeze barreled down the river, catching Michael and all of those around him and pushing them in the same direction. As he flew back in toward the bridge, spinning above the water, he crashed into the body next to him. The surprisingly firm corpse released a strong stench like he’d opened a jar of rotting offal and Michael gagged; if only he could cover his nostrils.

He did the next best thing; he closed his eyes. If he couldn’t see the corpses, then they didn’t exist.

Wind Chime

When Michael opened his eyes, he jumped and kicked his legs. Hanging from the end of the rope, he twisted like a fish on a line. The woman next to him had maggots crawling from her eyes. The sight seemed to heighten the fetid smell of the dead.

After the initial panic, Michael fell limp again but kept his grip firm. The movement drained his energy. Energy he needed to get back up to the bridge.

Another strong breeze sent him crashing into the woman again. He could cope with that, the maggots on the other hand... a wave of repulsion snapped through him.

Although he didn’t want to look at it, Michael kept staring at the decaying face. Tilly and his mum would have no doubt ended up looking the same if the house hadn’t burned down. Puffy, gray, and crawling with maggots, the corpse stared at him through the fleshy pits that used to be her eyes.

“Michael.”

Michael looked up at Lola.

“You did great, kiddo, now find some strength and climb back up. You’ve done the hard bit. You’ve held on.”

The action of tilting his head back to see Lola sent him swinging, and he crashed into the maggot-ridden corpse yet again. The dead woman continued to stare at him.

Michael stared back at the hideous creature and said, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?” Lola said. “What have I done?”

He didn’t bother explaining; she’d work it out. Michael yelled from the effort of swinging his feet forward and clamped them onto the woman’s hips in front of him. If he hadn’t crashed into her so many times, he may have feared the rotten corpse would also crumble and fall from the rope. He’d felt her hard body against his too many times to believe that now.

Sharp aches streaked up the inside of Michael’s thighs as he tightened his grip with his legs. It took enough of his weight off for him to pull himself up the rope with his sore hands.

He made slow progress, but it was progress. Centimeter by centimeter, he moved higher up the woman, clamping his feet around her middle, and then her shoulders, and then finally her head.

When he was high enough to move back onto his rope, he took a second to recover his breath and watched the corpse—more specifically, the rope around her neck. What if it snapped when he pushed off?

If he didn’t risk it, he’d be there all day. Three, two, one. He pushed from the woman and jumped back to his rope.

He made it.

As he stood on the knot he swung more than ever, but he’d made it.

***

Michael climbed again, and when he got near the top of the rope, he felt Lola’s strong grip on the back of his jacket as she pulled him higher. He nearly gave over to it and trusted in her completely—his tired muscles desperate for the rest—but that would be stupid; she couldn’t lift him from there.

Shaking, his arms weak, Michael grunted one final effort as he pulled to the top.

Tears stung his eyes when he managed to wrap his weak grip around the cold metal railing running along the top of the wall. What little strength he had left in him all but vanished and he let Lola drag him over.

It may have been a short fall to the ground, but that didn’t stop the jarring pain that ran through him when he hit it.

Michael blinked for a few seconds to try to clear his blurred vision. It didn’t work and the clouds closed in.

No Rest for the Rich Kid

When Michael opened his eyes, the stress lines left Lola’s face, and she smiled at him. “Well done, Nearly Eleven. I don’t know how you managed to get back up after that, but well done.”

“What’s wrong?” Michael said.

Pulling her head back, Lola frowned at him. “Huh?”

“Something’s up. You’re being nice.”

“I can be nice, you know.”

Michael gave her a dead stare.

“Okay, fine. You’ve been lying there for about ten minutes now. We have to go. We have to get off this bridge.”

A throbbing ache sat deep in his muscles. “I need more time.”

After an anxious look in both directions, Lola returned her attention to him. “We don’t have any more time. Ten minutes is too much as it is. We’re trapped on here. If someone else comes, we’re fucked.”

After releasing a deep sigh, Michael sat up.

When he got to his feet, everything trembled. He rested on the side of the bridge, and the cold metal of the handrail stung the rope burns on his palms. The wind tossed his fine hair. For a moment, his world spun as he squinted to see the end of the bridge. He needed longer to rest. When Lola looked at him, he patted the handrail. “I’ll try and walk. It’ll help if I rest on this.”

He didn’t need to look any weaker in front of her than he already did.

“Whatever it takes, as long as we’re walking.”

Lola walked next to Michael as he dragged his feet in a slow trudge. His aching body loosened up with each step. It became easier to lift his legs, and his lungs took in more air. He turned to Lola and offered her a weak smile. “Thank you.”

Lola looked at him but didn’t reply.

“I would have let go if you weren’t there. You really helped me get back up here.”

Lola’s laugh carried across the night. “All I did was shout at you,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I can do that more often, if you like.”

“And you called me Michael while you were doing it.”

A half smile lifted Lola’s lips. “Don’t get used to it, Nearly Eleven.”

“I won’t, but I won’t forget it either.”

Michael didn’t hear what Lola said when she replied—suddenly, nothing else mattered. With his stomach clamping tight and his breath quickening again, he pointed at the horizon. It took him a few seconds to find his words. “The… th… th… they’re coming back, Lola.”

As he watched the two sets of headlights appear from the corner they’d disappeared around earlier, Michael heard Lola’s reply.

“Oh fuck!”

Run, Lola, Run

Michael froze as he watched the approaching vehicles. “Please stop. Please turn around.”

Lola scoffed. “You don’t live in a fucking Disney movie, Nearly Eleven. They ain’t stopping for shit.”

“We need to run then.”

When Lola didn’t reply, Michael looked across to see her staring at the side of the bridge again. The ache in his palms throbbed, and the trucks were getting closer. “No way; I’m not going over the top again… I can’t. We need to run.”

With a shaking hand, Michael pointed in front of them. “We need to run that way.”

“Are you insane? That’s toward them.”

“It’s the shorter distance. We won’t make it if we run the other way.” The horns of the two vehicles sounded out in the still night. Had they seen them already?

When Lola didn’t reply, Michael grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “We need to run.”

But she still didn’t move. “Come on, Lola.”

Nothing.

Michael ran, the aches of a few minutes ago vanishing with his adrenalin rush.

The sound of Lola’s heavy feet chased him, so Michael pushed harder. Despite the adrenalin surge, his legs buckled and stumbled. Each step could be the next to throw him to the ground.

The trucks got closer.

With Lola a few steps behind, Michael called, “Come on; speed up.”

Less than fifty feet from the end of the bridge, Michael looked across at the trucks. They were too close. A glance over at the river below and Michael saw the pavement that ran beneath the bridge—about a nine-foot drop onto steps. Not ideal. “Come on, Lola.”

Michael crossed over to the side of the bridge farthest away from the men and vaulted over the barrier.

As he fell toward the steps, it took everything not to scream, and his stomach lurched into his throat.

The second he hit the hard ground, he crumpled and rolled down the stairs, whacking his head on every step until he landed at the bottom on his back. When he looked up at the dark sky, his head spun, and his ankle throbbed.

Lola vaulted over a second later and he watched her land with the grace of a cat.

The pain that radiated from Michael’s ankle turned his entire body weak.

Whether broken or not, he didn’t have time for it. Michael looked up at the approaching lights. They didn’t have much time.

As if hearing his thoughts, Lola ran down the short flight of stairs. She lifted his arm around her shoulders and stood up with him.

The slightest pressure ran an electric buzz through his ankle as he climbed the steps, so he put as much of his weight on the girl and his good foot as he could.

Once they’d climbed the four or five stairs that led them under the bridge, Lola guided him over to an upright wall. After she’d lowered him down, Michael looked up at the underside of the bridge that formed a roof over their heads.

The cold ground would have been a problem on any other day, but with the sharp pain tearing through Michael’s damaged ankle, it didn’t matter. “I think it’s broken, Lola.”

When Lola put a finger to her lips and pointed up, Michael listened. The vehicles had stopped above them.

Doors opened and he heard a man’s voice.

“How long do you think it’ll take for these bodies to rot and fall into the river?”

A cold chill ran through Michael. That voice! The man may have worn a bag over his head in the warehouse, but he’d recognize that voice anywhere. It was the voice that called for the boys to come and see Julius. When they didn’t come, it was the voice that grew heated and threatened to beat them. It was the voice that laughed as he dragged them away against their will.

The voice didn’t have to listen to the boys afterward though; the screams that accompanied the night terrors. The whimpering sobs as they rocked in a cold and dark corner for days. The cries that not even the biggest of boys could hold back…

When Lola nudged him, Michael snapped out of it and looked at her. She pointed up at the bridge above them. “They’ve moved. You ready to go?”

Nodding, Michael put pressure on his ankle and regretted it instantly as splinters of agony streaked up his leg.

Lola put his arm around her shoulders again and lifted him to his feet.

Panting from the effort, Michael hobbled toward the stairs on the side of the bridge.

When they got to the edge, Lola stopped.

“What is it?” Michael said.

Shuffling back a pace, dragging Michael with her, Lola pulled them into the shadows.

Before she could speak, the two vehicles passed overhead again.

The pair stood in silence and listened.

When the vehicles turned around and parked directly above them, Lola sighed. “We ain’t going anywhere for a while.”

She helped Michael sit again and dropped down next to him. “It looks like we’d best get comfy.”

Morning

The cold pavement had turned Michael’s arse numb. He’d been sitting on it for hours. When he rolled from side to side, it did nothing for the dead pain, and the movement only made his ankle hurt more.

The vehicle’s engines started above them, and he looked up. A few seconds later, they drove off. Tiredness added a croak to his voice. “Do you think they’ve gone now?”

With puffy bags sitting beneath her eyes, Lola also looked up and shrugged. “Dunno. I thought they’d gone when they drove off in the middle of the night, but they keep coming back. That must be what, the fourth time now?”

Michael looked across the river to the other side, his eyes stinging. A thick mist hung above the water, but the early morning light helped him see the dark shapes of the two vehicles as they drove away. “Do they ever sleep? Surely they must feel the need to go home to bed at some point.”

“I know, right?”

“So what do you reckon; we give it twenty minutes and then we leave?”

Lola looked down at his ankle. “Are you up for moving?”

Michael winced as he lifted his leg. The throb sat deep in the joint. When he eased it back down, he flinched as it touched the ground. “Not really, but do I have a choice? It’s not like we can wait here.”

A worried frown crushed Lola’s face as she continued staring at Michael’s ankle.

What could he tell her? She didn’t need the stress of his injuries on top of everything else. “Honestly, the pain’s easing a little. I think I’ll be all right.” His mum always said some lies were okay.

Although she wore the same worried frown, Lola directed it across the river to where the cars had disappeared. “Okay, let’s give it twenty minutes. If they haven’t returned by then, I think we should go.”

***

After about fifteen minutes, Michael rolled his trouser leg up and his sock down. Not even the hazy dawn could hide the purple bruising and swelling. “It’s nowhere near as bad as I thought. I was expecting it to be black.”

Lola looked at it but didn’t reply; her brow creased with concern.

“What?”

“It looks terrible.”

It did look terrible and felt even worse. “What can we do? We need to get out of here and that involves me walking unless you’ve got a wheelchair.”

Lola didn’t respond.

The corpses became clearer with the morning light, and Michael watched them swing beneath the bridge. A blond woman hung close to them. “I can’t believe Mum killed herself and Matilda.”

“Maybe your sister wanted to die too. Life ain’t pretty for a woman in this world. It was pretty fucking bad before, but now, it’s insane.”

Instead of replying, Michael said, “There aren’t any children hanging up.”

He watched Lola look all the way down one side of the bridge and then back up the other. “You’re right.”

“They’re too valuable to them. You say it isn’t a good world for women, but it’s a pretty shit world for children too. They don’t get hanged because they end up in places like the warehouse.”

Lola frowned at Michael. “What happened to you?”

Michael looked away. The vehicles hadn’t returned. “That’s got to be twenty minutes now; we should go.”

Although Michael could feel the intense scrutiny from Lola, she didn’t question him any further.

With the wall as a support, Michael got to his feet. Once he was upright, he tested his bad ankle and nearly fell to the ground again.

“How is it?”

“I can’t walk on it, but it’s getting better. I think it’ll be okay in a day or two.”

Lola held her arm out for support and, taking them one at a time, led him down the stairs.

Both of them watched the other side of the river as they moved. If the men returned, they needed to see them early—a quick getaway was virtually impossible.

***

With the bridge far behind them, Michael leaned on Lola, and they hobbled down another deserted street. “I’m sorry.”

“Will you stop apologizing? If we hadn’t jumped off the bridge, we’d be in the back of their truck right now.”

Grinding his jaw against the biting wind, Michael scanned the empty street. Litter rode the strong currents. The terraced houses all seemed to be empty, although he couldn’t be sure because an impenetrable darkness sat just beyond the windows. Michael’s skin turned to gooseflesh; anyone could be watching them right now. They could see the vulnerable pair and decide to jump them at any point.

A particularly grimy house stood on their right. The paint on the front door peeled away in flakes, and the grass in the garden had grown to waist height. The place had, without a doubt, been abandoned a long time ago, long before London fell into ruin.

Distracted by the house, Michael didn’t see it coming.

But he sure as hell felt it when the plastic smothered his face and cut off his breathing.

Watched

For a few heart-hammering moments, Michael couldn’t see a thing. He flapped and batted at his face until he’d finally pulled the plastic bag off. As he watched it fly down the road, he released a heavy sigh.

Lola smirked. “Bit jumpy?”

“Whatever,” Michael said. On his next step, his ankle turned over and sent searing pain up his shin. He cried out.

Lola watched him with her hands on her hips. She then turned her back to him and hunched over as if to show him her bottom.

Michael didn’t move.

“Jesus, Nearly Eleven, I’m not standing like this for my own fucking good. Get on my back; I’m sick of your moaning.”

She didn’t need to tell him twice.

Lola struggled and grunted as she carried Michael. It left little room for conversation.

The houses were as abandoned on this street as on the last. Empty windows stared out at them, watching them pass and concealing the lurkers within.

Pain continued to pulse through his ankle, but it helped to not walk on it. “It’s getting better, you know. I think I’ll be able to walk on it in a day or two.”

“Good. I don’t want to have to carry you for weeks.”

Michael sighed.

“Fucking hell, Nearly Eleven, I’m only playing with ya. I’ll help you for as long as you need me to. Jesus, you need to be less sensitive, dude.”

It was a good thing Lola couldn’t see his face because his eyes had started to water. She’d been so good to him—he was lucky to have found her. Maybe he should trust her more; she needed to understand where he’d been. He cleared his throat. “I recognized the voices of the men on the bridge, Lola. They were the men from the warehouse. They’re bad men. I hear their voices in my head every time I go to sleep.” Tears ran down his cheeks. “They did awful things to the boys. I was one of the lucky ones that managed to escape before anything horrible happened to me. I feel terrible for those I left behind. Everyone had a turn. That was how it worked, but I missed my turn…”

Michael could tell she was listening by the way she tilted her head in his direction, but Lola didn’t reply.

Clearing the lump in his throat, he spoke in barely a whisper. “I got away.”

Chain Gang

At a guess, Michael would have said they’d been walking for an hour or so. They made slow progress with Lola carrying him, but it sure beat walking. A jagged ache still ran from his ankle all the way up his leg, although he kept quiet about that. After carrying him for so long, Lola didn’t need to hear him complain.

Lola stopped for the third time in what must have been the past ten minutes. “This is killing my back. I think we’re far enough away from the bridge now. What do you say we find somewhere to hide for the day?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Michael said as he scanned the horizon. “It won’t be long before morning and I think with some more rest, I’ll be moving more freely.”

Lola nodded across the road. “There?”

Michael looked at the huge building and shivered. “Are you sure that’s where you want to stay?”

“Do you think they’ll come looking for us in there?”

After a deep gulp, Michael shook his head. “I don’t think anyone will go in there.”

“Exactly. Come on.”

***

When Lola twisted the huge metal handle, the front door swung open with little effort.

Michael slid from Lola’s back and hobbled in behind her. He looked up as he walked; the height of the building made his head spin.

The poor light didn’t stretch all the way to the ceiling. Anything could be up there. Most probably bats. A series of windows ran down either side of the building. About ten feet tall, all of them had stained glass at the tip.

As they walked down the carpeted aisles and passed bookshelves on either side, Michael scanned the room. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here since the world collapsed.”

“Sad, isn’t it?” Lola said. “Everything goes to shit, and the first thing to be abandoned is literature. Libraries were a dying resource before the crash, so I suppose it’s naïve to expect them to be anything but now. Who wants books when your basic human needs aren’t being met?”

Michael used the bookshelves to lean on as he walked; his palms still stung from the rope burns. Every time he shifted his hand along, dust kicked up into the air.

As Lola walked, she looked at the spines of each book, her lips moving as she read the titles.

Michael nearly bumped into her when she suddenly stopped and pulled one of the books out. “Sweet, The Road by Cormac McCarthy; a hardcover too!” She waved it in Michael’s direction. “Have you read it?”

Michael shook his head as he looked at the green book cover with no pictures on it. “What’s it about?”

“A dad and his boy trying to survive in a world full of rapists and murderers. Quite a lot like what we’re trying to live through at the moment.”

Although Lola smiled, her eyes didn’t.

When they reached the end of the library, they found a colorful area full of children’s books and bright cushions. Michael recognized the titles on these shelves. He didn’t tell Lola that. She’d hardly want to talk Lemony Snicket and Harry Potter; even if the last few Harry Potters were really long like proper books.

Lola set about arranging the cushions into a bed. “This is as good a place as any to get some rest. Make yourself comfortable, Nearly Eleven; we’re going to be here for a few hours.”

The weight of the cushions made them hard to drag across the floor, especially with the pain in his ankle. While gritting his teeth, Michael pushed through it.

When he’d finally positioned them next to Lola, he lay down and closed his eyes.

The second he blocked the world out, he saw his dad’s death and heard the screams of the boys from the warehouse. He fought to keep his eyes shut, clamping them so hard it almost hurt. He kept them shut even when he started to see the images of skinny and dirty boys with hollow cheeks and bags beneath their eyes. Even when he smelled the acidic tang of piss and shit from the corner of the room they stayed in. Even when he tasted the blood in his mouth from the beating they gave him when he was first dragged in there. Opening his eyes would banish all of the memories, but he needed to rest.

Michael turned his back on Lola and lay on his side. The warm trickle of tears ran over the bridge of his nose and across his right temple.

***

When Michael opened his eyes and rolled over, Lola had gone. He sat bolt upright and searched the library. Darkness surrounded him. He called out with a trembling voice, “Lola?”

Then he saw her by one of the windows and his heart lifted.

When he stood up, the pain in his ankle had lost its bite and a dull ache had replaced the sharp sting. He hobbled over to her and said, “I thought you’d left me.”

When he got close enough to see her, he froze. She glared at him with her finger pressed to her lips.

Something had happened outside. Once again, Michael’s heart took on an irregular tempo. When he heard the scraping of chains over concrete, nausea boiled in his stomach. They’d been tied to his ankles just a few weeks ago. He limped over to Lola’s side and shook in anticipation of what he was about to see.

A line of boys walked down the road in the fading light. Each one’s ankles were chained to the boy’s in front of him. They moved to the rhythm that each and every one of them called out. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.”

A loud thump rang out as the boy at the back of the line fell over. He looked exhausted. As Michael continued to watch, his stomach tensed and dread sank through him.

The man at the back walked up behind the boy and kicked his arse. “Get up, you little piece of shit. If you think this walk is hard, wait until you see what we have in store for you. Wait until you meet Julius.”

The name turned Michael’s blood cold.

Instead of standing back up, the boy curled in a ball and sobbed. The rest of the line continued walking. When the chains in front of him snapped taut, his legs stretched out until the line dragged him across the pavement behind them.

The man who’d told him to get up leaned over him, walking at the same pace that the boy was being dragged at. “Get up, now, you piece of shit. Don’t make me tell you again.”

The boy stayed down. He cried and shook his head.

The man shouted at the line, “Halt!”

The line stopped.

The boy snapped himself back into a ball and rocked on the pavement. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Everyone had turned to the man at the back. While the boys watched him with wide eyes, the other guards watched him with wide grins.

“Yes, you fucking little cunt. Yes,” the guard said to him.

Some of the other guards laughed as the man pulled his leg back. They laughed even louder when he drove it into the skinny boy’s curled form.

The boy yelped as the hollow sound of the boot connected with him.

“Get up, boy.”

Winded and writhing in pain, the boy stayed down.

The man kicked him again and the cracking sound of breaking bones echoed in the air.

Michael turned away from the window, but he still listened.

Another heavy thud.

Another dry crack.

Another yelp from the boy.

Michael cringed.

Another heavy thud.

Another dry crack.

Another yelp from the boy.

He still didn’t look but the sounds told him everything.

Another heavy thud.

Another dry crack.

Another heavy thud.

Another heavy thud.

Another heavy thud.

Silence.

A single tear rolled down Michael’s cheek.

“Well, he’s no fucking good to us now, is he?” It was another one of the men. “Cut the little cunt loose.”

The chains rattled, and then the guard at the back shouted, “March, you little fuckers, unless you want some of what that stupid cunt got.”

Chains dragged across the pavement again, and Michael counted with the boys. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.”

Moving On

Long after the sound of the chains had vanished, Michael got to his feet and peered out of the window. The body of the boy remained on the pavement, still curled defensively as if, even in death, he feared the men’s wrath.

After watching him for a few more seconds, willing some movement from the limp form, he turned to Lola. “We need to get out of this city.”

Lola looked out of the window too and her eyes settled on the boy. For a few seconds, she said nothing. Then she said, “How do you know it’s not just as bad outside of London? Maybe the entire country’s gone to shit. Maybe the entire world.”

Had she not just seen what had happened to the boy outside? “Well, it can’t be any worse. Is it not worth looking at least? There must be somewhere safe out there.”

When Lola turned on him, Michael flinched. Fire burned both in her green eyes and her cheeks. “When will you accept that nowhere is safe? Safe doesn’t exist. Even if you do end up feeling safe for a while, it’ll go. It always does. You fall in love with people, and they leave you or die. You have a home, and it gets burned down. You get a job, and then society collapses.” Her face contorted when she pointed at her own temple. “You need to get that childish fantasy out of your thick head. You need to live in the moment more. Right now, everything’s fine. All we can do is take pigeon steps and hope that each one is as comfortable as the last. To wish for anything more is naïve.”

It didn’t help that his bottom lip started to tremble. It made him look like even more of a child. “Why do you have to take my hope away?”

“Because hope is for fools. Hope left when society collapsed.”

Unable to reply, Michael stared at the angry girl.

Lola turned away from both Michael and the window. “Look, I’ll walk you to the edge of the city, and then you’re on your own, okay?”

“But why, Lola? Why don’t you just come with me? What’s here for you?”

“London’s my home; it’s where I belong.”

Michael looked outside again at the dead boy. “How can you call this your home? London’s a home for child abuse, rape, and murder. You’re better than this, Lola.”

Lola rolled her eyes. “What am I supposed to do in the country, eh? Get a cottage and grow my own vegetables in the back garden?”

“Why not?”

“And then we could live happily ever after, right? Get a grip, Nearly Eleven.” She pointed to the ground. “This is where I belong.”

Despite the angry lines gripping her tense face, Michael held eye contact with her. “What’s the real reason?”

“What?”

“London’s horrible now; so what’s the real reason for you wanting to stay here?”

She rushed forward, stopping just inches from him. “Fuck off.”

While wiping her spittle from his face, Michael said, “Why are you saying that?”

“You’re ten—nearly eleven. When did you get all fucking insightful?”

Michael remained quiet.

The anger left Lola, and she looked at her feet, her voice softening. “I’ve already told you, I want to find my dad. Anyway, what’s with all the questions?”

Michael wanted to ask her why she was allowed to hope to find her dad, while he had to accept his hope was for fools? He stared at her and didn’t say anything.

“I know he never visited me after him and Mum split up.”

“So why try and find him now?” Michael asked.

“What are you trying to say? He didn’t give a shit about me then, so why should he give a shit about me now?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Look, Nearly Eleven, this heart-to-heart has been nice and everything, but I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you to come with me. We can survive this together.”

“All I have left in this world is my dad—or at least the possibility that my dad is still alive. I need to try and find him.”

“You have me now. We have each other.”

“No offense, but I don’t want to be babysitting for the rest of my life.”

Although her derision hit him like a gut punch, something outside caught Michael’s eye. He pushed down on Lola’s shoulder and dropped beneath the window next to her.

When she looked at him, he pressed a finger across his lips and pointed a thumb at the wall.

While staring at Lola, he listened. The windows may have been thick, but he could still hear people walking across the pavement. One of them spoke. A boy; his voice was deeper than Michael’s, but not quite a man yet. “What the fuck? How do you think this boy got here, Archie?”

Another, deeper voice replied, “He was probably killed like every other dead body we’ve come across.”

Although one voice was deeper than the other, they sounded exactly the same. They must be brothers.

The deeper voice spoke again. “Come on now; let’s keep moving.”

Even with the thick wall and window, Michael held his breath as he listened to the boys.

“Wait,” the younger one said.

Looking into Lola’s wide eyes, Michael heard the footsteps outside getting closer. He pushed himself flat against the cold, stone wall beneath the window and pulled Lola in next to him.

A shadow pressed up against the window above him, so Michael pushed farther into the hard wall. A nauseating throb ran through his ankle, but he couldn’t move. The boys could be working for Julius.

“It’s a library, Archie. It looks empty. Why don’t we rest up for the night?”

The younger boy’s breath steamed up the window above as he kept his face pressed to it. When the other one called to him, he moved away. “We’ve got to keep moving. Why the fuck would we want to camp out in a library?”

“Because it’ll be safe.”

“Getting out of this city will be safe. Come on, let’s go.”

The shadow of the boy stepped back from the window, his footsteps moving away from them as he crossed the pavement. When it sounded like they were far enough away, Michael leaned close to Lola. “You don’t need to babysit me. You need me around. If it wasn’t for me, they would have just found us then. I’m a help.”

Rolling her eyes, Lola shook her head and started to crawl away from the window. “Come on, Nearly Eleven, let’s go.”

Disposal

As they left the library, Michael looked toward the boy on the pavement. “It feels wrong to leave him here.”

After looking at the dead kid, Lola searched their surroundings and threw a flippant shrug at him. “What do you suppose we do? Dig a hole in the pavement for him?”

Her cruelty stung, but she was right.

They moved on without another word, Michael giving the corpse such a wide berth he walked down the center of the road on the other side of the white line.

Lola shook her head at him and stepped over the boy.

Although he continued to glance back over his shoulder at the dead boy, Michael fell back into line with Lola.

After he checked behind for what must have been the fifth or sixth time, Lola said, “Are you waiting for him to get up and walk away or something?”

“I dunno; it’s just… that boy could have been me. I was captured and led to the warehouse like him. I could be the one left dead on the pavement. I just feel guilty, that's all.”

Lola stopped walking and stared at him.

“What?” Michael asked.

But she didn’t reply. Instead, she groaned, turned around, and headed back toward the boy.

“What are you doing?” Michael called, but she didn’t respond. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he hobbled after her. “Lola, what are you going to do?”

Lola stopped next to the body and Michael caught up with her. When she bent down and grabbed the boy’s ankles, Michael gasped. “What are you doing?”

The boy’s head bounced against the hard pavement as she dragged him toward the library’s entrance.

“Be careful with him.”

Lola stopped still, kept a hold of the boy, and stared at Michael. Ice hung off every word. “He’s dead. I’m sure he doesn’t care about being dragged. If you keep complaining, I’m going to leave him here for the crows. Is that what you want?”

Michael shook his head.

After watching him for a few more seconds as if daring him to say something else, Lola resumed with dragging the boy toward the library.

Hobbling ahead of her, Michael pulled the huge wooden door open. The old hinges creaked, echoing through the high-ceilinged building.

After Lola had dragged him through, Michael let the door fall closed and watched her drag him to one of the aisles.

Her scowl said, “Back the fuck off,” but Michael couldn’t. “You’re going to leave him there?”

She cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head to one side.

Michael didn’t ask her anything else.

When she pulled a book from the shelf and a lighter from her pocket, Michael gasped again.

“Do you need a fucking inhaler or something?” Lola asked.

Before he could say anything, she struck the lighter, opened the book slightly, and held the flame to the pages. It went up almost instantly. She put the lighter back in her pocket and pulled another book from a shelf. Using the first book, she lit the second.

After setting fire to several more books, she placed them individually on the shelves surrounding the dead boy and pulled more books onto each one.

Before long, flames had spread along the lines of books, and smoke filled the air. The brightness and heat increased with each passing second.

“You wanted a proper send-off,” Lola said. “What better way than a cremation that will light up the entire city?”

The plastic taste of smoke snaked into Michael’s throat, and he had to swallow to get his words out. “But won’t everyone see this?”

“Yes, and we’ll be nowhere near it when they do; as long as we leave now, that is. It’s perfect; it’ll distract the bad men while we make our escape.”

Michael turned back to the flames, the heat tingling against his skin as he stood hypnotized by the orange glow. Fatigue stung his eyes, and he lost focus.

When he looked around a few seconds later, Lola had gone. After another glance at the dead boy on the floor, he left too.

Stay With Me

Michael clenched his jaw against the biting cold as he walked down the street with Lola. They hadn’t spoken since leaving the library.

The only light came from the moon in the cloudless sky. Michael looked back in the direction they’d come from. “It won’t be long before the library’s lighting up the whole of London. That many books are going to make one hell of a bonfire.”

Michael stumbled to the side when Lola suddenly shoved him. “Hey, what was that for?”

She nodded at his feet. “Your ankle’s better then?”

“Yeah, it seems a lot better. It still hurts a little, but it can take my weight now.”

Her eyes narrowed and her tone sharpened. “So I carried you all that way for nothing?” She tutted at him. “You were acting like it was broken.”

Michael threw his arms up and stopped. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been bitchy since you woke up. Have you got your period or something?”

At first, Lola just stared at him, her fists clenched as she ground her jaw. Then her brow softened, and her eyes widened slightly. A twitch of her mouth and she snorted before she started to laugh.

“What’s so fucking funny?”

When Lola ruffled his shaggy hair, it took everything he had not to swing for her.

“Come on, Nearly Eleven; let’s walk. Maybe I’ll explain a thing or two to you about how to talk to women.”

Michael stared at her back as she walked away, shook his head, and then followed after her.

***

All that was left of the supermarket’s logo was the letter T. The other letters seemed to have completely vanished. It seemed odd that anyone would steal them.

As they walked across the front of the supermarket, they had to step through the once metal frame that had been the automatic door at the main entrance. At one point, it would have been glazed but not anymore. Shards of glass jutted from the frame as jagged points, but most of it littered the ground in a million shiny pieces. It crunched beneath Michael’s and Lola’s feet, popping in the still night. At least they would hear someone if they tried to come after them.

There had been little conversation between the two since leaving the library. No education in the ways of women like Lola had threatened. Not that Michael wanted to be schooled by the grouchy girl. Other than the sounds beneath their feet, the pair walked in silence and both studied the shadows in the building on their right.

It was hard to see, but all of the shelves looked empty. To be sure, Michael would have to get closer. He didn’t need to be sure. As he squinted into the darkness through unblinking eyes, Michael’s heart beat in his throat. Danger stirred in there.

Like Michael, Lola stared into the empty building. “My mum, sister, and I headed to the local church when society collapsed,” she said. “Mum didn’t think she could protect us on her own. We were nearly raped on our way there, so I’m guessing she was right.”

Shuddering, Michael focused on Lola as much as he could while shutting out the nagging memories of the warehouse at the back of his mind. The screams. The cries. The beatings. When Lola spoke again, it broke through his spiraling mood. “That was in the early days, just as everything collapsed. When the power went out, everyone knew the world had gone to shit. Everything boiled over quickly and descended into chaos. Before long the streets were coated in blood. It was almost like we were waiting for it to happen. Like all everyone wanted was an excuse to tear one another apart.”

The image of the blood pooling beneath his dad’s head returned to Michael. “I was hiding inside my house with my family. It was where we were caught in the end, but I’m glad we stayed there for as long as we did. I don’t think we would have lasted two minutes on the streets.”

Lola sighed. “I think it was the looting that saved us in those early days. We didn’t try to take anything, so that made us less of a threat. There were too many people in direct competition for all of the available food. As we walked past people killing each other, Mum told us not to look, but I did. You have to, right? I wish I’d grabbed some of the food though. What I’d do for a bag of crisps right now.”

Holding his rumbling stomach, Michael groaned. “Aw, don’t talk about food. I’ve been trying to ignore how hungry I am for days.”

Michael frowned hard when he put his full weight on his leg. Although not as sharp, a deep ache ran through the joint. It felt like it could give way beneath him at any moment. He stared into the supermarket again. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to run any time soon.

***

The conversation had died since the supermarket, so Michael said, “Why don’t you wait until you get to the edge of the city with me before you decide whether you’re going to stay or not?”

“Persistent little shit, aren’t you? I don’t want to leave the city; you already know that.”

Despite trying his best to mask it, Michael couldn’t keep the desperate whine from his voice. “Will you just think about it, please?” He couldn’t survive without her.

Lola scowled at him but soon relaxed. “Fine; if it’ll shut you up, I’ll think about going with you and tell you when we’re at the edge of the city.”

When Michael smiled, Lola cut a sharp hand through the air. “But drop it now, yeah? And remember, I’m not making any promises at all.”

He’d already pushed his luck, so Michael didn’t say anything else. Instead, he looked across at the park next to the supermarket. There were swings, slides, and even a huge pirate ship. The absence of children made the recreational area look haunted.

“I know you feel like you’ve bailed me out several times, Lola, and you have, but I’m not completely useless. I’ve saved you a few times. It was me who got us off the bridge eventually.”

“Whilst fucking your ankle up and expecting me to carry you for miles. Sure, you made the decision of where to go, but you fucked up, and I had to deal with the consequences.”

“Well, what about back in the library? If it wasn’t for me, those boys would have seen us, broken in, and taken us.”

“Taken us where? Why would they want us? It’s not like they have a prison to keep us in. Maybe the boys were friendly.”

Michael shook his head. “Who in this city’s friendly?”

“I am.”

Michael laughed, and Lola threw him a stern glare. “Shh, you need to keep your voice down. Anyway, maybe you have been a help to me. If nothing else, you’ve given me some harebrained ideas that made me laugh.”

Instead of biting at her goading, Michael held eye contact with the girl. “See, where else would you get this level of entertainment if we part ways when we get to the edge of the city?”

The first creases of a smile spread away from the edges of Lola’s mouth as she stared straight ahead and continued her brisk pace.

Secret Stash

The cold wind stung Michael’s eyes as they walked the streets on high alert just in case. It had been a few hours since they’d left the library, and as yet, there had been no danger—long may it stay that way. Maybe everyone was too concerned with the raging inferno that dominated the skyline. The library had gone up so well, it sat like a sun on the horizon.

The ache in Michael’s ankle had grown progressively worse. A cold layer of sweat stood out on his brow and he winced every time he put pressure on it. But he didn’t say anything to Lola.

A heavy drop of cold rain landed on his head and Michael looked up at the sky. He flinched when a drop landed in his eye.

Before he could say anything, he saw Lola hold her hand out, palm up as if to catch the drops. “It’s too fucking cold to be wet as well. It won’t be long until morning. We should find somewhere to stay for the day.”

Thank god. “Cool, if you think that’s the right thing to do.”

Lola looked up at the sky and then back at Michael again. “Do you think we should keep going?”

Michael shook his head. Maybe he’d acted too cool. “No, I think we should stop too. Like you said, we don’t want to get wet as well as cold.”

When Lola stopped, Michael followed her line of sight. She was looking at a small shop. It had a steel shutter pulled down in front of it, but the metal had been bent away at the bottom. It left a gap big enough for a person to crawl through.

Michael led the way over to it with Lola following behind. He peered in. When he pulled back, Lola was so close he bumped into her, stumbled, and bit back a yelp as pain ran through his ankle.

“Well?” she said.

He crouched down and looked in again. “I dunno; it’s dark in there.”

Looking both left and right, Lola paused for a moment as if he would get her point.

When Michael didn’t respond, she said, “It’s dark everywhere.”

Michael looked at the fire on the horizon, and Lola rolled her eyes.

“My point is,” Michael said, “I can’t see if it’s safe in there or not.”

A strong gust of wind rocked him where he crouched, and deep splinters of pain shot up from his ankle. The rain fell harder.

Lola wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Let’s go in and look. It seems to be empty.”

Unease sat in Michael’s gut like a rock, but he didn’t say anything. After another quick look around, he crawled into the space with Lola following behind.

Once they were inside, Michael watched Lola remove her lighter. Creating a strobe effect, it took several sparks before the flame took.

The room was empty.

Lola let her lighter die. “I think we’ll be all right. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for months.”

More than happy to let Lola go first, Michael followed her to the back wall and the door leading to the storeroom. The gap in the shutters let enough light in for them to see. When they stepped into the storeroom however, it was pitch black.

Flinching with every flash of Lola’s lighter, the bright sparks stinging his already sore eyes, Michael pieced the room together. Again, the flame took and filled the room with flickering shadows.

“I’m starting to realize,” Michael said, “that once you’ve seen one storeroom, you’ve seen them all.”

Like in the other storerooms, a desk sat in the corner. Paperwork spilled from it onto the floor; a to-do list that no longer needed to be done. Other than that, the place was empty. The forced entry must have been from a time when there was something worth taking from the shop. That time had well and truly passed.

The chair squeaked when Lola sat down on it and pulled herself toward the desk. She let her lighter turn off and the room was cast into darkness again. Michael listened to Lola pull the desk drawers open, each one screeching. She then closed them, one crack after another.

“Bingo.”

“What?” Michael said. “What is it?”

When her lighter flashed on again, Lola had a cigarette in her mouth. The end of it lifted when she smiled and pressed it to the flame. The flickering light made her tired face look demonic—not that Michael told her. She said she would teach him a few things about women, but he was learning without her guidance. First thing, don’t tell them they look like shit. Ever! Even Tilly got cross with him about that one. The end of the cigarette glowed, and Lola groaned. “Oh. My. God.”

“You had me excited, Lola. I thought you’d found something decent.”

The cherry on the end of Lola’s cigarette glowed again. With every puff, the reek of smoke got stronger, reminding Michael that the charred taste from the library was still sitting at the back of his throat.

“This is decent,” Lola finally said. “There must be at least two hundred cigarettes in here.”

“But you can’t eat or drink cigarettes,” Michael said as he walked closer to her.

When he clattered into a small metal bin, the loud crash rattled his nerves. As it rolled over the hard floor, Michael panted and held his chest. His heart beat against the palm of his hand.

When it stopped, Lola said, “Fucking hell, Nearly Eleven, you trying to give us away or something?”

Michael reached out, found the edge of the desk, and stopped walking. “Is there anything else in there?”

The glow of the cigarette leaned over the desk and he listened to Lola opening more drawers.

When he heard a rustling, Michael drew a sharp intake of breath. “What’s that?”

More rustling was followed by Lola jabbing him in the stomach with the object. He took it off her and waited for her to spark her lighter. “A Snickers?” He laughed. “Wow. Amazing.”

In a flash, he tore the packet open and took a huge bite of the chewy chocolate bar. The sweet and salty taste filled his mouth. After several chews, he swallowed it down.

Just before his next bite, he paused. “Lola?”

Although she was still smoking, the cigarette glowing and the smell of exhaled smoke filling the room, he could hear her mouth slapping too.

Just the thought of it nearly put Michael off his Snickers. Michael had never had a cigarette in his life, but he wasn’t sure if he did, he would be able to eat while doing it.

She finally replied. “Yeah?”

“What if this is someone’s stash? Why would anyone leave cigarettes and chocolate in here?”

Another puff of her cigarette and Lola replied with her mouth still full. “Maybe they went out one day and never came back? There’s no one here, and it doesn’t look like there has been for months. I think we just got lucky.”

“What if we didn’t? What if they’re on their way back right now?”

After a pause and several more puffs on her cigarette, Lola sighed. “I suppose you’re right. How about we take what we can from here and then find somewhere else to stay? What do you say?”

Michael nodded.

“Did you hear me, Nearly Eleven?”

“Sorry, I nodded.”

“It’s dark.”

“Yeah, I realize my mistake now.” No matter how hard he tried, he always felt like a kid around her. "Sounds good. Let’s take this shit and go.”

When Lola stood up, Michael heard the chair roll across the floor away from her.

“I wonder if there are any bags in here,” she said. Lighting her lighter, Lola swept it around the room. “It seriously doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for months, you know? I think we’ll be all right.”

Shaking his head, Michael said, “I still think we should take what we want and go.”

Lola left her lighter on while she stuffed her pockets with cigarettes and chocolate. “Fine, whatever you want. I just think—”

A loud crack stopped her dead.

As one, Michael and Lola turned in the direction of the sound.

Lola lifted her light.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking their exit, were two huge men in thick coats. They looked like nightclub bouncers but angrier.

“Shit!” Lola said before letting the flame on her lighter die.

If Your Name’s Not Down

When the light went out, time seemed to stop. The men only had the memory of where he was, so Michael had to move. He had to let the darkness work for him. He had to be like Batman.

When Michael darted to the side, the movement seemed to spark the entire room into action. No one spoke. It seemed like everyone was listening to the others’ shuffling feet.

When he heard a muffled grunt, Michael stopped and stared in the direction of the sound. Lola?

With the door blocked by the men, Michael headed for the desk. It felt like he’d trip with every step he took, but he remained on his feet.

Someone clattered into the small bin with a crash. Everything stopped.

Then Michael moved again. He found the chair. After grabbing the back of it and lifting it out in front of him, he held his breath. Too much noise would give him away.

The chair wasn’t as heavy as he’d anticipated, and his ankle, although sore, held up.

As he turned around, he expected the chair to connect with somebody, but no one ran into it. He faced the doorway and waited for his moment.

The glare of a flashlight cut through the gloom, stinging Michael’s eyes. Michael launched the chair in its direction.

Following a loud clatter, the man yelled and the flashlight fell to the floor. As it lay there, it drew a beam to the back of the room.

Avoiding the light, Michael pressed his back to one of the dark walls. If they couldn’t see him, he had the advantage. Trying his best to control his breathing even though his heart galloped, he skirted along the wall toward the door leading to the shop.

The flashlight was lifted from the floor but darkness hid the person holding it. Michael had to be quick. He doubled his pace toward the exit.

As the light scanned the room, Michael saw Lola was being choked out by the other man.

All he had to do was reach the door. Even with a sore ankle, he could outrun these men if he needed to.

When he reached the door, he grabbed the handle and listened to Lola fighting for breath. When the light passed over her again, her face was the color of beetroot and her eyes bulged. He couldn’t leave her.

Damn it. Michael let go of the cold handle, took a deep breath, and ran at the man holding Lola. He swung for him, his wrist stinging as his wet punch connected with what felt like the man’s ear.

The flashlight turned on the man, who let go of Lola and grabbed the side of his head where Michael had hit him. “What the fuck?”

Back at the door, Michael pushed the handle down and threw it open. As he sped out, he called, “Come on, Lola.”

Although he didn’t look around, he heard footsteps behind him. The door then crashed into one of their pursuers, and the man screamed. Lola must have slammed it on him.

With Lola on his tail, Michael ran to the bent shutter. One of the men roared. There was a loud thud and crash as one of the men kicked the door open and it hit the wall.

Without breaking stride, Michael ducked through the gap created by the bent shutter and crawled into the street. He glanced up and down the deserted road. The rain still fell. The library still burned on the horizon.

The desire to sprint twitched through him as he watched the gap. “Come on, Lola, hurry up.”

Her head appeared, and Michael went to her. She was halfway through when a large hand reached out and wrapped around her mouth. Her eyes flew wide as the hand then pulled and her head snapped back from the action.

Lola’s eyes went from wide to squinting. The hand disappeared suddenly and yet another deep roar came from one of the men.

“Did you just bite him?” Michael asked.

Preoccupied with trying to get out of the shop, Lola didn’t reply.

Michael reached down, gripped beneath her arms, and pulled her free from the hole.

Falling backward with her, he crashed onto the hard ground and a frigid jolt ran up his spine. They’d fallen into a cold puddle and the water soaked straight through his clothes.

Lola got to her feet first. “Come on, Michael, we’ve got to go; now!”

The head of one of the men appeared at the hole.

Clenching her teeth, Lola swung a kick that connected with the man’s face with a wet thwack. The man’s head clattered into the metal shutter above him.

Michael got to his feet and followed after Lola, who ran off up the street.

As they ran, Michael looked behind. The man Lola had kicked lay limp, blocking the other man’s exit.

Just before they vanished around the bend, headlights appeared at the opposite end of the road.

Michael froze and it took him a second to catch his breath enough to speak. “It’s the men from the bridge.” His pulse raged. “We need to get the fuck away from here now.”

House Guests

The cold air burned Michael’s lungs as he ran. With the adrenalin from the escape dying down, the pain in his damaged ankle returned. He stumbled to the side when he put pressure on it and nearly fell. It was no good. He pulled up. Linking his fingers behind his head, he opened his mouth wide and fought to get air into his body. Every exhalation created a huge puff of condensation.

Fortunately, Lola noticed and stopped too; he didn’t have the breath to call after her.

As she walked back toward him with a swagger, she looked him up and down. “What’s up, Nearly Eleven?”

Michael bent forward and rested his hands on his knees, his navel pulling up into his ribcage as he gasped. He couldn't speak, so he shook his head instead.

When he looked up, Lola continued to stare at him. He spoke between breaths. “I need… to… stop.” He took in several more breaths and continued, “I can’t go any… farther. My ankle feels like it’s… going to… give way, and I’m going to puke.”

When he received no reply, he looked up again to see Lola swipe her sodden hair away from her face. The rain continued to fall hard. “Fine!”

Terraced houses lined either side of the road. Like all of the other buildings in the city, the windows spoke only of the darkness behind them. There could be anything lurking in the shadows.

Lola removed her jacket and wrapped it around her hand as she walked toward one of the houses. When she hopped over the front wall, Michael checked up and down the street. There was no one there, or at least no one he could see. He followed after her, limping as he walked.

The side of the house was blocked off with a gate that stood about six feet tall. Michael watched Lola push against it. It didn’t budge. Seconds later, she jumped up, grabbed the top of it, and pulled herself over. Did she expect him to do the same? If he had another bad landing, he wouldn’t walk again for days.

There was a light thud as she landed on the other side, then the scratch of metal on metal as she worked the bolt free with a snap. Lola opened the gate.

“Lock it again behind you,” she said as she walked away.

Still exhausted from the run, Michael stepped through the gate and battled his shaking hands as he locked it behind himself. He then followed her around to the back of the house.

Despite the fact most houses in London had been abandoned for some time, Michael felt like a trespasser. The owners may never return, but it was still their property.

With her jacket still wrapped around her hand, Lola made a fist and wound her arm back. Michael flinched as she punched the window.

Rather than a loud crash, the glass broke with a pop. Some of the glass fell to the floor and smashed, but then it was silent again.

"Have you done this before?" he asked Lola in a whisper.

She didn't reply.

After knocking through the bigger bits of glass that remained in the frame, Lola reached in and unlocked the window. She pulled it wide and a few more shards fell to the ground. Two more gentle splashes called out as they broke on the patio.

Lola then hopped up onto the window ledge and climbed through into the house.

Gritting his teeth because of the pain in his ankle, Michael followed in after her.

***

They’d broken into the dining room. The only light, as always, came from the moon through the windows.

"This place must have been abandoned during the day," Lola said.

"How do you know?"

"None of the curtains are drawn."

Michael looked around at the immaculate house. "Maybe there's some food here still," he said. "It doesn't look like anyone's been here and I don't believe every house in London's been picked clean."

"I wouldn’t get your hopes up," Lola said.

The glass from the smashed window crunched beneath Michael’s feet, and Lola spun on him with her finger pressed to her lips.

Right, so he can see in the dark now can he? Jesus, what did she expect from him? Regardless, Michael raised his hands in apology and tried his best to keep quiet.

The hope Michael carried in his chest deflated instantly when they got to the kitchen. Every cupboard door hung open, and the shelves were bare save for detergent and cleaning products. Michael’s stomach rumbled as if berating him for expecting anything more.

When a cold gust of wind rushed into the room, Michael glanced up. One of the kitchen windows had already been broken. “So we made all that noise for nothing then?”

Lola scowled at him.

Michael and Lola made their way to the living room. Like the dining room, it was immaculate.

When they walked back down the hallway, Michael stopped at a small door. A step or two ahead of him, Lola turned and paused. Before Michael opened it, he waited for her to dip a gentle nod of approval.

After a deep breath, his heart raging, he pushed the handle down and yanked the door open.

A surge of movement rushed from the cupboard and pinned Michael to the opposite wall. Yelling out, he held his arms in front of his face and gave over to it, falling to the floor and closing his eyes.

When he heard Lola laughing, he opened his eyes again and looked up at the ironing board that had trapped him.

Shaking her head, Lola whistled. “Well, you really showed it.”

“Fuck you, Lola.”

***

They checked the downstairs toilet and then headed upstairs, Lola taking the lead again.

The light carpet that ran up the stairs continued onto the landing, which opened up to three rooms.

The first room had a double bed in it and not a lot else. His mum always said guest bedrooms should be decorated in neutral colors. It would seem that whoever owned this house before agreed with that. The lack of light made it hard to tell which color the owner had gone for, but it was light… probably beige or something similar.

The bathroom next door had been cleaned with the same attention to detail as the rest of the house.

Lola laughed. "This place looks like a bloody show home. Talk about clean freak."

Michael screwed his nose up at the tang of bleach and stepped back a pace.

When they walked into the master bedroom, Lola said, “Finally, a room that looks like it's been used."

Michael looked at the unmade bed, the drawers that hung open in the chest of drawers, and the pile of dirty laundry in the corner on the floor.

Spinning full circle, Lola scratched her chin. “Whoever lived here left in a hurry.” She laughed. “And who could blame them?”

It was only now, knowing the house was empty, that Michael started to shiver. The rain had left his clothes cold and damp. As he stood in the master bedroom, he slipped his hands beneath his armpits, folded his arms across his chest, and shook.

Lola frowned as she watched him for a second. She then pointed at the window. “Go and close the curtains.”

Once he’d done that, she lit her lighter and ran it over the chest of drawers.

In no time, she’d removed a stack of clothes and let go of her lighter, plunging the room back into darkness.

When Michael felt her bump into him, he jumped. She pressed a pile of soft clothes into his side.

“Here, put these on.”

Shivering so much it shook his words, Michael stammered, “C-can’t y-you-you put your l-l-lighter b-b-back on?”

“So you can watch me undress? What are you, some kind of pervert or something?”

The warm rush of embarrassment set his face on fire. “Um… no, not for that reason, it’s just—”

“Put the clothes on. There are some thin trousers on the top. Put those on first. Then there are some tracksuit bottoms, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt.” Snickering, she added, “You’ll have to go commando I’m afraid.”

“Commando?” Michael asked.

“No tightie whities.”

Michael didn’t respond as he listened to Lola laugh some more.

After peeling his damp jeans and underwear off, his legs soaked beneath them, Michael’s skin turned to gooseflesh. When he put the thin trousers on, he relaxed almost instantly as the soft and dry fabric hugged each leg.

After putting the tracksuit bottoms on over the trousers, his upper body still naked, Michael said, “I can’t believe the men in the shop were with the ones we saw on the bridge. I wonder how many of them are out in London.”

“Dunno.”

“Well, whatever we do, we need to stay away from them. They’re bad men, and they’ll do horrible things.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what happened to you?” The flash of Lola’s lighter made him jump. She was already in the bed beneath the covers. The lighter stayed on long enough for her to light another cigarette, and then the room went dark again.

All he could do was shake his head. He wasn’t ready to talk about the warehouse. Not yet. There may never be a time when he would want to talk about it.

Slipping into bed next to Lola, he sat up and pulled the covers to his chin. Lola stared at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. If she expected him to find somewhere else to sleep, she could think again.

While Lola smoked, she continued to look at him but didn’t speak. She finally stubbed her cigarette out on a coaster, shook her head, and fell back into her pillow. “Night, Nearly Eleven.”

Some of the tension left him, and he lay down too. It almost felt safe. Exhaustion prevented him from smiling when he mumbled, “Night, Lola.”

Welcome to the Neighborhood

When Michael woke in the morning, he saw he’d drawn the heavy curtains so tightly they only let a small amount of light in, casting a murky hue over the room. He’d forgotten to open a window before he went to sleep and the stuffiness had clogged his sinuses. To make himself feel better, he had to get up, draw the curtains, and let some air in. Exhaustion, however, had turned his muscles to lead.

The smell of Lola—or more precisely, the smell of her cigarette—hit Michael before he looked at her. Sitting upright in bed next to him, she puffed away as if she’d been awake for hours. She blew a cloud of smoke at him and smiled. “Morning.”

The reek didn't help Michael's congested head, and when he tried to waft it away it did nothing. “Do you have to blow it right at me? Bloody hell, Lola, those things stink.”

When Michael sat up, the covers slipped away from him, and he looked down. “What the hell?”

He threw the covers off and jumped out of bed. A twinge ran through his ankle, but it held.

Once he’d recovered from the sharp sting, he looked at himself in the full-length mirror. The tracksuit bottoms and hoodie were a matching set—bright pink with sky-blue writing on them.

Lola’s cheeks pulled in as she sucked on her cigarette. Raising an eyebrow, she nodded. “The outfit suits you.”

Michael pulled the hoodie off and threw it on the bed—his T-shirt had a picture of Bambi on it.

“I thought you’d like that one,” Lola said with a smirk. “In all seriousness, you’d best keep it on. You’ll freeze to death if you don’t.”

Michael shook his head and walked over to the chest of drawers. When he pulled the top drawer out, he blushed. He could feel Lola’s scrutiny as he stared at the collection of frilly and brightly colored knickers.

The next drawer contained bras and the one below that, T-shirts. A quick search through them and Michael sighed. "So Bambi's as good as it gets?"

Lola didn't answer him.

The remaining two drawers had a couple of sweaters and a pair of skinny jeans. He looked back at Lola.

The slow drag on her cigarette and casual shrug contradicted the impish glee with which she watched him. “See, that was the best I could find.”

Fire spread across Michael’s cheeks as he blushed harder than before and slipped the hoodie back on. “Of all the places we break into,” he said, “we manage to find the house that belonged to a single woman. It’s typical when I need some fresh clothes, isn’t it? Well, I can tell you, as soon as I get the opportunity to change into something else I’m going to burn these clothes.”

Lola leaned farther back into the pillows supporting her and snorted a laugh. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Nearly Eleven. With any luck, we won’t be bumping into anyone anytime soon. It’s only me that’s going to be able to laugh at you.”

When Michael's stomach rumbled, Lola leaned out of the bed, grabbed her coat, and pulled out a chocolate bar from the stash they’d found in the shop. She threw a Crunchie at him.

The poor light made it hard to see, but he managed to catch it anyway. He stared at the gold-wrapped bar for a few seconds before looking back at Lola. “Um… is there any other choice?”

Sighing, Lola dug around in her pocket and threw a Mars Bar. It landed at the end of the bed. “Better?”

Michael smiled and tossed the Crunchie back. “Much.”

The sickly sweet bar turned into a thick paste in Michael's mouth. Despite gulping several times, he couldn't produce the saliva needed to swallow it.

The door to the en suite bathroom was open, so Michael went in and switched the taps on. Nothing. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth as he opened the cupboard above the bathroom sink. His heart lifted. Two small bottles of water sat in the middle of the shelf. They were both sealed.

When he returned to the bedroom with them held aloft, Lola’s jaw dropped. “Where were they?”

“In the bathroom cupboard above the sink.” He passed one to Lola.

Lola’s hands shook as she rushed to open it. After she’d twisted the cap, she put the bottle to her lips and upended it. Three loud gulps and she’d emptied it.

Michael sipped his, finishing off his chocolate bar before he drained the bottle and burped. “Pardon me.”

“You’re so posh.”

“What?”

Putting on a fake private school accent, she straightened her back and covered her mouth. “Oh, pardon me.”

“Fuck off.”

She laughed and pointed at him. “Even that sounds posh.”

Michael didn’t reply.

***

When Michael lay back down, his lethargy pinned him to the bed and he looked over at the still drawn curtains. Damn it!

For the next twenty minutes or so, Michael and Lola lay there in silence. Michael stared at the ceiling and Lola smoked.

“This room reminds me of being in the spare room at home,” Michael said. “Four of us would lie in bed all day. We’d go hours without talking to one another.”

A glaze covered Lola’s eyes as she continued to stare up. “Sounds grim.”

“It was. I can see why Mum and Matilda killed themselves.” Stabbing pains ran through his heart and tears stung his eyes. “Things were bad at home about six months before, when Dad lost his job. We were taken out of school and sent to the local comprehensive.”

Lola turned to face him; her eyes dead, her tone flat. “I’d imagine it was hard having to slum it with the other kids.”

“It may be difficult for you to understand, but it was. Matilda and I were targeted by bullies because we’d been privately educated. When the teachers stopped turning up, things got even worse.”

The smoke hung so heavy in the air Michael had to get up and away from it. His ankle ached as he paced the room. “If we weren’t being bullied at school, we’d come home and listen to Mum and Dad arguing all night about money and how Dad couldn’t provide for the family. I’d watch Dad try to get a job every day even though there weren’t any.”

Lola looked like she didn’t give a shit. Michael continued anyway. “Then Mum and Matilda disappeared. The men in the trucks arrived soon after.”

No response.

She really didn’t care. When he pulled one of the curtains aside and peered out, he froze.

The panic surging through him must have been clear on his face because when he looked at Lola, she sat up straight and leaned toward him. “What? What is it?”

As he stared at her, he shook his head. The words wouldn’t come.

When Lola rushed over to his side, she looked out of the window.

Silence sat between them before she finally said, “Oh shit.”

Supply Run

“Will you come away from that bloody window? You’ve been standing there for hours.”

Although he’d heard her and even turned to look at her, Michael returned his attention to outside the window. He couldn’t look away. Not now he knew who their neighbor was.

The daylight was fading outside. “I can’t believe he hasn’t left the house all day. Do you think he’s even in there?”

Lola lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling. “Of course he is. There’s no way he’d leave that truck unguarded. He’s there for sure.”

Michael looked up the road again. The grand house George stayed in looked out of place amongst all the semi-detached houses. Not only did it exist on its own plot of land, but it also had a wall surrounding it.

Black gates provided the only access to the property. They stood strong and imposing, much like the ones Michael’s cul-de-sac had. Except George had been cleverer than they had been; he’d parked his truck sideways across them to prevent anyone from getting in.

It didn’t look like the food on the back of the truck had diminished either.

The heat in the room had dropped with the oncoming night, but the chill that ran through Michael had nothing to do with temperature. “It feels weird to know the man that killed my dad is staying only a few houses down.”

Lola continued to stare up at the ceiling and didn’t respond.

Rubbing his sore eyes, he kept his focus on the girl. “It’s getting dark out. What shall we do? Shall we move on tonight?”

Still not looking at him, Lola shook her head. “No.”

“What shall we do then?”

“I think we should rob him. He has enough food in there to feed a small army. He won’t notice if a few bits go missing.”

The memory of his dad’s final moments came back. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Instead of replying, Lola lit another cigarette.

***

The night had settled in to the point where Michael couldn’t see George’s truck anymore, but he still watched out the window. Something may happen, and he didn’t want to miss it.

When Lola walked over to his side, Michael shifted out of the way. He screwed his nose up at the smell of stale cigarette smoke.

Lola pulled back from the window and said, “Alright, I think it’s dark enough now. I’m going to make my move. Wish me luck.”

“You’re really going to rob him?”

Lola rolled her eyes. “I said I was, didn’t I? Now wait here; I’ll be back soon, okay?”

She glared at Michael as if daring him to answer. He didn’t.

They held each other’s stare for a moment before Lola left the room.

Michael listened to her footsteps as she walked down the stairs and across the laminated hallway. Then the latch on the front door clicked. Lola had gone. Now he had to wait.

Returning to the window, he watched Lola’s dark silhouette disappear up the road. Before long, the shadows had swallowed her whole.

Then it hit him. Maybe she wasn’t planning on coming back. Maybe she just wanted rid of him. Maybe she wasn’t going to George’s at all.

With all of his anxieties forced to the back of his mind, Michael looked around the quiet and unlit room. Not only was he in a strange house in a strange part of London, but he was all on his own in the cold and silent darkness.

When a scuttling sound came from downstairs, Michael drew an involuntary breath and stared at the door. His tired eyes burned worse than ever.

A slow and rhythmic knocking ran through the house, calling to him from somewhere on the ground floor. Swallowing hard against his dry throat, Michael’s heartbeat ran rampant.

Maybe it’s the wind. Yeah right, like the wind has suddenly taken to rummaging around in the downstairs of abandoned houses.

When he looked outside again, it was pitch black and he couldn’t see a thing.

The cold had got under his skin again and Michael shook, closed his eyes, and thought of home. It was a home where his mum and sister were still alive, his dad was still working, and where all they had to think about was which channel to watch on the TV and how high to turn the heating up.

His pulse started to settle. Maybe he’d imagined the sound.

A loud crash sounded out downstairs.

His pulse skyrocketed again.

Visitors

Michael stood in the bedroom and stared at the closed door. If he waited there, maybe the people downstairs would take what they wanted and leave. Maybe they wouldn’t check upstairs at all. Although basing a decision on 'maybe' needed a lot of luck and there wasn’t much of that in London at the moment. He needed to do something to get out! He had the element of surprise and maybe he should use it while he still had the advantage—Batman would!

As he left the room, he pulled a golfing umbrella from a terracotta pot by the door. The door handle made no noise when he pushed it down, and the hinges glided open with little protest. Thank god.

When Michael stepped out onto the quiet landing, he held his breath and listened for the sounds downstairs. Nothing—maybe they’d already left.

The carpet that lined the stairs was soft and soundless beneath Michael’s feet. With every passing hour, his ankle got better and walking became much easier. He probably still couldn’t run, but it wouldn’t be long.

Michael stopped halfway down the stairs when he heard more sounds in the kitchen. He peered into the darkness in the direction of the kitchen. The intruder could be twice his size and was probably armed with a better weapon than a fucking umbrella. But he had to do something. He couldn’t just leave them there for Lola to come back to.

Michael pushed on and fought to keep his breath even.

As he walked over the laminate flooring, his running shoes made a gentle tick against the hard surface. He took a step and then paused. He then took another step. It felt like playing 'What’s the Time, Mister Wolf?' and he was seeing how close he could get before it was dinnertime.

As he got closer to the kitchen, Michael turned and looked at the front door. He could go out and meet Lola in the street on her way back from George’s. As long as she didn’t come back a different way… which he had no way of predicting.

After walking the length of the hallway, his heart thumping, he pressed his back to the wall next to the kitchen door and took several deep breaths. It stilled his galloping heart enough for him to hear better.

It sounded like there was just one of them in the house.

With a final breath, Michael gripped the umbrella handle so tightly it hurt his palm. He exhaled hard and kicked the kitchen door open, yelling as he swung the umbrella through the air.

A cat stood frozen with fear in the middle of the kitchen and stared at him.

Michael laughed. “You’re just a cat.”

The creature’s yellow eyes stared back at him, wide as two full moons reflecting off a lake.

“Go on, get.” Flicking his head, Michael repeated, “Get.”

But the cat didn’t move.

The end of the umbrella shook when he pointed it at it, his limbs shaking as adrenalin rushed through him. “I said get!” He moved to his left to give the creature an escape route.

When it still didn’t move, he stepped to the left again and showed it a way through with his arm. “Get.”

All the while, the cat stared at him as if it were weighing its options.

Grabbing a white mug from the kitchen surface, Michael launched it at the mangy animal.

The mug shattered on the floor next to it—much louder than he'd anticipated—but it did the trick.

As he watched the cat run across the room and hop up onto the window ledge, he shook his head. Why did he just make such a racket? Besides, the shattering mug had made a terrible mess.

When he turned around, his heart leapt from his chest.

With all the noise he’d made, he hadn’t heard the person enter the room.

The Wanderer

“Lola?” He could see it was Lola, so why didn’t his damn heart stop pounding? He exhaled so hard his cheeks puffed out, and he continued to stare at her.

“What are you doing down here?” she asked.

With his breath leveling out, Michael gave himself a couple more seconds to calm down. “I heard something," he croaked; his throat was dry from fear. "So I came to see what it was.”

After looking past him into the kitchen, Lola's eyes fell to the umbrella still clutched in Michael’s hand. “Expecting rain?”

“Very funny.”

“So did you find anything?”

“It was a cat. It must have come in through the window. It was rummaging through the cupboards. It’s gone now.” To stop the snarky remark before she made it, he added, “Anyway, never mind that. Did you get anything from George’s truck?”

The moonlight that shone through the downstairs window caught both Lola’s beaming grin and the two cans of fruit salad she held aloft.

He barely stopped himself from hugging her. Instead, he took one of the cans and hugged that. “Amazing. Thank you, Lola.”

When she handed him a small bottle of water, Michael spread his arms wide and leapt on her. “Thank you, Lola. Thank you.”

Lola’s entire body stiffened and she didn’t reply.

***

Instead of eating in the kitchen, the pair returned to the bedroom.

Before he sat down on the bed, Michael walked over to the curtain.

"What are you doing?" Lola asked.

"Letting some light in."

"It's nighttime. There isn't any light."

When Michael pulled the curtain open, it made the room slightly lighter. He pointed at the window. "See. It's not much, but it's something."

He opened his can of fruit salad and drank the syrup. The sweet liquid soothed his dry throat. Bending the lid so it was a scoop, he shoveled pieces of cherry and peach into his mouth.

The fruit, pregnant with juice, sat on his tongue before he bit down. The saccharine explosion spread through his mouth. As he chewed, he said, “So did you see him? Did he see you?”

Lola swallowed before she replied. “No and no.”

“How did you manage to get the food?”

Again, Lola made him wait while she ate. She took her time with it too. “I put my hand through the gap in the gate and took it.”

“You’d think he would keep a tighter eye on the food.”

“I know, right?”

What did he say to that? She clearly didn’t want to talk while eating, but he hated silence. “Where did you go to school?”

Lola upended her can as she drank its contents before she tossed it on the floor. Michael still had over half of his left. She then leaned back and removed a packet of cigarettes from her pocket. Once she'd put it in her mouth, lit it up, and taken a deep drag, she said, “I’d left school by the time everything had gone to shit. I was at art college by then.”

“Did you have a boyfriend?”

“What’s with all the fucking questions, Nearly Eleven? You trying to chat me up or something?”

Thank god it was still dark. Lola constantly made him blush. “No! N… no, I was just making conversation. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Lola turned away from him and continued smoking. After several drags, she faced him again. “I did have a boyfriend. His name was Danny, and he was twenty-one.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died. He ran into one of the gangs soon after London fell. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? Did you do it?”

Michael dropped his attention to the bed sheets. “And your mum and sister were killed by a gang too?”

The end of Lola’s cigarette glowed brighter in the dark room. “Yeah.” She exhaled. “Mum was run over, and Louisa was killed by a psychopath with a hammer.”

“My dad was killed by a man with a hammer. Do you think it was the same people?”

Lola didn’t respond.

“Lola?”

Michael heard a wet sniff. “I’m sorry," he said. "I’ve been asking too many questions, haven’t I? I didn't mean to upset you.”

Lola’s cigarette glowed. “It’s okay,” she said and sniffed again. “The man that ran my mum over was George.”

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you say before?”

“I dunno. I didn’t want to. I’m sure it was an accident.” Her cigarette glowed again. “But the others that ran her over afterwards meant to do it for sure. They got off their trucks and killed my sister just for fun.”

“So it really was the same people?”

“Obviously.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.”

She dragged on her cigarette again.

The Note

Despite the flashlight in his hand, Michael sat in the darkness of the bedroom and waited for Lola to return. They’d found the flashlight in a cupboard beneath the stairs, and although his finger hovered over the power button, he resisted the urge to press it. If he turned it on, people would be able to see him from a mile away. He'd promised Lola he'd only use it in an emergency.

It had been two days since they’d smashed the window and broken into the house. Because George hadn’t moved, they hadn’t either. Each night, Lola had gone out and taken a can or two from the back of his truck. It was sure to end at some point. George would move on and take their steady supply of food with him, but until then, they agreed to make the most it.

Michael listened to the front door open and close. They had keys now because Michael had found them in the cutlery drawer in the kitchen. His family hid their keys there too. Why did everyone use such obvious hiding places? It can’t have made it hard for burglars.

While listening to Lola walk up the stairs, Michael's stomach rumbled. The regular nightly feed seemed to make him hungrier, like his body expected it. There was also the fact that they couldn’t take much so he was never quite satisfied. If George noticed… well, it wasn’t worth thinking about.

Reliving the memory of his dad falling limp beneath George’s hammer, Michael envisioned Lola falling to a similar deadly blow as she pushed her luck with the food stash.

When Lola walked into the room, she had something white in her hand and Michael flicked the flashlight on. “What’s that?”

Lola gave it to him.

It was a note. Michael read the scratchy writing aloud. “‘I know you’ve been taking food from me and watching me for the past few days.’” His blood ran cold. “‘I know you’re staying in number 362. You may want to keep the curtains open during the day; it makes it less obvious that there’s someone in there. If you want food and protection, you should come over and knock. Boy, I know you saw me kill your dad, but I had to do it. It doesn’t change what I did and it won’t bring your dad back. Dean knew there were people in the house because the dogs sniffed you out. By taking your dad and leaving you, I managed to save one of you. I couldn’t have saved you both.’” A lump rose in Michael’s throat and choked him. After clearing it, he continued, “‘Even after your dad had fallen, I had to persuade Dean that the house was empty.’”

Tears rose in Michael’s eyes, which he wiped away before reading the rest of the letter. “‘I don’t know who the girl is, but she’s more than welcome to come over too. There’s plenty of food to go around.’”

Michael folded the paper up and then pointed the light at Lola. When he shone it on her face, she shielded her eyes. “Will you turn that fucking thing off?”

Michael lowered the beam of light to the floor.

“I said turn it off. If George worked out we were here because the curtains were closed, it’s not going to take a genius to work it out if they see a fucking light.”

Michael clicked the rubber button and plunged the room into darkness.

“So what do you think?” Lola said.

“He killed my dad, Lola.”

“I know he did, but I get a different vibe from him. He doesn’t seem like the others. I don’t think he kills for fun.”

“He ran your mum over.”

“I know that too, and that’s my point.”

“Huh?”

“If I can think about taking him up on his offer, with my mum and sister dead, then surely you can consider it too? I think he’s legit.”

Before he could reply, an engine roared outside. The pair of them rushed over to the window and peered out.

When he saw the truck, Michael started to shake. It was the truck from the bridge. The truck from the shop. The truck from the warehouse. Why did he turn the damn flashlight on?!

Stand Off

Instead of stopping, the truck rolled past and came to a halt by George’s house. They positioned so their headlights shone straight through the front gates.

Michael's heart jolted and he lost his breath for a second when George appeared. Once he'd regained his composure, he whispered, “There he is; the man who killed my dad.”

Lola didn’t respond; why should she? She’d lost people too.

Michael opened the window a crack and Lola glared at him.

"No one will see what I’m doing,” he whispered. "If there's anyone outside, I bet you they're watching what's going on up there." A cold breeze rushed in, bringing the words of the men with it.

George shone a spotlight on them. “What the fuck do you want?”

One of the men got out of the truck and walked toward the gates. Tall and slim, he had pale skin and greasy black hair that looked like he hadn’t washed it since before everything fell apart. “We’ve not come to start anything with you, brother.”

That voice! Michael's stomach tightened. He'd recognize it anywhere. The man on the bridge. The man who summoned the boys and took them to see Julius.

“‘Brother’? Because I’m black you think you can call me ‘brother’? You need to wind your neck in, son.”

The man lowered his head. “I don’t mean any disrespect, man.”

“Keep your fucking mouth shut then.” George pointed the light in the man’s face. “What the fuck do you want?”

The man turned away from the strong beam and spoke to the ground. “We’re looking for two kids. The boy’s about nine, and the girl’s about sixteen. You seen them?”

The stirrings of a panic attack swelled in Michael’s chest, and his bowels threatened to let loose.

“Why do you want them?” George asked.

The man straightened his back and stared at George again. “Let us worry about that. You seen them?”

“What’s he doing?” Michael whispered as George walked closer to the gate.

Michael smiled when George spat at the man’s feet and said, “Fuck you, you fucking pervert.”

The man looked like he was going to retaliate until George pointed the barrel of his shotgun through the bars at him. “Don’t think I won’t use this. Now I suggest you turn around and head the fuck home.”

Although he continued to stare at George, the man backed toward the truck. “Don’t make an enemy of me, brother.”

When George shoved the barrel of the gun forward, it rattled against the gate. “Call me brother one more time; I dare ya.”

The two men stared at one another, but the one from the warehouse remained mute. George should end him where he stood. The vile man needed to be wiped from the face of the Earth.

But he didn’t say it again. Instead, he got back in the truck and they slowly pulled away.

When the truck was out of sight, Michael and Lola stared at one another. It was Lola who spoke first. “The enemy of my enemy…”

“Huh?”

Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. “Don’t worry. So what do you think? Can we trust him?”

Michael sighed. “I think we should go and see him in the morning. I think we’ll be safe with him. He’ll protect us.”

While stroking her chin, Lola nodded. “Agreed. I want you to promise me you won’t tell him about my mum and sister though.”

“I promise.”

“I’m being serious, Nearly Eleven, I don’t want him to know who I am. It will only make things awkward.”

“All right, I promise.” And he meant it.

Looking back out of the window again, Michael frowned at George’s battered truck. Taking a deep breath did little to settle his churning stomach. Were they really going to see his dad’s killer in the morning?

Knock Knock

As ridiculous as they looked, the pink tracksuit and leggings kept Michael snug as they walked up to George's house. By comparison, the only exposed parts of his body—his hands and face—burned in the freezing air. "Are we doing the right thing, Lola?"

Lola stared straight ahead, her jaw set, her eyes narrowed. She didn't reply.

As they got closer to the truck, Michael's fear intensified. While chewing the inside of his mouth, he stared at the battered vehicle still loaded with food. A lot of houses must have burned to the ground to stock it so well.

“I’m not sure we should be here, Lola.”

“You’ve been bitching since we woke up. If we wait too much longer, it’ll be dark again and we’ll be out on the streets for another night.”

“I’m just not sure we’re making the right choice. What if it’s a trap?”

Lola turned to Michael; her shoulders slumped, and she tilted her head to the side in exasperation. “Why would he want to trap us? We’ve already seen he wants nothing to do with those other guys.”

Flashbacks ran through Michael’s mind; the girls from next door screaming as their dog was beaten to death; Tommy having his head crushed as his mum and dad wailed; the hammer blow to his own dad’s head… trusting this man seemed pretty stupid. “What if he does have something to do with the lot from the warehouse? What if the standoff with them was a ruse to make us think he's friendly?”

Lola shook her head. “No, I don’t think it was. I don’t believe what we saw was faked. He was ready to shoot that man. Besides, if they wanted to, they could just come and take us. It's not like we'd put up much of a fight against them.”

It all made sense, but that didn’t stop the butterflies in Michael’s stomach.

When they arrived at the gates, Lola leaned forward and knocked against the hood of the truck. The loud boom called out in the quiet morning.

The saliva in Michael's dehydrated mouth had turned into a frothy paste, and when he swallowed, it only made his throat even drier. He debated the value of the bottled water George must have as he stepped back a pace and waited. Although, they could find more water… "We could still run?"

Before Lola could reply, George appeared.

There was a quiver in Lola’s voice when she said, “How long have you been there?”

So much for her saying it would be okay. She doesn’t sound very confident now.

George was bigger than he’d looked from afar—huge, in fact—and he wore a deep scowl.

For a moment, George looked from Lola to Michael.

Pulling at his collar, Michael’s face glowed hot as he looked back at his father’s murderer.

“I’ve been here for the past few minutes. If there’s someone sniffing around near my supplies, I like to keep an eye on them; which is how I saw you,” he pointed at Lola, “stealing from my truck the other night.”

“But I didn’t even realize you were there.”

“And therein lies the problem, young lady. You need to learn a thing or two about stealth. Now, if you two wait there, I’m going to move this truck so I can open the gates and let you in.”

The loud roar of the big engine made Michael jump again. He leaned close to Lola and said, "We can still run."

She acted like she hadn't heard him.

Having moved the truck out of the way, George left the engine running as he got out and opened the gates. Michael looked at Lola again.

When she nodded, they both walked forward and entered George’s domain.

Once inside, George closed the gates behind them and re-parked the truck. When he hopped out of the vehicle, he looked at Michael, his eyebrows pinching in the middle. “I’m sorry, son. I know sorry can’t bring your dad back, but I’m truly sorry. When the dogs sniffed you out, I had to bring someone down with me. Then your dad used my name in front of the group. I had to kill him after that. He was talking to me like he knew me. If I hadn’t taken him out, Dean and his band of fuckwits would have turned on me.”

The man turned into a large blur as tears ran warm tracks down Michael’s face. “He was hoping you’d save us.”

George dropped one of his large hands on Michael’s shoulder and squatted down to eye level. Compassion sat in his dark eyes and they were moist with regret. “I couldn’t do anything to help. Dean had my sister hostage and was using it against me. My sister’s pregnant. I had to do what was needed to make sure I’d see her again.”

Michael looked at the ground; what could he possibly say to George about that?

Without looking up, he saw George stand and walk back toward the house. “Why don’t you come inside with me? I have food and it’s warm in there.”

This was it. There was no escaping now. With his tears flowing and nausea tying knots in his stomach, Michael looked at Lola again before they both followed George into the house.

Guests

The rapid change in temperature spread prickly heat through Michael’s cheeks. He hadn’t felt this warm since the library. He couldn’t remember the last time before that. The heat came from a small, black woodstove in the center of the open room. The flames glowed through the soot-stained window on its front.

Without a word to anyone, Lola rushed over and sat cross-legged just inches away from it.

Michael showed a little more restraint. “Don’t you worry about the smoke being seen from far away?”

George shrugged. “If anyone wants to find me, I think the truck’s a dead giveaway. I don’t kid myself into thinking that I’m well hidden; the walls in this city have eyes now. What’s the point in trying to hide? I figure that the more open I am, the more people will leave me alone. When you show people you don’t fear them, they tend to back off.”

“And you’re not scared of them?” Michael asked.

George shook his head. “Not at all; they’re just little boys with big knives. You tell them to fuck off, and they generally do.”

His eyes went to the kitchen table and the shotgun lying across it. “Besides, a gun beats a knife every day of the week.”

Patting the floor next to her, Lola looked up at Michael. “Come on, Nearly Eleven, sit down.”

Confusion creased George’s face. “Nearly Eleven?”

“It’s his birthday soon. Ain’t that right, Nearly Eleven?”

“Oh? What date?”

Telling the man his birthday seemed too personal too soon. When he looked up at George’s expectant face, Michael blurted out, “February the twentieth.”

A quick glance at his watch and George said, “It’s March the third today.”

“Well, what do you know, Eleven?” Lola patted the floor again. “Now, sit down and get warm.”

Hardwood flooring ran from the front of the house to the back and Michael found it was surprisingly comfortable to sit on. He settled down in front of the fire and welcomed the warmth spreading across his chest and arms.

George turned and opened a cupboard behind him. “So what do I call you guys?”

“Lola,” Lola said, and because Michael didn’t reply, she spoke for him. “And Michael.”

“Nice to meet you; I’m George. I’m glad you guys took me up on my offer. I was saving these in the hope I’d have you as guests at some point.”

When he turned around, he had a pack of wooden sticks and a bag of marshmallows. “I haven’t taken many things off the truck, but after I’d sent the letter over, I wanted these ready. I really hoped you’d come.”

It was like Michael’s first night at Scouts when they’d toasted marshmallows and played in the woods. He had come home buzzing, telling his dad he wanted to go every night. But after that first time, he’d spent the next six months helping old women and tying knots. They’d lured him in under the pretense of fun and snatched it away the second his parents signed him up.

When George offered him both a stick and the open bag of marshmallows, Michael skewered one.

Lola opened the door to the woodstove, and a rush of heat leaped from it. The sudden increase in temperature dried Michael’s already stinging eyes. His skin tightened slightly as the warmth spread over his face. Michael leaned forward and held his marshmallow over the flame. The slight sting of being too close nipped at his hand holding the stick.

“Why do you keep all of the food on the truck out there?” Michael asked. “I mean, if you’re not scared of the other men in the city, why don’t you settle in?”

“I may not be scared of them,” George said, “but I want to be able to move at a moment’s notice should the need arise. This isn’t a permanent home. It’s best not to grow roots in this city.”

When Michael looked at Lola, she raised her eyebrows as if to say, 'See.'

Michael’s marshmallow caught fire and he pulled it from the woodstove. Laughing, George took the charred sweet from him, blew the flames out, and gave him the one he’d been toasting. “I’ve had a bit more practice than you. Be careful; it’s hot.”

Michael turned the perfectly toasted marshmallow, admiring the evenness of its brown outer edge. After blowing on it several times, he took a small bite. The light crust crunched slightly, and the inside had turned into hot, sugary goo. Michael took another bite, resisting the urge to eat the entire thing whole.

“The truth is,” George said, “I’ve been in this house longer than normal because I’ve always wanted to stay here. Before the world went to shit, I passed it every day. It was one of those places I looked at and imagined myself living in.” A smile lifted his large face. “Weird how things work out, isn’t it?”

Michael didn’t smile back. When he caught a glimpse of Lola, he saw her glaring at George.

George pulled his next marshmallow from the fire, spun it on the stick as he examined it, and then pushed it back in again. “I have to ask, Michael, what’s with the outfit?”

“My clothes got soaked, and this was all we could find in the house we were in.”

“That’s a rough deal, buddy.”

Despite the heat of it, Michael put the rest of his marshmallow in his mouth anyway, took a fresh one from the packet, and tried to copy George’s technique. The trick seemed to be to keep it constantly turning because they set alight too easily. “Where’s your sister now, George? You killed my dad so you could rescue her, so where is she?”

Although Michael felt Lola staring at him, he didn’t look back. Instead, he watched George balk at the question.

“I don’t know. The complex I was staying in was overrun, and I was the only one who got out. I have no idea where Dean kept her. She could be anywhere, and the chances are she’ll be dead before I find her.” Removing a piece of paper from his top pocket, he passed it to Michael. “All I have is this letter.”

It was George who was shaking now, the letter trembling at the end of his outstretched arm.

Michael unfolded it and stared at the blue writing on the white paper. Although she didn’t say anything, Lola watched him, so he cleared his throat and read it aloud. “‘To my Dearest George, I’m writing you this letter to let you know I’m okay. Mostly. I’m as big as a house and I have cankles, but I’m okay. I’m due to give birth any day now, and Dean has me in a safe place. I’ll be able to have your new niece or nephew without any problems. I have good people with me—Dean has seen to that. I’ve heard you’re doing well with getting food sorted out. I’m not surprised because you and Dean are both very resourceful. Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine and will be fine. I’m so excited to be a mum and to introduce the little bean to its Uncle George. Take care. All my love and so much more, Sally’.”

Michael saw the dampness of grief glistening in George’s eyes. Not that it mattered. He didn’t care about George’s feelings. “We thought you’d save us from the rest of the men, but you didn’t.”

George took a deep breath, steeled himself, and nodded. “I’ll do anything I can to make that up to you. I promise.”

“I lost the last of my family because of you. It’s sad about your sister, but you did to me what Dean has done to you. You broke my family.”

“I can see why you’d think that, Michael, but Dean did it for pleasure. I got no joy from what happened with your dad. If you’ll just give me a chance, I promise I’ll do everything within my power to protect you.”

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 rainwater, 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.”

What else could he say? Lola wanted nothing to do with him, and he had to accept that.

When Lola popped the door open and slipped out of the truck, Michael followed her. He caught up with her and said, “Lola, wait. Shouldn’t we stay together?”

“No.”

When she turned to walk off, Michael ran after her again. George may make him feel safe but not safe enough to stay with him on his own. He grabbed Lola’s shoulder. “We should stick together. George can look after us. He’ll protect us.”

“We did all right without him before.”

“We did, but I don’t want to be without him now. Please, Lola, give it a try. Please?”

Stepping back when Lola jabbed her finger at his face, Michael watched the angry girl speak to him through gritted teeth. “You can come with me, but if you do, you’d best be fucking quiet. You got that?”

Keeping his mouth firmly closed, Michael nodded.

After watching him for a second as if she was waiting for a reason to bitch at him again, Lola turned around and walked off.

***

The convenience store had been as looted as the rest of the city. Instead of pointing this out to Lola, Michael followed her in and kept his mouth shut.

As soon as they entered the shop, Michael stumbled backwards and grabbed his nose in a tight pinch. An acrid and sickly sweet smell hung in the air. “What the hell is that stink?”

A couple of steps ahead of him, Lola pointed down at the floor.

Michael balked when he rounded the next corner and saw what she was pointing at. The rotting body of an old woman lay in the aisle. Skinny and wrinkly, the woman’s mouth hung wide, and the skin on her face had sunk into every crevice of her skull. Blood had stopped pumping through her veins a long time ago.

Although Lola stepped over her, Michael held back and continued to stare. This store didn’t seem like the best place to be; it had nothing worth taking. When he opened his mouth to suggest they leave, the sound of footsteps entered the shop and stopped him dead.

Both Lola and Michael stared at one another as they listened.

“Why are we checking here again?” a man said, his voice both rough and deep.

Another man replied. “Would you rather be hanging around at the warehouse all day every day?”

Michael froze.

Sell Out

Michael pushed himself harder against the wall in the dark corner. For what good it did. If someone came far enough into the shop, it didn’t matter how hard he pressed himself against a wall; they’d see him.

Gruff voices accompanied by heavy footsteps moved toward them.

“Stop bloody sulking, will ya? At least we’re out in the city. We have an excuse to get out of the warehouse every day. Imagine being one of the poor bastards who has to ask Julius’ permission every time they want to leave. Fuck that! I’d rather search the same shop a thousand times than have to go begging to that prick.”

“Yeah, I know; it just seems like the city has been picked pretty clean. How long will it be before he gets fed up with us coming back empty-handed?”

“We’ll just have to work harder at finding him some more boys.”

With the looters getting closer, Michael’s heart beat as if trying to punch free of his chest.

When he caught a glimpse of the men just an aisle down from them, he pushed against the wall again, his feet slipping on the gritty floor.

Three heads of dirty hair bobbed with their steps. Three men against a girl and a little boy—a little boy who was worth their daily freedom. A little boy who was even more of a catch than most because he was a deserter.

One of the men kicked over a shelving unit. A loud crash followed the groan of it passing its tipping point.

It took everything Michael had not to yell out.

They kicked a second shelving unit over with another loud crash. Hopefully, George would hear it.

Dirty laughs bubbled from the men’s throats, and one of them spoke again. “At least we get to kick the shit out of things while we’re out here. I often pretend I’m kicking Julius.”

When Lola wrapped her arms around him, a hot lump of grief stuck in Michael’s throat. Despite her moods, she wouldn’t let any harm come to him. He shouldn’t have thought otherwise—not after everything they’ve been through. Michael settled into her hug.

The dirty heads got closer, seemingly determined to check out the entire shop. Lola started to shake too.

Another crash sounded out, but this time it came from outside.

“What was that?” one of the men said.

“Fucked if I know.”

“Should we check it out?”

The pause seemed to last an age and all Michael could hear was his own pulse.

“Yeah.”

Two of the men walked back toward the entrance, but one of them remained. Not only did he remain, but he continued searching the shop. Michael’s mouth dried, and Lola’s grip tightened around him. The man continued forward.

When he rounded the corner, the man stopped and stared down at the pair. He grinned, his dirty mouth surrounded by a scraggly ginger beard and pasty white skin. “Well, well, look what we have here then.”

When Lola stood up, Michael got to his feet with her.

The other two men came at their colleague’s call. One of them was a skinny black man and the other one, an older white man with gray hair. All three of them wore the same predatory smile as they took the pair in. In this new world, they were the law. They were the judge, jury, and executioners, and without the need of a single word between them, they’d decided the pair’s fate.

The black man said, “Two for the price of one.” Holding a lingering glare on Lola, he licked his lips. “Although you may not be of any use to the boss, I know a few of the lads will be pleased to see you.”

Michael pissed himself a little and before he could do anything about it, Lola shoved him forward. With his head snapping back, he stumbled toward the men. The redheaded man grabbed him in a bear hug. He stank of oil and dirt.

The man spun Michael around and held him in a headlock. As he fought to breathe, Michael watched Lola run out of the shop.

When one of the men gave chase, the man who had a hold of Michael called after him. “Leave it; she ain’t worth it. It’s this one here that we need. This is what Julius wants.”

The rest of Michael’s bladder emptied down his leg. He tried to call out, but the man gripped his neck too tight. His words came out as no more than a weak wheeze. “George. George.”

The older man drove the rest of the air from Michael’s body with a gut punch. Michael bent double around his fist and hit the floor hard.

There was a tearing sound of tape and then one of the men yanked Michael’s hands behind his back. They pulled so hard the muscles in his chest burned as they bound him. They then taped up his ankles.

One of the men grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. Michael cried out at the sharp pain on his scalp. They then taped his mouth.

Bound and gagged, one of the men lifted Michael’s ankles and dragged him out of the shop. With streaming eyes and in the poor light, Michael couldn’t see which man. Not that it mattered; they all had the same intention. They all wanted to hand him to Julius on a plate.

The gritty linoleum floor burned Michael’s skin, his sweatshirt riding up and exposing his back to the rough ground.

When he got to the back of the van, one of the other men lifted his shoulders. Between the two of them, they held him like a hammock.

The men swung him and counted down. “Three… two…”

On one, they launched him into the back of the truck.

A sharp sting ran from his shoulder to his core, the pain of crashing down on the hard surface bringing him close to vomiting.

Heavy footsteps walked around both sides of the truck. The two doors at the front of the truck clicked open, and the truck shook as the men got in. The doors slammed shut one after the other before the engine roared to life and the truck shot forward.

Michael rolled down the truck bed and crashed into the tailgate headfirst. His world rocked and stars swam in his vision. His ears rang and he tasted the metallic funk of his own blood. He swallowed it down and fought to breathe through his nose.

After a few more seconds, he passed out.

The Warehouse

“Argh!” Michael yelled as they tore the tape from his mouth. It left behind a throbbing sting like it had taken his skin with it. Tears blurred his view of the room. He’d cried the entire way to the warehouse. It felt worse this time around. The first time, he didn’t have a clue what to expect, and he’d had a sliver of hope in his heart.

The room may have been gloomy, but he still caught the glint of the long blade in the man’s hand. Michael lifted his bound wrists away from the bottom of his back to make his job easier. It was one of the men who’d thrown him on the truck; the oldest man of the three. Although Michael glared at him, the man didn’t return his stare. With one tug of the long knife, he cut Michael’s wrists free.

Despite the throb in his hands from having the circulation cut off, Michael grabbed his burning face first. Touching it sent a sharp sting tingling across his jowls.

Without looking at Michael, the man left the room, and Michael watched the large steel door slam shut.

He listened as three heavy bolts cracked home on the other side of the door. Michael pulled the rest of the tape from his wrists and ankles and blinked in the gloom. The locking door may have sounded final, but he’d been in the holding room before. It was nothing compared to the warehouse.

Michael stood up and rolled his shoulders in large circles. It did little to relieve the aches in his battered body. Being tossed onto the back of the truck stung, but the journey to the warehouse gave him a kicking. It seemed like the driver aimed for every pothole he could find.

The room was small, but Michael still paced it, counting as he went, “One, two, three, four. One.” He stopped when he reached the wall.

When he turned around, he yelled out and slapped his right hand over his heart. “Jesus.”

Two boys watched him from the shadows.

Squinting did little to help him see better, so he waited until they stepped forward. Both of the boys were older than him; maybe eighteen and fifteen.

The older of the two spoke first. “Why the fuck are you dressed like that?”

“Um…” Michael said. “My other clothes got wet, and these were the only dry ones I could find at the time.”

With another step forward, the older boy became much more visible. He had a light beard; it must have been the first one he’d ever grown. The boy looked him up and down. “Are you some kind of pervert or something? I bet you’re wearing little girl panties beneath that too, aren’t you?”

The boy would think the tights were little girl panties for sure. Michael didn’t reply.

Calling the other boy over, the older one waited for him to come to his side. Although one had dark hair and one light, they looked like brothers. The older boy pointed at Michael. “What do you think, Josh? Do we have ourselves a weird little pervert here?”

Although Josh replied, Michael didn’t hear his response. Clicking his fingers, he pointed at the boys. “I knew I recognized your voices.”

Pulling his shoulders back, the older boy then tilted his head to one side. “What the fuck are you talking about? How do you know our voices?”

“Were you two out in London a few nights back by a library near London Bridge?”

After sharing a look with one another, the boys looked back at Michael, but neither spoke.

“There was a dead boy on the pavement.”

Although Josh’s demeanor softened, the older boy’s wound up tighter. “What the fuck? How do you know that?”

“I was in the library. A frie—” He paused and took a deep breath. “I was with someone, and we were hiding out in there when we heard people outside. Now that I’ve heard your voices, I recognize it as you two.”

The older boy hit Michael in the chest as he grabbed him and lifted him from the ground by his shirt. He slammed him into the wall, knocking the wind from him. Although Michael clawed at the boy’s wrist, he didn’t ease off.

The older boy stared hatred at him, his face twisting. “You’re lying. You set us up, didn’t you? You’re the reason we’re here, you little cunt.”

As he struggled, George’s words came back. Go for the boy’s eyes and throat. Maybe he could lift his knee and get him in the nuts. The shins maybe. But it wasn’t right to fight the other boys. When Michael dug his thumb into the boy’s wrist, he finally let go. Michael fell into a hunch and pulled heavy breaths into his body.

“Start talking, before I break your fucking neck.”

Both boys loomed over him when he looked up at them. Still holding his throat, he stole breaths in between his words. “If I’d have… been a rat, don’t… you think… they would have had me… in here… already? I came in after you. You just saw… I was tied up when I came in here. If I… was working for them… do you think they would have… tied me up?”

Before either boy could respond, Michael said, “This isn’t a good place.”

“No shit.” The older boy shook his head at him.

The younger boy, Josh, stepped forward. “Sorry about my brother. He’s really protective of me. All of our family is gone. We’ve been trying to find somewhere to go; somewhere safe. I don’t know why they’ve brought us here.”

To tell them the truth of the warehouse would be to reveal he’d been there before.

“Someone told me safety is an illusion,” Michael said. “I didn’t want to believe her, but the more I see of this new world, the more it seems true. Survival is the best we can hope for.”

Lola would have been proud of that statement, not that he gave a shit what Lola thought anymore. Bitch!

The boys stared down at him for a moment, then the older boy opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of the bolt locks cut him off.

After the three loud cracks, a man Michael hadn’t seen before stepped into the room and grabbed Josh by the top of his arm. “You’re coming with me, boy.”

Forcing his body between them, the older boy shook his head. “He ain’t going anywhere without me.”

The thick-framed man ground his jaw and silence held for a few seconds before his stony expression lifted. He spoke with a level tone. “Just so you know, boy, we do what the fuck we like here. I’m going to let you come with him, but know that I’m letting you. It’s nothing to do with your little tantrum; it’s because I’m a super fucking nice guy. Got it?”

The older brother didn’t reply.

The guard and Michael stared at one another. Deep bags hung beneath the man’s eyes and his glare was stone cold. When he continued to lead Josh from the room, his older brother followed behind.

Just before closing the door, the guard looked at Michael again. “Someone will be over for you soon to take you to the warehouse.”

Cocking an eyebrow at him, the older boy said, “The warehouse doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Michael said. What else could he say?

Once the boys were taken out and the door bolted again, he added, “Although it’s a damn sight better than where you’re going.”

Escapee

If anything, the corridors were dirtier than before. In the few weeks that he’d been away, the funk of the place had increased, grime coating not only the floors but the walls too. The smell of sweat and farts hung thick in the air. Another shove in his back spurred Michael forward as he made his way down the dimly lit passageway.

They’d said he'd be heading to the warehouse. Please let that be true. The warehouse was grim, but he’d escaped it once before, so he could do it again—especially if no one recognized him.

Searing pain ran through Michael’s left bicep when one of the men grabbed him and steered him through several sharp twists and turns. Wincing, he tensed up but tried not to overreact. Annoying the guards never turned out well. If he could get to the warehouse, he could wait with the other boys and plan to get out. If he got under the guard’s skin, he’d stand out as a nuisance and they'd target him. Maybe they didn’t have any say over who Julius picked, but there seemed no point in risking it. Whatever happened, he had to avoid Julius.

Several empty beer cans clattered at Michael’s feet, their aluminum rattle amplified by the enclosed space. The guard pushed him on.

The closer they got to the warehouse, the worse the smell. The tang of sweat had as good as vanished. Now, it reeked of shit. Beneath the predominant stink were undertones of urine, alcohol, and vomit.

Just before he stepped on her, Michael noticed the naked woman on the floor. She lay across the narrow corridor, bent like a discarded rag doll.

When he passed over her, Michael glanced down. Her chin glistened with vomit, a needle hung from one of her skinny arms, and her eyes had rolled back in her head. Her mouth hung wide, and she twitched occasionally.

They stopped in front of the large, steel door to the warehouse. The guard pulled a jingling ring full of keys from his pocket and unlocked the padlock. There was just one bolt on this door; it was huge and took a lot of wiggling to get it free. After a few seconds of the dry scratching of metal on metal, there was a loud thunk and the guard pulled the door wide with a yawning creak.

Michael gasped when the guard grabbed him harder than before. When he spoke, his gravelly voice ran icicles down Michael’s spine. It was the man who usually wore the sack over his head but it was too dark to get a proper look at him. Whatever the devil looked like, Michael always imagined it would be the same as this man.

“Welcome to the warehouse,” he said and shoved Michael forward.

After several stumbling steps, Michael stopped and looked around the room. Nothing had changed from before. The poor light made it hard to tell how many, but between thirty and fifty filthy boys stared at him. Hopefully, they wouldn’t remember him.

After the slam and bolting of the warehouse door, the place fell deathly still. A heave lifted up in Michael’s throat as he stood there. The reek in the corridors had nothing on the funk in here. The cause of the stink was a pile of sludge festering in the corner of the room. The mound of human waste had fermented into a noxious bog.

The boys continued to stare at him, but Michael ignored them. If he kept his head down, the chance to escape would come like it had before.

When one of the boys spoke, Michael’s stomach—along with his plan—dropped.

“Look, it’s that posh kid. The one that escaped.”

Taking a long, deep breath, Michael closed his eyes. “Fuck!”

Rat

The silhouettes around Michael changed. Where they had all been watching him and getting ready to reel in the new fish, they now stood tense and silent. The circle around him closed slightly and his breathing grew short.

The boys, who had been sitting down, stood up. The ones already on their feet stepped forward again.

As they drew closer, their shadows swamped Michael. Most of the boys dwarfed him; some stood at least twice his size. Many of his peers were on their way to becoming young men. It wouldn’t be long before they no longer caught Julius’ fancy. Who knew what would happen to them then.

Voices came at him from every angle.

“Thought you were better than us, did you?”

Although he shook his head, Michael didn’t reply. They wouldn’t want to hear it. Pleading would just make him look weaker.

“Thought you deserved to get away from here while we stayed?”

“Well, at least he’s back.”

A deep laugh boomed behind Michael, and he jumped forward. “Looks like you’re fucked now though, don’t it, sunshine? Not only do you have the guards against you but you have us on your back too.”

“Do you think they’ve even twigged it’s him?”

Michael pulled at his collar, but it didn’t ease the feeling of his heart pounding in his throat. When he stepped back, he bumped into a restraining hand.

“You ain’t going nowhere, sweetheart.”

Another voice called out on his right. “What do you think they’ll do when they find out?”

Someone tugged Michael’s sleeve.

“What the fuck is he wearing? Is he a fucking pansy or something?”

A sharp sting exploded across the back of Michael’s skull, and white light flashed in his vision. A ringing noise rang through his head. Michael raised his hands for protection. Seconds later, he took another blow to his right cheek, his world tilting as he rocked on the balls of his feet.

When someone shoved him, Michael fell to the floor and the boys swarmed over him, a tattoo of blows clattering into his skinny body.

Curling into a ball and closing his eyes, Michael cried and took the beating.

***

When the boys backed away, Michael unfurled but remained on the floor. Then he heard the hinges of the warehouse door creak.

Two men walked in. Neither of them had a sack over their head.

With his entire body throbbing, Michael remained on the floor and watched the door. The concrete was cold against his cheek, but he couldn’t move.

As the men entered the warehouse, Michael looked past them. They’d left the door open, and the dark shadows were still enough to hide by. They clearly hadn’t learned from him escaping.

Michael looked up at the men.

One of them opened his mouth to speak but stopped when a boy said, “He escaped from here a week or two ago.”

The taller of the two men halted, looked down at Michael, and then at the boy who had ratted him out. “What the fuck are you talking about, boy?”

“A couple of weeks ago…”

Michael looked over at the boy to see him pointing down at him.

“He managed to escape from the warehouse a couple of weeks ago. It looks like you’ve caught him again.”

The guards shared a look before the tall man returned his attention to the rat. “And what the fuck do you expect us to do about it? Look at the state of him. We can’t take him to Julius looking like that. He’s the one that damages the boys, not anyone else. He likes them clean when they come to him. Fresh like a ripe peach.”

Although Michael couldn’t see the man’s face in the poor light, he saw just how thick his finger was when he jabbed it at the boy.

“Did you do this to him?”

The confidence left the boy as he shook his head and stepped back. “No. It was nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, so you don’t want any part of it now; is that what you’re saying? A second ago, you were ready to sell him up the river.” Turning to his friend, the man said, “I think he’s lying to us, Jason. What do you reckon?”

Jason stepped toward the boy and sniffed the air. “Yeah, I smell bullshit.”

The laugh of the taller man boomed around the open space. “Well, if for no other reason than for being a rat, you’re coming to see Julius today, sunshine.”

Poor boy. It didn’t matter that he’d been trying to rat Michael out; no one deserved a trip to see Julius. Anxiety tied Michael’s stomach in knots as he watched the boy back away from the guards. His voice turned shrill, and it pulled the knots tighter. “No. Not again. No.”

As the boy got closer to the others, they parted. Alone and backed into a corner, he pulled his arms into his chest, his voice getting loud enough to echo through the high-ceilinged room. “No, please. Not again. No.”

When the men marched forward as a pair, Michael saw a silhouette of a boy slip out of the open door. It was still possible!

A deep boom sounded out as the larger of the two men drove a heavy blow into the boy’s stomach.

The boy dropped to the floor and wheezed.

The guard loomed over him, a dark smile lifting his face. “We can punch you in the stomach as much as we like. As long as Julius can’t see it, we can do what the fuck we want to you. Remember that.”

The two men took a foot each and dragged the boy toward the warehouse’s exit… the open exit… the exit that would be Michael’s freedom again.

When they were close to the door, the tall man called out, “Let this be a lesson to you all. Nobody likes a rat.”

The door crashed shut and the bolt snapped across. Silence returned to the room and Michael curled into a tight ball, hugging his knees to his chest as he shivered on the cold and damp concrete.

Vultures

Time held very little meaning in the warehouse. The monotony of sitting in the cold, open space with poor light twenty-four hours a day both depressed and disorientated Michael. A good few hours had passed; Michael knew that at least. And the others had left him alone for that time.

Not enough time had passed to ease his injuries though. Bruises wrapped his body like a hot blanket as he sat in the corner of the room and hugged his knees to his chest. To be both cold because of his environment and hot from the beating left Michael in a strange limbo that added to his exhausted state.

The older boy had been in with Julius for a long time. A shiver whipped through Michael’s body. Fuck that!

Although nothing had happened since the older boy had been taken away, chaos sat beneath the room’s lethargic atmosphere. Everyone continued to watch Michael; they just hadn’t done anything about it… yet.

The snapping bolt made Michael jump and he pushed farther back into the wall.

The huge hinge groaned as it always did. It was like a slow laugh, mocking the boys inside the room before the men came in and exerted their will upon them. Michael held his breath as he waited.

But nothing happened.

Maybe the guards had set this up as a test. See if anyone runs and punish them if they do.

The door remained open and still nothing happened. Leaning forward did little to help Michael see any better, and squinting didn’t make the dark any more penetrable.

Something large flew through the door and hit the ground with a thud.

It was a body.

Thud!

Two bodies.

Floppy and lifeless, they lay on the floor, their limbs splayed out in directions that an active body couldn’t replicate.

A man’s voice called in after them. It was the man with the sack over his head. The memory of his strong grip returned to Michael’s bicep. “Let this be a reminder of what happens to those of you that step out of line. Keep your necks wound in and life will be much more viable for you.”

Though not sure what viable meant, Michael got the gist of it—toe the line or else.

The man shut and locked the door again.

For a moment, no one moved. Other than the occasional shifting shadow, it remained still. Surely the other boys were doing the same as Michael—watching the bodies in the middle of the room and waiting for something to happen.

***

A few minutes passed and nothing happened, although something was building beneath the surface. It turned the air almost static with repressed action.

When someone moved on the opposite side of the room, the place came to life. As one, the boys converged on the bodies, colliding in the middle as a mess of flailing limbs and yelps. Michael held back.

The wet cracks of punches sounded out along with the occasional expulsion of air from a winded diaphragm. Swearing, grunting, struggling.

With his mouth hanging open, Michael watched; whatever they were doing, he wanted no part in it.

***

In less than a minute it stopped, and the boys walked away, some more gingerly than others. Many of the bigger boys had items of the dead kids’ clothing; shirt, shoes, socks, trousers. Suddenly, it made sense. The warehouse was cold—bordering on freezing—and any extra layers had to make the stay a lot more comfortable.

When Michael looked at the bent, broken, and naked bodies in the center of the room, his breath left his lungs. One was larger than the other, older and with the chest hair of a man. A beard wrapped around the lower half of his face. Thick enough to cover his jowls, it looked soft like he’d never grown one before. The other one, the smaller one, had just wanted to find somewhere safe. Maybe they were safe now.

Michael bowed his head and muttered, “Rest in peace, boys.”

One Fucking Eye Open

Michael watched the brothers as if they’d move at any moment. The arrival of the two corpses had wound up the atmosphere in the warehouse tighter than before; to look at the wrong person could prove fatal. At least dead boys couldn't start fights with him.

The hard floor drove aches through his bum and up his back. Everything still hurt from the beating. Before he could dwell on it any further, the screams started up.

The warehouse contained many rooms, all of them connected by a maze of dark passageways. The cacophony of suffering reached such a crescendo at times, the place virtually vibrated with the sounds. Screams, cries, and moans from men, women, and children. All of them crashed into the door to the warehouse, the sound of desperation squeezing through the gaps beneath and around it.

Watching the huge, metal door, Michael shivered. If he didn't get away soon, he'd be the next one screaming.

The crack of the bolt sliding free broke through Michael's spiraling thoughts.

The door creaked open, and the tall form of a boy fell forward, shoved into the room by a strong hand in the back. The boy moved with a zombie-like gait.

Michael shifted closer to the door. He needed to get out, and maybe this was his chance. Maybe the guard would be too busy with the boy he’d just brought back. Maybe—

The door slammed shut and the bolt shifted across.

The light was poor, but not so poor that Michael didn’t recognize the newest arrival. It may have been a battered, bruised, and more fragile version of the boy, but the rat had returned, nonetheless.

The boy pointed at Michael. “You.”

The accusation seemed to stir something up in all of the boys. Although Michael remained focused on his lopsided accuser, his senses tingled from the attention awakening around him as many of the boys got to their feet.

The rat looked around and stood slightly straighter as if lifted by the support of his peers. When he moved toward Michael, he resumed his undead shuffle. He stopped a few feet away, panting as he spoke through labored breaths. “That… should have been… you tonight.”

The boys in the warehouse closed in, and Michael stood up. He couldn't take another kicking on the floor.

Spittle rode the rat’s words, his eyes watered, and he shook as he repeated, “That should have been you.”

As the crowed surrounding him closed in even tighter, Michael shook his head. “Fuck you.”

When two boys lurched forward, the leader put a restraining arm out. He laughed and stepped closer to Michael, looming over him. “Not this time, lads. He wants another kicking. Another kicking means he won’t be taken to Julius anytime soon. Regardless of how you feel about him, I expect each and every one of you to make sure he’s given the best care. We want him nursed back to health in record time. After all, Julius needs a new pet after Chaz was killed last week.”

Leaning so close to him that Michael could smell his rotten breath, the boy said, “You’d best sleep with one fucking eye open. The second you lower your guard, you’re fucked. We’re going to damage you in ways they won’t see when you’re fully clothed. You’re going to get the scars that we all carry. Sooner or later, everyone gets them. You may not be pretty enough for Julius yet, but you’ll do for us. No one gets to escape their fate in this place even if we’re the ones that have to deliver it.”

The stink of body odor added to that of the boy’s halitosis. When he pulled away, Michael started to breathe again. The rest of the room pulled back with their leader.

Michael remained on his feet and leaned against the wall, the cold brick penetrating his layers of clothing.

After a while, he sat down again and pulled his knees to his chest. One, two, three, four. Eyes, throat, nuts, shins.

The time for him to put into action what George had taught him was fast approaching. Whatever happened, these boys weren’t getting the jump on him.

Scrambles

It felt like days had passed, but how could Michael tell? Living in the permanent gloom of the warehouse and not even able to see the other side of the room, it could have stretched to weeks by now.

The lock snapped free with its usual loud crack and he looked over at it. The opening of the door provided the only measure of time… or consistency at least. He clung to it as some kind of signal for each passing day but had no idea how regularly they visited the boys.

The hinge groaned as it always did, and Michael squinted into the darkness to see what came in.

A large shadow shot into the room and landed on the floor with a thud. Another one followed it through seconds later.

Not again!

But instead of bodies, they were sacks.

The door slammed shut with a loud clang and the bolt snapped across.

Just looking at the two sacks gave claws to Michael’s hunger pains. The food would be stale, but it was still food. A rumble rolled through Michael’s guts, and he licked his dry and cracked lips.

Five tall boys on Michael’s right got to their feet and walked to the middle of the room. Everyone else held back. It played out the same way the last time Michael was here. The small and the weak only got fed what the bigger boys didn’t want. Often, the bigger boys wanted everything.

Another group of boys stood on Michael’s left. Larger in number, but smaller in stature, they waited. They knew their place.

Once the five tall boys got to the middle, the group of smaller boys on Michael’s left rushed forward. They screamed and whooped as they descended on the pack. This was new.

The first boy to reach the bullies in the middle took a hard whack to the jaw. The wet slap echoed around the cavernous room and it drove the boy backwards, dropping him to the ground.

But that didn’t stop them.

Three of the smaller boys jumped on the one who’d thrown the first punch and chaos descended. Grunts, screams, and shouts came out of the tangle of bodies.

When both sacks split and the food spread out over the floor, half of the smaller boys rushed over and started gathering it up. They ran it back to their corner before coming in for more.

When a tube of breadsticks rolled out of the fight, Michael darted forward and picked them up. He pulled the small tube to his chest and drew back into the shadows.

***

No more than a minute had passed, and the group of smaller boys on Michael’s left had re-formed around their stash. A couple of them dragged the boy back who’d been knocked out at the beginning. Talk about taking one for the team.

The five hulking frames of the larger boys cleared up the rest of the food; but only four of them took their supplies back to their side of the warehouse. The one who had been to see Julius remained.

He stepped over the naked and broken corpses of the brothers and pointed at Michael. “You!”

Michael shook his head and hugged his tube of breadsticks. He didn’t reply.

“Don’t think I didn’t just see what you took, boy. Give the food back now!”

Michael got to his feet and put the tube of breadsticks in his hoodie’s pouch. He needed to front this out. George had said it was all about front. If he let them bully him now, it would set a precedent. He shook his head and stared at the boy. “No.”

The four big boys stopped mid way through carrying the food over to their side of the room. Once again, everyone’s attention fell on Michael.

As the bigger boy walked toward him, Michael watched his limp. Whenever he put pressure on his left leg, he noticeably dipped to one side.

“I ain’t fucking around,” the boy said as he jabbed his finger at Michael again. “You’d best give me my fucking food back now.”

“It isn’t your food.”

The boy continued forward.

Michael shifted side to side as he looked at him. Eyes, throat, nuts, shin.

When the boy was close enough, he swung a kick at him, catching his left shin.

The boy dropped instantly and rolled on the floor, screaming so loudly it hurt Michael’s ears.

Michael then charged forward and kicked him in the back, forcing a hollow cough from him.

The pain from the beating he’d taken vanished, and Michael moved more easily than he had in days. While gritting his teeth, he drove another kick into the boy’s back and then another.

The boy wheezed hard as he contorted on the floor, but Michael didn’t stop, raining down kick after kick after kick.

No one came to the boy’s rescue. ‘Friends’ abandoned you quickly in this place. Spittle rode Michael’s words as he leaned over him. “I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want this. Just leave me alone.”

When Michael stood up straight again, rocking with heavy pants, the older boy shuffled back. Silence descended again.

Then it started. The gang of boys on the right—the bigger boys—threw jeers at Michael.

“Don’t think it ends here, batty boy.”

“You’re going to pay for this, you little fucker.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

They talked a good game, but they didn’t seem to back it up. Michael had won, and they knew it.

The taller boy got to his feet and walked toward his crew. He limped worse than before.

As he moved into the midst of them, they folded around him and the glances in Michael’s direction dropped in frequency.

Returning to his space against the wall, Michael leaned against it and slid to the floor. He flipped the lid off the tube of breadsticks. It was like the celebratory popping of a champagne cork.

The expected crunch never came. Stale or not, at least it was food. Michael continued to watch the bigger boys. I may have won the battle, but they would no doubt jump him sooner or later. He needed to get out of there—fast.

Power Shift

Someone nudged Michael and he turned to see two boys at his side. Cold dread smothered him. How could he fight them both if they wanted their way with him? The last time he was here, he heard it happen to some of the smaller boys. Everyone else ignored it. They'd obviously ignore it happening to him.

Instead of replying, Michael glared at the slightly older boys. Whatever they had planned, it wasn’t going to happen. No fucking way! They’d seen what he could do, and he’d do it again and again to save himself.

One of the boys shifted closer.

Michael continued to watch the boys and remained mute. The smell of the warehouse sat on them. It was a mixture of waste, dirt, and sweat. Michael, no doubt, reeked of it himself.

When one of the boys held out a shaking hand, Michael stared at it.

The boy’s voice shook. “I’m Tim.”

Although the boy kept his dirty hand held out, Michael left it hanging.

Tim dropped his hand and looked at the floor. “Look, we came over here because you’re the first boy to stick up to Ben and his gang.”

Some of the bigger boys stood up and looked over.

Tim lowered his tone even more. “We have to fight them when food comes in, but we’ve not seen anyone do what you did to Ben. We—”

“Wanna join us?” the other boy said as he leaned forward, cutting Tim off.

Without replying, Michael looked at the pair. Tim had a kind face, an ease in his soft posture. The boy next to him, on the other hand… he had a twitchy and jagged demeanor as if permanently on edge—almost like he was one step away from descending into madness; although, any amount of time in this place could do that to anyone.

Desperation stared at Michael through wide eyes, and Tim placed his hands together as if in prayer. “We could really do with all the boys we can get on our side. We can’t keep getting picked on by those guys.”

Before Michael could reply, one of the bigger boys stood up and pointed over at them. “I’m not too happy with what’s going on over there, Ben. It seems like our pink track-suited friend is having a little get together with the other boys.”

Both Tim and the other boy backed away from Michael.

Michael watched Ben. If he needed to fight him again, he would. Would Tim’s group join in this time?

The boy in Ben’s group who’d stood up nudged his leader. “What shall we do? We definitely can’t leave this unpunished.”

Michael got to his feet, his body aching from the beating of the other day and sitting still to eat for the past few hours. Silence fell around him.

“Before you say anything, Ben, hear me out,” Michael said. “We aren’t enemies, and we have nothing to fight over. We’re all prisoners in here. Our fight should be with the guards, not one another.”

More silhouettes surrounding Ben got to their feet, and several boys offered their thoughts.

“Fuck off, you little cunt.”

“You would say that; you’re the ones who get a kicking when we fight.”

“Like we can do anything about the men.”

When Ben raised his hand, those around him fell silent. He moved as if in great discomfort. “You lost the right to negotiate with us when you escaped. The fact that you deserted us and never came back to let us out will stay with me until the day I die. I want to see you fucked up more than anything.”

“More than you want to escape?” Michael said.

The shadows may have hidden Ben’s face, but he was clearly staring straight at Michael. He didn’t reply.

Tim and the other boy had returned to their group, so Michael focused on Ben again. “Well, know this; there are more of us than there are of you. We don’t want to fight, but we won’t back down anymore. You’re behaving as bad as the guards, and we won’t put up with it.”

Michael looked at Tim and saw him shake his head as he bit his bottom lip.

Could Michael really give Tim’s group the confidence to fight when their leader didn’t have it?

Half of Ben’s group got to their feet, some of them throwing obscene gestures at Michael. Others focused on Tim’s group, the pack of smaller boys cowering in the face of the abuse. But none of them came any closer.

None of them.

Confidence

Surrounded by the stale reek of sweat, bad breath, and dirt, Michael sat in the middle of a huddle of boys with Tim to the right of him. A heave threatened to turn his entire body inside out, but Michael fought it. The breadsticks were an ordeal on the way down; if they came back up again, they’d probably tear his throat out with them.

Confident he could speak without vomiting, Michael kept his voice low, drawing the stink closer to him as the boys moved in to hear better. “If those boys attack, we need to fight dirty. If we hurt them, they’ll think twice about attacking us again. It’s all about front. If they know we won’t lie down, bullying us will be much harder for them.”

Some of the boys nodded, but many of them simply stared, wide-eyed and clearly lacking confidence.

“While I was away from the warehouse, I was taught how to fight like I did against Ben. You need to focus on their weak spots. Go for their eyes, throat, nuts, and shins. Fight dirty, and fight to injure them.”

It took a while for anyone to speak.

“But they’ll beat the shit out of us,” one boy finally said.

The boys surrounding him nodded in agreement; it was like being mobbed by bobble heads.

“Look, you may get hurt. That’s a very real possibility. But if you fight back, they’ll think twice about attacking you next time. Look at me; I’m younger than all of you, and I’ve done it. You need to do something to change your situation. They’ll give it lots of mouth like they did just a minute ago, but they never followed it up. They’re already losing their confidence.”

Michael glanced over at Ben’s group and said, “Look at them all. They’ve sat back down again.”

Most of the group looked over at them. Although no one spoke, they clearly got it.

“The more important question we should be asking is how the fuck do we get out of this place? I don’t know about you guys, but I ain’t waiting around for Julius to decide when he’s ready to see me.”

Some of the wide eyes around him dropped to the floor. Some narrowed. They hadn't had that choice.

“Do you want Julius to call on you again?”

The attention that he’d lost returned and heads shook.

“We need a plan then. The next time the guards come in, we need to watch them. I’ve only ever seen two guards come in at once, and there’s at least twenty-five of us. We can overpower two guards. They’re vulnerable because they think we’re scared.”

A boy not much bigger than Michael, his voice yet to break, said, “We are scared.”

Reaching over and grabbing one of the boy’s slim shoulders, Michael gave it a squeeze. “Well, it’s time to stop. We have to make a run for it when we get the chance.”

Hunched frames straightened. Dipped heads lifted.

Tim patted Michael on the back. “He’s right; we have to do something. Next time the guards come, watch exactly what they do so we can learn from it. If Michael’s done it, we can do it too. We’re going to get out of here, boys.”

More of the boys lifted, their posture tightening, their jaws setting. Watching the change around him spread hope through Michael’s heart. They were going to get out of there. There was no way Michael was being taken down to Julius.

No fucking way.

Plan B

When Michael woke, his eyes flew wide, and he drew a sharp breath. He was still in the warehouse. Sleep had convinced him he was somewhere else, somewhere he could feel safe. After a few seconds, his tired eyelids grew heavier as if the lethargy of the place had infected him, but he couldn’t sleep any longer.

Surrounded by Tim and his gang, all of them at different stages of dozing, Michael looked across at Ben’s group. None of them moved, but they somehow seemed more alert. Like they were more ready to fight than Tim and his lot ever would be. But maybe they could front it out. Maybe that would be enough to keep them safe.

The crack of the bolt on the warehouse door disturbed the lazy atmosphere. Michael tapped Tim’s foot and leaned close to him. Tim reeked like a wet dog. “This is it. We need to watch everything they do so we can work out how to escape next time.”

After blinking several times, his eyes gaining focus, Tim nodded and relayed the message to the boy next to him. The instruction passed down the line of boys. Hopefully, the same message reached the end.

The door opened and a guard walked in. The shadows made it hard to see any clearer than to detect that he was dressed in many layers, had a beard, and shaggy hair.

The man walked over to the dead brothers in the middle of the room and grabbed the older one by his naked ankles. The whoosh of bare skin rubbed over rough concrete as he dragged him out. The corpse would be red raw when it arrived wherever it was being taken.

Shortly after the man disappeared, two slapping sounds of legs hitting the hard ground clapped in the corridor. Seconds later, the man reappeared and dragged the other brother out.

When the man returned for a third time, he flicked a flashlight on and waved it around the warehouse. The brightness of it made the boys recoil when the beam hit them.

When it swung past Michael, it burned his eyes, and he raised his forearm to block the shine.

The roving beam moved quicker, as if highlighting the man’s frustration. “Where is he?” the man shouted. “Where’s the one who escaped us before?”

Michael’s entire being sank and he said nothing.

No one else spoke either.

The man produced a baseball bat and waved it in the air. “I’m going to start cracking skulls if I don’t get answers.”

With his throat so dry he felt sick, Michael looked at the other boys. None of them talked, although Ben’s gang all stared his way.

When the guard walked toward one of Ben’s group, bat raised, Michael got to his feet.

“I’m here.” His voice echoed in the near silence, and everyone turned to look at him.

The guard stopped mid-step, and his back tensed before he turned around. “Aha. Wise choice, boy.”

The glare of his flashlight in Michael’s face, again, made it impossible to see anything as the man’s footsteps drew closer.

“So, Julius has heard about you now. He wasn’t happy to know that you’d escaped, and he was even more annoyed to hear of the beating you’ve received while in here.” When the guard lowered the light, Michael saw him stare over at Ben. “But he’s sought retribution for that already.”

He dazzled Michael with the beam again. “So I’ve been sent to see how you’re recovering. Julius is desperate to see you, but he wants you unspoiled.”

The mention of Julius made Michael’s buttocks clench, and bile rose in his throat.

The man brought the smell of alcohol forward with him when he stepped closer. “But the problem is you don’t look much better.”

Shaking where he stood, shivering from a mixture of cold, tiredness, and fear, Michael clamped his jaw tight and still didn’t respond. Nothing would improve his situation.

The man leaned closer still, so close Michael felt his body heat and coughed because of the man’s fetid musk.

“Julius is going to freak if he has to wait too long. He’s got a real hard on for you. A real fucking hard on, and he’s an impatient man. We can’t have you looking like the fucking elephant boy when you go to see him; now can we?”

The man grabbed Michael’s shoulder, spun him around, and pushed him toward the huge, steel door. “We’re going to have to do something about that fucking getup too. Julius ain’t into pink.”

Michael made eye contact with Tim as he passed him. If the group were going to act, it needed to be now, although there was no reason for them to do anything. The plan was to watch and learn what the guards did. There was no ‘Plan B.’

If Michael called out for the boys to fight at that point, he’d be ruining their chance of a more organized escape attempt later.

Snot ran from Michael’s cold nose, and he sniffed hard as he walked. He then looked away from his new friends and focused on the dark mouth that was the exit from the warehouse—the path to Julius’ room.

The loud slam of the door ran straight through Michael. There was another guard waiting outside.

In the few seconds that he stood there, one guard with his grip on the back of Michael’s neck, and the other one holding an ankle of each dead brother, Michael heard Ben on the other side of the door.

“There goes your inspiration, boys. Now what do you say we forget all the silliness and go back to how things were, yeah?”

Before he could hear the response, one of the guards shoved Michael away from the door.

Baton

Michael curled into a fetal position and shivered as he lay on his new bed. The bare concrete walls in his latest prison gave off a chill like a refrigerator, and within minutes, Michael's cold nose had started to run again.

The walls of the cell kept him contained, but didn't stop the cold draft from entering his room—or the sounds of suffering. The screams and shouts of the others in the building rang both louder and clearer than before. It wouldn’t be long before his screams added to the chaos.

The single bed had been positioned in the middle of a small room. There was just enough space to walk all the way around it. At first glance, it seemed like a better option than the dirty floor of the warehouse… then he lay down on it.

The springs in the lumpy mattress prodded his skinny body no matter how he positioned himself. And the smell… a heady mix of damp, piss, shit, rotting meat, and sweat. The toxicity of it made his head spin and for the first twenty minutes or so, it took all of Michael’s effort to stop himself vomiting. A large brown stain covered over seventy-five percent of the mattress. Not brown like mud or sweat, it was brown like old blood.

As Michael tried to get comfortable, he looked at the back of the door. Like all of the doors in the warehouse, it creaked and groaned whenever someone moved it. It served as an early warning system and prevented anyone getting the jump on him but did nothing to mute the cries of the people in other parts of the warehouse.

Above all of the suffering outside, Michael heard the children most clearly. Their sobs haunted the hallways. Pulling his knees to his chest, he clamped his hands over his ears and rocked where he lay. The children were young; much younger than him.

As he rolled onto his other side, the springs speared him at random points on his skinny body. Once he’d stopped moving, he pressed his fingertips into his ears again. All he wanted was to be out of there; just to be somewhere safe, somewhere where people would be able to look out for him. Yeah right! Lola had spoken the truth when she said safety didn't exist. No one could be trusted. Maybe his mum had the right idea. Maybe safety could only be found in death.

***

How long it took, Michael couldn’t even guess, but the crying outside finally stopped. He removed his fingers from his ears and rolled over onto his back.

Every surface in the room was exposed concrete. The ceiling, the walls, the floor…

After a series of small adjustments, each one to shift away from a particularly uncomfortable spring, Michael exhaled hard and his left arm slipped out of the bed. On the way down, it caught the frame, stinging his knuckles. Despite the throb on the back of his hand, it was the twanging sound that got Michael’s attention.

Michael leaned out of the bed. A lump of wood ran the length of the frame down one side—a decorative baton no thicker than a pool cue, and definitely not as strong. But maybe strong enough? When he tugged at it, it stretched away from the frame by a few inches. When he let it go, it snapped back against the bed with a loud crack.

He tugged it again, a little harder this time. The gradual sound of splintering wood made him tense and he watched the door. Could anyone hear him?

With one final sharp tug, the baton came free.

Crack!

Michael held his breath and listened as he stared at the piece of wood. The baton was about the length of his arm. He looked at the back of the door again. Someone had to have heard him!

After waiting for a minute or so, no one came, so Michael turned the baton over and examined it. It was big enough to swing at a guard and give him the advantage when he needed it.

As he pulled it into his chest, he listened to the silence around him. It was big enough.

Attack

Michael woke up on full alert and looked at the door. The sounds of movement on the other side had roused him. He gripped the baton with both hands and pulled it back into his chest. His beating heart tapped against the back of his thumbs. If he could get away now, he’d be free. The next stop was Julius’ room, and he couldn’t end up there. No way!

When Michael rolled off the bed, the springs jabbed his skinny form, but he kept his attention on the door.

The dark wooden doorknob twitched as someone touched it on the other side. Then it twisted slowly, letting out a dry rasp as it turned. They obviously still thought they had the element of surprise on their side.

With few places to hide, Michael made his way over to the wall next to the door and pressed his back against it. He looked down to his right as the handle continued turning.

When the door popped free of the frame, Michael pushed himself harder into the wall and held his breath, his heart galloping.

The door opened into the room. A large hand still gripped the handle.

Michael shook. His throat dried.

The door then flew wide and the man darted in behind it, a baseball bat raised. He lowered his bat and stared at the empty bed. “Huh?”

Before he could say anything else, Michael lunged forward and brought the baton down on the back of the man’s head. It connected with a hollow crack.

The vibration ran all the way up the baton and Michael’s arm went weak. It sounded like he’d hit a coconut.

Unable to move, he watched the guard stumble and fall to one knee. His large hand reached up and felt the point on his head where Michael had hit him.

Michael clenched his jaw and wound back for another blow. While yelling out, he swung at the man again, the baton connecting with his temple with another nauseating crack.

The guard sprawled sideways. As he fell, he dropped his baseball bat and by the time he’d hit the ground, the weapon had rolled away from him.

Michael hadn’t thought to check right away, but when he glanced through the open doorway, he saw the corridor was empty. Thank god he’d come alone. Although the guard barely moved, he was still breathing. Grief buckled Michael’s face as he looked down at the fallen man. “I’m not going to see Julius. I’m not.”

He swung for the guard again, the gruesome and bloody mess disappearing behind the haze of his tears. He cried as he brought the baton down again, and again, and again.

Each time, the guard’s skull gave a little bit more.

By the time he’d stopped, Michael’s entire body shook. The baton was painted red and the guard’s head was no more than a fleshy pulp on the floor. There was an occasional flash of white amongst the carnage… teeth, eyeball, bone? It was hard to tell.

Michael backed away and shook his head. “Oh, god, what have I done?”

The baton sang as it hit the concrete floor. When Michael leaned across the guard, he tensed up as if he’d come to life again. Pretty fucking stupid considering he didn’t have a fucking head.

Michael picked up the guard’s bat and stepped out into the corridor. It was still clear. The hinges on the door creaked as he pulled it closed. Then he took off.

Escape

As Michael ran down the corridor, the sound of his own clumsy footsteps echoed in the enclosed space. Breathing on the edge of a panic attack, his pulse raced and his head swam. If he’d gotten out once, he could do it again.

Lack of sleep and poor diet over the past few days had turned his legs weak, his ankles wobbling every time they hit the floor as if they would give out beneath him.

An explosion of light smashed into his vision as he ran headfirst into a wall. The bends in the dark rat run were both sharp and abrupt. He’d misjudged this one. A quick shake of his head cleared the daze and he took off again. He could deal with the headache later.

The funk surrounding him was so thick he could taste it. Every desperate breath satiated him less than the last and coated his tongue with the stale, meaty taste of his environment. But he kept going, sprinting into what felt like the bowels of the warehouse.

When Michael arrived at the warehouse door, stars swimming in his vision from his earlier collision, he looked down at the bolt. He had to do one thing before he left. The one thing he didn’t do last time. The fate of the other boys had played on his mind when he’d left them previously, and he wouldn’t—no, couldn’t—take that guilt with him again.

With sweating fingers, he gripped the large bolt in a tight pinch and wriggled it free. The rusty metal made the action sandy as he worked it up and down.

Even though he was the one who’d made the sound, the cracking bolt had the Pavlovian effect of running tension up his spine. He pulled the door wide and poked his head into the room.

The silhouettes of about fifty boys turned his way. At first, he couldn’t get his words past his short breaths. Then, he finally managed to speak. “If you want to escape, now’s the time.”

Some of the boys, the ones on Tim’s side of the room, got to their feet. Many of the others remained seated.

“What are you doing? Don’t you want to get out of here?”

No one moved. Even Tim’s group, although standing, remained still. Michael looked into the dark corridor behind him. Whatever happened now, it was their choice. “Fine. Well, I’m not waiting for you to decide. The door’s open; you can leave if you want to.”

Michael turned one hundred and eighty degrees and ran back into the dark maze of walkways. No footsteps followed him. What a fucking waste of time. Had he known they’d react in that way, he’d have headed straight for the exit. It wouldn’t be long before someone found the dead guard. Maybe they’d already found him. He couldn’t think like that. It wouldn’t do him any—

A blow hit Michael’s chest hard, and his legs kicked up as he fell backwards. When he hit the ground, it drove the air from his lungs. As he fought to regain his breath, he looked up at the four large men looming over him.

Only one of them spoke; the one who had clotheslined him. “Julius ain’t happy with you, boy. He’s seriously fucking pissed.”

Another man stepped forward with an open sack. He held it wide and threw Michael’s world into darkness.

Pretty in Pink

The sack stank of the warehouse and worse. A beefy mix of sweat, vomit, and blood merged with a stale reek of halitosis. Many heads had obviously been in it before Michael’s.

When someone tore it free, Michael blinked against the brightness of his surroundings. His eyes stung from the adjustment in light, but he couldn’t rub them because his hands were bound behind his back.

After several more blinks, everything came into focus. An old oil drum sat in the middle of the room with a fire raging inside it. The heat it gave off made Michael sweat beneath his pink tracksuit.

An armchair rested like a throne on a platform behind the oil drum. Michael wanted to cry when he looked at the man sitting in it. He may never have seen Julius before to recognize him, but he didn’t need to.

Contrary to the images in his mind, Julius didn’t have two heads or fire burning in his eyes. He didn’t have horns or sharp teeth. He was just a man; a man in his mid to late thirties with a square, balding head. If Michael had passed him in the street, he wouldn’t have thought twice about him. Maybe that was what made men like Julius so dangerous, what allowed them to get so close to the boys they preyed upon… they looked just like everyone else.

Then Michael looked into his eyes and his breath stopped for a moment. His dark irises bore a twisted mix of hatred and lust.

Michael looked away.

A stock sat in one corner of the room. They went on a school trip to a castle once, and there was one similar to it in the forecourt. Michael volunteered to put his neck and hands in it while his classmates pretended to throw rotten food at him.

A rack took up the space in another corner. Ropes rested limp on a tabletop. It had been configured for someone small.

A row of medieval weapons lined the far wall. From whips to chains to morning stars, all of them looked equally brutal.

Horrible Histories had taught Michael a lot about medieval torture, and Julius looked like he would teach him a thing or two more.

Like the cell he’d left the dead guard in, the walls were made from bare concrete. Except in here, much of them, especially those parts close the floor, were covered in brown bloodstains.

When Michael looked back at Julius, his heart jolted. He’d been watching him take in the room. Although he smiled, his eyes didn’t.

“Like my lair, do you, boy?”

Michael didn’t reply; he twisted as sweat ran down his back.

Julius pouted at Michael and let his legs fall open. He wore skimpy shorts and was hairy from his thighs to his ankles. He looked like an ape. After looking Michael up and down, he said, “Nice outfit.”

Michael remained silent.

“So you’re the kid that’s been causing all the trouble, are you? You’re smaller than I expected.”

Again, Michael didn’t say anything, shaking as he stood in the center of the room.

“Well, I’m not ready for you yet, and the bruises on your face displease me. I like my boys to come to me blemish-free. Peach skin is so much more appealing than a coconut’s husk. But I think I need to make an exception for you in case you try to escape again. I need to make sure you’ve been taught your lessons. Naughty boys always need to learn their lessons.”

A shudder snapped through Michael as Julius picked his teeth with his little finger and tilted his head to one side. “Did you ever watch Star Wars before all this bullshit happened?”

Michael remained silent.

“Wow, tough crowd. Not even Star Wars can get you to talk. Well, you’re going to be my Slave Princess Leah. In that get up, I think the role will suit you. I’m going to keep you up here with me. You’ll be at my beck and call so I can use you whenever I like. I need to make an example of you. The other boys need to see what happens to naughty little boys like you.”

One of the weapons on the far wall had caught Michael’s attention and he looked at it again. It had a small handle at one end and a long chain running all the way down to a ball on the other. The ball had fine needle-like spikes packed so tightly together it looked fuzzy. Lumps of flesh clogged the spaces in between the pins.

“The other boys need to know I’m not to be messed with.”

Julius pointed at a large wooden chair that looked like it was used to electrocute people in. “Tie him to that.”

A strong grip wrapped around Michael’s bicep and dragged him toward the chair. The guard cut his bonds and threw him into it so hard the thing rocked backwards. A loud snap called out as the front feet crashed back down to the floor again before the men used the leather straps to bind first his ankles and then his wrists.

They tied each buckle so tightly Michael’s hands and feet tingled from where the circulation had been cut off.

Once the men had finished, they stood back and stared at him. Michael ignored them all, looking straight ahead as he spoke beneath his breath, “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four…”

Barbecue Sauce

Pins and needles buzzed through Michael’s hands and feet, and no amount of twitching eased the pain. If he stayed bound to the chair for too much longer, the damage would undoubtedly be irreparable. To make things worse, an itch tingled on his nose about an hour ago, and no matter how many times he wrinkled his face, he couldn’t satisfy it.

While sitting as still as possible, Michael tempered his breathing. The longer Julius stayed distracted for, the longer he left Michael alone. Anything could pique the lunatic's interest, so Michael remained as inconspicuous as possible.

Suddenly, a man's scream crashed through the stillness of the room, and Michael looked first at the door and then at Julius, his eyes wide on his square face.

The next scream was followed by a voice. The sound of it lifted hope in Michael’s chest.

“Where is he?” George shouted outside.

Julius sat up straight in his throne and continued staring at the door.

A loud thud was followed by the “oof” of someone taking a hit, and then a bang as someone fell to the floor.

Julius jumped down from his throne and ran to his wall of weapons.

When he picked up the chain with the spiked ball, Michael started to shake. With it hanging from his grip, he turned his attention on Michael.

“Oh fuck!”

As Julius ran at him, Michael called out, “George, I’m in here. Help me. There’s only one man in here, and he’s armed.”

Before Julius could get to Michael, George had kicked the door open. The large man filled the frame as he glared at the stinking pedophile.

Julius stopped dead.

With an axe hanging from his grip and other people’s blood streaked up his clothes, George ran at Julius.

The sound of the blunt side of George’s axe connected with Julius’ temple with a thick crack.

Julius’ legs folded beneath him, and he crumpled to the floor. The dirty medieval weapon fell from his grip.

George loomed over him, his tense shoulders raised to his neck as he stared down at the man. “It would be easy to bury this axe in your head, you sick fuck. You don’t deserve that kind of luck though.”

The metal head of the axe clanged against the floor when George dropped it. He then leaned over and gripped a handful of Julius’ vest. Like a mother puppy moving her young, he lifted him and dragged him across the room.

When they were closer to the fire drum, Julius came to life, twisting and turning in an attempt to be free of George's grip. He shook his head and kicked his legs. “No. Not that… no… please…”

Without breaking stride, George lifted Julius and pressed his face into the side of the scalding barrel.

Julius screamed, but it did nothing to mask the hiss of his melting flesh.

George grimaced as he pushed the man harder into it.

The charred stink, both sweet and smoked like burned honey-roasted ham, left an acrid taste in the back of Michael’s throat.

“This is what happens to perverts,” George said, shaking as he delivered his words. “You’re a sick fuck and deserve to pay the fucking price for it.”

Julius screamed as he fought to get away.

Surrounded by the strong and sweet reek of burning flesh, Michael watched with relief. The panic that had balled in his chest over the past few days eased. George was here. He was safe.

***

The next ten minutes or so would stay with Michael forever, but he didn’t turn away. Someone like Julius deserved to leave the world minus his fingernails, toenails, then fingers and toes.

When George finally lifted the thickset man and placed him over the oil drum, he was still breathing, but was delirious. The flames feasted on his clothes and stretched up toward the ceiling.

As the smell of burned hair joined the reek of melting skin, George stood back and wiped his glistening brow. The big man then walked over to Michael and undid his restraints. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. Are you okay?”

Michael nodded, grief swelling as a painful lump in his throat.

When Michael’s first hand was free, he scratched his nose and groaned. “Oh my god, that feels so good.”

George paused and stared at him, his dark gaze heavy with concern.

“My nose has been itching since they strapped me into this bloody seat,” Michael said.

George nodded and continued freeing Michael from the rest of the straps.

Michael jumped out of the chair and George dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay, mate?”

A hot wave of grief rushed forward. Michael’s eyes burned, and his lip buckled as he nodded. “Yes, you got to me before anything happened.”

George straightened a little and his scowl eased. “Really?”

Michael nodded again and looked over at Julius' body as it popped and crackled on the fire. “Thanks for saving me, George.”

“I owe you this a million times over. I promise you, son, I’ll do everything within my power to keep you safe in this world.”

Silence hung between the pair before Michael finally broke it. “There’s something we need to do before we leave.”

***

The lock snapped free, the hinges groaned, and Michael stepped into the warehouse with George behind him.

The familiar lethargy of the room hit him as he looked at all of the dozing boys.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m not hanging around this time, and you boys can do whatever the fuck you like, but Julius is dead, as are most of his guards. If you want to leave this place, I would suggest you do it now.”

No one responded.

When he turned to George, the big man shrugged. “You ready to leave?”

Of the fifty or so boys in the warehouse, every one of them remained where they were. Michael looked up at George. “What are they doing? Why aren’t they moving?”

“They’ve been here too long.”

“Surely that would make them want to move more?”

The sides of George’s eyes pinched as he winced. “Sometimes, people become so accustomed to a certain way of life, especially one as brutal as the one they’ve been living, that they’re too broken to leave it.”

As he looked at the boys, Michael opened and closed his mouth several times but couldn’t find the words. He eventually sighed and turned to George again. “Let’s get out of here.”

Breakfast

In the time Michael had been away, George had found a new house to live in. It was a good thing because the old place reminded him too much of Lola. Just thinking about her made him tense. As he walked down the stairs, he stretched the tiredness from his body and winced against the shrill peep of the fire alarm.

"What time is it?" he said to George as he watched him dance around the kitchen, waving a tea towel through the air as if it would banish the smoke.

After looking out of the window at the spreading daylight, George shrugged and said, "Morning," then continued wafting the air beneath the alarm.

It had been a week since George had rescued him from the warehouse, and the aches and pains from his time there still tugged at various parts of his body. They’d diminished for sure but not completely vanished. A few more days and they should be gone for good.

Before he stepped off the bottom stair, Michael held onto the banister and rolled his hips from side to side. One of the boys in the warehouse had hit him so hard in the back, he had a deeper pain there than anywhere else. As he rocked, lightning rods of pain ran both up his back and down his thigh.

George gave up on the fire alarm and stared at Michael. "You okay, son?"

Michael nodded. He didn’t have it in him to shout over the annoying noise.

The house used to belong to a family of four; a mum, dad, son, and daughter. George had called it a nuclear family—whatever that was supposed to mean—and whenever Michael looked at the family photos on the walls, he expected them all to glow green. When he told George that, the big man said he’d watched too much Scooby Doo. He missed Scooby Doo.

The boy of the family was named Connor; or so it said on the schoolbooks that he’d left behind in his room. Although he was an academic year older than Michael, they were of a similar size. His clothes weren’t a perfect fit, but they were good enough and a damn sight better than a pink tracksuit. Whenever Michael looked out into the back garden, he saw the dark stain on the small patio from where he and George had burned the horrible clothes.

The family must have left in a rush because Conner left a lot of things behind. In a week, Michael had been able to wear a new outfit each day. It would be at least a month before he had to even consider washing anything. The soft brush of clean clothes against his skin felt good as he continued trying to work the aches from his body. Today he'd chosen blue jeans, a baggy t-shirt, and a red hoodie. Beneath that, he had some Calvin Klein boxer shorts and thick hiking socks on his feet. It felt almost as good as having a warm shower.

The fire alarm stopped as Michael walked to the kitchen table. When he sat down it went off again, the loud noise hurting his ears and causing him to cringe.

George flapped a tea towel beneath it again until it stopped. When he saw Michael looking at him, he half smiled.

“I know, I know. It’s bloody annoying and it wakes you up every morning." He turned to the fire pit in the sink, wafting the smoke away from the alarm as best as he could. "Although getting you out of bed in the morning isn’t the worst thing. I know what you kids are like. You’ll sleep until it’s dark if we let you.”

When Michael pulled a face, George added, “Anyway, it’s staying. It's too fucking cold to cook outside and there’s no way I’m sleeping in a house without a fire alarm. If only I was more fucking cautious years ago.”

Michael couldn’t argue with that; not with knowing that’s how George had lost his boy.

George turned back to the grill spread across the sink and jabbed a fork into the meat sizzling on it before lifting it off and plunking it on a white plate on the kitchen worktop. After draining a steaming pot of sweet corn, he tipped that next to the meat and slid the food across the table to Michael.

George then handed him a half-full bottle of water. “We’re running a bit low, but the rainwater’s building up. I’ll boil some of it tonight so we have more for tomorrow.”

The plastic bottle crackled as Michael undid the lid and took a sip. It tasted like dust. Like it had been in the bottle too long and had spent the past year on the back seat of a car. But it quenched his thirst and there was no room for fussiness in this new life.

The house had a very similar set up to the one they'd stayed in with Lola. Open plan downstairs with a great view of both the front and back of the house. The back garden had walls surrounding it and it was large for a London property. Like the last property, it had gates across the front and, as before, George had blocked them with the battered truck.

Michael returned his attention to his meal. When he cut through the meat, his knife chinked against the porcelain plate. In the aftermath of the alarm, the silence hung heavy.

“You still having nightmares, kid?”

Michael looked up at George; heat flushed his cheeks, and his tongue suddenly felt too big for his mouth. He nodded and dropped his eyes back to his breakfast.

“Figured as much. I hear you screaming at night. I can’t believe Lola sold you out. What a bitch.”

They’d already had this conversation several times. What did George hope to achieve by going over it again? Although Michael didn’t reply, he stared at George and raised his eyebrows.

George lifted his hands as if it were a stick up. “All right, I get it. Drop it, right?”

The nightmares had been with Michael long before Lola sold him out. Every time he closed his eyes, the first thing he saw before reliving the darkness of the warehouse, was his dad’s death. He saw his skull caving beneath the heavy blow of a hammer long before he heard the boys’ screams. But how could he tell George that?

As Michael chewed another mouthful of the salty meat, he said, “What is this?”

“Vegetarian bacon. It’s the only stuff that’s still edible.”

“It tastes all right, you know?"

George shrugged, taking the compliment as if he'd created the faux meat.

"What happened to the pig that was on the back of your truck?”

George sighed. “It died. It was in a bad way. We should have eaten it when we caught it. It would have been fairer to the pig, and we wouldn’t have had to waste the meat. But Dean didn’t like doing anything that wasn’t his idea. I think he enjoyed watching it die, to be honest.”

Just the mention of Dean made Michael shudder. After spooning the last of his corn into his mouth, Michael chugged it back with another guzzle of stale water. Michael had stopped being hungry quite a few mouthfuls ago but knew that food shouldn’t be wasted. After sliding his plate away from him, he covered his mouth and burped. “Thank you, George. That was a nice meal.”

While rocking back in his seat, George released a booming laugh at the ceiling. It dropped so low it seemed to shake the building's foundations.

Michael couldn't help but smile.

“No, it wasn’t,” George said. “It tasted like arse, but you’re a polite boy, so thank you.”

George pulled a small, clear bag from his top pocket and tossed it across the table at Michael. “Potato seeds. We need to plant them in the ground we dug up yesterday. Do you want to go and make a start while I clean up in here?”

Michael looked at the clear packet lying on the table. It had about thirty brown seeds inside of it. Planting seeds beat washing dishes any day of the week, so Michael picked the bag up and headed for the back door.

Sowing

An electric sting ran through Michael's right palm when he gripped the trowel. The week of hard work in the garden had given him blisters on top of blisters, but he couldn’t stop. Not that George expected him to work; if he told him how he felt, George would let him stop immediately. But the physical exercise gave him something to do and stopped his mind from spiraling into the well of dark memories.

It also gave him the opportunity to be around George without having to talk to him. It allowed him to live under the big man's protection but not have to engage with him in any real way. Every time they were alone with nothing to do, the same questions presented themselves. Should he be living with this man? Would he do to Michael what he'd done to his dad?

With his hands on his hips, Michael surveyed the freshly turned lawn. They had a space of earth about the same size as an American pool table. At least that's what George had said. Michael hadn't ever seen an American pool table. All that mattered was it was big enough to grow food for them in.

When Michael dropped to his knees, the soft mud cushioned his fall. His palm burned as he started to dig a small trench for the seeds.

As he worked his way along the small mud patch, digging the trench like George had shown him, he heard something but didn’t stop.

It took him straining his ears to keep track of the sound on the other side of the wall. He listened to the gentle crunch of dirt. It sounded like someone walking on tiptoes—maybe two people, but no more than that.

Michael stopped digging to pour the seeds into the trench. His hand quivered as he shook the packet over the earth. The people or person on the other side continued moving.

At the end of the first row, Michael swiped his hair from his forehead and looked back up the line of brown seeds lying on the dark earth. He’d planted all of them. From the corner of his eye he caught the slightest movement of black hair. It looked like a man; either that or a woman with very short hair and a bald patch.

Although his breath caught in his throat, Michael focused on keeping the pretense up. If he didn’t give anything away, he had the advantage.

Michael stood up and stretched to the sky as he called to the house. “Do we have any water in there, George? I’m really thirsty.”

Without giving George the time to respond, he tossed his trowel to the floor and walked across the muddy garden to the back door.

Once inside, Michael closed the patio door and walked over to George at the sink.

When George turned around and looked down at the muddy trail he’d just walked into the house, Michael stopped in his tracks, fear sending ice through his veins. “Sorry.”

Although George batted his hand through the air as if he didn’t care, the frown on his face said otherwise. He still humored Michael. “Don’t worry.”

When he looked up at him, he paused for a second and then said, “Are you okay? You look pale.”

At George mentioning it, Michael suddenly felt pale. “Don’t look now, but I think there’s someone on the other side of the wall watching me. They’ve been there for a while.”

“Do they know you’ve seen them?”

Michael gave a sharp shake of his head.

When George frowned and looked past him, Michael hissed, “I said don’t look.”

George turned back to the sink and continued washing up. Impatience added a bite to his words. “What should I do then?”

“I’m coming in here for a drink. Once I’ve had that drink, I’ll go back outside and sow some more seeds. I’ll pretend I don’t know they’re there, and while I’m doing that, you sneak around the other side and jump ’em.”

“Them?”

“There may be two. But I don’t think there are any more.”

George continued scrubbing and his voice dropped lower when he said, “Okay, I can do that.”

Trade

Michael trembled as he dug the next small trench in the garden. There could be more than two people on the other side of the wall. The others could be holding back. They might jump George and kill him.

Before Michael’s panic gathered steam, he heard George walk around the corner, his deep voice booming out. “Oi, you. What the fuck are you doing, you fucking pervert?”

A man’s voice replied, strained and high-pitched. “No, it’s not like that. Honest.”

The heavy thud sounded like a fist connecting with some part of the man’s body. Then a sharp wheeze followed by another thud as the man evidently hit the ground.

George called over the wall. “It’s okay, Michael, I’ve got him.”

***

George had strapped the man to a high-backed chair. Just looking at him took Michael back to being with Julius in the warehouse. But what else could they do? Who knew what this man was capable of?

The face didn’t match Michael’s image of the man. When he’d seen the black hair and bald patch, he’d expected someone older. But this man had a round, boyish look. He appeared to be fit too; like he exercised.

George had a kitchen knife in his hand, the shiny blade as long as his forearm. He stepped toward the man and pointed it at him. “What the fuck were you doing outside our house?”

When George moved the tip of the blade forward so it was only a hair’s width away from the man’s eyeball, the man responded, addressing the knife rather than George. “I’m not a pervert, honest. It’s not like that.”

“Well, you best start telling me what the fuck it is like before I fuck you up. I’m tired of other people’s bullshit. I have no fucking patience left for it.”

George gripped the blade so tightly his hand shook. It looked like it took all of his resolve to refrain from plunging it directly into the man’s eye. The man knew it too.

“I’m… I’m… from another community. We’re not hostile—”

“I’ve heard that before.”

The man’s breaths quickened and he continued watching the blade.

Just watching him made Michael’s lungs tight. He seemed legit. Touching George’s muscled arm, Michael gave it a gentle squeeze. “Let the man talk, George.”

When George turned to the man again, he nodded. “If you’re telling the truth, this could work out well for you. We want to make contact with other survivors. We’re looking for allies.”

“What are allies?” Michael said.

George and the man both looked at him and his face grew hot.

The man finally spoke. “Friends, son. I saw you guys planting seeds and thought you’d be interested in trading with us.”

“And this is when you tell me you want the boy, yeah?”

A hard frown crushed the man’s soft features, and he shook his head as if George’s suggestion had left a bad taste in his mouth. “No. I’ve told you, we’re nothing like those horrible bastards roaming the city. We want to rebuild society. To do that, we have to behave in a civilized way.”

“So why would we want to start trading with you?”

“I thought you said you needed allies?”

“We do, but we’re not desperate. So why should we get involved with your community?” Before the man could respond, George, who still had his knife raised, said, “Look, I have a boy with me. A boy who’s seen more shit than an eleven-year-old should ever see. I need to make sure that any decision I make doesn’t threaten his existence. So tell me; what benefits are there in us getting involved with your community?”

“I think alliances are long-term thinking,” the man said. “If we want to survive for years rather than weeks…”

Michael stepped forward and applied gentle pressure to George’s arm again, encouraging him to lower the knife.

“I think it makes sense,” Michael said gently as hope rose in his chest. “I just want somewhere safe to live. I want to be around normal people.”

The scowl returned to George’s features as he turned to the man. “Okay, fine. We’re going to check your community out. We’re going to take you with us, but if I get any hint of funny business, I’m slitting your throat. You got it?”

The man nodded. “Thank you. You won’t get any of that, I promise. We’re legit.”

George stared at the man and spoke in a low growl. “You’d best fucking be.”

Community

Michael, George, and Keith walked down a dusty track with thick bushes on either side. George had brought the long kitchen knife with him and currently had it to Keith’s throat. “Just fucking stay still.”

“Why don’t you ease up a little?” Michael said as he watched Keith shuffling along in front of George. “It’s probably hard for him to walk straight with you holding him like that.”

With wild eyes, George scanned their surroundings. “I don’t like this, Michael. I don’t like this one fucking bit. I feel like we’re walking into a shooting gallery. There could be anything in these fucking bushes, and we have nowhere to go should we need to. I need to keep this fucker close in case we’re ambushed.”

Red-faced and with his mouth flapping, Keith looked like a fish on a riverbank. A slight slip from either him or George and that knife was cutting his throat.

“George,” Michael said, “you’ve got to give him a bit more of a chance to speak. There’s no way he can tell us anything with you holding him like that.”

Although George stared hard at Michael, he eased his grip on his prisoner and paused to let him recover.

Keith gasped and took several deep breaths before nodding at the track in front of them. “You’ll see the gates when we walk ’round this next corner.”

George pulled Keith tight again and whispered in his ear. “And you’re sure it’s not going to kick off? The last thing I need is some sketchy motherfucker attacking me because they can’t keep their fucking emotions in check.”

At the moment, George is the sketchiest motherfucker around— Michael kept that thought to himself.

With Keith turning purple again, Michael pulled on George’s sleeve. “You’re holding him too tightly, George. Give him some room to breathe, yeah?”

George eased off, and Keith rubbed his neck then said, “It’ll be fine. They expect people to be a little on edge, and I told them I wouldn’t bring anyone here if they were a threat. It’s a tense time in the world at the moment. No one trusts anyone, so we expect emotions to be more on the surface.”

When they rounded the next corner, Michael stared at the corrugated gates up ahead. They stood at least twelve feet tall and had a grassy mound just as high on either side. The natural wall stretched away from the gate.

George turned to Michael. “Remind me why we’re here again?”

Before Michael could reply, George had pulled Keith tighter than before. When he pressed the knife against his throat, a small amount of blood rolled down the blade.

“George, you’re hurting him.”

Before Michael could say anything else, he followed George’s line of sight. Two men had stood up from behind the gates. Each had a shotgun in their hand, and they pointed them straight at Michael and George.

Although George addressed Keith, he raised his voice for the men to hear. “I thought you said this would be cool, Keith. This don’t look cool to me. This looks very fucking far from cool.”

Fortunately, Michael didn’t need to tell George to let Keith talk this time.

Keith held his hands up to the men with the guns at the gates. “Will, Johnny, lower your weapons. These people mean us no harm.”

The tension left Michael’s shoulders as he watched one of the men lower his gun. It returned with interest when he saw the other one hadn’t.

The man flicked the long barrel of his raised gun at George. “It doesn’t look like they don’t mean us any harm, Dad.”

Now he’d mentioned it, Michael could see the family resemblance. He too had a well-built frame and a soft-featured face.

When George pointed his knife at the man with the gun, Michael’s entire body sank. George needed to keep his cool.

“You’d best put that gun down, boy,” George said. “Tell him, Keith. Tell him to drop his fucking weapon.”

Instead of lowering it, Keith’s son lifted the stock to his shoulder and peered down the barrel at George.

Before Michael could speak, Keith said, “Will, listen to me. This man doesn’t want to hurt me. You’re creating the problem by pointing that gun at us. Put your weapon down, and this silliness will stop. I brought them here, and I haven’t used any key words yet.”

“You have key words?” George asked.

“Of course, but I haven’t used them,” he said before turning his attention back to Will. “They aren’t a threat to me. You need to trust the system more.”

Without moving his gun, Will shook his head. “He has a fucking knife to your throat.”

“It’s insurance, you fucking idiot,” George said, keeping Keith between him and the shotgun. “What do you expect me to do? I’m approaching a strange community, and I now have a fucking gun pointing at me. We’re open to the idea of finding a new trading partner, but I’m not a fucking idiot. I’m not going to walk straight up here and trust that you’re legit. The reason I ain’t dead yet is because I take precautions.”

Finally, Will lowered his shotgun. After a pause, George pulled his knife away from Keith’s throat.

Michael let go of a deep breath and looked at Keith, his face now red with anger rather than lack of oxygen. “Have you two finished?” he said.

Neither man responded.

Keith pointed at Michael while looking at his son. “He has canned fruit in that carrier bag. He’s come to swap it for some bread and seeds.”

The other man disappeared behind the wall, leaving just Will up there on his own.

A few seconds later, the sound of bolts ran down the other side of the gates.

When the gate opened, a girl walked out. No older than Lola, she held a loaf of bread and a clear, plastic bag. “Here’s the bread and seeds.”

The same soft features of Will and Keith defined this girl’s face. She must be related to them too.

The girl stopped moving when she was still a distance away from Michael. When Michael looked up at George, George nodded. “Go on, son.”

Everyone watched Michael, and near silence hung in the air. Michael halved the distance between himself and the girl then stopped.

The dusty track crunched beneath the girl’s large black boots as she walked the rest of the way forward.

A gust of wind whipped the girl’s long, blond hair and threw the scent of soap at Michael. What he would give to take a bath. They made the exchange, and Michael nodded at the girl before she turned and walked away without responding.

As Michael walked back, he saw George looking at the bread and seeds in his hands. “What seeds are these?” he asked.

When she stopped and turned around, the girl pulled her fringe from her face and smiled. “Tomato seeds. They’re lovely when they’ve grown.”

“You sure it ain’t magic fucking beans?”

The girl laughed and shook her head.

“Something funny, princess?”

For a few seconds, the smile remained on the girl’s face as if she thought George was joking. When she realized he wasn’t, it fell, and she turned around and walked away again.

Before the gates had closed completely, Michael caught a glimpse of the community. Camper trailers and mobile homes took up a lot of the space. It looked much like the traveler camps his dad would point out to him when they drove past them.

Michael backed up until he was next to George. “We’re good to go now,” he said.

Instead of letting Keith go, George raised his knife to Keith’s throat and dragged him backward with them.

At the gates, Will raised his gun again. “What the fuck are you doing with my dad? You have what you came for; now let him go.”

“Once I get around this corner,” George called back, “I’ll let him go.”

“Bullshit!” Will’s gun shook as he pointed it down at them. “I don’t trust you one fucking bit.”

“I’m not asking you to trust me, William; I’m telling you how it is.”

As they backed away, Michael increased the distance between him and George.

Once they rounded the corner, George let go of Keith.

Keith dipped a bow in the pair’s direction. “Thank you for giving us a chance. If you come with peace in your hearts, you’re welcome any time. I’m confident we can work well together.”

Instead of replying to Keith, George pulled on Michael’s shoulder as he walked away. “Come on, mate. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Ding Dong, the Witch Ain’t Dead

The crack of the truck’s keys hit the kitchen table followed by a whoosh of them sliding across the varnished wooden surface. Michael watched them ride over the tabletop and stop just short of falling off the edge.

Without breaking stride, George walked over to some of his cooking things on the side and rearranged them. The pots and pans crashed and banged as he moved them around. “What did you think of the community?”

Michael’s throat dried. “I… um… I think it looks safe. It looks like they have everything sorted out and in place.”

As George prodded and poked around in his recently made fire pit, he shook his head. “I think it looks strict. They look fucking weird; like some strange cult. I don’t trust ’em.”

George washed his hands with some old water. As he rubbed them together, he shook his head. “I told myself that when I washed my hands, the killing would stop. How naïve was I? The killing’s not going to stop for a long fucking time; especially when there’s pricks like Will pointing his gun at me.”

After drying his hands, George held up the small bag of seeds they’d given them.

“Anyway, we need to find a growing bag for these. That’s if they even grow. I still think we’ve been mugged off.” He picked the keys back up from the kitchen table and nodded at the front door. “Come on, let’s go and find a garden center.”

***

Michael sat tense next to George. After the warehouse, he’d started to trust him. The trip to Keith’s community had ruined that. No matter how well George cared for him, he’d always be the person who killed his dad. When he got angry, the monster Michael had seen at his house came out. By not being able to keep his temper in check, George had put them both at risk with the men at the gates.

With his head turned away from the big man, he watched the deserted city out of the window. Smashed glass, litter, burned out cars… this wasn’t a place where he could feel safe.

“What the fuck?” George said and braked suddenly.

Michael’s pulse quickened. When Michael looked in front of them, his stomach sank. “What the hell is that?”

“Don’t you mean, ‘who’?”

Hanging from the lamppost was a man who looked no older than about twenty-five. From what Michael could tell, anyway.

“It’s Ravi,” George said.

“You know him?”

Without replying, George opened the door of his truck, scanned around outside, then turned back to Michael. “Stay there.”

The second George stepped outside, Michael followed him. A month or two ago, he wouldn’t have been able to look at this, but things had changed.

Michael matched George stride for stride as they walked over to the man hanging from the lamppost. Like his mother’s and sister’s had, the man’s tongue protruded from his mouth.

When he looked further up, Michael balked. What the hell? The man had no eyelids. Red scabs sat above his eyes from where they’d been cut off. There were no teeth left in his mouth, and his lips were split and swollen. It looked like a hammer had been used to remove them. He had a hole in the center of his face where his nose had once been. Again, it must have been a hammer blow that did it.

Writing covered his neck and arms. One word repeated over and over, carved into his skin with a knife or some other sharp object—“CUNT.” Michael shook as he read it at least fifteen times on his first glance. Was the man dead when it was carved into him?

Every one of the man’s fingers and toes had been cut off, leaving bloody stumps behind. But the hardest part to look at—the bit Michael couldn’t avoid any longer as his eyes ran the length of Ravi’s body—was the scaffolding pole. Without getting closer, Michael couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but it looked like it had been shoved up the man’s arse. Blood and brown sludge coated the pole and had dried on it. The bottom was splayed from where it had unmistakably been hammered into him.

Michael shook, but he didn’t look away.

George finally broke the silence. “Dean.”

A cold chill ran through Michael. For as much as he hated George for what happened to his dad, Dean was the one behind it all.

When George looked across to see Michael watching him, he quickly looked around.

“Dean isn’t dead,” he said as he glanced at the car. “Come on; let’s go.”

Shopping

The loud cracks rang out like gunshots on the deserted industrial estate. It seemed that no matter how many times George kicked the shit out of the huge building’s front doors, they wouldn’t budge.

Michael looked around them while George persisted. The place seemed abandoned, but who knew for sure? And with George not thinking straight, they could get jumped at any moment. His bad mood had gotten worse since seeing Ravi’s body. Not only had he had a gun pointed at him, but Dean wasn’t dead.

“Argh!” George said as he stared the mangled door. It lay across their way like a twisted stair gate. The glass that had been in it at one point littered the floor. They could get in by squeezing past it, but they wouldn’t get back out again with a stack of growing bags. Sure, it had to be moved, but doing so a little more quietly would have been nice.

George kicked it several more times, each hit louder than the last.

The final, heavy kick dislodged it, and the thing fell over with a clatter. George looked around quickly before heading into the store.

Michael looked around too. It seemed clear. He shrugged and followed George inside. Maybe they’d gotten lucky. Maybe no one had heard them.

Michael caught up with George and looked around. “They haven’t taken much.”

“What do you expect? Why would people want tins of paint and sofas? Who gives a shit about DIY nowadays?”

Michael didn’t reply. A line of vending machines by the tills had all been smashed open. The trays containing chocolates, sweets, and drinks all hung out of them like twisted mechanical entrails.

When George set off down one of the aisles, the large man’s heavy footsteps slapping against the hard floor, Michael followed.

Suddenly, Michael stopped dead. About forty different hammers hung on display. The one in the middle looked similar to the one used on his dad.

George stopped a second later and turned to Michael. “Come on, mate, what are you—”

When he saw the hammers, he heaved a deep sigh and looked at the floor.

Michael wanted to say something, anything, to make George feel better, but what could he say? It wasn’t okay. It would never be okay. He’d killed his dad.

With the silence hanging heavy in the air, George turned around and walked off again.

Michael watched his back for a few seconds before following him.

Trust

With the back of the truck full of food, they had to put the eight large growing bags in the cab with them. They reeked of earth, and the plastic bags creaked as they rubbed against one another with every slight lump and bump in the road. At least it broke the awkward silence.

Michael couldn’t see George, but he could feel him wanting to speak. Maybe it was the way he cleared his throat several times and took a breath but stopped short of saying anything.

He finally got it out. “I would give anything to be able to take back what I did to your dad. There isn’t a second that passes where I don’t regret it.”

Michael stared out of the window and nodded. It didn’t matter how many times George said it; it had happened and nothing could change that. Because George couldn’t see him, he said, “I know.”

Silence.

“But you did kill him, George. As much as I try, I can’t get that out of my head. He didn’t deserve to die.”

“I understand, mate, and you should be angry with me. I just hope that one day you can find it in your heart to forgive my actions. All I can do in the meantime is to make sure you don’t come to any harm in this life.”

The time he’d spent with George made forgiving him harder. He obviously wanted to do right by Michael, but he’d killed his dad.

“Did you ever work out who Lola was, George?”

The truck slowed down as George eased off on the gas.

“She said you ran her mother over; that you were there when her mum and little sister were killed. She didn’t blame you, but she said you were there. It was why she was odd when we came to live with you. She got cross with me for opening up to you because she couldn’t do it. She knew you didn’t hurt her family on purpose, but she hates you all the same. I think it was why she sold me out to the men from the warehouse. I think she’d already decided that she couldn’t stay with us.”

There was a pause before George finally said, “Fuck! She was the girl who managed to escape. I saw her running off and hoped she was okay.” After a pause, he added, “And is that how you feel when you’re around me? Like you can’t stand to be near me?”

“You make me nervous, George. I can see you’re trying, but I also still see the man who killed my dad—especially when you get angry like you did at the community.”

After a weary sigh, George’s voice deepened, and he said, “Okay, I hear ya. I’ll try harder. I felt threatened at the community and it makes me go on the offensive. I shouldn’t have lost my shit like I did though. I’m sorry.”

Michael looked out of the window again and said nothing.

Safe

The next few days passed without incident. Other than spending time in the garden and eating together, Michael and George had started to live quite separate existences. The conversation about his dad and Lola’s family had driven a wedge between them. Whenever he had spare time, Michael lost himself in a book, and George left him to it.

One of the few things that brought them together was the sprouting of a few green shoots from one of the growing bags. It was like the prospect of a new food—grown through the pair’s endeavors—offered some kind of hope to what felt like an utterly bleak situation. Something could grow in their toxic world.

But now they were heading back to the community together, and Michael was wound up tighter than a loaded crossbow. Although George had promised to keep a lid on his temper, Michael would have to see it to believe it.

When they walked around the corner on the dusty track and the large gates came into view, Michael’s heart missed a beat. Two men with guns stood behind that imposing barrier; guns they had no qualms about pointing straight at the pair.

As they pushed forward, the only sound came from the shifting of grit and rocks beneath their feet.

When they got closer, the two men from the other day appeared over the top of the gate. Both of them had their shotguns and they both aimed the weapons at Michael and George.

With a leering grin on his gaunt face, Will was the first to speak. “Well, look who it is. Look, Johnny, it’s that wide cunt who had a knife to my dad’s throat.”

When he glanced over at George, panic fluttered through Michael’s chest. His thick jaw locked tight and the big man looked like he could explode in rage at any moment. Without Will’s dad as a hostage, they wouldn’t last two seconds if George lost it.

Will raised his gun to his shoulder and peered down the barrel at George. “What the fuck do you want?”

For a moment George didn’t reply. Instead, he closed his eyes and stood perfectly still.

Michael held his breath as he watched him.

When George opened his eyes again, he forced a smile at Will. “We’ve come to exchange some powdered milk for fresh bread.”

“And why should we give it to you?”

“Because it’s your dad’s intention that we start to trade with you.”

For the next few moments, Will continued to stare at George down the barrel of his shotgun. He then lowered it and disappeared behind the gate.

The snapping of three bolts sounded out, and the right-hand gate opened. Out came Will, Johnny, and the girl who made the exchange last time. She had a batch of bread in her arms.

Just seeing the food made Michael’s mouth water but before they moved any farther forward, Will raised his gun again.

“Arms in the air; we need to search you.”

Although George rolled his eyes, he did as he was ordered and raised his long arms in the air.

After Johnny had frisked Michael, he moved on to George. While he waited, Michael looked past him to see into the community. Children played and some helped the adults with the garden.

Once Johnny had frisked George, he turned back to Michael. “You wanna take a look inside?”

Michael nodded and checked with George.

Before George could reply, Keith came out of the gates and smiled. “He’ll be fine in there; it’s safe.”

Although George frowned, he didn’t say no. “You’re your own man, Michael. You need to make the decision, not me.”

George was right; he was his own man. Michael walked toward the gates.

***

As soon as he passed through the gates, Michael saw a red-haired woman on her knees by a patch of earth. She had a trowel in her hand and wore a serene smile.

Michael walked over to her and stood and watched. It felt rude to interrupt her.

When she noticed him, she turned around, and her smile broadened. She had a kind face.

Michael smiled back and nodded down at the hole she was digging. “What are you doing?”

She stabbed her trowel into the ground. “I’m making a trench for seeds. I’ve not seen you around before; are you new here?”

“No, we’re not from here. We’ve come to trade some powdered milk for bread with your community. The man said I could come and look inside if I liked. Do you like it here?”

The grin remained on her face as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I do. It’s much better than where I was before. I’m Liz, by the way.” She held her hand out to him.

She had rough hands from what must have been hours of gardening.

“I’m Michael.”

Silence sat between them for a moment before Michael spoke, the words coming out without him thinking about them. “I don’t want to go back with the man I’m staying with. I can’t live with George anymore.”

The warmth left her face, turning her features sharp. “George, you say?”

“Yeah, you know him?”

She shrugged. “I knew a George.” She then flapped her hand through the air as if batting a fly. “Ignore me; I’m sure it’s a different man. Why don’t you want to stay with him, honey?”

The last person to call Michael ‘honey’ was his mum. The image of her hanging crashed into his mind. “He killed my dad.”

Liz turned pale.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked.

“Yeah… fine. Sorry… I… wasn’t expecting you to say that. So you’re with the man who killed your dad?”

“It sounds weird, doesn’t it? He said he’d look after me and that he never wanted to kill him, but he felt like he had to.”

“Well, look,” Liz said, “if you don’t want to go back to him, you should stay with us.”

“But who will I stay with? Who’ll look after me? I believe that George will keep me safe like he’s promised to. I don’t think he wants to hurt me.”

After getting to her feet, Liz put her hands on Michael’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. “I’ll look after you, Michael. You’re safe here.”

“How will I tell George?”

Liz wiped her hands on her grubby jeans before offering one to Michael. “Come with me.”

She led him back to the gates. They’d been locked again and Will stood guard.

Before he could open them, Liz pointed at Michael. “The kid wants to stay here with us.”

The slightest hint of a smirk lifted Will’s lips. “I’m not surprised. That George fella seems mental.”

Without another word, Will climbed the ladder on their side of the gates and pointed his gun over. “The kid says he wants to stay here with us.”

“No fucking way,” George said. “Where is he?”

When Michael looked at Liz, she nudged him in the direction of the ladder Will had just climbed.

Once at the top, Michael looked down at George. “It’s true. There’s a nice woman here who says she’ll take care of me. Thank you for all you’ve done, but I can’t live with you, George. I’m sorry.”

George pointed at Will, his frame tense. But before he spoke, the rage left him, and his entire body sagged. “You’d best look after the boy. I’m going to keep bringing food for him to make sure he’s okay. I made a promise that I’d look after him, and that’s what I’ll do.”

Will smiled as he kept his gun pointed at George.

It felt like a few minutes passed during which time George stared at Michael, a watery film covering his dark eyes. Then finally, George turned around and walked away.

The damp weight of sadness sat in Michael’s chest as he watched the slumped frame of his protector retreat. Despite what had happened with his dad, George really had wanted to look after him.

After George disappeared around the bend, Michael climbed down the ladder and walked over to where Liz was looking through a hole in the gate. When she pulled back, she had tears streaking down her face.

“Are you okay, Liz?”

She nodded. “I used to know George. He didn’t help me when I needed him most. I realized he wasn’t the man I thought he was.”

She then batted the comment away and forced a smile. “But that doesn’t matter now.” She wrapped Michael in a tight hug. “Welcome to the community, honey. You’re going to be safe here.”

End.

***

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About the Author

Michael Robertson has been a writer for many years and has had poetry and short stories published, most notably with HarperCollins. He first discovered his desire to write as a skinny weed-smoking seventeen-year-old badman who thought he could spit bars over drum and bass. Fortunately, that venture never left his best mate’s bedroom and only a few people had to endure his musical embarrassment. He hasn’t so much as looked at a microphone since. What the experience taught him was that he liked to write. So that’s what he did.

After sending poetry to countless publications and receiving MANY rejection letters, he uttered the words, “That’s it, I give up.” The very next day, his first acceptance letter arrived in the post. He saw it as a sign that he would find his way in the world as a writer.

Over a decade and a half later, he now has a young family to inspire him and has decided to follow his joy with every ounce of his being. With the support of his amazing partner, Amy, he’s managed to find the time to take the first step of what promises to be an incredible journey. Love, hope, and the need to eat get him out of bed every morning to spend a precious few hours pursuing his purpose.

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