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    Dusty Miller 1: Dusty Miller, #1
    Dusty Miller 1: Dusty Miller, #1
    Dusty Miller 1: Dusty Miller, #1
    Ebook422 pages6 hours

    Dusty Miller 1: Dusty Miller, #1

    By Gary Weston

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    About this ebook

    #1 in a series. This is a gritty tale of one girl's struggle to survive. Dusty Miller, abandoned by her father when she was just three, and abused by her mother and her mother's boyfriends until she was thrown out on the streets at fifteen. But Dusty is a fighter, made tough by her experiences, she has had to battle her way through each day, stealing cars to survive. She also gets high on drugs, booze and uses language that would make a sailor blush.
    Sentenced to six months community service in a rest home, she quickly discovers not all the inhabitants are alive. It is Dusty's destiny to fight the most evil of criminals and also to take on the demons surrounding us including the Dark Lord himself!

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGary Weston
    Release dateFeb 22, 2015
    ISBN9781507048177
    Dusty Miller 1: Dusty Miller, #1
    Author

    Gary Weston

    Hello again.I've added Drifta's Quest 2 on this site. Unlikely to be a Drifta's Quest 3 but never say never. I am already working on a new book to fit in between other creative projects. As a mere lad of 68 I have a good few years to tell my stories so I hope people will keep enjoying them.

    Read more from Gary Weston

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      Book preview

      Dusty Miller 1 - Gary Weston

      Chapter 1

      Palmerston North. (Palmy) city of the Manawatu region, Lower North Island, New Zealand

      Seven years ago

      For as long as Dusty Miller could remember, her mother had had a steady stream of boyfriends. A few, like the last bastard, had stayed for a while. More than a couple had molested her when they had the chance. Too afraid and ashamed, she had said nothing to her mother. Now she was still only nine years old. She was home from school and the latest creep was on his own. Her mother was out shopping, he'd said, which meant buying booze. Food was sometimes thin on the ground, but there was always money for booze. This man, Darren, had lived with them for a few months. Just another bum her mother had picked up.

      It started innocently enough, with him asking questions about how things had been at school. He didn't seem as bad as some of the others, so Dusty was almost beginning to trust him. They chatted at the kitchen table and he gave her a big bowl of stew. He did most of the cooking, because he hadn’t much else to do. Her mother was often too drunk to feed her, so going to bed hungry was a regular event. Darren never seemed to go out to work but instead he worked the system, getting all the welfare benefits that he could.

      Darren had sat beside her and gradually, his hands moved slowly closer and she was too busy eating and talking to notice. He suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. He had kissed her on the mouth and his hands were all over her. She screamed and she grabbed a knife off the table and rammed it as hard as she could into his leg. He yelled out and released his grip, giving her the chance to race out of the front door. He ran after her, calling her things she hadn’t even heard before. Her mother was coming down the path and Dusty collided with her, making her drop the shopping. A bottle of bourbon smashed on the ground.

      ‘You stupid little devil,’ her mom yelled. ‘Now see what you’ve done.’

      Darren said, 'Never mind that. Look what your frigging brat’s done to me.’ He had blood oozing through his jeans. ‘The frigging little bitch stabbed me. No reason for it, she just stuck me with a bloody knife.’

      Her mother grabbed her by the hair and dragged her inside out of sight of the neighbours. The loss of the booze was bad enough, but stabbing her precious boyfriend was too much. It was the electric jug cord this time, again and again across her back. Dusty cowered in a corner of the kitchen, shielding her head with her thin arms, begging her mother to stop, pleading with her to stop beating her. Dusty  had tried to tell her the truth, but she wouldn’t listen, lashing her with the cord while her shit-head bloke stood and watched, grinning at her. From that day on, it had been Dusty versus the world. If anyone was going to do the hurting, it was going to be her.

      It was the same at school. Often picked on because she was thinner and smaller than her peers, and taunted about her drunken mother, Dusty was something of a loner and made few friends. But she wasn't taking it any more. Her back hurt from the beating, and she sat in the playground, watching the other kids play and laugh, never going to be a part of their world. And that was okay. If the world wanted a fight, it could have one.

      Pauline Tandy was the first one to find that out. Tandy was the biggest girl in the class, fat from the burgers and fries she seemed to live on. She had picked on Dusty for years. Suddenly the play stopped, and Tandy was standing with the ball, a heavy leather rugby ball. She took aim and it flew across the playground, striking Dusty square in the face.

      'Give me my ball, back, bitch,' yelled Tandy, her hands on her hips, her friends gathering around her.

      Dusty felt the blood trickling from her nose. Another time, she would have cried. Now she was all out of tears. She picked up the ball and held it under her arm. Blood dripped onto her white blouse.

      'Come and get it, fatso,' she said, defiantly.

      This was the first time anyone had stood up to Tandy. For a moment, the girl just stood and stared, unsure what to do. Five of her gang were around her, expecting something, waiting for Tandy to make her move. Tandy knew she had to do something or lose face. She marched towards Dusty, the five others right behind her.

      'What did you call me, bitch?' Her face was twisted up in an evil scowl of pure hatred.

      Dusty stood tall, able to look the bigger girl in the eyes and defiantly replied, 'I called you what you are, Fatso.'

      'Get her, Pauline,' said one of the gang.

      Tandy lashed out with her fist, but Dusty was ready for her and dodged the blow, kicking out hard at the girl's shin. It was a solid strike and Tandy was hopping on one leg. Dusty grabbed her hair and pulled with all her might, bringing her knee up into her face, breaking her nose. The gang piled onto her, but Dusty was kicking, thumping and biting like a human tornado. One girl went down from a hard kick to the stomach, another from being poked in both eyes. Tandy recovered, grabbed Dusty from behind and held on so that two girls could kick and punch. Dusty kicked backwards with the heel of her shoe and found her target, Tandy letting go. Dusty swung her fist at the nearest girl, catching her in the mouth, splitting her lip. Tandy was still behind her and wrapped her arm around Dusty's neck in a choking headlock, and Dusty couldn't breathe. With her elbow, she rammed Tandy in her guts and the big girl went down.

      Suddenly the fighting stopped, the other girls all sporting wounds looked at Tandy, the gang leader, helpless on the ground, Dusty facing them, her face covered in blood, ready to take them all down. Tandy made one last effort and latched onto Dusty's ankle, trying to pull her down onto the concrete, but once again, Dusty managed to break free and brought her foot down hard on the big girl's face. Tandy curled up in a ball, begging Dusty to stop. Dusty raised her foot to stomp down again, but she stopped. There was a look of defeated helplessness on Tandy's face and Dusty suddenly pitied the girl. It was all over. The gang parted as she barged through them, and they watched her cross the playground to the school gates where with her head held high, she walked away. From that day forth, she was never bullied again at school.

      Chapter 2

      The house was empty when she got home, but she was used to taking care of herself. Dusty looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She had washed off the dried blood and what was revealed wasn't pretty any more. Most of her face was marked, and the finger marks around her neck were like an angry necklace. Her lips were swollen and split, but so were her knuckles. She undressed, dropping the bloody blouse on the floor. She would never wear it again.

      She climbed into the shower, letting the hot water wash the blood off her nine year old body, watching it run down the plughole. She washed her hair and scrubbed her skin until it tingled. Drying herself, she dressed in clean clothes and brushed her hair. The girl in the mirror was still marked, but there was something else. Something behind the bruised face had changed forever. Something behind her eyes was different, and she had a mean look she had never seen before.

      She looked at her knuckles. They hurt. She had no idea she could punch like that. As she smiled through painful lips from the memory of hitting the gang so hard they had rolled on the ground in agony, she felt good about herself. Six of the bitches had attacked her and she had beaten the lot of them. That day had changed everything. That day had changed her life.

      Stuffing the blood covered blouse in a plastic bag, she was about to drop it into the rubbish bin, then she thought about her mother. If she saw the bag and wondered what it was, she might look inside. It was unlikely, but possible. Ruining the blouse would result in only one thing. Yet another beating. She had to hide it somewhere her mother would never find it. Thinking hard, she looked about the house. And there it was in the ceiling of the hallway, the cover to the loft. She had never known her mother go up the loft. She had to hurry, because her mother could return at any time, and if she had been out drinking with Darren, things would be tough enough.

      She looked at the loft cover, more than four feet above her head, wondering how she was ever going to get up there. There was a stepladder in the yard. She dragged that inside, and climbed up, pushing the loft cover out of the way. Clambering inside, she sat on the edge of the hole. Above her hung the cord to the loft light and she tugged on that and it came on.

      She had never been up there before, and she was amazed at the stuff stored there. The loft floor had been lined with boards to make it safe to walk on. She was about to just throw the bag with the bloody blouse into a far corner, when she noticed something, something that pulled her towards it. It was an old-fashioned steel trunk. Perhaps it was the way the light from the bare bulb had reflected off it that had caught her attention. Although she knew she had to hurry, something made her go to the trunk. It wasn't locked.

      When she opened it, the significance of the contents hit her right away. These things could only have belonged to one person. Her father. An old leather jacket, brown and lined with fleece. She stared at it for a moment, then she stroked it with her fingertips. Gingerly, she picked the jacket up, realising the last person to wear it had been her father. She tried the jacket on and it was huge on her. She sat with her back, marked from beatings, against the old trunk, wrapping her arms around herself. She closed her eyes, and imagined she could smell her father from the jacket, and she tried hard to remember what he looked like. She had been just three years old when he had left them. She couldn't recall his face. Wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, she turned around on her knees and investigated the rest of the contents of the trunk. There wasn't much.

      A pile of magazines about motorcycles, mostly old British types. A pair of well worn leather motorbike gloves. And a tin box. It was round and had pictures of cars and motorcycles on it, once containing biscuits or some such things. She picked it up and removed the lid. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the photographs. Knowing time was running out, she put the lid back on the box and stuffed it inside her blouse. She took off the leather jacket and kissed it, then she returned it to the trunk as if it were a holy relic. One day it would fit her and she would claim it for herself.

      She was about to close the lid of the trunk when she saw another box, rectangular, in shape, made from blue vinyl with a black plastic handle. When she opened it, she found it full of old fashioned music cassettes. These were once listened to by her dad. At random, she took just one and put it her jeans back pocket. then she closed the little box, put everything back in the trunk as she had found it, fastened the trunk, turned the light off, wriggled out of the loft and replaced the loft cover. She had barely dragged the stepladder back outside when she heard her mother and Darren entering the front door. They were noisy and had obviously been drinking.

      'Here's the little bitch,' Darren snarled, limping badly.

      Dusty fled to her bedroom and slammed the door.

      'Come back here, you little shit,' Darren yelled.

      'Leave her. She isn't worth the bother. She can go without dinner for what she did.'

      Dusty sat on her bed, with the sheets that hadn't been washed in weeks. She waited until nightfall, only coming out when they had gone to bed. She went to the bathroom and then to the kitchen where she made a sandwich of strawberry jam and took that with a glass of milk back to her bedroom. From her back pocket, she took out the music cassette and studied it. On the cover was a picture of a scary looking man. She had never heard of Alice Cooper. But here was something her dad had listened to. This meant something to him. It would mean something to her, too.

      Putting that to one side, she got the tin biscuit box from under the bed and placed it on the bed. She didn't open it right away, but stared at it. In that box were the only things her father had left behind. Almost. He had also left her behind.

      Opening the box, she saw the old photographs. Spreading them out over the bed, she counted them. Twenty four. Most were of her when she was a baby. She figured her father had taken most of them, because they were mostly of her mother holding her. Her mother looked proud and happy then. But there was one photograph that stood out from all the others. It was not a good picture, but it was one of him, sitting on a motorbike. For the first time ever, she knew what her father looked like.

      Chapter 3

      Things were indeed different from then on. Throughout junior school, her reputation grew, not as a bully, but as a girl not to be messed with. She had three close friends, all of them in awe of her. She hadn't asked for their friendship, but it had grown anyway. All three were like she had been, little wimps that the others picked on. For all three girls, she had stepped in to protect them from being beaten up, not because she liked them, she just hated bullies. Although still skinny, Dusty was taller than most of her year. The three girls stuck with Dusty into the senior school, where once again, she had to prove a few times she wasn't anyone to mess with. Most of the teachers realised she was actually a bright kid, but had to fight hard to get through her wall of attitude. Most eventually gave up on her.

      By the time she was fourteen, and she was pretty and her small breasts were developing, one or two of the older boys were showing an interest in her. After her experiences with the male sex, from the father who had abandoned her when she was three, to the men who had molested her, they were all treated with the contempt Dusty thought all males deserved.

      Dusty would never admit it, but she was lonely. She had put up barriers against the world that even she couldn't break down. As a release, she discovered drugs. One of her three friends introduced her to marijuana. It was at a party of an older kid who's parents had unwisely left him in charge of the house for the weekend, while they were visiting a sick relative in Auckland. His name was Patrick, and even Dusty thought he was nice and cute. After a bottle of cheap wine and several strong joints, she hadn't pushed him away when he made a play for her.

      He had been gentle and she was from far from being his first sexual encounter. She had lost her virginity that night, but she had no regrets that her innocence was lost. What she remembered about it, was enjoyable and exciting. She had almost passed out afterwards from the booze and the drugs, waking up in his bed alone, feeling nothing but sticky. When she had dressed and gone back to the party, Patrick was already groping another girl. Far from being angry, Dusty rolled another joint, drank some more wine, grabbed the hand of the nearest boy and pulled him along to the bedroom where this time, it was her taking someone's innocence. She was a couple of months shy of her fifteenth birthday.

      By the time she was fifteen, she had toughened up to the extent that her mother didn't beat her any more, and her boyfriends gave her a wide berth, but it took a swift knee to the groin to give a couple of them the message she wasn't theirs for the taking. For money, she traded mild sexual favours for dope, selling enough of the dope on for a modest profit to feed her own needs. One afternoon, she had been reported by a rival and her locker had been raided by the headmaster, where her stash had been found. Not enough to have the police called in for dealing, but enough of an excuse for the headmaster to have her expelled from school. Her mother had been contacted, but had refused to go to the school. When Dusty got home, her mother had slapped her hard across the face, and told her no drug dealing little slut was staying in her home.

      Dusty had been kicked out with the fifty dollars in her pocket, what she was standing up in and a bag of hastily grabbed clothes and belongings. Her mother had rammed things into a rubbish bag and ranted insanely at her while the boyfriend stood and grinned. She had been physically pushed out of the house and the bag thrown out after her. All this was done with a torrent of verbal abuse loud enough to have the neighbour’s curtains twitching. She had no choice but to survive anyway she could and live on the streets.

      Chapter 4

      Dusty's only other relative in the city was her mother’s sister, Aunt Gwen and husband Moses and their five boys. She loved them to bits and they might have given her a roof over her head, but she decided that would have caused too much grief within the family so she didn’t even ask.  Add the mile-wide stubborn streak and it became just another chapter in the Dusty Miller versus the rest of the world saga.

      In Palmerston North, (Palmy to the locals), there were a few who lived permanently on the streets. One or two were even younger than Dusty, selling their bodies for drugs and booze money. Sometimes they would do it for a meal and a night in a bed.

      The first night hadn’t been too bad. A feed of fish and chips had warmed and sustained her. She had walked the streets all night, until the bag of clothes became too heavy and she was aching with the cold. A shop doorway became a shelter from the elements and she’d squeezed herself into a corner, too scared to fall asleep. A police car had stopped and the officer inside lowered his window. He stared at her for a moment, and then he drove off. To him, she was just another one of life’s victims, to be ignored until she stepped out of line.

      The next car that stopped had a driver looking for something else.

      ‘Wanna make some money, sweetheart?’ He was old, bald and fat. He was a creep of the nastiest kind.

      ‘Piss off, you frigging bastard,’ she told him.

      She fully expected him to do just that. Instead, he started to get out his car. He left the engine running and the door open wide.

      ‘What did you just call me you frigging little whore?’ He was striding towards her with malice in his eyes. On the ground and pinned up against the door, she couldn’t escape. ‘I said, what did you  frigging call me, you stinking little whore?’

      She didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop his boot slamming into her side. She covered her head with her arms and he kicked her again, and then suddenly he was diving into his car and racing away. The police car had doubled back and this time the officer got out.

      ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. He was quite young and had kind eyes.

      Nursing her bruised ribs, she replied, ‘Yeah. I’ll live.’

      ‘You’re a new one. What’s your name?’ then he said, ‘never mind. You wouldn’t give me your real name anyway. Listen. That creep could come back and I can’t be here all night. You should get moving.’

      ‘Easy for you to say,’ she said.

      He nodded, as if he really cared. ‘You’re right. It is. But it’s the best advice I can give you right now. Get yourself away from here and off the streets. That bastard’s bad news. Believe me. I know.’

      She got up and looked up the street. One way led to the city centre, the other way out of it.

      The policeman said, ‘If you have to stay on the streets, keep central, at least for the night. Find a bench, but make sure you are in the light. We have cameras all over the place. He won’t have a go at you there.’ The police car radio crackled. ‘I have to go. Take care, okay?’

      ‘I’ll try. Thanks.’

      She watched him drive away and she made her way to The Square. The centre was deserted, but then according to the clock in the tower it was almost half past three in the morning. She found a bench by the Information Centre, well lit up with the street lights. She could only nap for minutes at a time, feeling vulnerable and scared. The night passed uneventfully, and as the dawn broke, the city became alive.

      She survived nearly three months like that. Inevitably she had met the others that lived on the streets. At first she didn’t trust any of them, but she was amazed how easily they accepted her. They helped her through the many cold and lonely nights. The drugs helped, and she lost count of the number of times she passed out from inhaling glue out of a paper bag. And more than once she gave her body for a few dollars for food. And then it happened.

      It had been raining hard. Soaked through, she noticed a parked car with its window half down. It was an old Ford, easy to get into. As she checked out the car, she found a key in the glove box. It was a spare for the ignition. She drove out of the city centre, revelling in the warmth of the heater. All she wanted to do was to find a quiet place, curl up on the back-seat and sleep for a week. Instead, she ended up in Feilding, only a twenty minute drive away. Just before the town, she found a deserted place and parked well out of sight.

      For the rest of the night, she slept soundly, feeling warm and safe for the first time in weeks. She was awake with the dawn and she left the car where it was and with her pathetic bag of belongings, she made Feilding her new battleground. It was a little safer than the larger city of Palmy. After a few more days of living rough, she met Baggy Bagshaw. He looked like a soft touch, big but friendly and she had stopped him in the street to ask for a couple of dollars.

      ‘I won’t give you money,’ he’d said. ‘That’ll only be used to get you wasted. I will buy you a feed, though.’

      And Baggy did. He took her into the Rosebowl café in Furguson Street and bought her the biggest meal she had had in a very long time. As they ate, he told her about the squat he lived in and how somebody had helped him when he had reached rock bottom. Waifs and strays were always welcome. He had lived there for a few years and people came and went all the time. He said there was a room going spare. When she had told him she had no money, he chuckled and told her not to worry about it. In the squat, everybody helped each other out. He had been just like her, once upon a time. An hour later, she was having a hot shower and a young woman who called herself Jackie O had given her some clean clothes. To Dusty, she had suddenly found heaven.

      Money had been tight, but in Feilding town centre one afternoon, she had bumped into Gazza, a friend from the streets of Palmerston North. He had all new clothes on and looked sharp. He told her he had plenty of money, these days. He stole cars and friends of his converted them into spares. He made two hundred and fifty a car and did nearly one a night. She had said that she could do that. He introduced her to the gang and she was in business. She only took a couple of cars a week, and that was enough to live on.

      Fascinated with the efficient way the gang stripped the cars down to the last nut and bolt in just over one hour, she offered to help. She didn't get paid, but did it for fun and what she learned about vehicles was better than any apprenticeship. It wasn't long before she was as proficient at it as seasoned technicians. She learnt a hell of a lot about cars in the few months she did it. Then one night she got unlucky and was caught stealing. The gang dropped her like a hot potato but she understood that. She had gotten a real buzz out of the racket, which was why she had ended up stealing the red sports car for old times sake.

      Chapter 5

      Sometimes, when things got just too depressing, Dusty Miller would let rip and go a little wild. Smashed out of her skull on a mix of red wine and marijuana, she stole a car. She wasn’t sure why, because she had nowhere to go. But somebody had left the keys in the ignition and well, what’s a girl to do? The drugs may have had something to do with it. It was that little joy ride that had landed her in her present predicament.

      It was a two-seater. All show and not a lot of go. She liked the blood red colour, but that was about all. Parked outside a bar on a rainy night in Feilding, she decided this car belonged to a Tracy, or a Mandy, working as a receptionist or at a call centre somewhere and her well off but not rich doting father had tied a ribbon around it for his daughters twenty first birthday and called it a classic sports car instead of the underpowered, second hand tarted up wreck it really was. 

      And then she saw it. The keys were in the ignition. They hung seductively from the dash with a little stuffed rabbit’s foot attached to it. Well, if it wasn’t lucky for the poor bloody rabbit, why the hell should it bring joy and prosperity to you, stupid?

      Dusty ran her hands along the highly polished paintwork, feeling the cold metal on her palm. All day long she had felt like she was moving under water, cumbersomely navigating along the full length of some pea-soup filled bottomless pit to reveal the true nature of her miserable life. A harmless night-time spin in a car might brighten her mood.

      She glanced up the street, this way, that way. Nobody in sight. She flicked out her tongue and teased the stud between her lips, not really fighting the temptation. Her fingers pulled on the door handle. The door opened a few inches and then she gently shut it again, but her fingers didn’t let go. This was insane; this was madness. The car was a huge magnet and she was a teenager made of iron. Resistance was futile.

      Somewhere, in the dark unknown depths of her mind, a decision had been made. Even as the thoughts ran irresistibly through her head, she knew it was wrong. The act of opening the door again and getting inside the car was a blur and yet there she was, sitting in it with only the vaguest comprehension of why or how.

      She was brought to reality by the door of the bar swinging open and two men coming out. Her heart pounded, but these men weren’t named Mandy or Tracy. They headed away and the street became quiet again. A battle raged within her; a sensible side of her saying don’t be stupid. Get out. You shouldn’t be sitting in some pretty receptionists little love bug. But that side of her nature was weak and any fight with her darker self would have only one outcome. When she turned the key and blipped the throttle, the roar of the engine surprised her. This car had more guts than she’d realised. It was a manual gearbox and she rammed the lever into first and the thing took off. There was no going back now.

      From Feilding, she drove towards Palmerston North. Ignoring the route to the highway, she kept to the back lanes, through the Bunnythorpe junction and along the airport road. Taking the Milson Line towards the city centre, she revved hard, but kept the speed to the legal limits. Adrenalin was pumping through her and she felt alive. Electrostatic fully-charged alive!

      She sat at the lights, undecided on which way to go, when another car pulled up alongside. It was a fat-tyre Falcon, sleek and black, big bore exhaust and a wicked spoiler with mag – alloys that were worth more than the rest of the vehicle. Window rattling booming music made her look and two young men only a couple of years older than she was, stared back at her. The lights turned to green and she waited, thinking they would shoot off, leaving her behind. But they didn’t. They just sat there, revving the monstrous engine under its highly polished hood. A race was on.

      Dusty smiled wickedly. The lights turned green and the Falcon did rubber shredding spins whilst she let go with a gentler touch. It was only a split second, but she was ahead. It was a fifty zone, but in seconds, she was doing one hundred and thirty. She could hear the roar of the Falcon as it chased her, coming alongside at one forty. She pulled ahead and then she slowed and stopped at the next traffic lights and the Falcon screamed to a halt alongside. The nearest lad, sitting in the passenger seat, stared through the open window grinning at her. He winked and blew her a kiss but the lights changed and they were gone. She caught up with them at the next junction and the rear end of the Falcon twitched as it turned left and straightened up again.

      Another car was coming

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