The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf

by Nick Bryan

  I dropped the wine, terrified Micro would bollock me for wasting it, before she whacked me over the head. I wasn’t knocked unconscious, because this isn’t a TV show and Vivia isn’t that strong. Still, I was lying down cupping myself long enough for her to give a similar treatment to Joseph. Then she zip-tied both our hands behind our backs, thankfully this time she did the actual crimelord first.

  I don’t know why it matters so much to have my essential uselessness acknowledged. Once again, I don’t think it would’ve had much effect on how things worked out.

  She locked us inside the room. Unluckily for myself and Mr Hairy, Micro had a quick-and-easy hand-operated lock fitted on his office door, stop any of us walking in while he was jerking himself dizzy to feeder porn.

  So, in case you missed any details, me and Joseph were captured inside the main office of The Left Hand by a crazy woman named after both life and death. This, it goes without saying, was not what I signed up for.”

  *****

  “To my lasting fucking relief, Vivia kept her priorities in order. After doing my feet with another zip tie and gaffer-taping up my mouth, she shoved me in the corner to be forgotten. At last, I achieved the obscurity I’d longed for ever since the beatings started.

  Then she crashed her handbag down on Micro’s desk and pulled out a small metal bottle and a wicked curved knife. It wasn’t even that big a bag, Chloe, so I don’t fucking know how she fitted so much stuff into it. That woman was the Mary Poppins of torture.

  I’ve had a decade to think up that smarty-pants description. My mind was elsewhere at the time — to be precise, the location was: ‘AAAAAAAARGGGHHHHHH AARGH OH MY GOD ARRRRRGHHH FUCKING AARRGH GOD SHIT ARRRRRGH!’ I believe you can find those co-ordinates on Google Maps.

  But as I say, I was not the focus of her loving attentions. She gave me a look every so often, eyes dancing as if she enjoyed my gasping, choking horror.

  Still, always clear who the main event was: Joseph.

  Mr Hairy was as taped up as me, thrown over the arm of Micro’s luxurious office chair like a naughty child. Unlike my good self, he wasn’t trying to loosen his mouth-tape by hyperventilating against it. He kept his eyes staring, as if he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I imagined his taped mouth still doing the smirk of victory, even as she grabbed her little hip flask and started unscrewing the lid.

  ‘Joseph, old friend,’ she smiled. ‘I never thanked you enough, did I?’

  He didn’t waver, old Mr Hairy, whereas I was damn close to writing off my underwear. I guess that’s why he’s still in the game now, while I’m a broken husk of a cripple.

  He only screamed against his tape when Vivia jerked the bottle. The smell of chemicals hit my nostrils an instant before the liquid splashed out over Joseph’s head. After that, burning hair and scalp replaced it.

  Why do I keep calling Joseph Mr Hairy, when to be honest, his hair is only a wee bit longer than all his mates? Real truth, Chloe, it’s because this is my main memory of him. The image is burned into my mind almost as hard as that bottle of acid hissed and sizzled into his skull. Wasn’t even too much, otherwise Joseph wouldn’t have a brain.

  But his hair was gone, roots and follicles fucked away to scabby ruin. His head looked like a red jellyfish. Vivia pulled the bottle away, unable to stop smiling as Joseph thrashed like a beached fish. The scream was audible through the gaffer tape, like a vacuum cleaner in another room.

  ‘So, you sold me, you sold my friends and now you’re fucked,’ she said, as if he was in any state to listen.

  Vivia twitched the bottle in her hand, as if weighing up whether to keep pouring and melt his entire head away. Back in my corner, I’d stopped huffing and held the air in my face tight. Waiting to see if I’d be next for a burn-out, or she’d slash my throat quickly at the end. Got the feeling I was only alive because she liked an audience.

  So my heart jumped to another level when she grabbed the blade instead, leaving the bottle on the desk. Holding it to his throat, she reached to pull the tape away from his mouth. Just killing him wasn’t enough — whatever she wanted to say to him, she had to hear him reply.

  I couldn’t relate to her at all in that moment, I realised. I’d never cared about something that badly.

  But Vivia needed it. She waited through his initial roar of screaming pain, gesturing with the knife to indicate he should shut up. Once all fell quiet, she said it again, the same thing as before about her and her friends, as if it deserved a real reply. I suppose I’d done the same before when I’d made up a good joke.

  And all he said, ice-calm considering his head was a raw bloody meat-sphere, was: ‘Fuck you, bitch.’

  Sticking to his fundamentals, even now. At a time when my first impulse would be to say whatever I thought she wanted to hear, anything to get out alive. Yeah, I kinda admired him.

  Viciously disappointed, she pulled back her knife and whipped it into the side of his mouth. So bastard thin and sharp, it whistled into his flesh, leaving it to slide loose and bleed. His cheek flapped open in two oozing segments.

  She laughed, he growled, the knife drew back.

  They were both completely insane, egging each other on. The only way I was ever getting out of this alive was if I took positive action. As she concentrated on mutilating Mr Hairy, I rustled, pulled, tried to get some purchase. My wrists and ankles were tied together behind me as I lay face down, but Micro’s office wasn’t that big. If I kept my feet together without moving, I got my knees down to the ground soon enough. Then I strained my ankles harder to get myself up, muscles screaming up my stomach.

  As I moved from the bottom of her field of vision to the top, Vivia finally turned from cutting holes in Joseph to look at me. She had a big knife, but the desk was between us. She’d also left the bottle of acid standing upright on the tabletop, without putting the lid back on.

  Instead of trying to win a fight with all my limbs tied together, I lunged forward, smashing my entire unexercised bodyweight into the desk. It was cheap furniture from Ikea, so scraped easily along the floor. The acid bottle spilled and ran along the table towards her, forcing Vivia to jump away from Joseph.

  Of course, the acid slick could have dissolved him away too, but I didn’t care if they were both burnt to smears as long as I got away alive. Apathy, y’see?

  Joseph was in an obvious storm of pain by now, but still with it enough to recognise an opportunity when it surged towards his face. He let himself fall back off the chair and kicked it towards Vivia. It smacked into her knees and doubled her over.

  Now she didn’t have a knife at his throat, Joseph felt free to do the one thing he could do in this situation: start fucking wailing. He screamed, he yelled, put his back into it, the pain in his head letting him method-act that screeching. I would’ve joined in if my mouth wasn’t taped up.

  Vivia must’ve figured the game was up now. Sure enough, after Mr Hairy sacrificed some dignity, two or three of his bald clone troopers appeared on the other side of the door, smacking away to get it open. The door wasn’t standing up well, either — she knew she wouldn’t have time to finish the job. So she clutched her knife and went to slash her way out.

  I didn’t see the resultant fight, but there was plenty of blood in the corridor afterwards. Sounded messy.

  But right then, I was busy doing something stupid. I swiped the desk scissors from Micro’s stationery holder and cutting the plastic ties holding myself and Joseph down. Took a minute to get the angle with my sodding hands tied together, but everyone outside was too busy bleeding to free us.

  Joseph, never the most stable man in the world, turned and hissed at me as soon as I finished cutting him loose. I’d half-hoped my help in saving him would mean a handsome reward afterwards, but I’d reckoned without the sheer depth of his lunacy.

  He seized the awful telescopic baton off Micro’s desk, where Vivia had left it before getting to work with the knife and acid, and smashed me firmly around the face. Grabbed my neck before
I could fall to the floor and threw me back against the wall, before beating me fucking senseless.

  He used the thick handle of the baton to crack my kneecaps, then kicked them a few times until bloody white bone speared through my skin. Did the same to my elbows, whacked my shoulders until they cracked, punched me in the face until my nose bled out. After a while, I stopped even feeling individual blows, just drifted into a haze of red agony.

  I couldn’t see anymore. All I thought was: this isn’t fair. This isn’t the easy life I was promised. This is Steph’s fault for not stopping me. This is my own fault for going along with too much.

  Joseph drew his fist back for one last awful blow, like he was going to try and crush my entire skull, when Micro grabbed his hand from behind and wrenched the baton away. Joseph whirled around to go for him too, but Micro’s a big guy. Commands a certain respect in the community. He told Joseph, in soft but clear tones, that he wouldn’t be doing this shit in Micro’s joint, and certainly not to the man himself.

  Joseph hissed, stormed out, and Micro helped me get medical attention without going to jail. Told you he really cared about me.”

  *****

  “You know in those jokes or sitcoms, where a man tries to lie about something, unaware his clothes, body and general self are disproving his bullshit?

  And yes, it is always a man.

  ‘Sorry, honey, I couldn’t get out of the office until late,’ he says, with a brown smear of vomit stretching down the front of his coat, glistening with bits of carrot.

  ‘Sweetie, of course I didn’t sleep with her, I only have eyes for you,’ he insists, unaware the other woman’s knickers are still wrapped around his knee.

  I might be a disinterested guy with no drive, but I’m not a fucking moron. ‘Steph, of course I didn’t get more involved with crime, I would never do that after you asked me not to,’ was no longer an option. Not with all my limbs ground into horrible shapes, like a giant baby used me as a toy.

  Like I say, I got treatment, my arms are okay bar a few shooting pains, I can even walk for a while if I gotta. I just choose not to most of the time, because fuck me, it hurts.

  I still lied to her of course, just not about that. Said I was caught in the middle of some drunken crime-fight, but I wanted to keep working at The Left Hand and I didn’t think it would work out between us. I’d love to say it was a heartbreaking, tearful moment, but no, mostly a relief.

  Just to stress the scale of the lying: I didn’t even keep working at The Left Hand. Eventually got a basic office job, although my newfound disability severely limited what I could take. Still, soon enough that recession happened, and then the rest of the world was just as hobbled as me.

  Ah well, y’know? I’m still here in the pub. Because where the fuck else would I go where other people understand how I feel? We’ve all had different experiences, but end up broken in roughly the same way.

  That’s what these places are here for, I think. A safety net, a last resort. Yes, it’s shit being a staring crazy drunk, but where else would I be? It is what it is. Let’s all get on with it.”

  *****

  Anna wasn’t sure what to say after that.

  So she stayed silent, her long-empty drink in front of her. Danny sat back in his chair, looking proud to have shocked her quiet.

  Hell, if his life was as empty as he claimed, maybe that made his day. Perhaps he lurked in this pub, searching out new excuses to tell his story and upset the shit out of people. Maybe it simply wasn’t true — after all, he was a crazy drunk in a pub. Why would his story be real?

  “Well, thanks Danny,” she said, at last.

  “Y’welcome, sweetheart.” He smiled, joyless. “It’s shit, but it’s my shit, you know what I mean?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, just don’t repeat it to too many people. I’d hate anything bad to happen to you.”

  “Okay.”

  Anna was hit by the urge to run. Away from The Left Hand, maybe even from budget pubs altogether. Scramble back home, where she could drink alone, safe from Chloe’s laziness.

  “Well, nice talking to you,” she said, smiling and getting to her feet. “Maybe see you around some time?”

  “Sure thing, Chloe,” he said, still only sounding amused.

  She had no plans ever to come back here. He probably guessed.

  As she rose, she saw a huge shape in a white apron clattering empty plates back to the kitchen. Micro? No, she told herself, it’s all bullshit. Or he’s thrown in one true detail to make it seem less like lies — after all, he spends so long in here, of course he knows the chef.

  Patting her phone to make sure it was back in her pocket, Anna made her way to the front door. Needed to pee a little, but fucked if she was staying here to do it. Now she thought about it, weren’t there a lot of similar-looking bald men in that corner?

  Ignore them. Push on. Only a few more tables until she was free. The old men looked up as she passed, but only for a second before returning to their natural state of growling “MotherFUCKERFUCK” at the crossword.

  She was past the tables. Her foot hit the edge of the scummy used-to-be-red doormat in front of the exit. This was it. Nearly out.

  The door opened before she reached it, as weightless and free as Danny said.

  Through the entrance came a man with a wicked scowl, a demented self-confidence, arrogant like some local king. His shirt was ruffled and untucked, but that didn’t matter to him. Nor did the craggy moonscape of scarring all over his bald head, a few bursts of stubble sprouting through like stray weeds. On one side of his face, pulling tight as he smiled, was a scar that ran from the edge of his mouth, up his cheek.

  The face turned on her.

  Anna dropped her edgy calm and ran those last few steps, out of the door and down the street.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Since this is my first book to be published in any sense, it seems remiss not to thank people. On the other hand, since it’s my first book, it’s hard to resist the temptation to thank everybody. I’ll try and keep it relevant.

  From a practical perspective: huge appreciation to Gary at BubbleCow for his copyediting and Andrew & Rebecca at Design4Writers for the cover design. If you need those services, check them out.

  Thanks to everyone involved in Jukepop Serials, where the original Hobson & Choi webserial went up and found its first success. Much kudos to site masters Jerry and Jodi, the author community and every single reader. I doubly appreciate any of you who picked this book up despite having read the early draft online – hope you enjoyed the bonus story!

  Not to mention the general webserial community, of course. I’d have been equally stuck without the help of the lovely people on Web Fiction Guide, both reviewers and forum commenters.

  Also the Big Green Bookshop writing group - any and all of you. Your ongoing feedback and encouragement has been hugely important during this whole process.

  Last of all: my Mum, without whom I’d never have started, and Leanne, without whom I’d never have finished.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nick Bryan is a London-based writer of genre fiction, usually with some blackly comic twist. As well as the almighty detective saga Hobson & Choi, he is also working on a novel about the real implications of deals with the devil and has stories in several anthologies.

  More details on his other work and news on future Hobson & Choi releases can be found online at NickBryan.com or on Twitter as @NickMB. Both are updated with perfect and reasonable regularity.

  You can also get a free short Hobson & Choi bonus short story by signing up for the mailing list. It’s called Current Affair Commentary and features the guys tackling a whole cheating spouse case in only two thousand words.

  When not reading or writing books, Nick Bryan enjoys racquet sports, comics and a nice white beer.

  Table of Contents

  ONE: #HobsonVsWolf

  TWO: Dry Blood

  THREE: Social Awesome

&
nbsp; FOUR: Evening Plans

  FIVE: Bad Breakfast

  SIX: Witnesses

  SEVEN: Could Be Darker

  EIGHT: Little Questions

  NINE: The Private Life Of Voles

  TEN: The Quiet Ones

  ELEVEN: Head To Head

  TWELVE: Crusty Semen Inspectors

  THIRTEEN: All Together Now

  FOURTEEN: Crazy Like A Wolf

  FIFTEEN: A Long Weekend

  BONUS STORY: The Left Hand Is Always Right

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR