Grunt Life: A Short Story

Chapter 2: Back Alley Grunts

The alley stank. Half a dozen black wheelie bins loitered at the end of the lane and still there were crushed up beer cans and old chip trays in a pile on the floor. And you could tell more than one man had relieved themselves behind those bins because of the smell and stains on the wall.

If the sun hadn't been directly overhead, we would have been lost in shadows. The alley wasn't even wide enough for a small car to pass through; snaking between two towering brick buildings like a worm digging through soil. One of the buildings was covered top to bottom in bordered up windows, the other was plain by comparison, with only a couple of steel grey shutters leading into the alley. Most likely locked until whatever was in there needed to be moved again. There was also a small plastic canopy held up by rusty old poles. Probably used to be the designated smoking area for whatever business used to operate here. Hazza had seized full advantage of that, stylishly he pulled his third fag of the day out his mouth and blew a big puff of smoke into the air. He had added a black jacket to his outfit, the colour matching his jeans. And, like myself, had a balaclava tucked in his pocket in case we needed to hide our faces. I tried to reason that wearing them would only make us look more suspicious, but he wasn't in the mood for arguments so I just went along with it. 

We had been joined by three other guys who all looked to be in their twenties same as us. Hazza had introduced us as Z and Ronny. If that was the reason he came up with my nickname, to hide my real identity for jobs like this, then maybe he did have a functioning brain after all. The others hadn't been courteous enough to even give fake names, so I just referred to them as Tache, Cut and Bones. 

Tache, as you can imagine, had a hairy black caterpillar sitting atop the lips that hid his dirty yellow teeth. He had crop cut brown hair and a crooked nose, sported an all grey tracksuit, trainers and a tattoo on the back of his neck, not that I could tell what it was, nor did I care. Cut stood a head taller than the rest of us. He wore black jeans, a grey t-shirt and zip up purple hoodie with a curly black mop of hair perched on his head and a nose ring. Oh, and he had a cut on his cheek. A thin red mark tracing his jawline. Bones was skinny. And I mean, skinny. It looked like someone had tried to suck all the fat and muscle mass out of his body, leaving behind a shrivelled dwarf skeleton with dark skin. It didn't help his case that he was shaven bald and his clothes looked three sizes too big for him. Like a child wearing their parent's clothes. They didn't want to talk. At least not to us. Cut and Bones kept making comments to each other in a foreign language I didn't recognize. I guessed they were of African descent because of their skin tone, unlike Tache who was pale white and might have been aiming for cliché Chav.

We'd only been given a dribble of information about what we were doing. That was apparently on a need to know basis. Hazza's contact, Tammy, had told us to meet in this alley at 14:00, just hang around and try to scare off anyone who approached. Not that we were likely to see anyone; we were half a mile away from the main street on the edge of the town centre in the middle of the day. Me and Hazza had each nipped home before meeting up again, so I'd grabbed a knife from the kitchen that I'd hidden up the sleeve of my hoodie. Just in case. Hazza said Tammy had promised that this job was more a precaution than anything else. But I didn't know her so her word meant nothing to me. Hazza was probably just trying to get in the lady's good graces and I'm sure you can assume why. All I knew was if it went south, I was pulling on my balaclava and dashing out of there. I didn't have my phone on me cuz I didn't want to risk it getting stolen or smashed and I'd only brought about a fiver in change. If I had any money, I wouldn't have been there in the first place. 

A sudden fluttering movement above caused my head to snap up and I caught a couple of pigeons flying through the murky sky. Cut shot me a look and snorted, then made another comment to Bones who chuckled at whatever he said. I ignored them. Instead, against my better judgement, I leant against the wall and tried to keep my head down; taking long deep breaths to try and calm my nerves. I hadn't realized how on edge I was. 

From the corner of my eye I saw Tache walk over to Hazza, one hand down the front of his tracksuit bottoms, the other holding a unlit fag between his index and middle finger, which he presented to Hazza. 

"Can you light me up?" he said in a voice that screamed chain smoker, almost hacking the words out of his mouth. How did HE not have a lighter? Silently Hazza slipped his lighter out of his pocket, clicked it until a small flame sparked to life and held it up Tache's fag. 

"Thanks," the guy coughed out, then wandered off past the plastic canopy to enjoy his cancer stick. Hazza on the other hand, dropped his fag, stamped it out and slinked over towards me with his hands in his pockets. 

"See," he murmured at me, "Easy money." 

"How long have we got to stay here exactly?" I asked feeling a chill on my neck. Hazza shrugged and kicked at nothing. 

"Couple of hours maybe."

"How long we bin here?" Hazza extracted his hand from his jacket to check the fake designer watch on his wrist. 

"Thirty five past two." I just nodded as he returned his hand to the warmth of his pocket. I didn't wanna challenge him on the facts that not only did he answer my question incorrectly, but also that part of the hour is called twenty five to. I knew which battles to pick with him. But there was something bugging me. 

"Don't it look suspicious that five of us are just hanging around here? Wouldn't that draw more attention to whoever wants what's in there?" I said thumbing over at the shutters. Hazza shot me a look. A serious look. 

"Mate we're not here to ask questions, just shuddup." I knew that tone. I'd heard it before, so I backed off. But I couldn't stop that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something was wrong. Why would you hire some random grunts to stand in a back alley for a couple of hours to protect something inside a building.

For the next few minutes I tried to settle my thoughts, put the unease out of my mind. But the more I tried to push my anxiety away, the more it fought back. I shoved my hands into the pockets on my hoodie. They were shivering violently. From the cold, maybe, from anxiety, more than likely; regardless I didn't want the others to see and think I was scared. I wasn't scared. Just... really, really nervous. I asked Hazza for the time again, but I could tell by the way he thrust his watch in my face that my attitude was starting to agitate him. Twenty to three. Only five minutes had passed since I'd asked him the first time.

My gaze shifted from one end of the alley to the other. Eyes darting from Cut to Bones and back again. Down to Tache, still enjoying the fag Hazza had lit for him. Then down to the rubbish on the floor and across to the wheelie bins. Round to Hazza himself, who had leant on the wall beside me, and finally over to the shutters on the far wall. Something just wasn't adding up. 

"Mate, something's off here," I whispered to Hazza. I couldn't stop myself. Alarms bells were ringing in my head and I wanted out of there. 

"Ronny. Chill out will ya. You wanna get yer money or not?" he whispered back. 

"But..."

"But nothing. It's gonna be fine right." I really wish he hadn't said that. That was like the token character in a horror film saying 'It's too quiet in here'.

And as if to prove me right, that was the moment when a figure rounded the corner at the end of the alley.