by Peter Foley
The Shelter
Peter Foley
Copyright © 2021 Peter Foley
The right of Peter Foley to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Bloodhound Books.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Print ISBN 978-1-913942-70-0
Contents
Love best-selling fiction?
1. The last plane back to paradise
2. Blue Monday
3. What would John think?
4. The third member of our club
5. Somewhere between God and John Wayne
6. Where are the steaks?
7. Your optimism is refreshing
8. Riders on the storm
9. Double up or quit
10. We’ll be right back…
11. Thanks, Bobby!
12. The worst is yet to come
13. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there
14. In the shelter of each other the people live
15. The first impression is always the right one
16. New life
17. Never argue with a fool, an onlooker may not be able to tell the difference
18. Tom’s thumb
19. The past is gone
20. Do not stand in a place of danger trusting in miracles
21. Diary of Courtney Weaver. March 2021
22. Hope is a good breakfast
23. There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain
24. You have been healed
25. Fear not death, for the hour of your doom is set and none may escape it
26. Short is the life of the proud
27. Wine is the answer, what was your question?
28. Behold, I stand at the door and knock
29. Fear and courage are brothers
30. Enter the village; obey the village
31. Nice to meat you
32. Go to bed
33. Monsters are real
34. Where force rules
35. The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists
36. I feel no light inside me strong enough to resist it
37. The axe forgets, but the tree remembers
38. A drop of love
39. All eyes gradually adjust to the darkness
40. Soft hands, hard words
41. Town meeting
42. The kitchen
43. The wedding
44. The monster
45. Happiness is a warm gun
46. The master key
Epilogue
Afterword
A note from the publisher
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For Heiðar.
Also, for Helen: everything.
1
The last plane back to paradise
Breathe.
This is a contentious story. It’s a story of possibilities and improbabilities, of decisions and change, of the moments, both powerful and forced, that pave the path to catastrophe.
You might be on this path, but don’t worry, you’re sure to find company. I know five people heading towards disaster right now. Drew Samuel is one of them. He’s thirty-two, of slight build and average height, with loosely curled flaxen hair and tired olive-colored eyes. He’s on an airplane, dressed as he usually is – in sandals, red beach shorts, orange T-shirt and wool-lined denim jacket.
He’s a DJ, although the hit songs, arena crowds and cramped aftershow parties are gone. In their place, he’s got uncharted albums, small festival stages and Bobby, his long-serving manager of dubious repute.
Drew’s future isn’t set, but the declines of his recent past have delivered him to an unenviable present. In other words, the rigors of the road have broken his spirit. I don’t know if his courage will return but I do know this; if he maintains his seat on this airplane a dangerous series of events will unfold.
Drew’s hungover and his flight is delayed. He’s made it to his seat but his condition is deteriorating. While lively passengers mutter, he melts. Beads of sweat gather on his brow as he looks back at the last twelve hours of his life with regret.
Somebody shoot me. When will I learn? Vodka is evil… Peace and tranquility, please God give me peace and tranquility…
Desperate for relief from the rising cabin temperature, he reaches a trembling arm to the ceiling panel and twists the serrated air nozzle. The outlet exhales hot air.
“Excuse me, sir,” a voice says over his shoulder, “I’m afraid that can’t take up a whole seat. Please stow it in the overhead compartment.”
Drew flinches. Please, mercy…
Flashing memories distract him; his fingers wrapped around a glass bottle, the sound of sloshing and the taste of concentrate. He blinks himself upright, banishing the caustic images. His vision unblurs and rests on a flight attendant. She’s small, round and brilliant red. A white scarf hangs from one side of her hat and tucks into her neckline somewhere. Drew can’t fathom it.
The scarf? Where does it go?
He stares at the flight attendant and her wrinkled uniform.
“Sir, stow that away, please,” she says.
Drew wonders what her presence means.
Why’s she annoyed? Oh, wait, no. That. It can only be that.
Strapped into the seat next to Drew sits a two-foot-tall plinth-mounted bronze microphone with the words “Worst DJ of 2021” etched on the base. Drew’s attention is momentarily absorbed by it.
Thanks, BundaFestival, you smart-arse. I bet Bobby put you up to that…
Reality reaches Drew in waves, waves that smash into a million drops and scatter. His eyes wander around the plane. His look is met by passengers peeking back at him. In a less than steady state, he manages to speak.
“I really… really, really want to go home.”
A few passengers snigger.
Thanks. Drew nods in receipt of the social sting. Now he understands. He knows what must be done. He must stow his dubious prize in the overhead locker. Certainly.
He fumbles at the inscrutably smooth seat belt clip but fails to decipher its suddenly elaborate design. He pulls at its heavily stitched nylon straps.
… Help… Why isn’t this working?
Confounded by the clinking metal, Drew’s bid to become vertical is doomed.
“What a mess!” shouts one passenger and others agree. Brash tuts and other antagonisms, deliberately not whispered, trample and bruise. Time distorts. The waves in Drew’s mind become a hurricaney sea. The flight attendant presses the issue further.
“Sir, if you can’t stow that away I’m afraid you’re too intoxicated to fly. I’m going to have to call security and have you escorted off the plane.”
He blinks at his seat belt with fuzzy bloodshot eyes. He gasps for air. Suddenly, a familiar smile appears and a crack of laughter breaks the tide.
“Thank God,” Drew mumbles into his hands.
&nbs
p; “Don’t worry, my lovely,” Bobby says to the flight attendant.
Bobby’s older than Drew, yet somehow he exudes a vitality that Drew doesn’t. It’s thanks in part to his smile. Bobby flashes the crowd a full-contact grin, complete with sharp white teeth, fleshy pink gums and glinting sea-blue eyes.
No one can weaponize a smile like Bobby. He’d have made a fantastic pirate, Drew considers. And that’s right.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Bobby says. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’m this man’s manager, allow me to deal with this.” Bobby leans down to Drew.
“Hey, Drew. Drew? Your award’s going in the overhead, okay? No. You haven’t been the same since Berlin, have you, lad? Don’t worry. It’s been a long three months, hasn’t it? The tour’s over now and you’re going home, yeah?”
A slow, leery frown pours from Drew’s face. Bobby stows away Drew’s ill-advised metal mascot and turns to the flight attendant.
“He must’ve had a bad oyster. The flight will do him good.”
The flight attendant heads back down the gangway, tutting.
“What would I do without you, Bobby?” Drew stumbles over his words. “For the last ten years, what would I have done? I’d have probably been happy and sober, I expect,” Drew says, answering his own question.
Bobby takes his seat next to Drew. He leans in close and whispers, “Come on, lad. Without me you’d be in the rubber room or locked up some place.”
“Bollocks. This is your fault. I blame you, your stupid tour, your stupid award – and your awful vodka… Why do you always get me into this mess?”
“Sounds like you want another bottle, bud!” Bobby slaps himself on the leg and bursts into laughter. “Some DJ you are. Mr-Superstar-DJ, my arse!” Bobby says. “You should just be grateful we got on this flight. After ten years of service, it doesn’t hurt to say thanks once in a while.”
“Thanks for the last ten years of shitty economy flights and arsehole-of-nowhere festivals and generally career-ending shit bookings, Bobby,” Drew leers.
“Don’t mention it.”
Drew sighs.
“And you should be extra thankful for this particular flight. You know my brother’s a pilot, right? Well, he’s been briefed that all flights to California are being grounded as of tomorrow. A hurricane’s due in – Hurricane Jason – and it’s going to be a big one, so we have to get home and batten down the hatches until it passes.”
“A hurricane in California? You’re full of shit, Bobby.” Drew nods again, this time in unwitting approval of himself, until another wave of vodka rears up at him.
More mutters and sniggers disturb the air, but Drew can’t respond, even if he heard them. Instead, he pushes himself deep into the chair’s smooth squeaky leather.
It’s finally over. After three months; no more tour buses, no more flights, no more half-empty festivals, no more Bobby, and definitely no more eastern European booze. Just this one plane ride and it’s all over. I’ve finally made it.
The plane thrusts down the tarmac and lifts Drew into a cloudless night. He sits motionless and tries to banish a harsh ringing from inside his ears. In 30,000 feet of sky he blinks himself into a difficult turbulent sleep. At 500 miles an hour, he flies unconscious into the eye of a new hurricane.
2
Blue Monday
That’s a shame. Dark luck stirs a distinct and unfortunate future for us, but we’ll face it together. While Drew rests, we’ll seek another star in our galaxy; we’ll search for Hazel Cox, may she fare better. She’s of more obvious substance, that is to say, she’s a healthy rational human being with many of the contemporary human traits: humor, health, strength, desire and fear that her best days are gone. She often wonders if life could have more satisfaction, more delight. Indeed it could, but, although Hazel is one of the brightest lights in our sky, the twinkle of her star is about to dim behind a dangerous new cloud.
Here she is, enjoying some leisure time. The day is Sunday, it’s early afternoon, so we’ll pull up a chair by Hazel while she relaxes at her favorite beach bar.
Hazel holds a large wine glass by its cool slender stem. She lifts the glass to her lips but pauses. “You’re bad!” she says before taking a sip of Sauvignon. She reclines in her seat with a stretch and lets the sunlight carry her spirits to the sky on a current of warm beach air.
Welcome to the bright bleached wooden deck of the Wolf and Cellar beach bar, Santa Monica, California. Hazel meets Lara and Sissy at this bar every Sunday afternoon, always at the same time, always at the same table. From the Wolf’s terrace they enjoy the view of the water, the warm sand underfoot and the crisp, taut blanc. Among the palm trees, the denim cut-offs, the seagulls, the surfboards and the muscle shirts the girls rally around their favorite wrought-iron table and get dizzy-loud amid the bursting green peace lilies and porcelain white orchids.
Lara turns to Sissy. “I agree with Hazel, you are the worst.”
“Me? Pot-Kettle-Black, Lara!” Sissy laughs. “Remember the last time you hooked up on Tinder? That encounter’s still on Pornhub.”
“Shut up! And no it’s not,” Lara says. “I’m a kept woman these days.”
“So it’s still going well?” Hazel tops up her glass from a chilled dripping bottle.
“You might say. We’re quite the domestic couple,” Lara says. “Kurt’s at home right now, painting the porch.”
“Oh, dear!” Hazel and Sissy say in imperfect tandem.
“What?”
“You never learn,” Hazel says. “Remember the last time Kurt tried DIY? He tried to replace a shingle and fell through the roof.”
“God, I know. Don’t tell his parents, they’d kill him!” Lara says. “He had to hide his limp all through Thanksgiving, it was so funny. Anyway, enough about me – for now – let’s come back to me, but right now I want to know about my gorgeous Hazel. Anyone special on your radar?”
“Here we go again, every week.” Hazel rolls her eyes and turns towards the sea. “Isn’t that beautiful? Why don’t we ever talk about that? We never talk about that.” She points at the beach. “That view is why I love this place, you can see all the way down the beach and over the ocean.”
“Amazing answer as always,” Sissy says, breaking off to laugh into her oversized glass before taking another swig of the Wolf’s house white. “Hazel, we love you, you know we love you, but you’ve been single for too long, you need to get out there and have some fun.”
Hazel lets a mild wave of taunts wash over her while she looks at the coarse golden yellow sands. Across the beach, a group of surfers carry their boards across the frothy water’s edge, a happy couple embrace in the warm crystal sea.
A phone rings.
“Look! Somebody’s getting a call – a booty call!” Lara says. Hazel looks at her phone. The screen reads, “Flynn”.
“Don’t do it!” Lara says.
“I have to.”
“You’re breaking the golden rule!” Sissy says.
“Exactly,” Lara says. “Never answer the phone to your boss on a weekend. It can’t be good!”
“…I hate my job.” Hazel answers the call with a sigh and a swipe.
“Hazel? It’s Flynn. Look, cancel all your appointments for the foreseeable. I need to see you first thing. We have a situation.”
By 8am on Monday barely an echo of the weekend remains. Where does the weekend go?
I need to win the lottery so I can avoid this Monday crap all together, reasons Hazel on her way to work. Reaching the end of a hot sidewalk she removes her shoes and steps onto the beach. This route to work adds fifteen minutes to her morning commute, but it’s worth it. As she walks along the quiet beach the sun floats like a golden honey drop of light lingering in a powder-blue creaseless sky. She feels the heat under her suit and the warmth of the sand between her toes.
She walks into the office barefoot, leaving behind her pronounced broken footprints of sand on the front-desk carpet and on the elevator floor. She dusts her feet
off at her desk and slips into her shoes while the sun paints a thick copper rectangle on her wall to declare the morning fully accomplished.
Tying her lightly curled hair back, Hazel sits at her sparse white government issue desk, on which resides a computer and nothing more. Other employees decorate their workspaces like college dorms, with vinyl record sleeves propped up, or with novelty license plates stamped with “It’s five o’clock somewhere”, or with dozens of boxed Star Wars figurines and other banal treasures, but Hazel likes her desk clean and non-committal. It’s a simple, easy to control space that would normally provide her with peace and quiet, but not today, not in Flynn’s company.
Flynn is the head of administration at CeTech Weather Services, the government’s leading meteorology research center. He’s a round faced, square shouldered man with thick graying hair. Flynn’s the boss and an office elder but his way of swallowing hard and waving his hand before he speaks annoys Hazel to the point of distraction. It looks like he’s working on a rather difficult bowl of oatmeal while trying to swat a fly. This motion is particularly prominent when Flynn’s about to say something he’s very pleased with.
