Cassie giggled, and took a long drink from the vodka bottle before she lowered her mouth and kissed Justin, allowing the vodka to pass from one to the other.
The liquid burned as it went down, but Justin didn’t care. He was hungry for more, and if that meant drinking vodka, then so be it.
The buzz of drink took control, and with it, their passion swiftly grew. Clothes were shed, and the troubles of the real world were shed too. Justin gave in to the overriding sensation of teenage lust he had never felt better. The only thing that Justin would have changed was the time it took for everything to end. He would have happily gotten lost in their embrace forever, not because he was foolish to think their tryst was necessarily true love conquering all, but because he was carefree and would have given anything in the world to remain so.
“Isn’t it a beautiful night,” Cassie said as the two of them sat on the hood of the car, staring up at the night sky.
“It sure is,” Justin replied, letting out a slow, contented breath.
“You not a talker, are you?” Cassie asked, rolling onto her side to look at Justin.
“Me? I’ve never really thought about it,” Justin said, turning to look at her. “I’ve never really had many people to chat with, only Declan.”
“That’s your brother, right? Are you two close?” Cassie pushed herself into a half-seated position, resting with her elbow on the windshield.
“I guess we are. I mean, we have each other’s back.” Justin wasn’t sure how to answer, because every possibility brought his mind back to home, and what would undoubtedly be waiting for him.
“That’s cool. I’m an only child. I guess that’s why I’m always so chatty and stuff. You’re different though. I like that.” Cassie started giggling as she took another drink from the half-empty bottle of vodka. “You sure you don’t want some more?”
“I’m good, I need to drive,” Justin said, watching as Cassie took another drink.
“Good, then you can drive me home because I’m way too drive to be drunking.” Cassie burst into another fit of giggles. Arching her back, she stared at Justin, licking her lips and blowing him a kiss before she stretched too far and fell from the hood of the car.
“Oh shit, are you alright?” Justin was on the ground and running to Cassie’s aid, but he found her laughing to herself in the grass.
“I think I fell.” Justin helped Cassie to her feet, holding her steady while she fought to find her balance.
“I think we should be getting you home now,” he said to her, as he opened the passenger door and helped her into the passenger seat.
There wasn’t room to turn around on the narrow path they had driven down, and after wrestling Cassie into both her seat and safety belt, Justin reversed the car back to the country road. This occurred much to Cassie’s amazement. The drink was sinking into her cells now, and her state of inebriation continued to worsen until it reached the point, when Justin spun the car around and onto the main road, where she made him stop so she could lean out of the door and vomit.
“Are you alright?” Justin asked as he brushed Cassie’s hair behind her ear and offered her a tissue to help dry her face.
She looked at him, her eyes unfocused, her face plastered with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her lower lip quivering, foreshadowing the tears that were about to come.
“Hey, it happens. I’ve had to pick Declan up off the floor a few times.” Justin thought back to a few months previous when Declan had passed out on the stairs, vomit covering his shirt and trousers. He had managed to get him upstairs and into bed without waking their parents, an act he considered to be a small miracle.
“No, I shouldn’t have … it’s just … life fucking sucks.” Tears were flowing, and wet-sounding hiccups punctuated every few words that Cassie managed to utter.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Justin said, turning his attention back to the road.
“You wouldn’t even know what it’s like,” Cassie scoffed. “To be afraid of coming home. Terrified of what will happen the minute someone says something he doesn’t like.”
The words cut Justin to the bone. Turning, he stared at Cassie, wondering if she were teasing him, if this whole thing was just some set up to prank the lonely kid from school. He saw her tears and heard her sharp breaths, and that thought fell away to nothing. Cassie closed her eyes as she tried to stop the tears, the pressure building in her face until she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Your father … he … he hits you?” Justin asked, shocked. For so long, he never even thought about abuse happening to anybody else.
“He’s my step-father. He doesn’t hit me, but my mum. He drinks all the time and does whatever he wants to her. They think I’m asleep, but I hear it all. The things he said, the things he does.” Cassie turned to look at Justin, exhaustion plastered over her face. “I’m sorry, I don’t tell anybody this. I just wanted to have a fun night with a cute guy, and now look at me.”
The lingering aroma of alcohol and vomit hung in the car, but Justin wouldn’t have changed it. In that moment, he was exactly where he wanted to be. His heart started to race, and his hands were slick on the wheel. He swallowed hard, but his throat was suddenly as dry as Cassie’s would be when she woke up in the morning.
“I understand,” he said, his heart thundering in his chest, pumping so fast he couldn’t breathe. His head started to spin, and that pre-faint warmth began to spread through him. “My face … it wasn’t a fall from my bike. It was … it was … my father.”
The world stopped. Justin’s heart froze and everything ceased to matter. There was a moment when the words hung there, spoken but not yet processed by the one doing the listening, and it was both terrifying and exhilarating.
The words registered in Cassie’s mind, and she turned to look at Justin, her features soft and caring. “What?”
“My dad, and my mum. They hate me. It doesn’t matter what, everything comes back to me.” Justin returned his attention to the road, unaware that he was crying, his whole body trembling as if he had caught a serious chill.
“And your brother?” Cassie asked, sounding soberer than she had been before the revelation.
“Declan tries to watch out for me. They never touch him. He can do no wrong, they just blame me.” Justin loosened his grip on the wheel.
“I never knew. There was a reason I found you.” Cassie reached out and her hand came to rest on Justin’s, sitting on the gearstick.
Their eyes locked, and in that moment, their bond was sealed. Both smiled, and as Cassie closed her eyes and leaned back into the seat, she whispered, “Don’t take me home. Take me away.”
Justin was going to answer, but something moved out of the corner of his eye. Whipping his head around, he saw the fox dart out into the middle of the road. His reaction was instant and instinctive. He hit the brakes, turned the wheel, and called to Cassie to hold on.
Her eyes sprang open and a scream jumped from her mouth as she saw the trees along the verge coming towards her. Justin wrestled with the car, and the fox turned tail and charged back the way it had come.
The stop was a sudden one, and the crunch of metal and the high-pitched tone of breaking plastic rang out loud inside the car. The car stopped, its front passenger corner pressed against the trunk of a twisting oak tree.
“Are you okay?” Justin turned to look at Cassie, who was sitting with her eyes wide open, her chest rising and falling as if she had just finished running a race. “I am so sorry, the fox, it just came out of nowhere.”
Justin started to babble, the words coming quicker and quicker, only being silenced when Cassie’s lips found his. They were sour-tasting from the vomit, but it pulled Justin back into the present.
“It’s okay. I’m fine.” She smiled at him, and they fell into an embrace.
The car was not badly damaged, but the passenger light would need replacing. Driving carefully the rest of the way, Justin brought Cassie home and wrestled with l
etting her out of the car.
“I don’t want you to get into trouble,” he said as the car sat idling by the curb a few doors down from her house.
“I’ll be fine. Dad will be passed out drunk by now, and like I said, he never touches me. I think if he did, my mum would kill him. It’s you I’m worried about. Stay here, with me, or let’s disappear together.” There was an urgency in her words, a seriousness that ran beneath the flight of fancy.
“I can’t. I need to go back. I’ll be alright. Let’s meet tomorrow; we can spend the day together,” Justin offered, already thinking up ways they could spend the day, to keep them both safe and away from trouble.
“It’s Sunday, I have to go to church in the morning, but pick me up at noon, and I’m all yours.” Cassie leaned over and gave Justin another kiss, staring into his eyes.
Getting out of the car, she was a little unsteady on her feet but managed to make it to her front door. Justin sat watching, waiting for her to disappear inside before he swung the car around and went home.
He parked the car with the broken headlight pressed against the wall, hoping he could get some rest, and get up to find a place to fix it before it was seen. His parents never used their car, as they both had one of their own. Justin saw no reason they would have to notice, and he would tell Declan in the morning.
The house was silent, as he followed his carefully planned rout up to his room. He collapsed into bed a little after two in the morning and was asleep in seconds.
The first thing he knew about the dawning of the new day was when Declan started shaking him in his bed.
“Justin, you need to wake up, something’s happened.” The fear in Declan’s voice had him awake in seconds, the need for more sleep pushed from his mind, as the adrenaline started flowing.
“What’s going on?” Justin asked, memories of the previous night still flirting with his brain.
“I don’t know, but Dad’s really kicking off. I don’t like it; I’ve never heard him like this.” Declan’s face was pale and his eyes were wide.
It was only then that the bellow of his father echoed up the stairs and finally reached Justin’s ears. He went stiff in his bed, as his blood froze in his veins.
“Shit, he knows.” Justin snatched at the words as the cold realization dawned on him.
“He knows what? Justin, what happened?” Declan asked, his words as serious as a house fire.
“Last night, I … I crashed the car.” The words felt heavy to say and sank the moment he spoke them. “Not bad, just broke the light trying to miss a fox. I was going to get it fixed today, once I picked Cassie up. I didn’t think Dad would notice.”
“Cassie?” Declan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not the time, bro,” Justin corrected him, fear and adrenaline coursing through his veins. “I need to get out of here.”
Justin leaped from the bed and scrambled around the room, getting dressed as he found each item.
The door to the room flew open just as Justin was slipping his last shoe onto his foot. The door flew into the wall behind it with such force that the handle became embedded in the drywall.
“You useless cunt,” Jackson roared, his face a deep maroon and sheened with rage-driven sweat.
He lunged at Justin who evaded his first grab but had nowhere left to turn to miss the second. Jackson grabbed his youngest son by the hair and yanked him over the bed towards the hallway.
“Dad, I can explain,” Justin shrieked, terrified.
“Shut your mouth! You think you can crash a car and hide it from me. What did you do, you little shit? Hey, tell me!” Jackson’s hands found his son’s throat and started choking him, squeezing not with an abusive anger, but with murderous rage. His eyes bulged, while thick white spittle foamed in the corners of his mouth.
Peggy came up the stairs and saw the way her husband had snapped, and for the first time in her life tried to pull him away from Justin.
“That’s enough,” she screamed, yanking on her husband’s arm, but a backhand across the cheek shut her up and put her on her ass on the floor.
Declan was there too, and while Justin fought to stay alive, his vision was fading as his body screamed out for oxygen. His hands clenched down on his father’s but barely made a dent in the muscular forearms. Justin kicked out in desperation, but a knee to his gut stopped him, driving the remaining air from his lungs, accelerating the rate at which he passed out.
Then suddenly, the pressure was gone. The darkness came and went, like a light with a faulty dimmer switch. Justin’s heart thumped slow and steady in his ears, speeding up as he started to gulp down deep breaths, his throat burning with a white-hot agony.
His father stood before him, his eyes wide, but in surprise rather than rage. Blood replaced the spittle in his mouth, and he dropped to his knees on the floor.
Justin looked at his father and up to Declan. His brother was standing there with a bloody pair of scissors in his hands, his eyes wide and focused only on their father.
“Leave him alone!” Declan roared as he stabbed again, and again, driving the scissors repeatedly into his father’s back, sending a shower of blood spatter over the hallway, adding to it each time he withdrew the knife and swung it back down to find flesh once more.
Declan roared, Peggy screamed, and Justin collapsed, unable to support himself anymore. The carpet was soaked with blood, and Declan stood, drenched in the thick, red substance. He was panting and the scissor blades were bent and twisted in his hands. Their father lay on the floor, his body barely recognizable as human, the flesh cleaved open, exposing bone and bubbled sections of minced flesh. The metallic scent of blood was thick in the air. Justin looked at his brother, while Peggy collapsed to the floor, stroking her husband’s head, talking to him, apologizing to him over and over again.
When she finally raised her head, her eyes fell on Justin and her hatred boiled over. “I hate you. I always regretted the day you were shat into this world. Get out of my house.” The words, although spoken through tears, did not need to be repeated. Justin rose to his feet, aware that he too was covered in blood, and walked out into the garden where he sat down on the small porch. His body was trembling as his brain tried to process everything that had happened. He looked over at the car, tucked neatly away where he had left it. There was no way his father could have accidentally seen the damage.
A shadow loomed over him. Justin looked up as Declan sat down beside him, looking like the final survivor in a Halloween movie.
“Mum’s called the police.” Declan spoke the words with a strange calm in his voice, almost as if it were the most natural sentence in the world.
“Now what?” Justin asked, looking at his brother, not even seeing the cover of gore.
“Now you’re safe,” Declan said, putting his tacky arm around Justin’s shoulders.
“Why did you do that? You’re going to go to jail.” Justin held back the tears as the emotions started hitting him.
“That’s just what big brothers do,” he whispered, as the neighborhood started to scream.
Chapter Five
It was the talk of the town, gossip that fueled the mouths of housewives and anybody else that cared to join for weeks. A boy murdering his own father. The eulogy published in the paper painted a hideous lie, which Justin was confronted with daily.
Jackson Howland, a loving husband, and a doting father cut down in the prime of his life by a troubled boy. Justin’s mother had a field day playing the role of grieving victim, forgetting both Justin and Declan, living a double life. The grieving public face and the evil parent behind closed doors. Justin had often wondered if his parents really were the ones to blame. Perhaps they had a condition that predisposed them to behave in such a way. Now, in the wake of his father’s death, Justin came to learn exactly how cold-blooded and evil his mother really was.
She never looked at Justin, not outside, and not inside. He was treated like a ghost in his own home. Declan was similarly shunn
ed. He was wiped from their lives; childhood photos were ripped from the walls and thrown into boxes, left by the trash. His mother never visited Declan and the tale she told the police was a complete fabrication. Justin’s own statement was discredited by her continued insistence that he would say anything to keep Declan out of trouble.
It was those lies that had led to his current predicament, stuck in a police interview room, sitting opposite a large police officer with a thick goatee and an even thicker gut. His face was blotchy and sweat gave him a permanent sheen, almost as if his face had been varnished to give it a real finish. The stench of cigarettes wafted from him, blown Justin’s way every time the officer moved or spoke.
“I already told you everything,” Justin said, irritated at having been asked the same question for the sixth time. He also needed to pee, a fact that was getting harder and harder to ignore.
“Yes, you said your father has abused you for years. Your mother too. You claim that your father was trying to kill you when Declan intervened, defending you.” The cop read from his notes, but Justin knew it was all an act.
“Yes,” he answered, knowing that they would not take his word for it.
“Then tell me, why did you not mention this before? Why did you and your brother stay in the house where you were abused?” The cop sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. His large forearms bulged with muscles the rest of body lacked.
“Because I was afraid. You don’t understand, this has been going on since I was a kid. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid, and Declan, well, Declan was different. They loved him. Everything was my fault.” Justin felt the cracks appearing, and before he could do anything to stop it, they burst open into tears.
Grief consumed him, ripping open the cracks, turning them into deep fissures carved all the way down to Justin’s soul, where the anger and the grief he had stored up for so long could finally well up and burst free.
Cave Crawlers Page 4