“Are you sure this is safe? Looks kinda dangerous to me...”
Bracky glanced between the entrance to the shadowy passageway and his friend, Ska a few times before he leant back and puffed some of his fringe out of his eyes. They’d been at this gate for what felt like an eternity to the older one who was starting to get frustrated with his companion’s lack of trust in the matter. Considering how many times they’d been out on a risky job and he’d never questioned the advice before, Ska tried to remain patient as his friend continued to dilly-dally.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
The slightly shorter and younger man inhaled slowly and held his breath a moment before exhaling through his nose as he looked into the darkness again.
“Sure sure?”
Ska rolled his eyes and closed the lids with a loud exhale from his mouth. Thankfully Bracky was never this problematic on a dangerous heist! Questions and ponderings like this only lead to trouble. He knew that he couldn’t help it, he was a nervous person by default and it was hardly surprising after that time down in the bar near the Industrial Zone. That night had been awful for his anxiety which had since been mostly dormant although it did raise its ugly head once in a while. As it was doing now.
“Yes, I’m sure sure.”
Bracky swallowed hard and leant forward to peer into the darkness again. He wished he had some form of light to shine into this tunnel as he was scared of something jumping out at him. Something always jumped out at you in dark caves. He’d read enough comics to know that! Plus nobody made it of these rabbit burrows alive or at least unscathed. He wished to himself that he had nine lives but alas, this was not the case.
“Are you going to go in or not mate?” Ska’s voice broke his thoughts and he looked back at him, “I said we’d meet up with Spider at some point this afternoon and I don’t really want to sit here all day watching you stare at the entrance to a damn cave.”
“Alright, I’m going in.” Bracky nodded solemnly and entered the darkness.
Vagrant sat in his apartment’s living room, one of his dogs, Gep, a brown terrier slept at his feet as he read the newspaper from yesterday. He’d read the one from today cover to cover already and was at a loss on what else to do but then remembered there’d been an interesting news story in yesterday’s paper. Ever since leaving the military, Vagrant had found it hard to let go of the events unfolding in the world around him. Especially anything relating to his past life in the service, no matter how depressing it was and it was never anything else. As his eyes danced across the words on the flimsy paper he listened to his wife, Carla playing her piano in the background. She was a fine pianist and in her old town had had a very good grand piano to keep her creative side busy. However, the apartment they had to live in now due to funds was nowhere near large enough for such a fine instrument so he had done a deal with some local dock workers on an upright that had been sitting around the dock junkyard for a while. The piano had a couple of keys missing and it needed a good tuning, but that was only a tiny problem for Vagrant. It had been an anniversary present to her and he’d managed to get the keys replaced by carving new ones from old floorboards. It was never going to be perfect but she loved it and him even more for the effort of keeping her passion for music alive. When her fingers played those keys, warped or replaced, the music that filtered out of the piano was beautiful to his ears.
“Sounds amazing darling,” he spoke over to the back of the room towards the hallway where the piano sat rather proudly amidst the coats and bookshelves. He smiled as he heard her pause to probably smile at the keys or at his direction and returned his attention to the paper. Another city destroyed and thousands left homeless or dead. Vagrant sighed and closed his eyes, letting the paper fold onto itself and lie on his lap. He could almost picture the scene as if he were there, his mind’s eye retelling the events of that last tour of his. Those sickened faces and bloodied corpses. Women crying over the fallen bodies of their children and men, children crying and coughing from either plague or something else. It was true horror and it lived inside his mind.
“Tony?”
He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder to the doorway.
“It’s nearly five o’clock; you should take Gep, Rumno and Yvelt out for their walk.”
Vagrant smiled and nodded as he got to his feet slowly. Gep stirred at his movement, yawned and looked up at his master lazily. Right on cue Rumno, a tired Doberman, emerged from the spare room which was where his friend and co-worker Bracky slept, his permanent lodger. The dog waddled over to his owner and sniffed about at the floor as his own little sign that he wanted to go out. Being careful not to step on any paws or tails, Vagrant made his way to the door and picked up the leashes which alerted the younger and more spritely puppy Yvelt to what was going on. She sat at the front door, her collie tail wagging uncontrollably and stared up at the barrier as if she could open it with her mind.
“Alright, alright. I’m coming, hold your bladder...”
With the dogs all tied to their leashes and tails wagging, the family set out for their evening walk. Carla watched him descend the stairs and smiled as he winked at her before disappearing from view.
“What time did he say they’d be here?”
Spider shrugged and looked along the dingy street that was even more miserable in the drizzle that covered the concrete. That was a problem with Ska, he’d never give an actual time to meet him, he’d be vague and use non-specifics when setting a meeting. Ever since school he’d been like this, in some way his friend and ex-classmate Spider put it down to his father and his overbearing parenting. If he didn’t know where his son was, then all the better for the safety of the child. Hit first and ask questions later, that was the motto in that household. It sickened Spider and he was all the more thankful in some way that his father died when he was a baby. Sure it destroyed his mother and she was forever in a sad state but she did care for her son and looked out for him in the best way a parent can. Don’t ask too many questions and be on their side, all the time.
“You know Ska, he doesn’t give specifics.”
Joke nodded and flicked away his cigarette butt as he leant against the wall of the pub they were outside. He looked at his friend and watched the concern crawl across his face.
“Hey, I’m sure he’s fine. He’s with Bracky right?”
It was Spider’s turn to nod and return the glance. He couldn’t help but notice Joke checking his watch again for the twentieth time.
“You got somewhere else to be?”
“I do actually,” Joke grinned sheepishly and stood free from the wall, pulling the hood of his jumper up and over his head, “Tiff’s got work in an hour and I said I’d walk her.”
Tiff, Joke’s girlfriend who worked in the Sex District as a stripper although she preferred to be called a ‘dancer’ but nobody ever used that word for what she did on a stage. Spider knew it wouldn’t just be her that Joke would be escorting either, her fellow stripper Jazz would be there and she scared Spider. Something about her didn’t sit right in his head, he either knew her from somewhere or she had one of those countenances you just can’t seem to trust. He liked Tiff though, tall, blonde and busty but then he guessed she’d have to be the latter in her line of work. Joke assured her that he wasn’t with her for her “assets” but for her mind which was just as filthy as his, so they worked well together.
“You wanna come with?” Joke interrupted him mid-thought and smiled. “It’s just me and Tiff y’know.”
Spider looked at him, his eyes a little wider than usual as he didn’t hear that other name and a smile nearly formed on his lips. Joke looked away down the street again at two approaching silhouettes.
“Yeah,” he knew Spider was awkward around crowds so he figured it best to not mention the other girl would be there too, “just the two of us and the rest of the sex maniacs in that district.”
Spider smirked and shook his head as Joke made fun of himself, as usual and followed his gaze to the oncoming duo. He didn’t have to wait until they were under a streetlight to know who they were; he’d recongise that swaggering strut on the taller a mile off. The shorter seemed slightly agitated which was not odd for them. As they approached the other two, Spider could hear their conversation.
“You said it was safe in that tunnel! Man, I trusted you!”
“Easy tiger, you’re okay.”
Bracky’s voice squeaked with rage as he continued the tirade against his friend’s advice on that previous cave that was full of dangers untold.
“You said it was fine, how is being attacked by a hoard of zombies SAFE?!”
Ska’s loud laugh erupted along the street and into the ears of his friends as they joined them outside the bar. He shook his head as his friend continued to rant in very colourful language about the computer game they’d been playing at Vagrant’s apartment not that long ago. It was a very dated piece of equipment that Bracky had managed to find in one of their heists but it did the job for distraction of the boring daylight hours with the games they found for it, usually in the garbage.
“Hey, now...” The taller looked at the enraged zombie-chow, “what did Carla tell you about that language? Stop using those words.”
Bracky stopped mid-sentence and stared at Ska.
“Fuck you.”
Joke was laughing his head off and had been since his two other friends had joined them in the rain. The sound of Bracky in a rant was hilarious, he did do this rather a lot but not usually directed at his friends for what they’d done. However, Ska liked to wind him up for this reason, he knew that for Bracky, ranting was a huge anxiety and stress relief.
“Zombies?” Spider grinned at the youngest who was still seething underneath his floppy fringe which the rain had made a little denser, “Preparing yourself for the oncoming apocalypse?”
“Yeah, my plan is to use Ska here as bait!”
Ska found this funny and continued to chortle along with Joke who hadn’t managed to keep a straight face since overhearing the rant as they approached. Spider smiled and watched his friends laugh, even Bracky was loosening up and joined in.
“Guys,” the gigglers looked at him, “C’mon, inside. We need to discuss something.”
“What about Vagrant?”
Spider looked at Bracky and nodded as right on cue a man with three dogs crossed the road and stood beside the others. Yvelt yapped at the feet of Joke and was rewarded with being picked up and unleashed so he could cuddle her. The other two dogs stood silently and behaved as their master greeted his friends and they all shuffled their way inside the pub for a pint and a meeting. Ska found a table and they all sat around it, except Spider who went to the bar to get the drinks. Vagrant pulled out a newspaper and sat it on the table, a section of text circled in blue pen for the meeting. The dogs followed their owner in and lay down under the table they sat at, keeping warm and attentive for any trouble that might arise.
Comments (0)
See all