The Tapestry

                                           
 
THE TAPESTRY

                                
                    
CHAPTER ONE

      Have you ever wondered what life is like beyond what we perceive it to be? Well my friend, you may just be about to find out. Don’t bother with the light... It won’t help.

      This is a story of unconditional love, whether it
be right or wrong.

      Gavin is the name of our mai
n character. Don’t laugh at him. If we picked our own names I’m sure there are many Albert’s and Cedric’s that would have chosen differently.

      Before we begin I feel I must tell you
a little about Gavin. You see, he’s a strange one. He is often called the Freak, purely because his colleagues are not so clever themselves. I mean come on... The Freak?  Not very original is it. That will give you some idea of the type of people we are dealing with. He was often picked on in school because he used to talk to himself...
a lot
, (some say this is a sign of madness... others believe it to be a sign of intelligence. I will leave you to make up your own mind about that)

      You would think that the name calling and the childish pranks would stop as he got older wouldn’t you? Well, in a normal situation... they would
, but Gavin was branded The Freak throughout his adult life too.

      What was wrong with him? I hear you ask. Was there anything strange about Gavin? Again dear reader I will leave that up to you
.

      We begin our story on a journey back from France. Gavin wo
rks for a large haulage company named Quest Haulage. It’s a journey he has done many times before, delivering a myriad of skiwear to a company in Pra Loup.

      On this particular night Gavin was only two hours from home. He was looking forward to getting home and wrapping his
arms around his beautiful girl Michelle. He’d not seen her for four days now and she meant the world to him. She was twenty two, Gavin was twenty eight. She was a bit of a bombshell and he always questioned how he had landed a girl like her. Michelle was very petite with short blonde hair, a very curvaceous body, slender hips and a 36c bra size. Not too big, not too small. Gavin was definitely a breast man although he also loved her long slender legs. The rest I will leave to your imagination. As you can see, he wasn’t too fussed about personality.

      Gavin is your average Joe. Tall with dark hair, always cut s
hort. Slim but not too muscular, He is always clean shaven; you definitely wouldn’t notice him in a crowd. In fact he shied away from crowds or any situations that may require interaction with other people.

     
So how had he landed the blonde bombshell at home if he was so shy? A very good question, which will be answered in due course. For now let’s get back to the story.

      Gavin had been driving now for more hours than he cared to remember which is why he pulled in at the service station, he needed a rest. Once inside he ordered a coffee and sat down. He put his legs up on the chair opposite and attempted to stretch. The damn things were screwed to the floor though. The lights were too bright and it stunk of disinfectant. Not much of a “welcome break”.

      He so wanted to light up a coffin nail, but recent laws stated he must stand outside like some pariah if he wanted to do so; instead he sipped at the black treacle feigning to be coffee. Suddenly he was gripped by a feeling of such utter dread and revulsion that he couldn’t pick his coffee up. His hand was shaking so much he daren’t try. His stomach felt like a washing machine on spin. There was something wrong at home. He had no idea
why
or
how
he knew, it was beyond his comprehension at the time... he just
did
. They do say when you love somebody so much that there is an unbreakable bond. Much like with twins. Well this is what Gavin felt that night. He had to get home... and fast.

    He left an overly generous tip as he didn’t have time to wait for change and made his way to the truck. He was back home in Levenshulme an hour and twenty five minutes later. He lived in Hinstock Crescent which was a one way in, one way out situation so he always had to park in the supermarket car park and walk the five minutes home. This night it took him two
.

    As he drew nearer
to home he saw that the lights were on and began to feel more comfortable.
Maybe he was just being paranoid
. Could be that the time away had begun to take its toll on him. He did love Michelle so. He hated being away from her, she was the only person who had ever fully understood him and loved him for who he was. He strode slowly up to the house, all feelings of fear departed.

    His house was at the bottom of the cul-de-sac
, the front of it framed in a dull glow emitting from the sodium lamp directly outside his meagre garden, there were three low bushes that bordered the property. One of which ran the full length of one side into the back garden itself.

    He fumbled for his keys in his fleece pockets, realising only as he got to the front step that they were in his jeans pocket
as they had a habit of falling from the shallow pockets of his fleece. Feeling rather relieved that he hadn’t dropped them; he entered the house and shrugged his coat off. It was one of those houses which looked nice from the outside, but it was a no frills job. You walked straight into the living room, no fuss of a porch or hallway, just straight in. It’s those extra details like a hallway or foyer that make a house a home and not just a house. Gavin liked it though and even more importantly, so did Michelle. Since she had come to live with him maybe three years ago now, he knew he would be happy living in a box under the bridge spanning the canal if Michelle was with him

    The lights didn’t stay on for very long. There was a brief flash and then as he turned to hang his coat up he felt an acute, violent pain on the back of his head. The lights went out again
.

   
‘Wake up you little piece of shit’
yelled Craig.

Gavin was beginning his ascent back to reality. He had been knocked out cold by the baseball bat to the back of his head. As he began to wade through the
black fog before his eyes, he could feel his consciousness catching up two or three seconds later. His head felt as heavy as a bowling ball and was just as difficult to hold up, his vision was blurred with blood. Once he had winked out the warm liquid from his eye
(the one that he could open at least)
he realised he had unwelcome house guests, who had clearly out stayed any welcome they may have had. Also just to put the cherry on the cake he was tied to the bottom of his stairs using the tow rope from his own car. The stairs descended straight into the front room so Gavin had a clear view of what had been going on.

    There were three men in the house all from Quest. The first one he noticed was Craig. He was about forty five, average height, very thickset although mostly just overweight, also completely bald. He was the one now pouring forth an effusion of accusations at Gavin.

    ‘
Are you listening to me you little cocksucker?’

Craig repeatedly kick
ed Gavin in the calf as he demanded a response.

   
‘If you don’t answer me I swear I'm gonna stuff my hand down your throat, rip your balls up through your mouth and wear them as earrings.’

   
‘What the hell do you want?’ Spat Gavin. ‘Get out of my house; I don’t know what you want’

   
‘Maybe you just need a little reminder then.’

    This voice wasn’t Craig
it was Pinky. Gavin didn’t know his real name but he was the youngest one of the three. He was in his early twenties, slim, short spiky hair. Gavin had always imagined him to be a bit of a ladies man. He was rising from the couch while Phil was scraping the mud from his boots onto the coffee table.

   Phil was as black as a moonless night and built like the side of a bus. Typically he also seemed to have the brain capacity of a flea.

    Pinky was wearing a quarter length black leather jacket, white t-shirt and faded jeans. They all looked strangely different to Gavin, not wearing their blue Quest jackets with the company logo emblazoned in gold across the left breast. When they wore the blue jackets, they were part of something bigger,
(they were on company time then)
they could never have harmed him
(much)
in those jackets, too easy to pick out. But now... well now was a whole different story. They had worn their own personalities tonight and Gavin didn’t like it one bit. It was from the jacket pocket that Pinky produced the tin of lighter fluid which he was now waving in Gavin’s face.

   
‘Gonna teach you not to mess with my woman ya little freak.’

   
‘
Yeah freakazoid you should’ve learnt to keep your hands to yourself. Well you won’t have to worry about that after today cos we’re gonna fuck you up big time’ Yelled Craig.

    The light was slowly beginning to dawn on Gavin
.

J
ust before he left for France, Pinkys’ girlfriend... Laura was her name he thought, but he wasn’t sure. She had come to pick Pinky up from work and was in the canteen waiting for him to finish. She had gotten herself a cup of coffee or something similar. Gavin was tying his shoelace so didn’t see her as he turned round and stood up.

    He knocked the coffee out of her hand and it went all over her top and in her face. Luckily it wasn’t hot enough to scald. You would think that spilling coffee all over the poor girl is where Gavin made his mistake, but no.... what he did next is where he made his biggest mistake. He obviously hadn’t meant to harm the girl in any way whatsoever. It had just been an accident. He wanted to help, so he picked up some
napkins from the holder off the table at the side. He apologised profusely and then proceeded to pat the girl down just above her chest area.

    (
As you and I know, most girls wouldn’t want to be touched in this area without prior permission or at least some sort of a come on. So what she did next was not surprising at all.)
She slapped Gavin hard across the face pulling away from him. As she pulled away though, she slipped on the spilled coffee. He still had hold of her blouse which tore exposing her left breast,
(she wasn’t the sort to wear bras)
as she went down, the momentum had dragged Gavin down with her. They both fell in a heap. She was screaming at him to get off her. He didn’t realise that his hand was actually on her breast as he fought for purchase to get up. It was at this most opportune of moments that Pinky and Craig strolled into the canteen. Oh yeah... it was a real Kodak moment.

    The next thing Gavin could recall
, he was on the floor being kicked about like a bloody football by the two of them. They probably would have carried on like that too if one of the managers hadn’t heard the melee’.

    The police were called and once normality had returned, Gavin was let off the hook once the girl had explained what had actually happened. Although she was pissed, she knew it had only been an unfortunate accident
.

    Of course, that wasn’t the end of it as far as Pinky was concerned. And now he realis
ed this is why he had unexpected house guests.

                                                   
CHAPTER TWO

    Gavin was trying to loosen the hold that the rope had on his wrists but to no avail. Pinky had actually begun spurting lighter fluid over him. That's when the lightning bolt hit him.

   
‘Where’s Michelle?’
he yelled ‘What’ve you done with her?’

The lads were pretty dumbfounded. They had no
idea he had a girlfriend. Not the freak surely? Craig knelt beside Gavin.

   
‘Michelle don’t sound like the name you’d give a cat now does it? Are you tryin’ to tell me you have an
actual
girlfriend of your own....
really?
’

   
‘Well if he has a woman of his own then why was he pawin’ at mine? You sick perv’

This last statement was issued with another boot to the head
from Pinky. Gavin’s head rolled back and hit the balustrade behind, it felt as if it had splintered with the blow and his head lolled to one side, the bowling ball effect once again taking over. One thing he knew he couldn’t do right now was pass out, even though it would have been such sweet bliss just to let that fog wrap itself around him and take him away, he just couldn’t. He had to stay as alert as he possibly could, if not for him then for Michelle as god knows what they would do to her. The thought of them even touching her helped him keep his head above the fog...
just a while longer
, but he was starting to panic now...
really panic.