Digger allowed himself a little gasp and no more as he came in his hidden spot. His whole body shook and as always he was terrified that creaks or echoes might give away his location. He’d already come once that afternoon thinking of Joey, so at least there wasn’t much spunk to shoot. Not like Joey, who pulled out of DD leaving a long string of come that he twirled around with a laugh before whacking his still hard cock on DD’s cheek. “Better than you deserve!”
“Can I have my stuff now?” DD turned around with his hand out. Despite his complaints about Joey, his cock was stiff now too, which made Joey laugh. DD frowned. “What?”
“I’m surprised you can still get it up with all you do.” He tossed him a little plastic bag.
“That’s all?”
“Scarcity affects us all, DD.” Joey pulled his trousers up and fastened them.
DD pocketed the bag and absently fondled his hard-on. “You wanna make me come?”
Joey smiled briefly but it didn’t look friendly at all. “I got better things to do. See ya, DD.” He turned and walked away, back down the hall to the bunks where everybody else was hanging around.
DD leaned against the wall and chafed his cock with the same roughness he’d given Joey. He just didn’t have a gentle bone in his body, Digger thought. DD closed his eyes and speeded up his hand until he came, shooting a rope of come onto the shower tiles. Then he pulled up his track suit and took the bag out of his pocket, eyeing his hard-won treasure again.
Digger lay in the air vent, fingers caressing his softening cock. He wondered what it would be like to lie in Joey’s arms after they made love and talk about the world and the night and all the things that used to be. He was lonely. He missed his dad. He wished he’d not ended up in this misbegotten place, though would it have mattered where he was when The Collapse happened? At least, here he had the chance to see Joey and pretend that he could be with him.
That had to count for something, right?
ii
THE NEXT MORNING at the meal, Digger felt something new in the air. It seemed to emanate from Johnny and Joey. They had all been at a meal when The Collapse took place, though at the time they didn’t know that’s what it was. They had ended up in this joint for similar reasons: fighting, stealing, drugs, petty crimes and a few more serious charges. ArachNed claimed that Sid had killed a man, but it was hard to say what was just hearsay and what was truth. They were on the edge of adulthood and completely lost—like the song said, 18 and they didn’t know what they wanted.
Being the 18s had saved them that day.
The first news of The Collapse had come via Mr. Bill. He was the twitchiest of the guards. He’d spread most of the rumors that they’d all heard in advance, but no one believed it. Digger had been hearing about the world going to hell in a handbasket since he could remember, though he never had the slightest idea what a handbasket even was. The guards wanted to make the boys feel bad for being inside, always telling them that their mums or dads or grans or whatnot were pining away for them, crying themselves to sleep at night. Digger was unmoved by the violins they tried to play. He had no one outside. His dad was the last bit of family. He was only in here because they shifted him out of school since he didn’t qualify for staying on and he lost his free meal every day. He boosted some bread and cheese from a shop and got caught. He was sent here because some local politician made it her pet project to help troubled boys “become men”—and as everyone knew, nothing made you an adult like locking you up in prison.
It was better than the dead end jobs he saw others take and maybe no more a prison than that. Besides, inside he saw Joey and suddenly knew that there was something he wanted from life, something real—not like those footballers and film stars he tore out of the free newspaper and pasted in his journals. Joey was his dream, the light of his life and the very burning fire of his loins.
It was hard to care about the collapse of civilization when he had Joey on his mind. They mostly hadn’t believed Bill anyway, he was always seeing gloom and doom. He had only taken the job in the lockup because he thought it was secure against the end of the world chaos.
Who knew it would happen?
Even Bill, who had rehearsed for it most of his adult life, hadn’t really been prepared for the real thing. There were days of warnings. Scorching fire and strife across the globe, but none of it really seemed to be happening. It was on screens in the rec rooms and common areas—the screens that were now black and silent—but it didn’t seem any more true than all the movies that showed apocalypse and ruin. The world got rebuilt each time a new film started. Why not?
And Bill had actively campaigned to have it happen. He was part of some survivalist cult. Sometimes, he would give books or tracts to the boys, things the other guards would remove with scowls of annoyance. “You’re stirring up things, Bill,” the big man would say, clapping a great meaty hand on his shoulder. “The boys have problems enough, don’t give them a cause.” But Bill had preached the end times and the need to protect the guns and the women. This was funny because there wasn’t a woman in miles and miles of this place, which was the whole point of the deviants’ wing.
Nevertheless, the stories mounted up and the guards all got nervous. A few of them bolted to get home to families or something, though the way things turned out, there wasn’t much point in that. They all took it much more serious once the whole place was in clampdown. Even Digger, who didn’t care if he ever left, felt a bit nervous because all the guards were so edgy. The nerves transferred to the boys and there were more fights and disturbances than there had been before. Bill vacillated between rubbing his hands with glee that the predicted end was finally upon them and at the same time getting a bit worried that he might be missing out on something too.
Then things got more real.
The day the fire ripped through the younger boys’ side, Bill had been more stunned than anyone. Digger figured out eventually that it must have been because he thought he was safe here and the end times wouldn’t really touch him. He’d just have a ringside seat and get to gloat and say he’d told you so.
When the fire broke out, everything shut down. Alarms and sirens went off and everybody had to retreat to their bunks. They were eternally grateful that the guards were too busy to actually lock them in or they would have been in a real pickle. All the guards but Bill tried to help with the fire. Digger could never tell if Bill was deliberately left behind or he weaseled out of his responsibilities. He was lazy as the day was long, yet felt entitled to have the best of everything. That day, however, he was just shaking and gibbering by the time night fell and no one returned and no signs of life could be detected from the other side of the great locked wall.
It was Joey and Johnny that found him and stopped him from shutting everything down. He was crying and impossible to understand, throwing switches and saying they would be dead soon anyway. All the screens went black and the little news they had inside didn’t look good, but while there was life, there was hope.
Or so Joey said. “We’re cut off, but we can survive. We’re all in this together, so let’s get along.” Johnny had stood beside him, not saying anything, but not fighting him either, which was something.
“And what about Bill?” It was Tommy who asked first, though they had all been thinking it after seeing him getting crazier than a loon.
“Bill is dead.” Seems that he hung himself in the guard’s office using his own worn belt. It seemed mental: all that jonesing for the end of the world then taking himself out when it finally arrived. Joey and Johnny took over operations like they’d been appointed to the job, preparing for the day when the power finally stopped, getting all the moaning boys to fetch water from every possible spigot to save it in the storeroom, as well as putting in place rotating guards to keep everyone on the up and up. Johnny and Joey had done a lot of figuring about how to ration supplies so that no one felt too deprived. Everybody was in the same boat, so they were all good. And having something to gripe
about kept them from inventing new problems for the most part, except for DD and his habit.
The boys were cut off, no doubt about it, but they had a little freedom for the first time in weeks. For some of them, it was the first taste of liberty they could remember. They were locked in the 18s side of the prison, but ArachNed and Markie found the guards’ secret hangout which led to the roof room, a sort of turret that was probably meant for keeping watch on the perimeter. It wasn’t much—and there wasn’t much to see in the blasted landscape—but it was a luxury they’d been missing for a long time. For a while now, the wind on their faces had proved distraction enough. The world might be ending, but it was all play for them.
There was a new vibe in the air today though, Digger could feel it. Joey and Johnny sat at the head of the table, their ‘brain trust’ as Joey always joked alongside them. The clever boys being ArachNed, who was good with gadgets and could fix up anything once he’d given it some study; Glen, who had read pretty much all the books he could get his hands on and kept a sort of library he managed to wheedle out of the guards; and Tommy, who had the ability to size people and situations up in a snap. He was the one who predicted Bill’s death before it happened. Everybody was sure he would be reveling in his element, but Tommy shook his head. He could see death in his eyes.
Joey stood up. Digger flushed. It wasn’t as if Joey could read his thoughts. He did his best to keep his face bland and neutral. It wouldn’t do to let everyone see his puppy-like adoration. If anything, Digger did his best to look scowly and disagreeable most of the time. No one paid any attention to him, because he was the smallest of them. Sid and Simon towered over him, while Johnny and Joey made him look ghostly and weak. It was almost like being invisible, which was the way he always had been.
“We’re going to have to face facts, lads. The food and water isn’t going to last forever.”
Johnny frowned up at him. “We’ll be lucky if it lasts another month at the rate we’re eating.”
“I know, I’m getting to it.” He didn’t even seem ruffled by the interruption. That was part of what made Joey so cool. He never appeared to be the least bit bothered by anyone or anything. That cool exterior was a large part of his appeal: the cool one. Digger had never been cool in his life. There’s no way Joey would ever notice him. He’d always watched from afar, but how his fingers itched to touch those lips, and he couldn’t help picturing them hip to hip.
“What we really need,” Joey said, looking around the tables at the boys who were left, “is to get out of here and make our way to other people, or at least a city, where we can find more to sustain us.”
The murmur of commentary sprang up at once. Everyone had an opinion, but their mutterings didn’t really amount to anything but noise. When Joey raised his hands, they all quieted down. “We don’t have any figureheads leading us. It’s just us. We could argy back and forth about what to do, but it comes down to the same thing. We’re safe here for now, but it won’t last forever. Eventually, we’ll run out of food and water.”
“I added some bins to the roof so we’ll get any rain,” ArachNed said, though his eager look quickly became crestfallen. “If it rains. I don’t think it’s rained much since The Collapse, but there’s dew. A little anyways.” He stared down at his crusts.
“We’re going to have to figure out how to get out of here,” Joey said.
The murmuring started again. Some were not content to murmur. “You gotta be fucking joking, right?” Simon laughed. “We should wait here. Sooner or later someone’s going to follow up on the paperwork and find us.”
“Fuck that noise!” Sid said, pumping his fist in the air so the anarchy tattoo on his arm was clear. “Let’s blow shit up and party!”
Johnny smirked at him. “We may want to blow shit up, but only if it gets us out of here. We got layers of steel between us and freedom.”
“Unless we can climb down off the roof,” Glen said with a thoughtful air. His dark eyes had a faraway look as he considered the problem.
“We’d still be inside the walls,” Joey added, “but that’s a start. We need to be thinking escape. We need to think of all the different avenues that will get us out of here and into the wilds. And before we get stir crazy.”
“I don’t think we should go anywhere,” DD said, rubbing his arms like he was cold, but it was probably just withdrawal. “Simon’s right. We should just wait here. Someone will come eventually. Out there, we don’t know what shit’s going on.”
Digger looked around. Some nodded at that, but most of the guys seemed to be leaning toward the idea of escape. They were bored. Apart from Glen who had his books, they were mostly at loose ends, unable to entertain themselves without television and the internet. It was one of the things that kept Digger to himself. Other than the odd ones like Markie, who seemed to be in his own little world with his weird cards and strange rituals, the others mostly argued about television shows and movies that they remembered or disagreements they had had with the guards or teachers or parents or whatever in the past. They just didn’t have much to entertain themselves and fights were breaking out more.
He looked over at Joey, who kept cool even though it was clear he was getting a bit nettled. “Sure, we can wait. Maybe someone out there is digging through paperwork, maybe someone somewhere says, hey, those lads we threw away because we thought they were worthless: let’s put them on the rescue list. We’ll be down there right after puppies, kittens, television presenters and baby snatchers.” Joey looked around the cafeteria.
“So that’s what? Two years from now?” He smiled grimly. “Our bones will be bleached nicely by then.”
The boys were silent then.
iii
“WE CAME UP with a plan,” Johnny said, his voice suddenly taking on a sound of eagerness that it had not had before. “We figured the best way to get you lot to do something was to make it a competition.” The response was less than enthusiastic. They were all still thinking of those bleached bones. Digger found himself curious, especially since Joey and Johnny looked rather pleased with themselves.
“Yeah, we’re going to have teams. We’ll go head-to-head, as they say, trying to come up with the best plan to escape that actually works. No theoretical stuff, Glen.”
Glen laughed, his white teeth looking bright against his brown skin. “Oh, but that’s what I’m best at. I’ve been reading The Count of Monte Cristo. All it takes is a spoon—and lots and lots of time!”
Everyone laughed, but Digger could see the plan was having the effect Joey had hoped for. The guys were turning the idea over in their minds and getting excited for the competition.
“What’s the prize?” Simon asked. “If it’s a competition, there’s gotta be a prize. I’m not working for nothing.” He crossed his arms and gave Joey a challenging stare as he laughed.
Johnny lifted up a cardboard box. “This is the prize. We liberated it from the guard’s hideaway on the roof.”
“What is it?” several boys asked at once.
“A treasure trove to be sure,” Joey said with a wink at Johnny. “I know that most of you have been suffering from a certain affliction. The affliction that palls your imagination and without sufficient input to the brain you are left gormless and bereft.”
“What the fuck you on about?” Sid asked, his brow furrowed.
“Just your premium level box of wank mags,” Johnny said, whipping off the box top and pulling out a shiny publication that lay on the pile. It flipped open to a glossy page of a woman spread eagled, smiling as if there were nowhere she’d rather be. Digger flushed, feeling embarrassed, but the other guys all whistled and hooted and hollered, a couple jumping up from their chairs to get a closer look.
Johnny hastily returned the magazine to the box and slammed the lid shut. “Now, this is primo stuff, largely untouched since we found it—”
“Largely untouched?” Simon said with a frown, still eyeing the box as if he might develop x-ray vision.
&nb
sp; “There had to be a certain amount of testing to make sure the contents were as good as they looked,” Joey said with a cool air. “You gotta inspect the merchandise, don’t you?”
The laughter that greeted this suggested it was so, but they were itching for more. No one noticed that Digger hadn’t joined in the slavering hoots, though DD and Glen and a few others didn’t seem to be any more interested than he in the contents.
“What all has it got?” Simon asked again, as if he were being asked to pay for the magazines out of his own pocket.
“It’s a bit of a grab bag, so to speak,” Joey said.
“Yeah,” Johnny agreed, nodding his head. “Tits, arse, she-males, bondage, a little bit of everything. Eclectic, let’s call it. You won’t be disappointed. Something for the whole team, whatever side you play on.”
“How are we choosing sides?”
“If no one objects,” Joey said, casting his gaze around the room, “Johnny and I will be team captains since we thought of the plan. We can either choose teams one by one or we can do the counting thing, you know—evens, odds.”
“I dunno, does that sound fair?” Simon shook his head.
“You wanna be a leader?” Johnny asked him. “Go on.”
“I didn’t say that,” Simon said, trying not to sound too hasty. “Just, you know, what about skills and what not? Who knows stuff? Like Glen and ArachNed can’t be on the same team.”
“Why not?” Johnny laughed. “I’d rather have strong dudes like you and Sid on my team anyway.”
Come Undone: Romance Stories Inspired by the Music of Duran Duran Page 31