Judy didn’t move. She was too scared to move. Judy’s dad continued to smash at the window.
“We’re going to crash,” Alice sobbed.
“No we’re not.” Paul grabbed the wheel. They were headed for the chain link fence at the back of the parking lot. Paul pulled the wheel hard to one side. Despite the fact that they weren’t going very fast, the tires still squealed. They now were headed for the fence at the side of the parking lot.
“Get him off!” Alice yelled. “Go away!” she yelled at Judy’s dad.
Judy curled up deeper into the foot well. She pressed on the gas pedal a lot harder. The car shot forward toward the fence. Judy’s dad nearly fell off with the sudden acceleration but he managed to hold on.
The car hit the fence at high speed and plowed right through it. It scraped Judy’s dad off the hood of the car. On the other side of the fence was a street. Paul pulled hard on the wheel again and they swung out onto it. Alice held on for her life, thinking the car might tip over.
“We’re going to die!” she screamed.
“No we’re not!” Paul yelled at her.
They shot off down the street, with Paul behind the wheel. He tried to control the vehicle, but they swerved around crazily. Alice held tightly to the seat between her knees.
“Judy, brakes!” Alice yelled up front.
Judy had no response.
“No, we don’t want the brakes,” Paul corrected Alice.
“Why not?” Alice could think of nothing but stopping right now.
“We need to go to the police,” Paul said. “Judy’s dad got hurt and when someone is hurt, you call 911.”
“That’s a phone number, not an address.” Alice was confused by Paul’s logic.
“I think I know how to get there. I got to go with my mom a few times.”
The car continued to bounce down the street, swerving from side to side, hitting off obstacles along the side of the road. It was amazing they hadn’t completely crashed yet.
“We should stop the car and ask a grownup for help,” Alice put as much command as she could into her voice.
“No.” Paul wasn’t going to listen to her. He looked like he was actually having fun.
“I wanna go home,” Alice whined.
“Do you know where your house is?” Paul said it like she wouldn’t know.
“It’s that way.” Alice pointed forward. She remembered the route to day-care from both sitting in the car when Daddy drove, and from walking there with him on nice days. Daddy was a much better driver than Paul was. “I wanna go home. I want my Daddy.”
“They don’t know where he is. He’s probably dead,” Paul shouted at her.
“Don’t say that!” Alice cried back.
“He’s probably dead just like my Mommy probably is.” Paul burst into tears.
“I want Shoes!” Alice screamed.
“Fine!” Paul gave in. “We’ll go to your stupid house with your stupid dog! Where do I go?”
Alice sat up on her legs so she could see, but kept the seat belt across her chest. “Go down this road until I tell you.” She was glad to have won that fight. She wanted Shoes.
The car zoomed down the street with Judy still huddled on the pedal.
“That street there.” Alice pointed ahead. “The one with the big tree at the corner, past that guy.”
There was a man in the street wearing barely any clothes. He was trying to get into a car that Alice assumed was his. He was having a hard time of it. The car pulled to one side and scraped alongside another car.
“Stop hitting stuff!” Alice yelled at Paul.
“Shut up! You try driving!” Paul yelled back at her. He pulled on the wheel but over-corrected. They swung over to the other side of the road and hit the cars on that side. Alice screamed as she watched the man in his underwear roll up on the side of the hood. Paul screamed as well and pulled the car back across the road once more. The man fell off and disappeared.
“You hit him!” Alice gasped.
“I didn’t mean to,” Paul sobbed a little. “We’ll tell the police about him too when we get to your house.”
“Okay.”
They reached the street Alice had pointed out, and Paul swung the car down it. Alice squeaked as she was knocked over from the force of the turn. Again, she thought the car was going to flip over, and again it didn’t.
“Where next?” Paul asked her.
“Umm.” Alice got up so she could see again. “At that yellow house. Turn… This side.” Alice waved her right arm up and down.
They got to that street and turned down it. They probably would have flipped this time if they hadn’t bumped into a car parked at the side of the road.
“My house is the orange-y one, with the brown roof and the basketball net,” Alice told Paul as she righted herself again.
“I remember what it looks like,” Paul grumbled.
“How are we going to stop once we get there?” Alice wondered aloud. “’Cause we should be there really soon.”
“Judy, hit the brakes,” Paul called down.
Judy still didn’t respond.
“Judy!” Paul yelled again, looking down at her. “Brakes!”
Paul had taken his eyes off the road, causing the car to become even more unstable than before.
“Tree!” Alice screamed.
The car jumped a curb and headed straight into the big willow tree on Alice’s neighbour’s lawn. Alice Carter was thrown forward despite her seat belt, and hit her head on the back of the seat in front of her. She didn’t want to go to sleep, but she had no choice.
9:
Misha
Misha rolled over and covered his head with his pillow. He needed better curtains. The ones he had were white and paper thin. They blocked no light whatsoever. He couldn’t afford curtains though. All his money had to go to three things: bills, food, and savings so that when the next semester started up in the fall, he could safely quit one of his jobs. At the moment, he worked like a dog as a house painter during the day and as a cook at an all-night McDonalds. He just wanted sleep.
Someone knocked on his door.
“Go away,” Misha mumbled into his pillow. This was the first day he had completely off in a long while.
The knocking sounded again.
“Miiishaaaa,” someone called softly through the door. “Oh Miiiiiishaaaaaaaa.”
Misha briefly lifted his pillow off his face. “Go away, Dean, I’m sleeping!” He then pulled the pillow onto his head again.
There was blessed silence after that.
Next thing he knew, something heavy was on top of him. He pulled back the pillow to discover Dean sitting on him.
“Note to self: always make sure door is locked before going to sleep. Get off me.” Misha pushed Dean to the floor.
“Come on, Russian boy, you can’t just sleep the whole day away.” Dean sprang up onto his feet.
“Watch me.” Misha’s English was actually great and his Russian accent was slight. Still, a lot of people had taken to calling him The Russian. He didn’t really care. Much.
Dean bounced on his toes. “Come on, man, we never have a day to hang out together any more.” Dean’s own British accent was also slight. No one had nicknamed him for it however.
“I thought you were going to some concert thing with Cassidy?” Misha looked over at his clock. It read 2:42 PM. He probably should get up.
“We were, but she called saying she wasn’t feeling very good. Some sort of summer flu or some shit.” Dean shrugged and sat in Misha’s computer chair. “It sucks, but hey, I get to hang out with you now!”
“Lucky me.” Misha sat up and swung his feet over the side of his bed. “I’m going to shower. If you’re not out of my room when I get back, I’m totally kicking your ass.”
“Considering you’ll be in naught but a towel at that point, I shall make haste.” Dean got out of the chair and left the room.
Misha got out of bed and found his shower kit. Duri
ng the school year, he shared this house with six other guys. There was no way he would leave his bathroom things in the bathroom, even when all but one of them went home for the summer. Misha left his room and crossed the hall to the bathroom. He was glad that Dean was the only one who stayed over the summer months. It meant he never had to worry about someone else needing the bathroom, because two others were available: one downstairs on the main floor and one in the basement.
When Dean and Misha ended up moving into the same house, they knew each other only in passing. Both of them had separate groups of friends who had asked them to move in; Misha’s on the top floor, Dean’s in the basement, and the one friend that hung out with both groups in the only room on the main floor. Since then though, Misha and Dean had become best friends. Neither of them could afford to go home very often, so they ended up spending the summers together and most of the holidays. This summer, Misha had been working a lot and Dean had his girlfriend keeping him occupied, so they actually didn’t get to hang out that much. Misha would never admit it to Dean, but he thought today would actually be pretty cool.
He jumped into the shower and went through his routine. Scrub hair with shampoo; rinse. Scrub hair with conditioner; rinse. Scrub body with soup; rinse. He then brushed his teeth in the shower and used an acne-fighting face cream, spending as much time under the hot water as he could.
When he was done cleaning, he spent a few minutes just standing under the water, letting it run over him. Eventually though, he had to turn it off and climb out. He used the same towel to scrub his scruffy black hair dry as he did to dry off his body, then wrapped it around his waist.
He walked over to the sink and looked closely at his face in the mirror. The light blue eyes staring back at him were nearly white in colour, like certain huskies were. Some girls really liked them while others thought they were creepy. He had also been asked many times if he wore contact lenses that changed the colour, but he assured them that they were the same eyes his mother had. He looked over the pale skin of his face, inspecting it for blemishes. He was always pale, even with a summer job that meant working outside in the sunshine. He wasn’t exactly vain, but Misha knew that being good looking had its advantages in life and working at a McDonald’s meant keeping a constant vigil against the pimples the grease fryer tried to create. Today there was none.
He also noted that he didn’t need to shave today. Misha rarely had to shave, which he found odd considering his father was pretty much a bear. He was a lot more like his mother than his father. His father was a big, burly man with a face made of sharp angles, while Misha’s own face was built much softer and his body was made of all bone and stringy muscle.
After leaving the bathroom, he crossed back over to his own room. He threw on a fresh pair of boxers and a clean, comfy, black T-shirt. It took him at least a minute but he hunted down his black shorts out of the pile of clothes on his floor and then put them on as well. Misha’s wardrobe consisted of almost all black clothing. It matched his hair and made his eyes stand out more. He had been told that was a good thing. Misha didn’t bother with socks or even his watch, planning on staying indoors all day. Finally, he headed downstairs, but slipped on the middle step and landed on his butt.
“Graceful,” Dean called from the kitchen. He didn’t have to see Misha to know he had slipped. Everyone slipped on their stairs from time to time. They were steep, narrow, rounded at the edges, and covered in a much worn carpet.
Misha walked into the small, narrow kitchen and went straight for the coffee pot. There wasn’t any made. He held out the empty pot to Dean.
“Why do you think I woke you up?” Dean grinned.
Misha started the coffee. “Are you at least cooking me breakfast?”
“Breakfast? It’s lunch time, dude,” Dean reminded him of the lateness of the day.
Misha scowled at him.
“I threw some Eggo waffles in the toaster for you.” Dean thumbed over to their tiny and shocking toaster. It was probably a fire hazard but no one had offered to replace it yet.
The waffles popped up and Dean pulled them out. He dropped two onto a plate for himself.
“Think fast.” Dean tossed the other Eggos at Misha.
Misha caught them, but had to keep passing them from hand to hand because they were so hot. He gave up trying to hold them and set them down on the counter.
Dean grabbed some syrup out of the cupboard and two beers out of the fridge. He handed one of the beers to Misha.
“I can’t afford beer right now.” Misha tried to hand it back.
“It’s on me.” Dean carried his plate, beer, and syrup out into the living room.
Misha grabbed his waffles and followed him. They sat on either end of the couch and put their feet up on the coffee table.
“You realize you gave me a beer while I’m making us coffee, right?” Misha pointed out.
Dean turned on the TV with the remote. “We can drink both. Why not?” Dean flipped through the channels until he found some stupid cartoon.
“Ugh, I hate this cartoon,” Misha commented while he started eating his waffles.
“Why? It’s funny.” Dean drenched his own waffles in sugary syrup before eating them.
“It’s stupid actually.”
“And what kind of cartoons do you find funny?”
“Roadrunner.”
“Okay, you got me on that one. Those are fucking hilarious.”
Misha and Dean continued eating in silence while the cartoon continued.
“You wanna play some Mario Kart?” Misha asked once he was done eating.
“Not really.”
“C.O.D?”
“You know I can’t resist the Call of Duty,” Dean made a bad joke about the title of the game.
“You set it up, I’ll grab the coffee.” Misha got up and went back to the kitchen, still half asleep. He found the biggest mugs they had in the house and filled them to capacity, splitting the entire pot between the two. He blew across the surface of his own mug and looked out the kitchen window. Something was going on in the house behind theirs.
“Hey, Dean!”
“What?”
“Come look at this!”
“We don’t have mold again, do we?” Dean walked into the kitchen.
Misha handed him his mug and pointed out the window.
Dean looked out while he took a sip of his coffee. “What am I looking at?”
“I thought I saw something in the house over there.” Misha pointed to a specific window on the second floor.
“Burger boy’s place? I thought they were all on vacation. Disney cruise or something.”
“That’s what I thought.”
There was movement in one of the windows. A dark shadow passed across it.
“Oh shit, there is someone there,” Dean stated calmly. “I guess they came back early.”
“Or someone is robbing the place.” Misha thought that was more likely the case.
“That could also be true.”
The two of them stood there and sipped their coffee some more.
“Fuck, I guess we should do something, shouldn’t we,” Dean sighed. “You have your phone on you?”
“No, I left it upstairs.”
Dean reached into a pocket and pulled out his own cell phone.
“If you had yours, why did you ask about mine?” Misha’s eyebrows frowned and his mouth grinned in confusion.
“Duh, use your minutes instead of mine.” Dean dialed.
“You’re an ass,” Misha laughed, “besides, isn’t 911 free?”
“I love you too. And I have no idea.” Dean held the phone to his ear. “Strange. It’s busy.”
“What do you mean, busy? Who did you call?”
“911. What, you thought I was ordering a pizza or something?”
“It’s you we’re talking about, remember? And 911 can’t be busy.”
“Well it is, try yourself.” Dean handed Misha the phone.
Misha dialed
and held it to his ear. Sure enough, nothing answered except for a series of annoying beeps.
“Maybe it’s not free and you’re out of minutes.” Misha handed the phone back.
“Doubts, I bought more just last week.” Dean pocketed his phone.
“Yeah, well you do spend a lot of time talking to Cassidy,” Misha reminded him.
“Not that much.” Dean turned away from the window. “Come on, Call of Duty awaits.”
“What about that?” Misha pointed across the yards.
“We tried. The police didn’t pick up; our job is done.” Dean went back into the living room.
Misha looked from the living room to the window and back again. In the end, he decided Dean was right. They tried and no one picked up. It’s not as if it was their job to go over there and check for themselves. Misha went into the living room and took up his seat on the couch. Dean handed him a controller. They signed into their accounts and started playing. Once they finished their coffees, they moved on to the beer. They turned it into a drinking game where you had to take a drink every time you died. They kept facing people who were really good, and so they died a lot. They ended up having a lot more beer than they originally planned.
Suddenly the power cut out.
* * *
“Oh, come on!” Dean shouted at the ceiling. “That better not have been a damn fuse blowing again.”
“Let’s go find out.” Misha got up off the couch. He swayed slightly at the sudden drunken head rush.
Dean noticed and laughed at him, but when he got up, he did the same thing. This made him laugh harder. The two of them went over to the stairs leading to the basement and headed down. Neither of them managed to slip on these stairs. They went to their housemate’s door and Misha tried the knob.
“It’s locked,” Misha frowned.
Dean pushed him aside and tried it himself. “Goddamn wanker. He was supposed to leave it unlocked just in case this happened.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should go see if the power is out in the rest of the house.”
“Or even the street. We can’t trust the house.” This last sentence Dean said was an inside joke among everyone who lived in it. No one really knew when it started, but they all would say ‘we can’t trust the house’ whenever something remotely applicable happened. It happened rather often.
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