Chapter 16: On The Run

It was thrilling. Hurtling the car that I’d come to adore along the twisty coastal route out west from the town, while my the CD I’d burned especially for driving blasted from the stereo so loud it almost hurt my ears. I couldn’t hear the engine over the music, but I could feel it, rumbling underneath me like an untamed beast in a cage, desperate to be set free, to be unleashed.

So I unleashed it.

The road started high on the hill, the cliff edge just a stone’s throw to my left, before it fell dramatically back to sea level, the waves then so close that the largest would crash against the sea wall and fly up over the road and the car. I kept the speed as high as I could, despite the poor lighting and the resultant dazzle of the odd oncoming car. I felt like a race driver, sliding around the corners with the back-end twitching and threatening to step out at any moment.

Adrenaline rushed through my body, keeping me alert. Keeping me alive.

I felt alive.

More alive than I’d felt in a long time.

It took all my concentration just to keep the car on the road—which was just fine with me. That way, I didn’t have to think about what had just happened, or about the whole of the last week. Hell, I didn’t have to think about the whole of the last year and more. And it kept that damn voice out of my head.

I guess she was scared.

I know I would have been if had I been a passenger.

Every turn was a challenge. Every dip and bump in the road was a test. And every set of headlights that blinded me, a trial.

More than once, on the sharpest bends, an image of Dad driving along a similar road, with Mom sitting next to him talking, popped into my head. Another time, I saw Del Stevens laughing as he ran from the police in a stolen car, a can of beer in one hand as he drove. But I pushed each vision aside and kept hurtling along.

Then, around the next bend, the oncoming headlights were bigger than any before. Higher up. Brighter. It was a truck. What the hell was a truck doing on this road? It was too damn narrow. Too damn dangerous. Any truck driver with any sense would take the dual carriageway further inland, even if it was a longer route by ten miles or so. It could only be a foreigner—some Eastern European driver, a Pole or a Croat—blindly following his sat-nav as it sent him the shortest and not the safest way.

He sounded his horn as he approached, and I had to swerve to the left to get out of his way. This pushed me up onto the grass verge, perilously close to the flimsy fence that separated me from a watery grave on the rocks below. I felt the loss of control as the wheels skidded, trying desperately to find some traction.

The car lurched to the right again and I fought to keep it straight.

I lost the door mirror. I’m sure the paintwork got fucked up.

But I passed the truck and was able to wrestle the car back onto the asphalt and back under control.

I quickly checked in the rear-view mirror that there was nothing behind me then slammed on the breaks, bringing the car to a screeching halt.

“Mother Fucker! What the fuck!” I sat, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my fingers turned white. My breathing was heavy as inside I fought to regain control, to calm down, to get a grip.

That was a lucky escape.

Damn lucky.

I threw the door open and jumped out. Warning alarms told me I’d left the lights on and the engine running, but really, like I gave a fuck right then. My hands went up to my head and I sucked in one great lungful of fresh, cool sea air after another.

“Mother Fucker!” I screamed again. “Mother fucking fucker! What the fucking fuck!” I was jumping around by now, tugging at my hair, kicking the ground.

“My car! Look at my fucking car! It’s fucking trashed!” I don’t know who I was talking to. And, looking back, the damage wasn’t that bad. But still...

“Fucking ... Fuck!”

I went to the small rickety wooden fence on the grass verge and looked out at the inky black sea. What the fuck was I thinking? Why the fuck did I get in the car? Why the fuck was I driving like that? What the fuck was wrong with me?

<<You know what’s wrong—>>

And she could just fuck off too! Of all the moments to have her two pennies worth.

<<Paul, you know—>>

“FUCK OFF!” I screamed at the night. “Just fuck off and leave me the fuck alone!”

<<If you want me to leave—>>

I put my hands over my ears and screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

And then my phone rang. At first, I didn’t recognise it as mine because I had changed my ringtone just a few days ago, but the music was coming from my back pocket and I was the only living soul around, so...

I tugged it from my pocket and stared at the screen, where Emily’s smiling face stared back at me. My thumb hovered over the green phone icon, shifted across to the red one, then moved back to the green. Finally, I touched the screen and swiped to the right. I slowly moved the handset up to my ear. My mouth opened, but no words escaped.

“Paul?” She sounded panicked. “Paul? Is that you? Are you there? Paul, say something. Are you okay? Paul, talk to—”

I snatched the phone down from my ear and pressed the icon to end the call. Staring at the screen I noticed the notification bar was full. Missed calls, text messages, e-mails. Guess I had the music so loud I couldn’t hear the phone as I drove. I unlocked the phone and checked the call log. I’d missed three calls, one each from Emily, Mark and Imogen. I opened the SMS app next and found multiple messages from the same three people, as well as from Jem and even Lisa. Then I checked my e-mail and found messages from Mark, Jem and Lisa in amongst the spam. All the messages were asking the same things. Where was I? What was I doing? Was I okay?

I stared at the phone for a moment, then pulled my arm back and hurled the damn thing into the sea. I didn’t see it land. I didn’t hear the splash. But it was gone, and that was what mattered. Maybe now, I’d be left alone.

<<I won’t leave you, Paul. You’ll always have me. Unless—>>

I screamed at the night once more and fell to my knees. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?

I don’t know how long I knelt there on the grass listening to her rabbit on in my head, telling me how I knew what I had to do and until I did it, she’d always be with me. Reminding me how I’d fucked up a perfectly good stream of fresh pussy. Asking me if I’d ever get laid again, ever get my dick sucked again.

The sound of an extended blast on a car horn snapped me back to my senses. Red lights moved away from me in the direction I’d been travelling.

I got up and walked back around to the still open car door. I reached into my back pocket, then realised the phone wasn’t there. I panicked, trying to think what I’d lost. All the photos and videos I took were automatically backed up to the internet cloud. Ditto for my call log and text messages. The music files on there came from my laptop. Anything else wasn’t important. As I sat in the car, I realised I’d have to find a Vodafone shop and tell them what happened. Or maybe I’d tell them the phone was stolen.

Then I was back on the road, only much slower this time. Much slower. I didn’t know this road. I didn’t know where it would take me. I just knew it was away. Away from my so-called friends. Away from the so-called life that I’d carved for myself.

I turned off the stereo—it was too tempting to let the energy of the music carry me away and start driving as I had before. Instead, I opened the window and listened to the engine, to the wind, to the night. I passed through a village, one without streetlights or any signs of life. A glance at the clock on the dash told me why, it was almost three in the morning.

Soon after that first village, there was another. Then another. Finally, I came to the edge of a town. The sign that greeted me told me I’d arrived in Hashmere, the westernmost town in Westmouthshire and almost thirty miles from Westmouth.

It was then, when the streetlights brightened up the world, that I realised just how tired I was. The fatigue hit me like a sledgehammer and all of a sudden I had real difficulty keeping my eyes open. I should find a hotel, one of the budget places that litter the edge of towns in modern Britain. I guess they’d call them Motels in America, and I sure was used to staying in those.

I stopped at the first one I came across and found the reception area locked. I rang the bell as instructed and the guy on duty let me in.

“Yes?” he said, the disdain evident in his voice.

“I need a room.”

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No. This was ... is ... kind of a last-minute decision.”

“Really?” The disdain gave way to sarcasm. He consulted his computer. “Last check-in is usually at midnight—”

“Fine, book me a room for tonight then. Tomorrow night. Sunday. Whatever.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Sir.”

“I’ll pay double.”

“Double. Sir, really, I can’t just—”

“Second half in cash. If it ends up not going through the books, well ... nothing to do with me, is it?”

I could almost see the light bulb come on above his head. It wasn’t the brightest of blubs either.

“Certainly, sir. One moment.” He tapped away and twenty minutes and a quick trip to the cashpoint later I was lying on a bed in a nondescript room in a chain hotel in a town I’d never been to before.

It was just like being back in The US.

I didn’t wake up hungover the next morning, which was a surprise. I took breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant then went back to the room for a shower. I could do with a change of clothes too, but that meant going back to Westmouth which I didn’t want to do.