Parties, Poison and Sleeping In

sixsixsix

It had been a long time since I'd seen the sea and I thought it was beautiful. Sure, there was a huge rusting crane hanging over the water and cargo ships littered the horizon, but the orange glow from the sunset compensated for all of that.

I turned slightly as I heard shoes shuffling across the concrete platform that jutted out into the water. Gerard was walking towards me, his brown and red hair dancing in the salty sea breeze. He stopped and stood beside me, looking out into the glowing sun. His features turned orange as the light bounced off him, even his eyes glowed amber.

"You ready?" He asked, turning away from the sun and casting his face into shadow.

I sighed, shrugging at the same time. "Ready as I'll ever be."

He smiled and draped his arm over my shoulders. "It won't be that bad."

"I suppose suffocation's nothing compared to what we've been through," I joked, eyeing up the container ship docked a few feet away.

"Yeah, BLI have thrown more at us than airtight containers," he laughed, "c'mon, the boys will be waiting for us."

We walked back to a dull concrete building in which three boys were sitting at a window. They smiled as we approached.

The building we entered smelled of salt and seaweed and was quite old fashioned, with white door frames and yellow walls.

"Can we go yet?" Frank's head was sticking out of a door at the foot of a carpeted staircase.

Gerard shook his head and made his way down the narrow hallway, me at his heels.

"We have to wait until it's dark," he said for what was the fourth time today. Frank stuck out his bottom lip and disappeared into the room behind the door.

When we entered, everyone was sat with their arms crossed, looking disgruntled.

"The ship could be gone by night time," Frank whined.

Gerard shook his head again, "no, it'll still be there. I don't think they're leaving until the morning."

"How do you know that?" Ray challenged.

"Half of the containers are still on the dock. Look, do you want to be sat in a cold shipping container until the morning?"

As always, Gerard had won the argument.

It turned out he was right - the workers left about an hour later, leaving the ship half empty. I was beginning to feel nervous, the ship was headed to Norway, but we had to cross the freezing cold Atlantic first. And the Titanic kept coming to mind; who was going to save a bunch of killjoys trapped in a shipping container, sinking quickly into the black of the ocean?

Even the feast of cheeseburgers and coke - courtesy of Ray and his thieving skills - couldn't settle my nerves. We were going to die, I was sure of it.

It was made worse by the fact that Ray and I were the only strong swimmers; Gee and Frank were okay, Mikey couldn't swim at all.

There was also the issue of getting caught. Even with the world in the state it is, sneaking into a country was a very bad, very illegal thing to do. And what if we suffocated? Some of these containers were airtight!

"Eat up Lil, it'll be the last warm meal you have for a while," Gee said, nudging my arm.

"Or ever," I muttered, tearing a bit of the bread off and chewing on it slowly.

Everyone was waiting for me to finish, and I knew that as soon as I did it would be time. For that, I ate as slowly as I could. I could see Gerard knew what I was doing and he glared at me, tapping his foot impatiently. I smiled toothlessly through a mouthful meat and cheese.

Eventually I did finish and I was hurried out of the building. I could still hear the waves but the seabirds and the glowing sunset had gone.

"C'mon," Gerard hissed at us. We followed him, trying to minimise the shuffling noise our feet were making.

We were feet away from our destination when I stopped, grabbing onto the closest person to me - Mikey.

We both carefully peeked behind a truck and saw four torch beams searching the dock. Dracs.

I knew we were going to die, but I never anticipated this.

"Gerard," Mikey whispered. Ahead of us a dark silhouette turned our way.

"What?"

"Dracs, looking for us, no doubt."

Gerard backtracked to stand by us, Ray and Frank following.

"Guns out. Mikey, look after Lily."

"Gerard, I can look after myself," I argued, keeping my voice down.

"Your aim is just as bad as when we first met..."

"I'm fine at close range!"

"I'm living proof that that statement is not true."

I growled under my breath but walked away, allowing Mikey to follow me.

Our mission was to kill the Dracs; they were searching every corner of the dock (including the shipping containers) so we had to kill them or they would find us.

It wasn't long before we saw flashing lights ahead of us so we rushed to help the others.

When we arrived, we found Gerard crouched behind an oil drum with his hands and gun resting on the top, shooting randomly. He saw us and stood up, just as Mikey started shooting at the closest Drac. I ducked as a beam of light shot past my ear just in time to see Frank and Ray arrive. We were all together, just like the good old days.

I fired and my laser beam hit the leader Drac in the leg. I flashed a smug smile at Gerard, who rolled his eyes and finished of my Drac, hitting it below the shoulder as it fell from the injury I had caused.

"You would never have got that if I hadn't shot it first," I said.

"But you were probably aiming for me and missed..." Gerard smirked, taking down another Drac.

There was one left. It seemed panicked, looking between the five of us frantically. I almost felt sorry for it, until it took off in the opposite direction.

"Damnit," Mikey muttered, hurrying after it.

Gerard stood staring at the Drac's shrinking figure before raising his gun and shooting twice; both beams of light hit the Draculoid in the center of the back. It crumpled and Mikey skidded to a halt, looking back at his brother in amazement.

Gerard simply looked at me, smiling. "Didn't need any help that time, did I?"

I scowled and turned, strolling toward the nearest body. No-one followed.

"Well is anyone gonna help me get rid of these things or what?" They nodded and made their way over.

The Dracs were thrown into the sea. It was a sad end for them, but after living like we had, we'd gotten used to the misery life sent us. We just got on with it, that was the only way to survive.

We had stalled too much, the tip of a sunrise was already appearing on the horizon - the dock workers would be back soon.

After staring at many containers, Mikey decided that a dark blue, slightly rusted one gave us the best chance of surviving, so after prying it open with various metal tools lying around the platform, we slipped inside, slamming the heavy metal doors behind us. The dockmen would lock us in when they got here.

It was dark in the container, but full of air and I was glad to see holes in the roof and walls. Death by suffocation would have to wait for another day.

Our temporary house was pretty much empty, apart from a few crates that we had made benches. It smelled of rust and stagnant salt water and the floor underneath our feet was dented, with puddles filling in the rippled metal.

All in all, this place was awful, and it was only going to get worse, but I didn't want to think about that just yet...