ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror (8 page)

The ambulance was parked outside the small group of shops that served the estate.  When Andrew realised the emergency vehicle was parked directly outside of the chip shop, his stomach twisted into knots.  A sense of dread enveloped him like a shroud.

He rushed forward and looked for the nearest paramedic.  There was a young, blond-haired man in a white shirt beneath a green jacket.  He was carrying a large holdall, and blue and white NHS emblems adorned his clothing in several places. 

Andrew approached the man.  “What’s happened?  Who’s hurt?”

The paramedic pushed past him, not making eye-contact.  “Please move aside, sir.”

Andrew grabbed out at the man’s sleeve but missed.  The medical worker hurried away before there was any opportunity to stop him.  Several spectators stood around in various corners of the shopping area car park.  Andrew examined them one after the other, eventually spotting a young girl wearing the same chip shop uniform that Charlie wore during her shifts. 

He sighed with relief.

Thank God.  That girl is obviously working tonight, not Charlie.  This is probably all down to some poor person having a heart attack or a funny turn.

“What happened?” Andrew asked the chip shop girl as he closed the distance between them.

The girl’s eyes pointed at him and were moist with recently-shed tears. It was obvious she’d witnessed whatever accident had befallen the poor soul in the ambulance.

Andrew put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and seemed to snap her out of a trance.  “I said what happened?”

For a brief moment it looked like the girl was going to faint, but she managed to refocus herself and look Andrew in the eye.  “She…she got burned.”

“Who got burned?”

“Cha…Charlie.”

Andrew’s knees threatened to fold beneath him.  His stomach felt light and somehow heavy at the same time.  “Charlie is the one that got hurt?” he said.

The grief-stricken girl nodded.

Andrew shook his head, hoping she was mistaken.  “W-What happened?”

The girl gave no answer, just stared into space.

Andrew gave her a little shove.  “Tell me!”

She snapped back to reality again.  “I…I don’t know.  She slipped into the fat-fryer.  Got her arm all burnt up.”

Andrew examined the girl’s expression closely.  She was staring into space again as if she were incapable of making eye-contact. 

“Bullshit!” he said.

The girl flinched, looked at him, but still said nothing.  More tears began to expel themselves down her cheeks.

Andrew put a hand on her shoulder again and squeezed gently.  He looked her dead in the eyes and made sure she saw him.  “Frankie did this, didn’t he?”

The girl shrugged free of his grasp and hurried away.  She rushed inside the chip shop and locked the door behind her.  Andrew shook his head and felt tears of his own well up in his eyes.

So much for answers,
he thought.

The ambulance revved its engine and started to pull away.  Andrew tried to get a look in through the back windows, to see if Charlie was okay, but the glass was frosted and gave no opportunity to do so.

He stood in shock for several minutes, praying to god that the poor girl on her way to the hospital was not hurt because of him.

Because of Frankie.

As the initial shock diluted into his bloodstream and eventually faded away completely, it was replaced by a fury so alive with hatred that it seemed electrical in nature, sparking through Andrew’s system and making his flesh tingle.  He started for home again, wondering how he would ever explain to his family that, for the second time this week, the chips were cancelled.

***

“What do you mean you’re going to the hospital?” Pen asked him.

“I need to go check on someone,” Andrew told his wife.  “The girl from the chip shop.  She told me where Frankie lives and I think he’s hurt her because of it.”

Pen almost spat the red wine she was drinking and had to swallow carefully to avoid choking.  “He’s put a girl in hospital now?  Jesus Christ!”

“And it might be my fault,” said Andrew, “which is why I need to go.”

Pen collapsed onto the sofa, almost spilling her wine.  Not that it would have mattered with the carpet in the state it was.  “Crazy!  This whole thing is just…crazy!”

Andrew sat down beside his wife and put an arm around her.  “I know, but perhaps the girl will press charges and Frankie will get banged up again.  Lord knows he deserves it.”

“You want me to come with you?”

Andrew shook his head.  “No, it wouldn’t be fair to Charlie.  She probably won’t want to see
me
, let alone my family.  You stay here and look after Bex.  I think she’s more upset about this situation than she lets on.”

“Okay,” said Pen.  “Give this…
Charlie
…my best, okay?”

Andrew kissed his wife goodbye and left the house again.  The hospital was five or six miles away so he would need to take his car to get there.  Hopefully, now that it was dark, the graffiti written all over it would not be visible. 

Andrew pulled out his car keys and pressed the alarm fob.  The car’s lights flashed twice.

To the pedo-mobile,
Andrew thought as he looked at the once-beautiful feat of German engineering.  He pulled open the driver’s door and hopped inside, plonking his butt down into the leather seat.  The ignition started as soon as he turned the key and the car was already moving when Andrew began fumbling for his seatbelt.  His eyes were off the road only a few seconds while he looked back to retrieve it, but it was long enough to completely miss the person standing in the road.

The car hit at only 20mph, but it was quick enough to launch the stranger up onto the bonnet and back down to the pavement again. 

Andrew stamped on the brakes.

The tyres squealed.

The car stopped.

There was a body lying in the road and Andrew could not believe it.  His world kept getting worse with each passing second. 

He pressed the release on the seat belt and shoved open the door, then he stumbled out into the numbing cold of the frosty air.

The body in the road was a young boy, unconscious and bleeding.  Glass covered the asphalt with wicked shards of glass which sparkled in the car’s headlamps like thousands of alligator teeth.  Andrew rushed over to the boy and dropped down to his knees, ignoring the stabbing pains caused by the unforgiving tarmac.

Andrew shook the boy gently.  “Are you okay?”

Stupid question.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Andrew said in a slow, clear voice.  “I’m to going take you to the hospital.”

I was on my way there, anyway,
 Andrew thought glumly. 
To see another young kid that got hurt because of me. 

I’m going to hell.

Andrew sprung up off his knees, went and opened the rear passenger-door of the car. Then he went back to the injured boy, kneeled beside him, and threaded his arms underneath his weight to hoist him up.  Thankfully the boy was pretty lean and Andrew was just about able to carry him over to the back seat of the car without running out of steam.  He placed the boy down gently, bending his legs at the knee so that the door had room to close.  But before Andrew had chance to shut it, the boy opened his eyes and started to moan.

“Hey there,” Andrew said softly.  “My name is Andrew.  You’ve been in an accident, but everything is going to be okay.  I’m taking you to the hospital right now.  Can you tell me your name?”

The boy carried on moaning for a few moments more but eventually managed to answer Andrew’s question.  He said his name was, “Davie.”

Chapter Eight

Andrew reached the Alexandra Hospital in less than ten minutes, screeching to a halt outside the entrance of the A & E department.  There was no one around and he had to cry out for help.  It wasn’t long before a male nurse and a couple of orderlies appeared outside, hurrying to see what the emergency was.

The orderlies quickly retrieved a gurney when they saw the injured boy and, together with the male nurse, managed to hoist Davie out of the car and onto the wheeled bed.  Without hesitation they then disappeared inside the hospital, leaving Andrew alone with the male nurse.

“Do you know the boy?” the nurse asked him.

Andrew shook his head.  “Said his name was Davie, but I’ve never met him before.”

The nurse put a hand on Andrew’s back and ushered him inside.  “We’ll take good care of him, sir.  For now we’ll need you to answer a few questions so that we can assess the extent of his injuries.  You may have to make a report to the police as well.  I assume it was you that hit him?”

It mortified Andrew to hear it out loud, but he had no choice except to nod – yes, he had hit the boy; had run him right over because he hadn’t been paying attention.

I ran down
s
omebody’s son.

How would I feel if somebody had hit Bex?

The nurse led Andrew over to a grouping of cheap, plastic chairs bolted to the floor in uniform rows.  “Take a seat, sir.  We’ll keep you updated on his condition.  Is there someone you’d like us to call?”

Andrew thought about Pen and Bex, but then found someone else popping into his head.  “I need to see someone else that is already here.  A girl named Charlie.  She got burned today by a deep fat fryer.”

The nurse raised an eyebrow.  “I think I recall someone coming in with those injuries.  What relation are you?”

Andrew looked down at the floor, examining the various stains and scuffs adorning the beige tiles of the waiting room.  “I’m…a friend, I guess.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can find out for you.”

Andrew thanked the nurse and leaned back in the chair.  The bruising on his ribs throbbed as his chest compressed against the hard, uncomfortable backrest.  He let out a hiss. 

The small waiting room was empty of people and the other chairs contained nothing except discarded magazines and folded newspapers.  Apparently, weekday evenings were not peak-time for injures.

So the only two people admitted are both probably here because of me.  Way to do my bit for national health.

Five minutes later, a young lady in a white tunic came and sat beside Andrew.  She asked him a series of questions about the incident involving the boy and wrote down his replies on a printed form.  Once she reached the end of the questionnaire, she smiled at Andrew and disappeared back into the staff only area of the hospital.  Waiting for further news was a torment he could hardly bare.  For all he knew, right now, the young boy he knocked over could have permanent injuries.

The over-sized clock on the waiting room wall moved along almost one full hour before anyone else came to speak to Andrew.  It was the same male nurse that had met him in the car park.

He took a seat next to Andrew.  “How are you doing?”

“Not bad, considering.  Any news?”

The nurse smiled and nodded.  “The boy you ran into is going to be fine.  He has some bruising on his ribs and a mild concussion from where his head hit the windscreen or the road.  Either way, he’ll be fine after an extended rest.  He was awake for a while, but he’s sleeping at the moment.”

Andrew let all of the air out of his lungs in a great big huff and rubbed at his cheeks.  “Thank god.  Did you let his family know?”

“No.  He wouldn’t give us anyone to contact.  He just said to let him know when it was alright to leave.”

“That’s strange,” said Andrew.  “Well, when he wakes up let him know I’m happy to drive him home.”

“I’ll tell him.  Now about this girl you said you wanted to check on.  I located her in the burns ward.  She’s going to be okay, but the damage to her arm is…severe.”

“Permanent?” asked Andrew, not wanting to hear the answer.

The nurse nodded grimly.  “She has second-degree burns above her elbow all the way down her arm.  She’s in a great deal of pain so she’s been put on morphine.”

Andrew found himself unable to breathe, his bodily functions halted temporarily by the horror he was feeling.

“She’s asked to see you,” the nurse explained.

Andrew was surprised.  “Really?”

The nurse stood up.  “I’ll take you there now.  She’ll probably be asleep once the treatment takes hold.”

Andrew stood up and followed the nurse out of the A & E department and passed through the waiting room for regular admittance.  It was a great deal busier than the empty emergency room had been.  They continued on to the treatment wards, taking an elevator up to the second floor and passing by the mournfully-silent Oncology Department.  Finally, they reached the Burns Unit.

The nurse pushed open one of the swinging double-doors and stood aside for Andrew to enter.  The first thing he noticed as he walked into the room was the suffocating odour of antiseptic creams and alcohol.  The ward was cramped, divided into cubicles on both sides.

“She’s in bed number three,” the nurse explained, pointing up ahead.

Andrew thanked him and headed for Charlie’s cubicle – a set of canvass walls and a blue nylon curtain for the door.  Andrew pulled aside the curtain and stepped inside.  Charlie was staring right at him when he entered.

“Hi, Charlie,” he said, looking left and right for a chair to sit on.  Before he found one, his eyes became fixated on the thick, white bandages covering her left arm.  He quickly broke his stare and perched himself down on a nearby chair.  It was a lot comfier than the ones in the waiting room. 

“H-how are you doing?” he asked her.

She shook her head at him, weary from the morphine entering via the drip on her uninjured arm.

“I’m really sorry you got hurt,” said Andrew.  “Are your parents coming?”

Charlie’s voice was croaky when she spoke.  “Someone’s contacting them now.  How come you got here so fast?”

“I ran someone over in my car,” said Andrew.  “I was already heading here to see how you were, but I guess that made me drive a little faster.  I knew you’d been hurt because I visited the chip shop just after it happened.”