Following Anarchy (A One Direction horror fiction)

Following Anarchy - Chapter 1

Zayn threw his coat over a chair before roughly sitting down on the edge of his bed, his shoulders slumped over in exhaustion. The police reports had taken hours and hours, and the boys still had no idea what to think. Wiping his hand over his face, his thoughts moved to Harry; apparently, he had gone into some sort of shock when he had found Dan– Zayn still couldn’t bear to think about their friend, slumped over like that.

His mind hadn’t been functioning logically since they had found Harry and Dan, as fogged over as it was with shock and grief. Louis had been the only one to actually cry so far; he and Dan had been best mates for years, and the rest of them had just been unable to accept what had happened.

The police didn’t really have a handle on any of it either, especially since they had sent all of the boys home instead of keeping them at the station. Claimed it would be better for all of them, mentally, to get some rest, said they would call Dan’s family so the boys wouldn’t have to.

Of course, Zayn had a hard time believing anything they had said; their insincere smiles, hidden under those scruffy mustaches, just made him suspicious. Sure, they would probably call Dan’s family, but he doubted that they would be sensitive when they were breaking the news. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he felt his anger quickly rising to the surface, and he realized he was unable to stop it.

Jumping up from where he sat, he grabbed a picture frame – the photo showed him and Dan together, just outside the Little Cross House shortly after Dan had moved in – and didn’t even glance at it before throwing it across the room. To no surprise of Zayn, it hit the wall devastatingly hard, the glass shattering and the frame snapping into two or three pieces. With fists clenched, he walked over to the now-smashed photo frame and looked down at it, seeing that the picture was torn from where the glass had broken.

Zayn crouched down and slowly pulled the photo out from under the jagged pieces of glass and looked at it for a moment. When he finally stood up and dropped it back onto his desk, he had to wipe away the tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

They told all the boys to go home, back to their flats, but of course Niall had chosen not to. No fucking chance of that, going back to empty flat by himself, after what had happened; not bloody likely. Instead, he found himself wandering down the walking path that paralleled Cumberland Road, with a self-rolled joint in his hand. Holding it up to his lips, he inhaled deeply, allowing the smoke to sit in his mouth for a moment or two before blowing it out in a long, slow breath. After a moment or so, he felt the certain light feeling and the warmth that always filled his body when he smoked the good stuff; it just seemed to remove everything bad from his mind and push it somewhere else so that he didn’t have to deal with it. At least, for the time being, anyway.

He took another long drag as he approached the bridge across the river to Coronation Road. He didn’t hesitate to cross the bridge, the wind catching his blonde fringe and pushing it away from his face. His blue eyes were already beginning to glaze over, a side-effect of the drug, but he pushed forward, knowing exactly where he was planning to go. Once over the bridge, he crossed the road and turned left, somehow managing to keep from tripping over himself in his hazy state. He didn’t walk very far down the street; before the next intersection even came into view, he found himself standing outside of a short red building, with wide yellow letters advertising “The Avon Packet,” specializing in wines, spirits, and ciders of every kind.

Niall dug around in his pocket for a moment, and once he felt the wad of bills that he had been expecting to find, he dropped his fag to the ground, putting it out with his boot, before pushing open the door to the pub, the sound of heavy music and stiflingly-warm air inviting him in.

Liam stepped out of the small building, his thick coat wrapped tightly around him, though his buzz-cut did little to nothing to keep the top if his head warm. Flipping his collar up, he wondered why in the world he had decided to go for a walk at this hour; it was well past midnight by now, a time when he would have normally been asleep. Not to mention, Jeff would probably throttle him if he found out that Liam had been out of the house at such an hour.