However, that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt and didn’t feel like it lasted forever.
‘Kill me now,’ I moaned.
I slowly got to my feet. A dozen bodies crowded the alley floor: dead Creeps and dead holdouts. One of them groaned, tried to sit up. When it looked up at me and smiled a bloody smile, I discovered it was Tobe. The remainder of his teeth had been kicked in, but he seemed otherwise okay. He scooped up his weapons, stood straight and easy. Ruby made it to her feet, her elbow bent backward at a hideous angle. I couldn’t see Jacko or Jude anywhere.
What was worse was that I couldn’t find Louise.
‘Lou!’ I cried.
‘Keep it down, Bill. You don’t want to bring the Creeps back. Now, come on, let’s go.’
‘Give me a sec.’
‘There’s no time.’
I saw torches bobbing ahead of us, in the direction the panicked mob had been heading. Creeps coming back to either rake the bodies or tend to the wounded, I guessed. It didn’t make any difference; it was trouble all the same.
‘What about Lou?’ I asked nonetheless. ‘What about Jacko?’
‘Forget them.’
Tobe took my arm, dragged me behind him, made sure Ruby was following. Shots rang out, close behind us. I fought against Tobe but he was too strong. My feet caught on something; I stumbled, tripped. Tobe hauled me back up and kept dragging me, until I was forced to run along with him.
‘Tobe!’ I screamed.
‘Give it a rest.’
‘Let me go!’
‘Drop it, Bill. Lou wouldn’t come with us anyway.’
That was yet another reason to go back, maybe the most important one.
‘But…’
We ran into the empty square and came to a halt, exposed on open ground. I hadn’t even caught on that the alley had ended. Someone flicked on a spotlight, shone it in our eyes. I heard the metallic click of guns being cocked. Tobe let me go. I threw my hands above my head.
‘Dickhead,’ he smirked.
The light dipped.
‘You lot, get out of here, now!’ the holdout manning the spotlight yelled.
Three or four other holdouts stood alongside him, all armed, waiting for the Creeps who were hot on our collective tail.
We had walked into an ambush…
‘Shoot straight, you bastards!’ one of the holdouts yelled.
I dropped, hugged the ground. Tobe and Ruby did the same.
The holdouts shot straight. The Creeps behind us replied in kind, bullets whizzing above our heads. I gritted my teeth, managed to turn my head, looked at Tobe, looked at Ruby. She was crying, had given in to it. He craned his neck, looked left and right as well.
‘Keep low and follow me!’ he yelled, pointing to an alley leading away from the square.
The body of a Creep fell on me, drenching me in blood, giving me no chance to reply. I heaved it off. Disgusted, I almost jumped to my feet before it clicked that doing so was an exceptionally bad idea.
‘Why?’ I asked no one in particular.
Tobe looked at me, his face worried. ‘You okay?’
I couldn’t help laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.
‘You are, Tobe—you’re such an animal.’
He didn’t really understand. ‘Hang on, Bill. I did this for you, to make up for what I’ve done.’
Despite the violence, the madness and the bullets whizzing above our heads, I could see that he wanted his words to be taken seriously.
I couldn’t help asking myself a stupid question: why now?
‘I didn’t ask for this, Tobe.’
He opened his mouth, ready to argue with me. I waved around pathetically, almost had my hand shot off.
‘How could you think that this is okay?’
Tobe stammered, unable to answer my question. Ruby kept crying. The firefight raged on.
‘I needed a diversion,’ Tobe said, as if that was justification enough.
‘And you just assumed that I’d be okay with it,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You assumed that I’d just come along like always.’
‘Well, yeah. Don’t you want to get out of here?’
My smile was all the answer he needed.
And then something exploded in the direction of the spotlight, showering us with dirt. The gunfire kept on, but it was less intense now. I craned my neck, blinked grit away, looked to the spotlight. The gunfight had become almost entirely one-sided, the heavy crack of the Creeps’ weapons answered by one last holdout, pinned down, outgunned, overwhelmed.
‘Last chance, Bill,’ Tobe said. ‘Come on.’
‘Haven’t you been listening?’
‘Yeah, of course I have. How many times can I say I’m sorry?’
That was the moment when I knew that things would never change.
‘Now, come on,’ he said. He looked away, looked to the alley. ‘Ruby? You take the lead, you’re the smallest and the fastest,’ Tobe yelled, oblivious to my cold smile of satisfaction.
It felt so good to finally know.
He shuffled around so that Ruby could worm past. She looked at me, looked at Tobe, reluctantly did as he said. He shoved her on, harder than was necessary.
‘Move it!’
She started crawling, didn’t look back. I whispered a goodbye. I heard the last holdout scream. It could have been pain; it could have been anger. Either way, his time was short. Tobe started to slither after Ruby. I didn’t move.
‘Bill, let’s go,’ he said, looking back at me.
‘No.’
Tobe froze. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.’
‘I’m not coming.’
His eyes bugged. As I had hoped, seeing the look on his face made it all worthwhile.
‘Tobe, I’m tired of being hungry and thirsty all the time.’
He didn’t say anything. I guessed he was thinking about grabbing me by the scruff and hauling me along. After all, he had already done it once that day. But we both knew he couldn’t drag me after him fast enough to escape the Creeps.
‘And I’m tired of following you. I’m tired of having to follow you. Who are you, Tobe? Look what you’ve done.’
He flinched away from my words, wouldn’t meet my eye, and looked ahead instead. Ruby was almost at the alley. He manned up, looked back at me. I twisted the knife.
‘I don’t have to worry about what might happen, because it’s already happened.’
I thought of Louise’s smile, and the fact that she might still be alive. We could be together…
‘I’m sorry,’ Tobe said.
He looked me in the eye. He was crying, silently. I didn’t shed a tear.
‘I don’t care anymore, Tobe. I honestly couldn’t give a shit.’
‘But…’
‘I’m done.’
It felt good to say.
Another explosion came from the direction of the spotlight, more death and more insanity caused by Tobe’s recklessness.
The gunfire stopped.
‘And we’re done,’ I said in the sudden quiet.
That felt good too.
Tobe and I stared at each other for what I knew would be the last time. We didn’t really need to say anything more. Despite everything that had happened, there was still that instant knowing—that silent click—that only happens when you’ve been mates for years. It’s that ability to know what someone’s thinking by the way they flick the ash off their bush tobacco, the way they shake their head, the way they squint in the sun.
‘Now, piss off,’ I said.
He smiled a crooked smile. I returned it in spades. He looked away. Ruby had made it to the alley and was waiting in the shadows. He shook his head, making up his mind.