“Oh god, you feel so good,” Joey said, his voice quiet, but urgent. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.”
“Come as you will. I’m ready.” Digger grinned, excited as Joey began to pound hard against his arse until finally shuddering against him with a low groan of satisfaction. They lay panting together, impaled as one.
When Joey finally slipped down beside him on the narrow bunk, they returned to kissing. They learned the shape of each others’ lips and kept their hands busy too. There was so much to explore, even the body he had watched from afar for so long. Digger thought his heart might burst with happiness. Who knew he would find ecstasy as the world ended? He found he didn’t care if it was the end.
“It’s so different with someone…you don’t despise,” Joey mumbled. Digger laughed and Joey kissed him again. “I mean…with…someone you…love.”
Digger smiled in the dark. “Yes, it is. I never knew how good it could be.” They kissed on and on. Digger didn’t want to be the one who fell asleep first, but all of the sudden he was blinking awake and the morning light was streaming in through the high cell window. Joey looked so much younger in his sleep, but as soon as Digger shifted on the bed he was awake too, pulling him into a kiss.
“That’s a great way to wake up,” Joey said with a laugh. “And a perfect start to an historical day. Right. We need to pack up. I know you need that journal of yours.” He winked, and Digger felt a surge of emotion that nearly brought tears to his eyes. Joey knew him better than he thought. To cover up his embarrassment, he punched Joey in the chest and in a moment they were wrestling, then batting each other with their morning wood.
“We should be getting ready,” Digger said, his hand on Joey’s cock.
Joey thought the matter over for a few seconds. “All right, let’s see who can make the other come first.” It was a race to the finish neither wanted to win but Digger’s technique proved superior and had Joey gasping with pleasure in no time. “I demand a rematch tomorrow,” he laughed, licking his fingers as they both panted.
Digger almost whistled as he walked back to his cell. It took him two minutes to pack up what he was taking with him. There wasn’t much he needed. There wasn’t much that mattered. All he cared about was going with him. While Joey roused the others and exhorted them to pack up, Digger did make a hasty entry in his journal.
It was a momentous day: a beginning, a celebration. Digger found himself struggling to find the right words to convey how he felt. That had never been a problem before. He looked around the cell. Stripped of its few belongings, it looked bereft of any human presence. It wasn’t like Joey’s bunk with its wall of heroes. Digger had never left an impression on this place. The best he had managed was to find a way to leave these grim grey walls. But that was good enough.
The Diamond Dogs all headed to the cafeteria. Oddly enough, Johnny had moved all the Agents of Control to their own area further down so they could be more secretive, Digger guessed. They were taking this competition thing very seriously. In the caf, Joey was crossing out yesterday’s notice and writing TODAY in large letters on the board. “We’ll have to wait until Johnny’s here to sort out the kitchen stuff, as Simon’s refusing to give way.”
“And only too right he should,” Johnny said as he entered the room, his men arranged in a phalanx behind him. They looked different somehow, Digger noticed. They were moving in a much more aggressive manner, but that wasn’t really a surprise at all. They all had little Agents of Control symbols drawn on their clothing or on their skin—Johnny had a big A crossing C on his neck. At least it only looked like permanent marker not a tattoo yet. They all seemed to have a sense of purpose now that had been missing before. It was a bit unnerving really.
Joey sensed the change. ‘I see you’ve made progress at least in decking yourselves out.’
‘Gotta look the part to be it.’ Johnny grinned with malevolence. “Uniforms make the man. Given our lack of wherewithal, we went with logos. Winning takes the right mind set.”
“What’s that,” Glen asked with an arched brow. Everybody seemed to be feeling the change in the dynamics.
“Destroy the enemy.” Johnny’s grin got wider.
Joey snorted. “Enemy! What happened to friendly competition?”
“Winner take all, isn’t that what we said?”
“No, we never said nothing of the kind.” Joey looked at him sharply.
“What have you lot been up to while we’ve been working hard?” Johnny sneered as he looked around the room at the Diamond Dogs. It was clear that might was the only right to him and to be truthful, the Dogs didn’t show their strength physically. It was something more than that, Digger knew. But someone like Johnny would never see it.
Joey looked angry. Johnny always had a way of nettling him. The echoes in the cafeteria didn’t help much, making every word seem more significant and menacing. Digger shifted from one foot to the other, then back again, because his foot still throbbed. A feeling itched at the back of his skull—one that worried him.
Something was wrong. The weight of the gun in the back of his waistband made him even more uncomfortable. The threat of violence hung in the air and smelled like a week old gym bag. He could see it plainly in the faces of the guys in his gang. Sid was practically glowing with it. That one was always eager for a barney.
“What have you been doing?” Joey asked, his voice cool and calm though Digger could see he was angry. How quickly he had come to notice everything about his love.
“Never you mind that, we want to know what you’ve got,” Johnny said with a sneer. “What have you managed to wangle with your raggle-taggle gypsy band?”
ArachNed, whom everyone knew was Roma, bristled at the remark. “Shut your face, you racist bastard.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m not being politically correct. I meant dirty, thieving gypsy band.” Johnny laughed. ArachNed stepped forward, but before he could say anything more to Johnny, Sid jumped in and punched Ned in the stomach. A surprised Ned fell back, but Glen grabbed his shoulders to steady him. Johnny’s guys spread out, shadowing all of Joey’s crew, who shifted uneasily. “I ask again, what have you got? Because it’s going to be ours.”
Joey’s eyes looked like thunder would shoot from them. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“Limited resources.” Johnny flashed some teeth, looking more like a snarl than a grin. “You got me thinking on that and I realized that we’re not all going to survive until help arrives or we get out. So, it’s going to be easier if we eliminate some of the competition.”
“And you think we’re just going to lay down and allow that?”
“Oh, hell yeah.” Johnny launched himself at Joey and it seemed to be a sign for general mayhem. Johnny’s crew leapt upon their opponents like wild animals. Punching, kicking and yelling commenced. Digger was lucky to have a chair between him and his apparently assigned enemy, who stumbled as he tried to thrust it out of the way. Digger remembered the bloke’s name was Tony. He had been one of the guys sharing guard duty on the storeroom this week. Fortunately, he was not one of the bigger guys.
Digger knew he’d never have a chance against someone like Sid.
Lacking any other weapon at hand, Digger slipped off his rucksack and slammed it against Tony’s head, hoping the books inside it provided enough heft to slow him down. It worked like a charm. Tony dropped like a cartoon character at his feet.
Hefting the rucksack in one hand, Digger took a quick surveillance of the room. Everybody else was fighting still. Glen and ArachNed were back to back, trading punches with their assailants, drawing strength from one another.
Digger hustled over to where Joey and Johnny grappled, feeling his heart in his throat. The two wrestled with charged looks of concentration, blood flowing from their noses, as if they had already knocked heads. Their grunts of exertion echoed loudly in the room full of similar noises, or else Digger just heard them because all he could see now was Joey. He wanted to help, but the
y were moving too fast to part them. There was a crazed light in Johnny’s eye that scared him.
Digger remembered the look in the eye of the guy who killed his dad. He had been frozen to the spot, immobile with disbelief. When you were a kid, you didn’t believe in death. You didn’t think it could touch anyone you knew. The junkie was filled with hate, he saw then, but it was impersonal in a way. His dad was just the most convenient object in his path. The guy leaped on him and they went down and it was just a trick of luck, the kerb like that and the angle of their bodies and his neck was snapped and there was nothing anyone could do, nothing at all. Digger had beat and kicked the junkie and it made no difference. His dad was dead.
So he saw that horrible light in Johnny’s eyes as he fought with Joey and it made him move closer though he didn’t know how to fight. Digger finally grabbed the gun from behind his back. For a moment he held it uncertain what to do. A part of him wanted to do something terrible, something even he couldn’t face.
Then aiming toward the ceiling, he pulled the trigger.
The sound echoed around the cafeteria and everyone stopped, frozen for a moment. Then Johnny untangled himself and launched his body toward Digger. Joey was right behind him and the three went down together. The whole world seemed to hold its breath as they struggled. They all hoped to get the gun and they all thought they’d be the best one to have it. Hands scrabbled and legs entwined. The crazy mirroring of this morning’s pleasurable wrestling with Joey struck Digger as almost funny, but he knew if he laughed it would have sounded crazy and it was.
To be so close to escape and then be fighting like this when they could all be free together—it was mad.
He remembered a story his father had told him—that he later learned was the lyrics of an old song—how people were rumored to have a treasure and all their neighbors joined up to fight them and steal this treasure, fighting them down to the last person only to discover the great gift had been peace. It was ironic just like this. The competition to discover a way out had pushed them to make a real escape, but now they would lose it because they were killing each other and it finally made the end of the world seem real. It made Digger cry, because he knew what a waste it all was and how people were their own worst enemies who did this over and over again—though maybe for the last time now.
And as they all knew it would, the gun went off.
It got Johnny in the shoulder and he screamed with the pain, but Joey grabbed the gun, sat up and growled, “Now everyone, back the fuck up.” All the boys stopped and the quiet was filled only with the sound of harsh breathing.
“Simon, you tend to Johnny. He’s going to live. Glen, can you get him some bandages from the cabinet?”
They bandaged up Johnny while he stared stonily into nothing. Then Joey jingled the key ring before him. Johnny’s eyes dully registered its significance, then he looked at his would-be brother with such venom that it nearly burned.
“We could be sharing this moment. Laughing together,” Joey said, “But I can’t trust you. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to leave you half the food while we head out. When we find some people or something, we’ll send for people to let you out.”
Digger felt a stab of horror at the thought of leaving them here to the possibility of starving eventually. In the very next minute he thought about the possibility of Johnny strangling him in his bed. The anger in his eyes suggested that Johnny would not change his mind about that ‘winner take all’ business. The wave of hatred made him shudder. Digger realized how much they had been playing, expecting someone to come along and fix everything. There was no one to come. There were no more adults, at least not around here.
They had to grow up.
“I don’t trust you anymore, brother,” Joey said, shaking his head at Johnny, who avoided his gaze to stare sulkily into nothing. His gang all sat looking resentful but pig-headedly loyal to the last. “But I owe it to my guys to carry on with the plan. We could have all been free together. It doesn’t have to be a dog-eat-dog world. We can take care of one another. Evolve a little.”
It took some time to gather up all the food they were taking. The travois-like things worked really well at least on the smooth tiled floors. Outside it might be different, but it would help a lot. Everybody had rucksacks, too. They looked ready for a camping trip, not a prison break.
They kept Johnny and his guys locked in the cafeteria until they were ready to go. Joey unlocked the door then ran to join the others in the corridor, closing the gate behind him as he yelled back toward the cafeteria, “We’ll send someone for you. Keep that wound clean.”
Digger noticed that he just mimed locking the gate. Joey winked at him. “They probably won’t figure it out for days,” he whispered. The boys all trooped down the corridor, finding the keys necessary at each locked threshold. Each door felt like opening a new Aladdin’s cave. Each door they stepped through brought them to a new world, unseen since their arrivals, though just as empty as the one before it. Almost an hour had passed in this repeated sequence, until they finally stepped into the old lobby, their heels echoing in the big open chamber.
The front door of the lockup was wide open.
“They must have left in a hurry,” ArachNed finally said. With some trepidation they all stepped out into the sunlight, blinking at the unaccustomed effect of the sun. Digger looked at Joey and then suddenly they both laughed. All the Diamond Dogs joined them until they were all crying with it. Free: they were free. It was like being high. Dizzying, disorienting, but definitely good.
There were some cars outside, none with keys, and mostly with very little in their tanks. Then Glen shouted from atop the fire engine that had been parked crosswise near the tall wall, too late to put out the fire perhaps. The tank was nearly full. After a little fiddling under the hood to clear the battery, the engine started right up and the boys whooped with pleasure. In no time, they had all the food and other goods tied to the ladders or stowed in the various cabinets where there was room, then the boys all crammed themselves into the seats inside.
The cab was a lot bigger than Digger had thought, but he supposed they needed a big crew to run all the equipment. It brought home to him just how few they were, although it was a tight fit to get everyone in.
Joey looked around at them all. “Are we ready, lads?” They all shouted eagerly and started singing a football chant at the top of their lungs. Glen shifted the engine into gear and the big truck rolled toward the gates. Like the front door of the lockup, they had been left open as the last adult fled, paying no heed to the boys imprisoned inside.
“What do you think we’ll find out there,” Digger asked Joey, squeezed tightly beside him. The touch made his skin glow with happiness and the daylight made Joey’s golden face gleam.
“I don’t know,” Joey said, leaning his head down to Digger’s for a swift kiss. “But we won’t be alone. We’ll never be alone again.”
Glen shifted gears and they pulled out of the prison yard onto the open dusty road and the boys all yelled like wild animals set free from their cages.
THE END
“Ms. Kempe amazes me with her wonderful writing talent.”
~ Coffee Time Romance and More
“I’ve said it before (yesterday in fact) but Kempe is a delightful writer… A triumph I reckon, a genuinely intelligent, entertaining read.”
~ Unbound
C. Margery Kempe is a writer of erotic romance distinguished by its humour, intelligence and fearless sensual pleasures. Her stories range from contemporary thrillers to medieval era fairy tales.
Her first novel Chastity Flame has received rave reviews and is now a trilogy from Tirgearr Publishing (under her given name).
“Chastity Flame is full of sexual tension, and has a twist that I honestly was not expecting. The adventures in the storyline kept me coming back to read more, and I was quite satisfied with the ending. If you’re looking for a book that will keep you firmly in your seat, then t
his one is the one!”
— Whipped Cream
Wild Boys: An Apocalyptic MM Romance Page 6