The boy - part four (freewrite)

honeydue (68)in #freewrite • 6 years ago

This is the fourth part of the story. Read the first, second and third here.

The boy always knew that death was on the table. For him, it was always on option, first living with his father and now, sitting in the man's car. He was strapped in the backseat, but otherwise unbound and most importantly, unhurt. He'd waited for the man to crawl out through the basement window, like he had nowhere to go. Like running away and yelling for his dad wasn't even an option. It wasn't.
If the man was telling the truth about his father, then the boy wanted even less to do with him. Death had always loomed close, the boy just didn't know how close.
They rode on in silence, the boy's eyes fixed on the man's shoulder, the man looking to the road ahead of them.
'Why are you doing this?' the boy asked and his voice had never been as clear as it was now.
'What do you mean? I told you why,' the man said, glancing at him in the rear view mirror.
'To hurt my father. But this wouldn't really hurt my father. I don't think he'd care if I never came back,' the boy told him. This time, he did not wait to meet the man's eyes in the mirror. He looked out into the faceless cars that flew them by on the highway.
'You're not. And he would, you think he wouldn't, but he'd care. Parents always care,' the man said, pushing the pedal down low, revving the car's engine. 'We'll be there soon.'

They were. The road gave way to a bumpy off road, making them jump every so often. The boy turned in his seat to look at the cars, but there were no more cars around them. There was no one in their place that night.
'Is this where you live?'
The man hesitated. 'No. Yes. I don't live there anymore, we're not where you think we are.'
We're not where my family was killed, but he didn't say that, as grown-ups rarely do. They have a fear of naming things, like that might make them more real and they couldn't deal with that.

The furniture in the man's house was in all the wrong places. It was odd, it looked nothing like the boy's house, although it might have, in another world. And although he wasn't sure he wanted it to, he realized, for the first time, how far away he really was.
He stared at the enormous cupboard standing right in front of the door. He'd almost walked into it, but the man had caught him just in time. Still, he heard it, the sound of crashing plates, the noise of clutter falling in his head. His father would've been angry, but he couldn't know how the man would react. So far, he wasn't what the boy expected.
'It's shock value, mostly. Imagine walking into a house and seeing this. Gives us a few good seconds,' the man told him, stepping around the cupboard and into the rest of the house.
'Us?' the boy echoed.
'It's your place too now.'

If he were to describe the house, only one word would've come to mind and that word would've been mess. It was an utter, utter mess, but only from his point of view, it seemed. The man walked around it like an expert, as if everything was just in place.
The boy found himself wondering how long the man had lived here, how long it had been since his family was killed. In the story, it sounded like it happened just the other day, but now he was not so sure. The man was acting strangely calm and the house looked well lived in.
He came around the cupboard too, eventually and took in the rest of the room. Boxes of books and other trinkets stacked on top of one another in odd places. There was no TV, the boy noted, though not with much sadness. He was never allowed to watch television, anyway. His father said it consumed more power than the boy was worth.
'There's plenty of rooms upstairs, you just pick one and I'll bring in everything. There's all sorts of furniture scattered about,' the man told him, from somewhere deep inside the house.
'Why are you doing this?' the boy asked, again. It seemed strange and too good to be true, even without a TV. Was this the saviour he'd waited for all his life?
For years, he'd prayed and hoped for someone to come save him, particularly when his father was off his rocker as he so often was nowadays. Usually, it was his mother who came to rescue him in his dreams, but the boy knew there was little hope of that. His mother was, after all, dead. There was no way she was coming for him. And yet, he'd hoped for someone to take him away and now here he was.
'Because I need you as much as you need me, let's just put it that way,' the man said, coming back. His face was ashen.
The boy nodded and started for the stairs.
'Boy,' the man said, stopping him in his tracks. 'Tell me something.'
Here it was, the boy thought. The catch.
'What's your name? You're gonna need one where we're headed.'