Page 7 of Light Up
“I’ll fuck off now.”
Corey didn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone. He had a few colleagues he got on with but it wasn’t as if anyone would misshim. He didn’t much like the job, but it paid enough for him to live on.Hadpaid. On the way out of the restaurant, he swiped twenty pounds from the tip jar. He didn’t see why he had to lose his share of the evenings’s tips. Then he spotted Matilda with Vincent. Vincent saw him, Matilda didn’t. Nor did Matilda see Vincent’s smirk before he landed the kiss on Matilda’s cheek.
Ah, not gay but bi. And Matilda’s flattered by the attention of a younger man. I should have been more observant.
Corey turned right out of the back of the restaurant and unlocked the adjoining door which led to his bedsit. He’d run down the stairs earlier, thinking how lucky he was to be so close to work, now he headed up like a snail, full of despair.
Snap out of it. Be positive!He shouldn’t be sorry to leave. The odour of food seeping up from the restaurant sometimes made him feel sick. The sound of the extractor fans drove him nuts. The heating was a joke. There was never enough hot water. And the mattress sagged in the middle.
But it had been his home for a year and now it wasn’t.
It wasn’t too late to go to a club, which might get him a night in a different bed but that only solved the issue of where he’d sleep that night. Plus, Corey wasn’t a guy who slept around. He dropped down on his bed and stared up at the stained ceiling. Life was shit. Christmas was always shit and if he’d been whisked up into a space ship for an anal probe by an insanely good-looking alien, everything would still have been shit, because that wasn’t what he wanted. Not even if he got to do it to the alien.
Where could he go? His uncle wasn’t expecting him until the middle of January. And only then, under sufferance. Uncle Jim was in Marbella with his girlfriend Debra until the fifteenth. Corey didn’t like Debra but Jim did, so that was fine. Sort of. They lived in a nice house and Corey had a key. Again, under sufferance and for emergencies only. Their emergencies, not his.Gas problem or burst pipe or alien invasion. But there was no reason why he shouldn’t go there tonight. Well, apart from the email that had saidNo staying at the house without us there.
As long as the neighbours didn’t ring and tell on him, and his uncle hadn’t changed the alarm code, he’d be fine. Christmas might not turn out to be shit if he could spend it in comfort in front of a sixty-five-inch TV, with no constant smell of food cooking. Maybe he could screen cast onto the TV from his phone. He perked up and so did his dick.
What was the worst that could happen? He got yelled at when his uncle and Debra got back? He’d look after the place. He wasn’t a slob. Anything he used up, he’d replace. Corey was glad he’d not got rid of his car—Debra’s old one—tatty piece of junk that it was. Though when it failed its MOT, as it undoubtedly would in March, that was it. Back to public transport.
He packed his stuff. There wasn’t much. None of the furniture was his. Corey would look for work out of this area. With his luck, Matilda would tell other places not to employ him. But his uncle being away for a few weeks gave Corey time to find a new job and a place to live. Fingers crossed on the alarm code being the same.
He went to move his car out of the garage before he carried his stuff downstairs. He hadn’t driven it for a few weeks but it started first time. It might be an old vehicle but at least it was reliable. He filled the boot with his bag, a cardboard box of bits and pieces, his duvet, pillow, sheets and guitar, left his keys on the stairs, closed the door and drove away.
The roads wouldn’t be busy at this time of night. A few hours and he’d be there.HugeTV and Pornhub here I come!Things were looking up.
Then it started to snow. Corey liked snow but not driving in it.Fuck!
For the first hour, the snow made him uneasy, but caused no real issues. It was settling on hedges and rooftops, but the roads remained clear. He had his music playing, not one Christmas song on his list, and was singing along to Snow Patrol. The irony amused him. Corey had always been a careful driver, though he knew that didn’t keep him or anyone else safe. He thought about his friends, Raj and Gabe, and his heart beat faster.Don’t go there. I need to concentrate.
He was especially careful in snow. A year ago, he’d skidded on the lightest dusting of the stuff and almost crashed, so he was wary. It would probably continue to be fine on the main roads and most of his journey would be on those. Strange, though, because he was sure snow hadn’t been forecast.
Corey was looking forward to getting there now. It might be fun at his uncle’s to be staring out of the window onto a snow-covered garden while he was warm as toast inside.
By the time he turned off the main road, the snow was falling more heavily and his windscreen wipers were struggling to keep up. With less traffic to melt the flakes, it wasn’t long before the tarmac under his wheels had turned completely white. He slowed right down.
The longer he drove, the more heavily the snow fell and the more anxious he became. He turned off the music and slowed even further. He was concentrating so hard that it was a while before he realised he had no idea where he was. How the hell had that happened? Even though he’d not been a regular visitor, he knew the way to his uncle’s place like the back of his hand. He wondered if he could pick out his hand in a line of hands. With no scars or identifying marks, could he? Well, he could tonight. He was wearing purple nail varnish which was a bit of a giveaway.
Don’t get distracted!
Back to the issue of where he was. No landmarks. Nothing he recognised. No signposts. No houses. Trees either side of him, yet he didn’t remember a wood on the way to where he was going. Though places looked different at night.Oh God!Now the road was narrowing. Not to a single track, but if there had been white lines down the middle, they were no longer visible. He’d obviously taken a wrong turn somewhere, though he couldn’t for the life of him understand how. If he could find a place to pull over, he’d use Google Maps. But on a road this narrow, he’d have to wait for a layby or an entrance to a field, somewhere he could pull in safely.
It was really dark now, the only light was from his headlights illuminating the white route ahead. He felt as if he was in space, driving into billions of stars, which were splattering on an invincible windscreen, only to be wiped into oblivion by blades of death.Ha!Trying to make a joke of his situation only helped for a short while.Oh God, not even minutes.
Visibility decreased and Corey worried he’d lose the line of the road and end up in a ditch. His heart was thumping, his mouth dry. If he’d known this amount of snow was forecast, no way would he have set off tonight. Really, he shouldn’t have anyway. He’d had a roof over his head, very likely the law on his side and even if it wasn’t, it would have taken until after Christmas for him to have been evicted. Bit late to think of all that now. Impulsive was one of his middle names.
He blinked as bright headlights flashed behind him. A glance in the mirror showed a large vehicle coming up fast. The lights flashed again. He’d have pulled over to let the truck overtake but he wasn’t sure what the snow was hiding between the side of the road and where the trees began. He couldn’t risk getting stuck. He didn’t have breakdown cover. The driver would just have to be patient. But he wasn’t. He kept flashing his lightsas he drew closer.Too bloody close.What was the guy playing at?
Corey was torn between annoyance and concern. Even worse, as the road straightened out, he saw lights coming towards him, the first for ages. The truck driver would see the oncoming vehicle and stay where he was. The road was narrow, but there was enough room for two vehicles not three. Yet to his horror, the truck behind him pulled out to overtake.The idiot!Hadn’t he seen the car? Panic gripped him and Corey instinctively braked hard to give the truck driver space to return to the correct side of the road. But pressing his foot so hard on the brake sent him into a slide, then a skid. As he fought to control his weaving car, the truck driver pulled in too soon and his vehicle clipped Corey’s, propelling him into the air towards the trees.
He cried out as the car slammed back onto the ground, his body banging against the wheel, the dashboard, the side of the car…Shit.Corey clutched the steering wheel and screamed as the vehicle flipped and rolled.Oh God.His head collided with the side window, glass struck his face from the shattering windscreen, and he only had time to wonder if he was going to diebefore everything went black.
When Corey opened his eyes, his face was wet but the car was the right way up. He licked his lips and tasted blood. The steering wheel was tight against his chest and the roof of the car seemed a lot closer to his head than it should have been. The windscreen wasn’t there anymore. His headlights were still on, the engine was off but making a ticking noise. There was another sound too, a strange moaning. It took him a moment to realise it was coming from him and not some passing werewolf. Something was dripping into his eyes. He wiped his forehead, winced at the pain and realised he was bleeding.
Corey inhaled and groaned. He managed to find the lever to shift the seat back, and when it worked, he took a shaky breath. He unfastened his seat belt which had pulled tight across his body. It had probably saved him from flying out the front of the car, but his chest hurt. No airbag in a car this old. He could taste blood in his mouth, but he didn’t think he was badly injured. No crushed limbs or severed veins, no terrible pain when he breathed or moved. Though his head felt wrong, he’d clearly cut it, and he ached everywhere.ButI’m still alive.He wanted to curl up and sleep, wake when all this had gone away and someone had rescued him.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Snow was driving into the car, striking his face, the fat flakes as big as cats’ paws, and he blinked as they battered him. There was no sound now. The ticking had stopped. He wasn’t moaning. The car appeared to have compressed around him.I should get out, right?He hoped that wasn’t going to be a problem.
After the driver’s door failed to open, he managed to slide onto the passenger seat only to find that door wouldn’t open either, even when he shoved himself against it. So Corey had to crawl through the front, dragging himself out with his arms, until he slid off the crumpled bonnet onto the ground. Then he screamed.Everything hurts. Shit!The back of his head was hurting the most now. He gingerly rolled onto his back so his head was in the snow.Oh, that’s nice.He still wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but now he could smell smoke.Oh God, is the car on fire?
