Human Sized Hurricane | Michael Clifford

Chapter 20 - Clean Up

"You at home?" Michael asked, standing beside a telephone box at the corner of the diner in town. He silently grimaced as the pain in his shoulder had gotten worse since the accident. His jeans were ripped and his shirt wasn't its bright blue colour any more, but crimson with his blood and brown from the dirt. His shoes were brown as well with only a few drops of blood on them.

"Yeah. Why? You going to come home now, little brother?" Bobby's sinister voice said to him on the other end of the line, with the obvious cigarette in between his lips.

"I need to get cleaned up" Michael said, looking down at himself and his battered knuckles.

"Well, it's just me here tonight, and you live here too remember. But don't be bringing home no girls with you. I'm not in the mood for it tonight" Bobby told Michael, his voice husky and broken as he spoke. He took the phone away from his ear and coughed, blowing the smoke from his lungs back out again.

"That sounds pretty bad. Do you need to go to the doctors?" Michael asked as Bobby put the phone back to his ear and took another drag from his cigarette.

"No! No, I'm fine" Bobby tried to say in between coughing and wheezing. "Just get your ass back here so I can show you something" He said, then slammed down the phone and continued coughing with his hand covering his dirty covered mouth. He took away his hand and looked at it, seeing blood covering it and watching as it dripped down onto the sofa. Meanwhile, Michael put the phone back into the booth and limped back to his car, knowing Bobby wouldn't hurt him if he wasn't high or drunk, so he started the engine and drove back towards the dark street where the house was, arriving a few quiet moments later. He pulled up in front of the house, surprise to see only Bobby's car on the drive and nobody else's for once. His keys were in his hand and the revolver in the waist band of his jeans as he made his way up to the front door of the house, letting himself in through the front door. He shut it quietly and cautiously but casually stepped into the living room, as Bobby coughed up more blood, and wiped his hands on some kitchen roll. He lifted up his head and grinned with merry delight as he saw his brother standing in the doorway watching him, his left shoulder against the dirty door frame and right arm resting behind his back. "How you doing, little brother?" Bobby asked, standing up like a normal brother would, not like a drunk and violent man.

Michael nodded nervously, a tear filling up in his glistening eyes. "I'm alright. How's your cough?" He replied, pointing to the bloody kitchen towels on the coffee table completely empty and half full bottle of drink as Bobby shrugged and slumped back down onto the sofa. "I'm starting to think it's not all about the money with the girl's dad" Michael dared to say, kicking himself mentally and staying in the door way.

Bobby turned his head and smirked. "True. His daughter's hot and you're the lucky guy who's going to get close to her. Its about priorities now, my boy. And family is everything to us now" He told him, starting up his laptop on the coffee table.

"What was your plan in the first place? Did you really mean all that you said?" Michael asked, crossing his arms.

Bobby scoffed. "No!" He chuckled, his eyes glued to his laptop screen. "I don't even remember kicking you out of the house" He said.

"Well, there are bullet holes in my car and the girl and her dad are missing" Michael said, acting as if he knew nothing about the two.

Bobby frowned and turned to look at Michael, illuminated slightly by the glow of his laptop screen. "Missing? What as in like... 'dead missing' or 'haven't been home in a while missing'?" He questioned.

"You really have no clue? They've been gone for three days almost and there was a huge gun fight in their house! How could you not know about that?" Michael interrogated.

"No, no, no" Bobby shook his head dismissively. "I knew there was a shootout because I sent some of my guys went round there and the girl's rich daddy killed them all" He said truthfully. "But I had no idea they'd go on the run. It's all a big hoax just to scare the 'big money daddy' into giving me money, for Christ sake" Bobby told his brother, then turned back to his laptop. As he faced forward, his head became dizzy and numb. He closed his eyes and gripped what little hair he had, bearing his teeth. Suddenly, he began chuckling with a smirk in Michael's direction, but the chuckles turned into coughing and wheezing as Bobby struggled for breath and Michael stood and watched in the door way. Blood flew out of Bobby's mouth as he gripped his throat and fell down into his knees bending over the bottles across the coffee table and knocking a few of them off, then he coughed a few last times and dropped to the floor, rolling in his own blood until the coughing and wheezing stopped and Bobby lay completely still on the carpet, his eyes wide and staring at the ceiling, as Michael never moved while his brother died before him.

As soon as Bobby had stopped moving, Michael climbed the stairs as fast as he could, stripping his clothes off in the process and as he reached his bedroom, he closed the door and locked it in case Bobby wasn't completely dead, placing a chair in front of it as he tossed his bloody and dirty shirt onto the floor of his room, then his jeans and the rest of his clothes before walking into his bathroom and getting in the shower. He let the warm water soak into his hair and skin, finally washing away the muck and blood from his broken body as he watched the dirty shower water disappear through the plug hole, then the water gradually turned to clear, allowing Michael to breath properly for the first time in a long time. And after washing and rinsing himself thoroughly, he got out of the shower and dried his clean, naked body with a towel, grimacing at the number pain from the accident as he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped in front of the mirror. The majority of his left shoulder was covered in bruises that stretched down to the middle of his chest and scratches that were already healing. His arm had a cut near his elbow that wasn't bleeding anymore and he could see the natural colour of his own skin for once.