“Maybe,” she faintly replied. “Just maybe.”
“Please,” David insisted. “Go home. I thought all you guys had curfews or something, anyhow?”
“You guys?” Louise coldly replied, sounding insulted as she snapped even more out of her thoughts. “You mean immigrants, right? Blacks, browns, foreigners, refugees? Anyone with an accent or who doesn't look or sound white British like you? Is that what you mean?” As Louise finished, more tears began forming in her eyes. She clearly wasn't as mentally tough as she was letting on to be.
“I didn't mean it like that. But you know what I meant,” David hit back.
“Well I do want to go home, aye” Louise cried. “I would love nothing more than to go back to my home and my family.”
“Then do it then,” David said. “It'll be a lot safer than sitting around in this shitty little neighbourhood all night.”
“Well it's complicated,” Louise shot back, before glancing away. She ran her fingers through her thick jet-black hair, all the way to the tips. “Besides, I have no idea if my home even exists anymore.”
“How old are you?” David asked. He moved a little closer, trying to get a better look at her dark face and features.
Louise ignored his prying question. She was beginning to feel a little anxious and uncomfortable as the strange man approached her.
“Barely 16, I bet,” David continued with a rough guess.
“So what if I am, pervert?” Louise snapped back. “Is that what you like, huh? Young girls. Is that why you're out stalking the streets so late at night yourself, huh? Looking for vulnerable girls to take advantage of?”
David ignored her bitter and aggressive comments. He just shook his head before continuing with his questions.
“Do your parents know you’re out this late? Getting wasted at bus stops. Looking for trouble.” David hesitated as he took a quick half-glance at the five troublesome teenage boys still larking around on the other side of the street, gradually getting more vocal with their antics. “...And the wrong kind of attention at that.”
Louise chuckled “What are you, my new dad? Fuck off and leave me alone, pervert, all right?”
David took a deep breath, mainly to keep himself from snapping at the ignorant and arrogant little girl, although, for all the patience left in him, he couldn't stop just a tiny bit of anger from trickling out.
“Fuck this,” David said while shaking his head and turning back around, ready to walk away. Louise, realising that the man might have had only good intentions after all, glanced back over at him with an apologetic look, like she didn't want him to leave... but it appeared she might be too late.
David kept walking. Then the sound of bottles smashing across the street made him stop in his tracks and think twice. He glanced over at the teenage boys. Two of them were fighting fast and furious amongst themselves for no other reason than that they were just bored. The three other boys stood around them in a circle, cheering and jeering their bloodied mates on.
David took another deep breath. The young mixed-race girl's short but grim future flashed before his eyes and it all ended in that bus stop or up the dark alley beside it. He let out a weary sigh and turned around to re-approach the girl. Out of the corner of her eye, Louise saw him coming back and felt a little relieved. The teen boys across the street had startled her as she suddenly sobered up to the realisation of the danger she had stupidly put herself in. As David approached her again, though, she swiftly hid her relief and became more defensive once more.
“Who's looking for attention now?” she taunted him.
“Look ... little girl. I am not a threat to you out here, okay? But the next couple of drunk, drugged-up, fucked-up guys who pass you by ... well, they might not be as concerned about your safety and wellbeing as I am. Do you understand that? Can you get that through your thick fucking skull?”
Louise glanced hard into the angry and serious-looking man's eyes. She gave a brief flicker of a smile but couldn't help teasing him again. She didn't know why, but she always enjoyed pushing people’s buttons, especially when she was in this kind of sad and sorry mood and without a single care in the world.
“So, if you're not looking to get into my panties, old man, or beat me up because of the colour of my skin, why the hell is my wellbeing any kind of a concern to you?”
A gruesome yet heart-breaking image flashed before David's eyes. It was an image of him kneeling on the grass, underneath the old oak tree outside the Highland clifftop cottage from his previous dream. As he knelt, he sobbed against a pair of naked blood-stained feet and ankles which hung lifelessly above him from the tree’s thick branches.
David shook his head and snapped back into the present. He steadied his intense gaze upon Louise. “Just let me call you a taxi and pay for your ride home, okay? Will you at least let me do that?”
“A taxi?” Louise said, sounding overly impressed. “You guys still have taxis here?”
“We do. But they're accessible only to certain people,” David answered.
“Like certain white British people, aye?”
David didn't respond. Louise glanced away.
“Save your money. I wouldn't even know where it could take me, anyhow.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don't have any bloody home to go to anymore. And don't ask me why because it's none of your fucking business.”
“Okay,” David said, breathing a sigh of relief that he might finally be getting somewhere with the stubborn girl. “So, you're not going home. Where exactly would you like to go, then?”
Louise gave David a queer and curious stare. It was a look that made him instantly regret asking such a question.
Chapter 9
David led Louise through the front door of his house. Without a word, he showed her into his living room before directing her towards his two seater couch.
“Take a seat,” David said. “I'll get you some covers for the couch and then we'll call it a night, yeah?”
“Could I get some water please?” Louise innocently asked.
David frowned and without further words left the room. Louise smiled to herself at David's broody demeanour before taking it upon herself to walk nosily around his small living room. She stopped to study some of David's army pictures hanging on the far wall. She smirked, just a little, on seeing him, totally unrecognisable, smiling and happy with some of his army friends. He appeared to be a different man in these pictures. She couldn't imagine him ever cracking a smile in real life.
After completing one full circuit of the living room, Louise sat on the couch. David returned with a duvet cover and a pint glass of water. He placed the sheets beside her and handed her the water. Louise greedily took the glass and guzzled down the full pint in one continuous glug.
“Thanks,” said Louise when she’d finished with a loud gasp before grinning up at him and wiping her mouth. “So, you're in the army then, aye?”
David glanced over at his photos, then back at Louise. “Not anymore, no,” he replied.
“Why not?” Louise enquired further. “Best place to be right now, no? The wages. The benefits. Get to do whatever you like and act however the hell you please. Get to shoot, hurt and kill whomever you damn well like, too.”
David sighed hard. He'd had enough of this conversation already. His whisky nightcap and comfy double bed were calling him.
“Have you had much to drink tonight?” he asked, changing the subject.
Louise frowned and folded her arms before sitting back against the couch.
“You found me drowning my sorrows outside an off license. What the hell do you think?”
David closed his eyes and gently rubbed the side of his head. He sighed deeply to himself.
“Okay. I'm sorry I asked. I'm too tired for this moody teenager bullshit. I'm going to bed. Don't do anything stupid like rob me or set my fucking house on fire, okay?”
David turned to leave. Louise suddenly burst into an unco
ntrollable fit of tears. “I'm so sorry,” she said. “You've been so nice... I'm such a bitch.”
David turned back to face her. He looked utterly surprised at her 180-degree turnaround in emotions. He seemed a little more tolerant of her presence now. He hated to see people crying. Especially girls. It was one of his few weaknesses in life.
“I don't even know your name,” said Louise as she desperately tried to stop sobbing while wiping away her tears.
“David...I'm David.”
“Louise.”
David took another deep breath and held it for a few moments. “So, Louise... do you want to tell me the real reason to why you're in such a state tonight?”
***
An hour later and Louise was lying flat out for the count upon David's sofa. She didn't seem to have a care in the world any longer as she slept deeply and peacefully after having unburdened her recent life traumas onto David.
David placed the thick, warm covers over her sleeping frame. He then turned towards a large cabinet of drawers on the other side of the room. From the second draw down, he pulled out his handgun, along with a box of bullets and a huge hunting knife.
Ten minutes later, David found himself jogging through the back streets of Douglas city centre. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been out so late at night here; probably never. After everything that had happened to him, he had no interest in the city nightlife anymore, or indeed whatever was left of it.
As he ran through the dark and narrow back streets, his hoody up, David couldn't help but glance at the various rogue layabouts on the roads. Young, drunken louts who roamed the streets looking for stray immigrants to beat up. Men fighting over women. Women fighting over men. Drug dealers and pimps lying in wait amongst the shadows of doorways. Several prostitutes waiting for business on nearly every street corner he passed.
Hundreds of homeless people littered the dirty city streets, too, especially around the dockyard area. They were of various ethnic backgrounds, and most of them appeared right off their heads with alcohol and drugs.
As David continued jogging, he thought back to a small portion of his conversation with Louise back at the house – the sole reason he was now trawling the dirty city streets at night.
“I was ... I was in a bedroom ... just innocently talking to this guy at a party.” Louise continued to sob. “He seemed really nice, you know? He was the host of the party and had really kind, trusting blue eyes. We were just chilling for a bit, drinking and chatting about nothing and everything. Then we started making out a little. But only a little because I didn't want to take things any further, you know.” Louise sobbed and sniffed as the rage inside David grew, consuming him like a tumour.
'...And every time I told him to stop, or for us to take a time out and talk some more, he wouldn't listen. He just kept coming on stronger and stronger. He wouldn't take no for a fucking answer ... he just wouldn't, until ... I just ... I just couldn't fight him anymore, David. I just couldn't.”
“Did this guy rape you, Louise?” David asked as calmly as he could under the circumstances.
“He did things ... bad, painful things, you know? ...I ... I wanted him to stop, David. I really wanted him to stop so much,” Louise continued, sobbing even harder now.
“Did he rape you, Louise?” David asked again. He didn’t want to react or show his rage until he'd heard the full confession from Louise's own lips.
Louise eventually stopped sobbing. She rubbed her eyes and cheeks clean of tears. Then she looked up at David and stared at him for a long, intense moment.
“Yes ... yes, he did.”
Chapter 10
David came to a halt right outside Billy's huge house. After running across the entire city, from one of the poorest districts to the richest, he didn't even seem out of breath. Both his knife and his gun were tucked nice and snug inside the back of his tight black trousers. He'd avoided the army checkpoint by climbing over the roofs of another row of houses nearby.
From outside Billy's house, the noisy party from earlier that evening seemed to be well and truly over. No one else was around the front of the house apart from the two hard-looking bouncers, who both stood guard at the front door instead of Billy’s bedroom doorway.
Without a second thought, David walked casually down the garden path and right up towards the two gorilla-like bouncers. “Where's Billy?” he asked as he calmly approached the two men.
“Sorry my friend,” the bigger of the two bouncers replied with a smug grin. “Billy's done for the night. Come back again tomorrow evening for the next party.”
“Is that right, huh?” David replied as he walked uncomfortably close, right into both men's space.
“Shit, man. Didn't you just hear a single fucking word I said?” asked the larger of the two men. His posture stiffened as he rose another inch in height.
With no time for games or chit-chat, David grinned and pulled his huge hunting knife out from behind his back. Both bouncers went into panic mode. They were used to dealing with awkward and aggressive people, but it usually took a few minutes of jostling to get to the fighting part.
Still in a panic, they clumsily drew their own knives, ready for a fight, but David had already clutched the blade handle of his own hunting knife and used it to smack the first bouncer hard in the face, knocking out some of his front teeth in the process. As the bouncer coughed and spluttered, desperately trying to gather himself, David kneeled and stabbed the big ape right in the side of his knee. The bouncer dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. David wasn't finished, though, not by a long shot. He punched the bouncer ferociously hard again, right in the face. The man landed on his knees, knocked out cold.
David ripped his knife back out of the man's knee before finding himself leaping backwards and ducking a blow from the second attacking bouncer and his small flick knife.
David jumped back to his feet. The second bouncer came at him again, swishing and swooshing the blade like he had no control of his actions and was just hoping for the best in a blind bout of fury.
With swift reflexes, David dodged the bouncer's slashes with a taunting ease. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying testing his parrying skills. He could easily sense that the big but not so bad-ass bouncer had exhausted himself into defeat by using all his energy in one go.
David finally put him out of his misery, punching him hard in the gut as the second bouncer lunged forward for the umpteenth time. He did it with the same brutal force he'd used while splitting the bricks on his basement wall. He then grabbed and snapped the man's wrist at an unnatural angle. The flick knife that the bouncer was clutching and pathetically waving around fell, clanging onto the slab pavement below.
David then stabbed the man in the thigh with his own hunting knife before giving him an upper cut, palm blow, to his chin, knocking out his whole row of upper front teeth. The impact even managed to slice off half his tongue. The bouncer fell to the floor in an unconscious, bloodied heap.
David, feeling absolutely nothing for either man, stepped over the two motionless bodies to get to the main front door of the house. He didn't give a shit if they lived or died, even though they were only trying to defend themselves from an attacker.
Inside the house, Billy and two teenage friends were lounging on a huge couch in the corner of the living room, smoking joints and listening to heavy dance music.
“Oh yeah, man! This is the bollocks. This is the bloody bollocks,” said one of Billy's friends as he took a long, hard draw from the half-finished joint. “It’s like ... it’s like ... hey man? You know something? What the hell does ‘like’ really mean, anyhow ... like ... like, who the hell came up with that word ... like, man, you know?”
Billy and the second teen chuckled at the ridiculousness of their friend's bizarre statement.
“Are you on drugs or something, mate? ‘Cuz if you’re not, then you fucking well should be,” Billy said, mocking his stoned friend.
Suddenly, their antics were inter
rupted by a loud thudding at the front door. All three teens froze where they sat. The banging stopped just as suddenly as it started.
“What the hell was that?” said the second teen.
“It sounded like ... like ... a knocking sound, like, like, like,” mocked the first teen.
The second teen gave Billy a queer glance. “Your security guys are still outside, right?”
“Reggie and Ronnie wouldn't knock, you big fucking anus,” Billy retorted. “They must have went for a fag break. Or maybe they're double teaming that Lesley bitch in the garage again.”
Suddenly the banging resumed, much louder and more intense this time.
“It might be someone from the party,” the first teen said, sounding a little anxious.
“I hope it's that little stunner Sharon again. I could go a round with her tight little arse right about now,” said Billy with a sly smirk.
“Jesus, Billy, you must have banged about 10 different girls tonight and you still want more?”
Billy stood up and headed towards the front door. “It pays to be the only dealer in town, mate. You get all the top pussy,” he teased while winking at his friend. “Plus, I took about three fucking Viagra by mistake. Thought they were bloody vitamins. I'm still as horny now as I was during my first shag this afternoon.”
The other two teens just shook their heads as Billy stepped into his marble-tiled hallway. He approached the front door but took a few moments to glance through the peephole before answering. Immediately, he saw David’s huge figure standing on his porch. Billy eyed him suspiciously before finally opening the door. Big, fit white men weren't a threat to him on this island. Besides, the man had a military look about him, so perhaps he was just looking for a late-night fix for some of his squadron mates, or perhaps he was even looking for some kind of work.
“Yeah, man. What you wanting? Party's long since over, dude,” said Billy with a smug tone as he opened the door.
The Wrath of David Page 4