Everything to Nothing (35 page)

They chatted
for a little while until her friends came over and told her that
they were leaving. While they waited for her decision whether she
was going to come with them, Peter whispered into her ear again and
she burst out laughing again. Peter was happy when she told her
friends that she would catch them up. Shrugging their shoulders,
they left her alone with him.

*

Sarah,
meanwhile, had reached Peter’s street and was quickly walking
through the cold to his house. As she approached his abode, she was
disappointed to see no lights were on. She knew that his parents
were not due back until Sunday so she banged on his door and waited
for a response. When none came, she banged again and again and
again. When there was still no response she picked up stones from
his garden and threw them at his bedroom window. Giving up when
there was still no response, she sat on his cold doorstep, wrapping
her coat around her knees and waited.

*

Meanwhile Peter
had his tongue firmly thrust down the blonde’s throat and was
openly cupping one of her breasts in the bar. As she pressed her
body firmly against his, he whispered again into her ear and to
whatever he had said she nodded then took his hand and led him out
of the bar. Peter directed her away from the nearby taxi rank and
when she looked at him quizzically he told her that his car was
nearby.

When they were
walking along they frequently stopped and kissed, until they
reached his garage. Again she looked at him quizzically until he
opened the garage and she saw his car. Quickly she clambered in and
so did he. He drove quickly through the streets of the town eager
to get this cute blonde into his bed. Parking his car outside his
house, they got out of the car and at the foot of his garden path
they kissed deeply and passionately.

Sarah had stood
when she saw his car approach, and was about to call his name as he
got out of the car until she saw the blonde girl approach him from
the other side of the vehicle and shove her tongue down his throat.
At first she was shocked, but this quickly changed to anger. ‘Who
the fuck is she?!’

Peter quickly
turned round and saw Sarah quickly approaching them with anger
etched on her face. ‘Bloody hell Sarah! You scared the shit out of
me!’

‘Like I give a
fuck about scaring you!’ She had now reached them and she was
screeching, clearly bordering upon hysteria. ‘Who the fuck is this
slut?!’

‘Slut?! I’m no
slut. You’re the one outside a guy’s house waiting for him!’

‘He’s my
boyfriend. I think I’m entitled to wait for him you little
slag!’

The blonde
turned to Peter. ‘I thought you said you were single?!’

‘I am honey,
honestly I am.’ Peter turned to Sarah. ‘I am not your boyfriend.
Just because we spent a couple of nights together does not mean I
am your boyfriend.’

‘I thought you
liked me?’

‘Yeah, liked. I
thought I did; now I don’t. Get over it.’

‘You
bastard!’

Sarah lunged at
Peter with her remaining nails bared and ready to scratch his eyes
out if she could reach. But Peter easily sidestepped her wild
lunge, pulling the blonde with him. Sarah could not stop her
momentum as she crashed into the car, the tips of her fingers
smashing into a window, her remaining nails snapping and breaking.
Sarah let out an ear piercing scream and she lunged again, and
again Peter moved them both out of the way.

This time Sarah
tripped on paving at the edge of the garden and landed sprawled on
the wet, cold grass of the garden. It was a hard landing and
knocked the wind out of her. She tried to lift herself up but
collapsed back onto the grass. Peter and the blonde both looked at
her in disgust as she started to sob as she lay face down on the
grass.

‘Can we go
somewhere else please Peter, away from her?’

‘Yeah, of
course honey. Where though?’

‘I don’t know.
A hotel or something?’

‘Okay, sounds
good. Let’s get back in the car.’

‘What about
her?’

‘Leave
her.’

‘She might
damage something?’

‘I doubt it.
The only thing she is capable of damaging is herself.’

Chapter 26

Sarah heard the
car pull away as the cold wetness seeped through her jeans.
Eventually she managed to regain some composure and stopped
sobbing. She rolled over and pushed herself into a sitting
position. Here she sat for a while, ripping out the grass,
muttering and mumbling to herself until, unknowingly, her hands
slowly made their way up and down her arms and with the remaining
stubs of her nails she vigorously scratched her arms.

Still muttering
and mumbling to herself and still scratching her arms, she stood up
and walked back to the house, specifically to the gate next to the
side of the house. She tried to open the gate but it was locked so
she simply scrambled over it, catching her jeans on a nail and
ripping them but she did not seem to notice. Sarah walked round the
house until she reached the back door which she tried to open, but
again it was locked.

The back door
had a big window, easily big enough for someone to climb through
should the glass not be present. Sarah quickly realised this so she
hunted round the garden until she found a rock which she simply
threw at the glass. On contact with the rock, the glass shattered
and fell out of the door with a loud smash which made Sarah jump.
Quickly she moved into the shadow of a bush, hiding, waiting to see
if any the houses she could see had lights turned on by their
occupants or whether any of the occupants looked out of windows to
see what had caused the noise.

Sarah waited
for five long minutes under that bush until she slowly approached
the back door and, with the rock, gently tapped out the remaining
glass. When the frame was clear of the sharp shards, she clambered
through the window frame into the kitchen. Without any hesitation,
she proceeded quickly upstairs into Peter’s bedroom.

Even when
standing on the tip of her toes she could not reach the hatch to
the attic. She stopped and looked round the room, scratching and
mumbling, until her eyes lay upon a chair. The chair was dragged to
underneath the attic hatch and then she scrambled onto the chair
and flicked the lock of the hatch. Sarah was not prepared for the
quickness of the hatch as it swung down quickly towards her
head.

She managed to
duck away from it, but in his haste earlier in the night Peter had
not put the ladder away properly so it was not locked into place.
So, when Sarah released the lock of the hatch, the heavy ladder
slammed down into Sarah as she was ducking away from the hatch. It
slammed into her back and sent her flying off the chair. The ladder
continued its journey and smashed into the top of the chair,
breaking the chair into pieces.

Sarah lay on
the floor where she had landed, breathing heavily, a look of shock
on her face. She managed to roll onto her back where she lay on the
floor for some time, sucking air into her winded lungs until she
gently pushed herself up into a sitting position. Up and down her
back where the ladder had crashed into her she ran her hand and
then gingerly got to her feet still breathing heavily.

For a moment
she stood at the foot of the ladder and seemed to be contemplating
what she was about to do. It was not as if Peter was not going to
be able to guess who had burgled him; he certainly would not need a
degree in nuclear physics to work that one out. But then she got
another thought which was that she had come this far so she might
as well go through with it. Plus, she was stealing drugs; it was
not as if he could go running to the police. With this thought she
climbed the ladder.

It was her
initial intention to simply lift the suitcase that contained the
drug, the red one if she remembered rightly, and carry it home.
But, on trying to lift it she discovered it was too heavy for her
to lift down from the attic without doing herself an injury. So
instead she dropped down off the ladder and rooted through his room
for a bag which she eventually found.

In all
eagerness she scrambled back up the ladder with the bag and opened
the suitcase. She grabbed as many as the syringes as she could see
and then grabbed as many of the packages of the powder that she
could fit into the bag, but when she tried to lift the bag she
realised she could not, so she had to remove some until she could
comfortably lift it down from the attic. She did not bother
returning anything to their original positions, but instead made
her way downstairs and brazenly out of the front door which she
pulled closed behind her. Sarah slung the bag over her shoulder and
started the long walk home.

*

Peter left the
hotel in the early hours of the morning, sneaking off, leaving the
blonde to face in the morning the bill of an expensive hotel and
two bottles of expensive champagne. He had enjoyed her body, but
she was just another person to be used for his pleasure and
promptly forgotten. Driving quickly home he was looking forward to
a long shower and good sleep to refresh him for tonight’s
business.

Upon opening
his front door he felt a draft blow from the kitchen but it did not
really register with him that this was strange. Instead, he made
his way upstairs taking his shirt off as he went. He turned the
light on in his bedroom, threw his shirt onto his bed and turned
away, not registering the sight before him. However, he quickly
turned back around and looked again into his room.

The broken
chair, the open attic hatch and the ladder was down where he had
definitely not left it. For now though, he did not panic. It was
quite feasible for the hatch to drop and the ladder to drop too.
Hell, how many times had he not put the ladder up properly and then
have it nearly knock him out as it dropped towards him? Lots of
times. What was puzzling though was how the chair had managed to
walk itself over from his desk to underneath the ladder? Still, he
did not panic and decided to check the house for any signs of a
break-in.

Peter scampered
downstairs and felt the draft again and this time it did register.
He threw open the kitchen door and turned on the light. There was
glass scattered all over the kitchen floor and now the panic did
set in. He ran back upstairs into his bedroom and quick as a flash
scaled the ladder. Throwing open the red suitcase he looked inside
it, looked away and then looked in again as if he expected the
missing drugs to reappear between the moments he looked. He slid
back down the ladder and for a few moments he paced around his
bedroom trying to regain his temper. He failed, miserably. He
kicked the ladder and then screamed at the top of his voice. ‘You
fucking BITCH!’

*

Sarah had
reached home and had taken a couple of hits of heroin and was just
falling into a drug fuelled state of ecstasy when distantly,
seemingly from another planet, she heard a loud banging. With her
belt still fastened around her arm, she stumbled over to the window
and noticed a car parked askew across the street. The banging
happened again and from outside she heard someone shout, a male
voice.

‘Open this
fucking door or I’ll knock it down!’ There was no response so the
battering commenced again. It must have been loud and violent
because after this attack on the door and another threatening
verbal comment, Sarah heard the door open.

‘Can I help you
deary?’

‘Yes you
fucking can you alcoholic bitch. Where the fuck is your druggie
daughter?’

‘She’s out I
think. Do you want to come in and have a cup of tea and wait for
her?’

‘A cup of tea?!
A cup of fucking tea?! Go and get her or I’ll come in there and get
her myself!’

Sarah peered
across the street and noticed that some of the neighbours were
either stood at their windows or stood at their front doors. In her
lingerie and with the belt still tied around her arm, Sarah
stumbled downstairs.

Peter spotted
her appear at the foot of the stairs. ‘You know what I’m here for
Sarah. Get them and then I’ll go and leave you to your pathetic
life!’

‘Mum, go and
sit down.’

‘Okay
deary.’

Her mum went
back into the living room and Sarah turned to confront Peter. ‘I
don’t know what you mean.’

‘Yes you damn
well fucking do! Go and get them and then I’ll leave!’

By now both of
Sarah’s neighbours were stood in their respective gardens watching
the scene unfold, one of them clearly staring at Sarah’s lacy
lingerie clad large breasts. ‘Oh right, do you mean the drugs that
you’ve been dealing? I don’t know where they are.’

‘Considering
you’ve got a fucking BELT tied round your arm Sarah, I think you do
know what I mean! You’ve got ten seconds to go and get them
otherwise I am going to come in there and beat the shit out of you
and your mum you little fucking druggie! Go and get MY FUCKING
DRUGS!’

Sarah turned to
one of her neighbours, a huge man, ex-marine and hard as iron
girders. ‘See Bob, he is a drug dealer. Didn’t your youngest die
because of a drug overdose?’

Bob nodded in
the affirmative. ‘I’ll tell you what sunshine, why don’t you get
back in your car and stop disturbing the peace otherwise I’ll step
over this fence and rip you apart!’

‘Fuck you old
man! Sarah, be sensible and go and get me what I want, there’s a
good girl.’

Peter did not
see or hear Bob step over the low fence and he did not realise that
he was behind him until he felt a large arm wrap around his neck
and drag him down into a headlock.

‘I don’t like
dirty drug dealing scumbags coming into my neighbourhood,
threatening my good neighbours, breaching our peace and waking me
up! Now, we’re going to walk over to your car and you’re going to
get into your car and go back to whatever drain you crawled out of
okay?’