Chapter 3 -Shifty: The Man, The Myth, The Cretin

I guess we should begin with the aptly named man himself, Shifty. What a problematic little fuck he was. Shifty was that utterly reckless, unpredictable maniac of a friend who would do just about anything you dared him to. No matter how moronically dangerous or grossly unethical it was, you could always count on Shifty to promptly ramp that shit up to eleven. That, in the briefest of nutshells, was how he quickly became known as “Shifty”. Well, that and the relentless drug abuse, incessant thievery, and his litany of questionable sexual endeavours. However, if you asked him where he got his sobriquet from, he would tell you that he was nicknamed Shifty (full name Shifty Hernandez) because he was part Mexican - he wasn't. I first met Shifty when I was sixteen one summer's morning at the local skate park, where I had spent much of my teen years hanging out with my best friends, Steve, Alan, and my younger brother, Sean. 

Steve was my childhood best friend. He hailed from a far more affluent, upper-middle-class family than the company we usually kept. You wouldn't have known, though - he was every bit as reprehensibly nefarious as the rest of us. He was the silver-spooned, secret black sheep of his family and a congruous addition to our rabble of contemptible miscreants. 

Alan was a spritely misfit who communicated mostly by yawping sentences veiled by outlandish, cartoonish noises. He was a very peculiar young lad - a trait owing largely to the fact that he was raised by his risibly bizarre father - a spindly local drunkard who could usually be found rumbustiously practising Kung-Fu in their living room by flapping his chi-filled fists at a set of tattered curtains.

I had wandered up the park by myself for a skate that morning when I first laid eyes on Shifty. He was meandering around the park by himself on a pair of cheap, haggard rollerblades. He had a side-swept emo fringe, a generous application of eyeliner, and a pair of fashionably ripped jeans lassoed to his waist by a withered piece of shoelace. I immediately thought he was a prick. I sat on one of the smaller ramps facing into the park whilst I rolled my ritualistic pre-skate joint. On the grass verge surrounding the back of the park opposite, I noticed an attentively stacked pile of branches, fly-tipped garden waste, and random woodland debris, which someone had collected together for some reason. Almost as soon as I'd noticed the pile, Shifty came coasting lazily towards it on his skates, clutching several rolls of old newspaper he had just ransacked out of his backpack. He cautiously sidestepped up the grass bank, slipped out of his rollerblades, and then began circling the pile of arbitrarily scavenged junk on his hands and knees, methodically stuffing fist-fulls of scrunched-up newspaper into the junk pile's various crevices. I lit my joint, curiously observing him as he pulled a lighter from his pocket and set the trash pile ablaze. He stood there for a few moments, staring gormlessly into his blazing creation with an expression of wondrous pride. Then, seemingly without any indication of thought or hesitation, he began feverishly removing various articles of clothing and systematically cast them into the fire until he was left standing in his shredded jeans. He poised there motionless for a moment, completely entranced by the fire, then put his rollerblades back on his now-bare feet, clambered off of the grass verge, and resumed rollerblading around the park semi-naked like nothing had happened, leaving the fire to rage wildly on the bank above. I'm unsure how or why we became friends from there, but we did. 

Over the short course of the following two to three weeks we spent hanging out with Shifty, he had quickly begun displaying some early-warning signs of his errant behaviour throughout a random series of incidents: 

1. Shifty got shitfaced on alcohol he’d stolen from a shop and somehow got himself into two separate naked boxing matches that were broadly spectated at a beach party we had invited him to, both of which he abruptly lost. The same night he got stuck nearly waist-deep in a mud plane as the tide was coming in because he had wandered across a marshland to piss in the sea. He also got caught ripping roof tiles off of a protected historical landmark and then took a shit in someone’s letterbox to top it all off on his way to buy a curry.

2. He robbed a local gaming store and then successfully deterred a police officer from arresting him during a lengthy pursuit through a bustling shopping centre by running the wrong way up an escalator and repeatedly hurling stolen computer gaming accessories at him.

3. He stole a large rowing boat, got caught by the owner, and still somehow evaded police. The same night he stole a jerry can full of petrol, threw it on a fire he had made, and damn near blew himself up in a giant explosion. He got a mention on the local radio for that incident.

4. Shifty accidentally dry-fucked a guinea pig to death at a house party after pretending to have extremely vigorous sex with it. I know – it’s fucking heinous.

5. He robbed a tattoo parlour and then turned himself into a human porcupine by piercing himself all over his body with a multitude of hollow needles, including a giant cannula needle, which he pierced through his arm just so he could smoke a spliff through it.

He was like this nefarious little imp that would inevitably end up doing stupid shit if left unsupervised for any length of time. Thus far, his reckless buffoonery hadn't really inconvenienced us. At that age, we found his shenanigans hilarious (besides reprehensibly dry-humping a guinea pig to death), so we allowed him to hang out with us. 

Concurrently, during this time, there had been a bizarre rise in deviant activity up at our local skate park, which had somehow become some kind of covert hub of alfresco sexual activities. Honestly, it was weird as fuck. We kept stumbling upon a lascivious array of delinquents performing all manner of perverted acts on each other up there over the course of a few months. There was even a written caution posted out to everyone, warning the local residents about reports of suspected paedophiles seen lurking around in that area. If only we had heeded that warning seriously. 

Late one night, Sean, Steve, Alan, Shifty, and I were all sitting stoned out of our fucking minds up at the skate park. It had got to the point that we were so high that no one was saying a fucking word to each other. We were all just silently perched on top of a ramshackle half pipe, each of us reticently immersed deep in our own ludicrous thoughts. We were shrouded in near pitch-blackness, camouflaged under a shady blanket of darkness cast over us by a thick, wooden barrier fenced around the top of the ramp. As we all slumped there, vacantly staring across the baron gravel car park on our right, a random man unexpectedly came strolling into it from the main road. Now, this was peculiar for two reasons:

1. We were at the furthest edge of the village, essentially in the middle of nowhere. No one ever ventured up that way at night, particularly on their own, as there was nothing out there except an unlit skate park, which was too dark to skate in, or miles of empty fields and dense forest.

2. The direction he was walking from was nothing but road for almost two miles, so he had mysteriously made a reasonable trek to come to a place where there was nothing to do unless you were five stoners sitting in the dark, not speaking to each other… or so I assumed. 

As he walked into the car park and towards the skate park, it became evident that he hadn’t noticed me or the boys concealed within a thick shroud of shadow on top of the half pipe. In a bewildered stupor of curiosity, we remained in collective silence, each of us attentively observing him as he hopped the fence and eagerly made his way towards the back of the skate park. He scaled the grass verge opposite and then unravelled a purple picnic blanket, neatly folding it out onto the grass. He sat on his blanket, had a quick check for any potential witnesses over each shoulder, unbuckled his belt, whipped his cock out, and then proceeded to beat his dick like a ginger stepchild in front of us all. After the briefest moment of utter speechlessness, we all simultaneously erupted into a howling fit of laughter from the dark, no more than three or four car lengths away from him. He shot up from his picnic blanket in a frenzied panic and hurriedly stuffed his still-hard dick back into his jeans. He swiftly fastened his belt buckle, snatched his blanket from the floor, and scurried back into the car park. He then made some kind of pitiful attempt to play it all off by suavely leaning against the car park fence and sparking a cigarette like he hadn’t just been caught publicly thumping his penis. He continued his shameless façade until our hysterical laughter became too much to endure, at which point he dropped the cool act and made a hasty retreat back out onto the main road. Shockingly, that certainly wasn’t the first venereal endeavour we had inadvertently stumbled upon in those recent months, but in a way, this one had served as an innocuous precursor to what would be one of the worst days of my fucking life.  

It was a few weeks later. My parents had been on holiday in Gran Canaria for the better part of a week and left me to look after the house with Sean. They were due back first thing in the morning the following day, leaving us with one last day of freedom, so needless to say, we decided to get hammered. The boys and I were loitering around the skate park, as usual, that evening, nursing a few beers and passing around some joints before we went back to my place for the night to party. That was when we spotted them. Walking across the field towards the skate park were these two deplorable little cunts we knew from back at school named Lauren and Katie. They were the most cliché counsel estate degenerates I had ever had the displeasure of knowing. Both of them were intemperately violent cretins who really had nothing better to do than thieve oxygen and behave vilely towards nearly everyone and everything they came into contact with. I fucking despised them. I knew in the second they appeared that they were up to no good. They menacingly strolled into the park, wielding a haggard golf club each as they suspiciously surveyed the area and made their way to the back of the park. Then, without even saying a word to each other, they suddenly began senselessly smashing the shit out of the half pipe with their buckled golf clubs like it owed them money. Now, I was an avid vandal myself at this time, so I recognised the hypocrisy in becoming so enraged with them for doing the same thing I'd done many times before elsewhere - but this was my skatepark. I scrambled to my feet in a fit of rage and furiously screamed:

Me: WHOA! WHAT THE FUCK DO YA THINK YOU’RE DOIN’!?

Lauren: WHAT DOES IT FUCKIN’ LOOK LIKE, DENNY!? …YA FUCKIN’ BELLEND!

With that, nearly everyone was drawn into a vehement screaming match across the skate park. I've never heard so many "cunts" and "fuck you's" in my life. The girls predictably began threatening to get their dads, brothers and various other "I'm-hard" any-bodies up to the skate park to "kick our fuckin' heads in", but we disparagingly laughed at their preposterous threats and quickly resumed with our outrageous verbal onslaught. Some way through the altercation, though, Shifty, who had been quietly observing in the background until now, decided that now was a good time to pipe up and eloquently express his thoughts. Now, I can't remember precisely what he said, but the conversation went something like this: 

Shifty: Oi, Katie! Isn't your mum that old fat slag in the village with fucked up legs?

Side note: Katie’s mum was an obese, wheelchair-bound amputee.

Katie: YOU FUCKIN' WHAT?!

Shifty: I've always wanted to plough a woman with no legs, so I can slip her onto my dick, spin her in circles and fuck ‘er like a rotisserie chicken. You know ‘er better than I do… d’ya think you could put the good word in for me? 

The park was struck with absolute silence. An ominous tension vice-gripped the air, seemingly grinding time down to a torturous crawl. Both parties remained stunned in a unified state of eerie quietude, utterly astonished at Shifty's outrageous remark. An astounded expression of unbridled rage began to corrugate across Katie's face. A riotous penance was imminent. Both girls suddenly leapt from the back of the park, stampeding toward Shifty like a pair of rabid juggernauts, fists raised and ready for blood. And there was Shifty, sitting smugly on the ramp, looking very pleased with himself, grinning like the cat that ate the canary. They launched themselves at him, raining down a ferocious avalanche of thumps, punches, elbows, slaps, and scratches onto his skull as he desperately tried to cover up whilst nervously laughing to himself. Instead of helping Shifty like any good friend should, though, we collapsed to the floor and just rolled around laughing our fucking asses off. We couldn't help it! It was instinctively hysterical. We were crippled into a cackling, teary mess of bodies across the concrete, watching two grisly reprobates kick seven shades of shit out of Shifty. Fortunately, they tired quickly, and in a breathless final fuck you, they ripped Shifty's rollerblades straight off of his feet and then sprinted off into the surrounding woodlands with them. We remained laughing uncontrollably for a good while after they vanished into the tree line before finally regaining enough composure to console Shifty for getting violently mugged by two schoolgirls. With those delightful young ladies now gone, the sun slowly setting overhead, and Shifty now looking like a poster child for domestic violence, we decided to make our way back to my house to get the party started.

It was now coming close to midnight. We had been drinking since we got back and were unexpectedly running low on alcohol, so Alan and Shifty decided to accompany Steve back to his house to grab some booze from his rich parent's well-stocked liquor cabinet. Sean and I seized the opportunity to take our dog for a late-night walk over the field where the skate park was because we had neglected to take him for a few days. Once over the park, Sean kept his head glued to his phone as we neared the far-end corner of the field with our dog. He then came to a gradual stop, leaving me walking several paces ahead without him. When I glanced back to investigate, I found Sean puzzling down at his screen a little way back in the dark, his face barely illuminated by the ambient blue glow of his phone. 

Me: What’s up, mate?

He looked back up at me in bewilderment through his brow and nervously uttered:

Sean: There's someone showing up on my Bluetooth…

Now, this was back in the day when you essentially had to be close enough to someone to smell their body odour to maintain a consistent Bluetooth connection with another device. And there we were at the back of a desolate field, surrounded only by a small forest, which backed onto a non-pedestrian road. There was absolutely no reason for anybody to be way out there, particularly in the middle of the night and especially in the middle of those woods. In silence, we stared anxiously into the trees as they eerily swayed with the breeze, knowing that, for whatever reason, someone was in there, perhaps staring back out at us.

Sean: Fuuuuck this!

Me: Yeah, right, fuck this shit! The dog can wait… Let’s get out of ‘ere!

We briskly reversed our position and then made a swift exit out of the field straight back to our house. Once safely inside, we discussed how odd the whole ordeal was for a short while but soon forgot about it and returned to drinking. Around an hour or so later, Sean and I were peacefully nursing some beers in the lounge, watching television, and passing another joint between us. Out of nowhere, Shifty uproariously bombarded through the front door like a discarded battering ram and immediately face-planted into the stairs. Sean and I hurried towards him as he writhed in pain on the floor. We quickly deduced that he was completely and utterly shitfaced. Steve and Alan followed closely behind, chuckling at Shifty's drunken antics as he hopelessly struggled to his feet, grumbling some unintelligible slurred nonsense.  

Me: Haha! What the fuck happened to Shifty!?

Alan: Oh, man, he’s fuckin’ smashed!

Me: Yeah, I can see that! 

Steve: He kept bangin’ on about how he could out-drink us both… And you know that big liquor cabinet my parents have got at my house?

Me: …Yeah?

Steve: There’s like… thirty or forty bottles of spirits an’ liquors in there at the moment - Shifty’s had at least one or two shots from every single fuckin’ bottle!

Me: Whaaat!? No fuckin’ way?! He’s gonna be absolutely cunted!

Alan: Yeah, man! He’s fuckin’ nuts! He wanted to prove he could drink us all under the table or somethin’, so he set himself a weird little challenge to ‘ave a shot from every bottle! No one else was even doin’ it with ‘im!

Steve: We tried tellin’ him that we weren’t gonna do his challenge with him, but he wouldn’t listen and just carried on doing it himself anyway!

Sean: Holy shit! He’s so hammered! I’ve never seen someone this fucked before!

Steve: I know - it’s ridiculous! You should’ve seen how hard it was getting him back ‘ere!

Shifty eventually made it to his feet and grumpily declared:

Shifty: I’m f-f-fine! You pussies can’t drink for shhhhhiiit!

With that, he serpentined into the kitchen, perilously smashing into nearly everything in his path, then helped himself to one of the remaining beers and promptly resumed drinking. With the bottle pressed to his lips, he precariously stumbled into the lounge and gracelessly toppled backwards onto the sofa whilst attempting to sit down. We all cracked up laughing at him for a moment and then rummaged out some drinks from Steve's rucksack before joining Shifty in the living room. After around ten minutes, Shifty suddenly sprung out of his seat without a word and frantically scrambled towards the tiny downstairs bathroom just outside of the lounge area. As he pulled the toilet door shut behind him, I glanced over at Sean, who disapprovingly rolled his eyes and moaned:

Sean: Oh, for fuck's sake... he better not make a fuckin’ mess!

A deep rumble of violent retching began to bellow out from the bathroom, swiftly accompanied by the unmistakable sound of roaring vomit splattering against porcelain. He slurred and groaned into the toilet bowl in regretful despair, which resonated out into the living room like the wails of some pitifully nauseous poltergeist. Shifty's relentless projectile vomiting grew increasingly intense until suddenly - everything went eerily quiet. We paused for a few apprehensive moments of silence, which was abruptly interrupted by a thundering crash against the bathroom wall. We all looked around at each other with a collective expression of horror and then leapt out of our seats, dashing towards the adjacent bathroom to investigate. We swung open the toilet door to find Shifty passed out face down in a thick layer of puke, which had literally (and I'm not kidding) filled nearly the entirety of the tiny bathroom floor. Not only had he thrown up so violently that it caused him to pass out and brutally headbutt the wall, but he had also pissed himself. I was fucking livid. It was nearing two in the morning, and my parents were returning from the airport in just four or five hours. Shifty was in absolutely no state to even attempt cleaning his own mess up, and he certainly could not be in the house when my parents got back. They already didn't like him because of his many reckless shenanigans, and they would have undoubtedly figured out we had been drinking excessively if they had come home to find Shifty in such a shit state. So, we decided that the best course of action was to carry him back to his house, which was half a mile down the road, and attempt to sneak him past his parents into his room. Sean and I grabbed some towels to wrap around Shifty in a failed attempt to avoid touching his vomit and piss-covered clothes. We lumbered him out of our house and began labouring towards his parent's place with Steve and Alan trailing behind us. It was fucking horrendous. The stench of piss and vomit was so repulsively pungent that we strenuously retched and heaved throughout the entire journey. Eventually, after much hardship, we arrived at the foot of the cul-de-sac where Shifty lived. Then, as if by magic, Shifty miraculously regained some meagre level of consciousness and lethargically stuttered: 

Shifty: W-w-where am I?

Me: We’re takin’ you back to yours, Shifty. You’re fucked.

Shifty: Noooo! Stop! My p-p-parents will kill me! Pleeeaase!

Me: Mate, you've fuckin' puked an' pissed all over my house! You can't stay at mine, my parents are back soon, and you're an absolute wreck! They already don’t like you ‘n’ you’re covered in shit! You’re goin’ home!

Alan: Yeah, come on, dude, you really need to go home an’ sleep it off. 

Shifty: No! Please, g-guys! I’m beggin’ ya… They’ll k-kick me out! Please!

Shifty was on some thin fucking ice, and everyone knew it. Thanks to his unrelenting kleptomania and an Olympian-level dedication to recreational drugs, his parents had finally reached their limit. One more fuckup and he was out on the streets. So, after an agonising journey to get him there, we now had to turn around and carry him all the way back. Not to my house, though - he couldn't stay there. So, on the way back, another plan formed: take Shifty up to the skate park and camp out with him there until morning. At least that way, he wouldn't be at my house when my parents got home from their holiday.

Once again, we found ourselves at the skate park, where we dragged Shifty onto a small ramp at the front of the park. Soon after, we found a damp, filthy quilt and pillow conveniently abandoned in the car park next to us, which we used to assemble a foul makeshift bed for Shifty to sleep in. It was fucking disgusting. That blanket and pillow looked like it was riddled with more parasites and undiscovered venereal diseases than a prolific necrophile. Still, it was probably better bedding than Shifty was used to and certainly more than he deserved. With Shifty finally tucked in and snoring like a lawnmower, Sean and I left Steve and Alan behind to babysit him while we trudged back home to begrudgingly clean up the lavish creek of vomit Shifty had courteously left festering in our bathroom. It was absolutely putrid. Before long, Sean and I were completely slathered in Shifty's piss and puke but soldiered through the gruelling task in fear of our parents discovering what we had been up to. Around twenty or so minutes into the rancid spring clean, though, Steve and Alan suddenly smashed through the front door like a swat team raiding a meth lab. I rushed out from the toilet to see them both panting, wild-eyed, and pale as ghosts.

Me: What the fuck’s goin’ on!?

Steve, gasping, looked at me.

Steve: There's something up the park!

I shot him a sceptical look and then sarcastically asked:

Me: What do you mean “There's somethin’ up the park”?

Steve: I dunno, man… something just started fuckin' screaming at us… like these fuckin' horrible, freaky noises!

Alan chimed in, looking genuinely rattled.

Alan: Yeah, we were just sat there and heard this huge monster-like “REEERRGGGHH!” screamin’ from the woods, so we fuckin’ legged it!

Me: You ran?!

Alan: Yeah… but… only a little way at first before we stopped. Me ‘n’ Steve just looked at each other like… “Did we actually just hear that?!” Then it fuckin’ happened again, but waaayyy more aggressively! It was like this horrendously loud, screechy-growl thing! It was fuckin’ terrifyin’! 

I glanced around the room, suddenly aware that someone was missing.

Me: Wait… where the fuck is Shifty?

Alan hesitated, his eyes darting nervously.

Alan: Ummmmmm…

Me: YOU LEFT SHIFTY UP THERE?!

Alan shrugged helplessly.

Alan: Mate, we just fuckin’ ran! Seriously… there’s somethin’ up there! It was fuckin’ scary!

I didn't believe a word dribbling out of their mouths. At this point, I was convinced they'd just been spooked by a couple of foxes going at it. If you've never heard foxes fucking each other before, just imagine the unholy sound of an infant being murdered, played at deafening volumes through a broken speaker - it's fucking horrendous. It was reasonable to me, then, to attribute the horrific screaming noises they had heard to a pair of horny foxes rather than anything sinister. Sean, on the other hand, was well and truly convinced that there was some kind of malicious creature or something lurking around the skate park. He had already run upstairs, equipping himself with a collection of decorative samurai swords, a baseball bat, and this outrageous ornate broadsword, which had its own tribal tattoo etched down the blade and a demon's head for a pommel. He clomped down the stairs, cradling the pile of ridiculous weaponry in his arms, then began handing them out to Steve and Alan like they were about to pillage a mediaeval settlement. Unimpressed, I decided to venture up the park to retrieve Shifty by myself and left the boys to continue their overreaction, dicking around with Sean's swords at the foot of the stairwell. I briskly made my way up the street and through a dark wooded pathway that led out into the field where the skate park was. As I paced across the field, I began to just make out Shifty in the distance. Something was up. He was on his hands and knees, looking as though he was wrestling with something underneath him. My walk hastened to a jog as I yelled:

Me: SHIIIIFTY!

No answer. As I neared the park, I called out once again. 

Me: SHIFTY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN’?!

Shifty suddenly sprung up from the floor in the distance like a startled meerkat and then dashed towards the back of the skate park away from me. I was astounded by his sudden, miraculous capability to move on his own accord, so I picked up the pace even more and continued running toward him inquisitively. As I neared the ramps, I could make out a silhouette of Shifty squatting low to the floor at the edge of the skate park in the dark, ducking and weaving around like he was trying to avoid being seen. I beckoned Shifty once more as I slowed to a cautious walk and strolled past the little ramp we had previously left him comatose on. As I walked by, something caught my eye in my peripheral vision. Something was still on that ramp - it was Shifty. 

An unsettling chill of fear crept up my back like a dagger of ice slicing over my spine as I peered over at Shifty, still lying there unconscious on the ramp. One notable change, though - his trousers and underwear had been pulled down below his ass. The harrowing realisation of what was happening hit me in the face like a thunderous wet slap - Shifty was either being raped or was just about to have been. I reluctantly turned around to face whoever I had just seen hiding at the back of the park. The figure I had mistaken for Shifty had now slowed to a hunched squat in the dark like some twisted predator caught in the act, seemingly in the realisation that the jig was up. He steadily rose from the ground, puffing out his chest like a silverback gorilla. He was much larger than I was, around 6'2" with a hulking rugby player physique and had a thick, bald head rippling with fat ridges. He clenched both meaty fists and then began sternly marching toward me, the dim moonlight beginning to reveal a malevolent expression on his face as he edged closer. 

"Was this the guy that appeared on Sean's Bluetooth earlier?! Was he the one making those screaming noises at Alan and Steve?!" - I nervously thought to myself as I stood there, paralysed with fear like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle. Then just as he closed the distance between us, Sean, Alan, and Steve rushed to a skidding halt about ten feet away to my right beside the ramp we had left Shifty on, each of them conveniently armed to the fucking teeth with traditional Japanese weaponry, a worn baseball bat and a sword that looked like it was wielded by Satan himself. The boys lingered there, frozen in nervous awe, staring at the towering brute in front of me, who had stopped dead in his tracks. It was like the scene had short-circuited his brain - watching three scrawny lads randomly arrive on the scene with enough weapons to sack a castle. The boy's eyes landed on Shifty, still sprawled half-naked on the ramp, looking like road kill. The horror on their faces was instant as they pieced together what they'd stumbled into. We suddenly found ourselves in a predicament - locked in some kind of council estate version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's three-way standoff. The giant stared at me, then at the lads, clearly weighing his odds. The boys held his gaze, slowly raising their weapons to their chests so they were clearly visible, then sheepishly flicked their eyes towards me for some kind of direction. I shifted my glance between both sides, having no idea what the fuck to do, absolutely terrified of what this guy might try next. Then out of fucking nowhere, as if the universe decided this was all getting too serious, the guy randomly switched gears and started acting like he was utterly shitfaced, which he hadn't seemed like at all before. He stumbled and buckled on his feet like a dog struggling to stand in the boot of a moving car as he lurched towards the car park and continued his ridiculous charade out onto the main road. As he made a slow escape into the darkness, I turned to the boys and roared:

Me: GET SHIFTY NOW!

In a panic, Alan and I sprinted towards Shifty, scrambled for an arm and a leg each, and then frantically carried him across the field, adrenaline propelling us towards the dark alleyway that led back home. Once at my house, we rapidly unlocked the door and tossed Shifty onto the living room sofas like a damp bag of cement as an uproarious commotion bellowed from outside. Alan and I ran back out of the house to find Sean standing sternly in the middle of the street with Steve, wearily clutching his ginormous sword as he screamed up the road:

Sean: WE CAN FUCKIN’ SEE YOU, MATE! 

I ran to Sean's side and looked up the street, which T-junctioned onto the main road. I shit you not - this guy was standing with his back firmly braced into a hedge on the opposite side of the junction, attempting to hide in about six inches of hedge foliage like a fucking cartoon character. Alan, Sean, Steve, and I were now huddled in the middle of the street, anxiously wielding a deadly weapon each, screaming hysterically at this monstrous lunatic, who was half-hidden in a bush opposite. Not one person from the neighbouring houses came out to help or even check what all the commotion was about. Not one! What's worse - our immediate next-door neighbour was the fucking chief of police in the local constabulary. He didn't so much as pop his fucking head out, the useless twat. Unexpectedly, the giant bald fuck suddenly flew out from the hedge, sprinting over the main road and into our street. Then, as if to further corroborate a secret cartoon identity, he attempted to hide behind a narrow lamppost on the right-hand side of our road - his large frame and meaty belly conspicuously protruding from it. As he loomed out from the lamppost, seemingly ready to make his next mad dash towards us, we all freaked out and ran for our fucking lives into my house. We frantically locked the front door behind us and barricaded it with a dining room chair. 

Sean: LOCK ALL THE DOORS ‘N’ WINDOWS!

We scattered like roaches, racing around the house, locking every door and window like our lives depended on it. Then, as if we were re-enacting some low-budget horror movie, we dove under the dining room window and crammed together, peering out through a tiny crack in the curtain. The man was still out there. He was lurking just beyond the driveway, scanning the house like a burglar doing inventory. Our hearts were pounding so hard it felt like they were trying to leap out of our chests. The guy was prowling around like a man possessed, clearly looking for a way in. After what felt like an eternity of pure terror and a surprisingly half-hearted attempt at breaking and entering, he just... gave up. No joke, the man turned on his heel and sprinted off like he'd forgotten to set the oven timer, vanishing towards the main road. We were left there, stunned with fear, debating whether to call the police or someone in our families for help. But then Sean wisely pointed out the obvious: if anyone came to help, they'd find Shifty - a piss-soaked, vomit-covered, battered wreck who was absolutely shitfaced on booze we had stolen from Steve's parents. Bodily fluids were trailing everywhere throughout the house, and to top it all off, we'd unintentionally lured some kind of beastly rapist to our doorstep. In our brilliant teenage logic, we decided that calling for help would cause more problems than it would solve. So, like the geniuses we were, we elected not to call for aid but instead sat in absolute silence, sweating bullets, waiting for the man to reappear, convinced that it wasn't over. After around an hour or so, there was no sign of the man coming back. We decided it was safe enough to move from under the windowsill, so we quietly crawled into the living room and locked the doors behind us. Unsurprisingly, we remained glaringly awake all night, eerily regaling the night's outrageous series of events with each other repeatedly. 

As dawn finally crept in, Shifty, who had been passed out on the sofa the entire time, began to stir. When he woke up, we told him everything. He sat motionless, still utterly smashed, listening intently whilst we relived every traumatic detail of how he may have been buttfucked by a Neanderthal. Shifty, still drunk and disoriented, listened in silence, his eyes sluggishly tracking each of us as we recounted his brush with comatose buggery. When we finally finished, he just sat there, blinking vacantly. Then, ever so slowly, he leaned forward, took a deep breath, and… laughed. He fucking laughed! He just sat back and half-heartedly chuckled to himself as though possibly getting raped and unwittingly forcing his friends to defend his honour with swords from a hostile, home-intruding sexual predator wasn’t a big deal! It wasn't the reaction we were hoping for, nor the one we expected, but we weren't realistically going to get anything more courteous out of Shifty. 

We're still not entirely sure whether Shifty ever actually took a sneaky dick in the ass or not on that fateful night. There was a considerable window of opportunity for a while there for at least a brisk dip. I like to think that in those precious few moments gained from me running ahead of everyone else, I may just have inadvertently saved Shifty from getting his malleable little asshole ravaged. He didn’t walk with a suspicious limp the following day, which we took as a good sign. Shifty, if you’re reading this - you’re welcome.