Escaping The Shadows Anthology: Shenanigans'19 @ The West Midlands Book Signing.

by Maria Lazarou

  Luke spun around only to find himself alone on the path. He pulled out his phone and pressed call.

  “I’m sorry. I’m coming home.”

  The End

  Explosive Love

  By

  Toni Bolton

  Blurb

  I thought I was alright when I came out of hospital, my injuries had healed.

  They sent me home, but nothing feels quite right. I don’t want to go anywhere or meet anyone.

  I want to lock myself away where no-one can find me; a quiet place, so I can try to get some sleep and stop these headaches.

  Everything in the village seems to remind me of Dave, whom I can’t forget.

  We buried him and his parents understood and were kind, but I feel bleak and cold inside.

  I don’t want to go back but I feel I have nowhere else to go.

  What do I do now?”

  Chapter One

  August 2014

  Josh sat in the local pub waiting for his brother. Why the hell had he agreed to drive him to the garage so he could pick up his car? He checked his watch. He had been gone for an hour. What could be taking him so long?

  He was watching the TV when suddenly photos of troops in Syria appeared. A bomb exploded and he saw the troops dive for the ground. Then, his head was in his hands. Flashes and white lights pierced his eyeballs; not from the TV, they were coming from inside his skull, as his ears felt like bursting. He smelt blood and saw it spreading across the red sand from a body barely there, in pieces of flesh and bone. He had to get out of there. He pushed himself up and staggered around the table, pushing the men watching the rugby out of the way.

  ‘”Hey, mate. Watch what you are doing.” A heavily built man showed concern as he saw Josh’s face. His eyes were vacant as if he saw nothing.

  “You okay mate?” He put his hand out, but Josh pushed him hard against the table.

  “I’m okay. Can’t you see that? Why are you poking your nose in my business?”

  “No offence intended mate, you just looked a bit shaky, that’s all.”

  The man moved sideways, trying to get away. He thought that Josh was clearly out of it and needed to get home.

  “Are you insinuating I can’t hold my drink?” asked Josh, grabbing him by the collar. He needed to get rid of this burning feeling, eating him up inside.

  “No mate. I just thought you looked a bit under the weather.”

  The man tried to back away, but Josh still had a tight grasp on his collar. This bloke was trouble with a capital ‘T’ and was looking for a fight. Josh shook him and the man now angered pushed back.

  “Next time you want to insult a man think on this,” snarled Josh and punched the man in the face. The bloke’s mates grabbed his arms and pulled him off him, but Josh resisted, easily pushing them away. Turning around he laid into one, leaving one of them on the floor.

  “Get him out of here,” yelled the landlord. “I am not having any bloody squaddies causing trouble here.”

  Several of the men surrounded Josh, holding his arms tight. Suddenly, all the fight went out of him; he felt chilled, then deathly cold as the adrenaline firing him up, faded.

  “Forget it, you morons. I don’t want to stick around here anyway.”

  He was pushed in the direction of the door, the men following him. He turned around shouting, “If my brother John Ward wants a lift back, tell him to ring me.”

  With that, he pushed through the door and breathed in cold, clean gasps of air. He would wait at the garage for his brother. John must be doing errands whilst his car was being mended.

  “What was up with him?” asked one of the men.

  The bloke who had tried to help Josh replied, “He is a nutter. I was only trying to help him.”

  The landlord shrugged.

  “He is one of those Ward lads, an army family, recently deployed from Afghanistan. Still got issues to work out. I’m going to tell his brother he can’t drink in here until he is sorted out.”

  Chapter Two

  Nothing was good on the TV. Josh was sick of looking at four walls, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything for long. Normally he would go to the gym and work his boredom off, but he was tired; not physically tired; it was a mental tiredness that sapped his spirit and energy.

  He had to shake himself out of this lethargy. His brother had invited him to the rugby dance, which was raising money for the widow of Dave. His mate who had been killed in an explosion. A keen rugby player whilst at school, Josh knew many people there, he would go and try to relax.

  His mates were there joking and messing around, eyeing ‘the talent up’ as his brother would say. It was hot and stifling and the carpets stank of beer. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves except him.

  He saw a new woman with a bunch of females he had known at school. She seemed different from the others, in the group but slightly apart. Some of the other girls seemed to be trying too hard. With eyes made up too heavily and bleached hair and tops they were nearly falling out of. They looked hard and giggled continually, turning him off.

  In contrast, she wore her jet-black hair loose, contrasting with a luminous, naturally tanned skin and sky-blue eyes. She looked trim and muscular as if she stayed active, unlike some of the younger girls who had already developed a ‘stomach’. They were munching burgers, relying on cigs to keep their weight down; leaving the room to have a puff every so often.

  Josh looked at her hand, no ring but that meant nothing in an army satellite village. She seemed unattached. She smiled at the men who came to join the group but did not put herself forward and flirt as did the other girls. She appeared interesting. He might talk to her later.

  He made his way to the bar meaning to catch her, but a drunk barred his way. He moved back, hating the stale smell of beer. This bloke did not take personal hygiene seriously. He came closer, sticking his bloodshot eyed mug in Josh’s face so Josh backed off, grimly making space. His hands were clenched into fists, his veins sticking out like blue ropes. His blood began to drum in his ears as pressure built up until his head felt near to bursting. He had to get out before he did this moron some serious damage.

  The idiot didn’t get the message and pressed forward, pushing his nose against his. A weak flabby chest pressed against him, barely making idents into his hard, slim midriff.

  “Look Mate.” Josh tried to reason with him. “Give me some space. Back off before you make me mad.”

  He turned to leave, feeling suffocated and sick. He took deep breaths, trying to fill his lungs with clean air, but the man’s hot stale beery breath made him choke, vomit rising in his throat.

  “You think you are big, strong man, but you left your mate there to die and came back alive. Why were you spared and not him?”

  Josh turned around. Eyes stony like cannonballs bored into the fellow’s face. He felt cold and pale, the blood running from his cheeks.

  “Leave me alone, Pal. You don’t understand.”

  He tried to walk away but the fool was beyond reasoning with and grabbed him by the shoulder, trying to turn him around. Without thinking, he spun around, lifting the bloke up and pushing him and pinning him against a wall. He grabbed him by the throat, choking the life out of him.

  A face materialised; sallow, brown eyes with fuzzy long beard replacing the podgy white face before him. The fellow gasped, but before he could break the bones in his neck, he was pulled off the fool. His mate pinioned his arms behind his back, dragging him into a seat and with heavy hands held him down.

  “Josh calm down. He doesn’t know what he is doing. You should know better,” reasoned Tom.

  If he didn’t calm down, he would have to punch him and lay him out. He was puzzled, Josh was usually so self-contained, like an automaton. A loner, he kept his feelings tucked inside. He had never seen his mate explode like this before.

  “Out Mate.”

  He pulled his friend to his feet and ushered h
im into a waiting cab. The stony expression on his face said Josh was not in the mood to talk. He had kept looking back as if he was waiting for the man to take him on again, in fact, willing him to, as if he welcomed a fight.

  Josh’s head was in his hands. Where did they crawl from, these creeps? They seemed everywhere, bothering him when all he wanted was to be left in peace. He dragged himself into his flat and locked himself in breathing deeply. He closed the blinds and dimmed the lights and fell on the bed no longer feeling sick.

  He was home, home was safe. If he had his way, he would never open his door to the world and leave his flat again. Plants luxuriated around his balcony bedroom, the sunlight trying to penetrate the darkly shrouded room. It was his oasis of safety and he was keeping it. He just had to stay out of the way of those morons and keep his temper.

  Chapter Three

  The wedding was a cracker. He had forced himself to come as his niece was getting married.

  Bang. The fireworks cracked, sparked and flares shot out, but no-one noticed. All they saw was the grown man run through

  “Get down now. Quick,” he shouted, then tried to push them down on the ground. As if in pain, he covered his ears and dived under the table, yelling out, “It is too late, down.”

  Perplexed and unnerved, they turned away embarrassed. or watched shocked, as a woman bent at the table leaning in, covering the image of the man who was now crouched shaking, his head between his knees.

  “Josh,” she whispered. Then turning around, she snapped to the organisers who were gaping. “Get these people away from here. We don’t want gawpers. It is the last thing he needs.”

  She yelled out, “Paul, come here,” to a man standing at the back, as the crowd moved away, still casting surreptitious glances about them at this ‘odd bloke’.

  “Paul. Stop the display for ten minutes whilst I get him out.” She heard someone say.

  “He’s recently come back. Something must have happened over there for him to behave like that.”

  Damn them. How did they know what Josh had seen? They could only try to imagine the blood, the dust, the tangled limbs. She crawled under the table and sat with the cowering man.

  “Josh,” she whispered.

  “Don’t touch him,” warned someone behind her so she pulled back away from him. In his state, touching his shoulder might cause him to react badly and belt her. Who only knew who and where the enemy was in his distorted psyche?

  The fireworks had stopped banging. Only the people could be heard and Paul was thankfully moving the folk away from them.

  “Josh.” She felt him shiver; his body began to follow his mind, reacting at last from the shock. “It is safe now. There is no danger.”

  The trembling was still obvious, but his hands were no longer covering his ears and he lifted his head. White as a sheet, his eyes stood out, glazed but dark like midnight, his

  “Yes, we’re all safe.”

  He was clearly in a battle scenario, all links with reality dashed with the first few bangs. There was no point trying to rationalise with him. She’d better wait until she got him back to the hospital and a qualified shrink could talk with him.

  “You’re sure.”

  “Perfectly. You are not needed now and you need to get your head seen to.” In the haste to dive for safety, he had gashed his head on the metal table leg and blood now streamed down his forehead. He blinked the blood away and nodded. She took her handkerchief out of her pocket and made a pad and tied it with a scarf and then gave him her hand.

  “Come, I am aching from sitting in this position too long and want to have some supper.” He did not respond. “Coming with me?” she asked carefully, trying to put him at ease?

  “Sure.” He looked uneasily before him as if assessing the terrain carefully. Then he shook himself and crawled out behind her and stood up still looking around him. Puzzled, he slowly came back to reality as his vision cleared and he recognised his surroundings. His heart was no longer pounding, it was merely a firework display.

  A flashback blinded him. His head went blank and then his eyes cleared. For a minute, he remembered another time and another place. Dirt, sand, desert, heat; a dangerous intimidating place where men hated men. One looked behind oneself constantly to stay alive.

  He felt ashamed as he remembered shouting and crawling under the table. What had made him done that? After deployment and time back at base, he had been given the all clear by the camp doc. He shook himself like a dog, trying to bring himself back to this time and place. A woman he recognised from somewhere stood beside him.

  “Josh.” He blinked. Something triggered in his head as he remembered a photo on his mate’s wall over his bunk. His mate had his arm around a girl. He focused, but he still couldn’t remember who she was, his lover, sister, or friend?

  “Josh. Come with me please?”

  He looked at her outstretched arm and nodded, allowing her to gently direct him from the table to the cab awaiting him. Every few minutes he stopped for an instant, looking around him. He then moved on to the car taking one more look until he climbed into the vehicle and leant his head back, sighing in relief and closing his eyes.

  A wave of nausea overwhelmed him as another flashback hit him. He couldn’t understand these flashes. Why was he having them now? He hadn’t suffered anything like these when he was in the war zones. He had felt nothing, just deathly calm when the bomb had taken half of the body of his mate and thrown him across the road. He had even visited his mate’s mum and dad when he reached England. Nothing could penetrate this numbness, this detachment from everything.

  He had been home a month. His former friends and his family had asked him many times to visit, but he had just locked himself into his flat. Shut himself away wanting peace and quiet. He wanted no interfering busybodies smiling and sympathising with him, pretending to understand how he felt. How could they understand the bleakness and silence his mate’s laugh should fill? They couldn’t and never would.

  He had asked himself a hundred times

  “Why him and not me?”

  They were within feet of each other but Dave had been the one chosen to perish. He had helped collect and scrape the remains of his mate up. Others had offered to do the job but it was the last thing he could do for him; make sure he came home as complete as possible.

  Pat sat beside him in the back of the car, warily watching him for unusual signs. He might still be thinking he was in a war zone and hit out. In fact, he was deathly silent and still, his forehead creased and eyes screwed up tightly shut as if he were in pain. Was he thinking and remembering? After a few minutes, the silence and warmth of the car made him drowsy and sleepy. He woke up when the car drew up outside his flat. He had insisted on being taken there instead of the hospital.

  “I think it might be better if you were not on your own tonight and you should see the doctor tomorrow.”

  He flinched. She had said the wrong thing. His face shut down again.

  He snapped back, “I’ll be fine on my own. A headache tablet and an early night will see me right.”

  He didn’t mention the recurring nightmares that had only started a fortnight ago. He would watch a film until exhaustion and a whisky made him sleep. He was not a heavy drinker like some of his mates. An enthusiastic competitive sportsman, he drunk lightly, but drinking a whisky before bed now relaxed him. He didn’t want to use highly addictive sleeping tablets that dulled his senses.

  “You will see the doctor? You have a nasty gash where you bashed your head on the table.”

  He felt his head. The blood was drying up into a scab. He had not felt the gash and he could not remember hitting his forehead on the table. It was all a blank. He just remembered a bang and then the woman whispering to him to come out from the table. It was maddening.

  He pulled himself together. His manners needed improving. The woman was trying to help him. He was a jerk being so hostile and taking it out on he
r.

  “Yes, I’ll make an appointment tomorrow.”

  For Christ’s sake, he needed to do something before he showed himself up again.

  “I am afraid I don’t know your name,” he admitted holding out his hand. She grasped it in a strong but gentle grip.

  “I am Pat Howard. I was at the rugby club do last week. Dave was one of my brother’s friends.”

  “Oh yes.” He had felt compelled to go. He had left as soon as it was decently possible. He had vomited his meal in the street after remembering the speech Dave’s brother had made about his sibling making sacrifices and being missed. He vowed he wouldn’t go to one of those things again.

  “If you need me, I am at the vet's.”

  Pat shook his hand. She had done what she could. Dave had said he was a loner who made a few good friends and kept them but wanted to do things his own way. He was a natural leader and a good team player when necessary but he buried his feelings deep and let few people know the sort of man he was and what made him tick.

  That is how he had achieved so much so young but that resilience and self-containment kept him alone when he needed people most. He needed help. He could have hurt someone who had tried to help him if they hadn’t known his past and had touched him when his head was still messed up.

  He let himself into his flat, slumped on the sofa and put on the TV. There were reality shows but a game and a thriller were on later, something to blank out his thoughts. He was shattered, perhaps he might sleep tonight.

  The thought of explaining the episode to his family made him ill. His dad would think he was a wuss. What man was scared of fireworks? A former army sergeant major, he had no time for namby-pambies in his family. He had bullied his sons when they were young, thinking it made men of them. His mum would be kinder, hugging him and making him supper as she always did when he came home from a campaign.