THE PHONE CALL by Campbell AJ

Author:Campbell, AJ
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Code Grey Publishing
Published: 2022-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

21

THURSDAY

The alarm clock of hunger wakes Joey. It’s so intense, he feels sick. He checks his phone. It’s almost six. He lies for a minute until he can no longer stand the emptiness gnawing at him. Or is he a little nervous for what he is about to do? He inches down the ladder from his bed, listening to Dylan’s gentle snores. He needs to be quick to get away with this. He rubs his hands down his arms and legs, trying to straighten out yesterday’s clothes. As quietly as he can, he kneels on the floor next to Dylan, who is sleeping soundly. He reaches under the bed and slides out an old holdall. He steps over to the radiator under the window and turns the control dial off as part of his plan.

The house is deadly quiet, everyone still fast asleep. He creeps downstairs, avoiding the unpredictable stair third from the bottom. Sometimes it creaks under his weight. All he can think about is toast coated with butter and jam, but he finds the bread bin empty when he gets to the kitchen. He places two Weetabix into a bowl and adds some milk and several spoons of sugar, but when he goes to take a spoonful, his stomach turns. He puts the bowl on the side. Hetty waits at his feet, her head moving from side to side hoping to catch a titbit. ‘It’s not time for breakfast yet,’ he says. He bends and strokes her. ‘You need to wait a while, my friend.’

In the understairs cupboard, he finds his Crocs. The ones that were once his dad’s that he has refused to let his mum discard despite them having lost their grip and the left one having a broken strap. As quietly as he can, he slowly picks up his keys from the hall table and slips out of the front door.

The wind whips through him as he negotiates the path to his car. The sun is yet to rise, darkness his welcome friend. In his haste, he almost loses his balance. He steadies himself against the garden fence and uses it to guide him to the gate. A fallen branch snaps underfoot, sounding thunderous in the quietness of the early morning. When he reaches his car, parked out the back of the house, he opens the boot. He glances around, half-expecting to spot his mum watching from her bedroom window. But the house is in blackness. A sudden thought comes to him. What if Ade stayed the night? He didn’t even hear Dylan come to bed, so what if Ade never left? Joey didn’t notice Ade’s car outside the front of the house, but what’s to say he didn’t move it further up the road? But why would he have done that? Paranoia makes him check his neighbours’ windows too, but he can’t see a soul. He stuffs the coat, trainers, and rucksack from his car into the holdall, lowers the boot lid and quietly presses it closed.

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