The Voice Within

Tom Tyler was having a horrible day. He’d just woken up in some dingy smelly alleyway to the stench of his own smell and the bright sunlight to blind his eyes. He looked and felt a complete mess. The first thing he had tried to do was stand up. After that had failed several times, he tried to remember what he had been doing the last couple of days. But all he could remember was missing work, wasting the days away with his mates in the afternoons, partying at night then sleeping away the mornings. When he tried to think back what had happened last night, his head hit a painful blank wall from the time he had managed to persuade his mates into a drink, until the time now when he had woken up with a heavy hangover, lying in a pile or rubbish bins. The fact that he couldn’t remember a thing, didn’t scare or disturb Tom in any way, instead just simply annoyed him. He was past caring about the consequences of his drinking habits now. Instead he reached for his mobile and with clumsy fingers slowly tapped in Ronnie’s number.

After the tenth time of receiving no answer, he cursed under his breath and after finally managing to pick himself up; he began the long walk home. It was a good hour before he reached his house, and by then he not only stank but was covered in sweat and was hot and bothered by the long walk. People kept giving him queer looks as they stared at his stained t-shirt and ripped jeans. It made Tom feel like some worthless hobo, which he hated. He had money, a car, home and even a family. He had no idea why Ronnie didn’t have her phone on, just knew that he was going to give her a mighty slap when he got inside. She was always ready when he called, to come help him, if he’d managed to hit his head, sprain his ankle or even when it looked like he’d pissed his pants after one of his drunken nights when he couldn’t remember exactly what happened. And now, nothing? It wasn’t normal. The girl was up to something, he could tell. It was a Saturday, and he bet that she had probably sneakily held some party at the house without him consenting.

By the time he was at the door he already had exactly what he was going to say all worked out in his mind. Tom was not expecting the young lady that opened his door and smiled kindly at him. He jumped back in surprise, his eyebrows forming a long hard line. So it wasn’t just teenagers Ronnie had let in the house, it was older people as well. Strangers! In his house… Oh, Ronnie was going to get it so bad, his fists were already clenched as the images flashed through his mind. But first, he needed a drink, and he was pretty sure he had some vodka tucked underneath somewhere….

He pushed past the lady not even bothering to introduce himself. He wanted to be the one to see Ronnie’s face when he found her. Only when he stumbled into the house he saw a much worse sight than a full on party. The house was empty. The furniture was still there and everything, but someone had taken down all Luke’s picture that he had drawn and their coats and shoes weren’t in the hall way. He rushed upstairs into their bedrooms, only to have his worst fears already confirmed. Everything was uncannily tidy, the sheets were made up on the beds, the windows open for airing. The cupboard and wardrobes were all empty; Luke’s pile of magazines had disappeared. It was too much.

Tom fell to his knees, clutching Luke’s bedpost for support. There was only one time in his life, he’d felt like this before. The night his wife had left him, it’d felt like she’d sawn a huge hole in his heart and dragged out everything important with her when’d she left. Only to come back to him dead, from a pathetic car crash. Well, at least he’d thought that he had nothing left. Why was it only now that he was realizing that he had still had Luke and Ronnie, who were also just as precious? How could he have been so foolish and stupid? The tears were rolling down his unshaven cheeks when it finally clicked in his mind what had happened. The pain was too overwhelming for such a small man, who was so close to the edge, and had already lost so much. Instead his sadness slowly turned to anger; his grief turning into hate and his hand gripping too tightly against the soft wood of the bed.

One word managed its way through his clenched teeth, “Ronnie.”

He was so busy plotting what he was going to do the girl that he had once called daughter, and that had so maliciously betrayed him; telling strangers the private on goings in their family, that he didn’t notice the lady behind him until she spoke.

She had already been watching him for some time, wondering how she should play it, to make the arrest easier. She had not been expecting the thin, young athletic looking guy that was kneeling before her now, to be the abusive father. However she had never really looked so forward to the physical side of her job, and knew to never underestimate a suspect who didn’t want to be caught. “So um, are you their neighbour Sir? Ronnie and Luke spoke of a guy next door who visited them often?” she mumbled in what she hoped was a quiet, timid and innocent voice.

At the simple mention of their name Tom was on his feet into an instance, twisting around within a second and knocking the police officer with his forearm and fist with such force, that her back and head cracked into the back wall and she slumped to the floor. Drowsily she rolled onto her back, desperately trying to crawl away from the madman, she had underestimated. But the fear in her eyes, and the look of utter contempt and horror she gave him, only angered Tom even more, and he lunged for her again as he dragged her in to the living room.

The police officer began to shake as he held her up against the wall. A large bruise was slowly forming on the left side of her face and she could feel a hot warm liquid dribbling down her neck. She needed help. Where on earth was her partner?

“What did you say?” Tom growled at her, as fate chose at that moment to reveal the ID slipping out from her pocket. For the second time that morning Tom cursed under his breath. A police women? Where was her uniform? He immediately released her, instead pushing her roughly aside, meaning only to make a hasty escape. But the police officer was bleeding badly from a head injury, her vision was slowly going blurry as she tripped and crashed into the glass coffee table. Her scream stopped Tom in his tracks. She had fallen through the table, and now lay twitching on the floor in a forming pool of blood.

Tom looked away, instead staring in horror at his hands. Had he done that? Weirdly, his memory was beginning to come back to him, memories that had been blocked, not only because of his alcohol consumption, but because they were simply too horrible, to keep. But now they were coming back – memories of his baby Ronnie, lying abused and hurt in the living room, beside the coffee table, just like the police officer was now.

With no more time to think, Tom rushed over to the police officer, searching her pockets until he found her mobile phone. He took it with him and then left the house in a desperate search for Ronnie. He needed to talk to her, make her understand, he needed to hear her say that she forgave him. And if she didn’t….