Richard Holliday – Author

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On any other day, at any other time of year, Acacia Close was quiet, anonymous, and tucked away. There were hundreds of Acacia Closes, or Crescents, or Drives; all identical in their bland conformity to the suburban dream. But this Acacia Close was to prove the flash point. Beyond the asphalt at the end of the road where it met Oak Crescent, Acacia Close ceased to be.

That day wasn’t any other day. It was an anonymous summer day that would propel this Acacia Close into history, though none of the residents of the eighteen detached houses quite knew it when it happened.

As the trees moved in the breeze, the leaves making that wssshhh sound that leaves do when moving in unison, a diesel engine gurgled, getting louder and more definite with each passing moment. The rattle followed the vehicle as it rounded the corner from Oak Crescent into Acacia Close and dissipated as the van stopped outside number fourteen. Doors clunked at the back.

Swallowing hard, the driver trooped up the ten-foot driveway to the door. He pushed the ringer and, inside the house, muffled by the masonry, the bell rang with a two-tone ding-dong.

‘Come on, love,’ the driver said to the door. The door didn’t reply, and neither did it open. He glanced over his shoulder, fidgeting. A buzzing sound had followed him that whole afternoon. Hurry…

With the buzzing came pinpricks of heat on the back of the driver’s neck. It was two in the afternoon. Surely they’d all be at work instead of-

‘Where the hell have you been?’ the woman said, cracking the door open. She glanced past the delivery driver to his van. It was an anonymous blank van, milk-white, like her face had turned. She grasped for the cardboard box in the man’s hand. ‘Get that outta here, for Christ’s sake!’

‘You’ll need to sign…’ he began, but as fast as the parcel left his hand, the door swept closed.

The driver shook his head and turned around. The PDA in his palm croaked to life. He squiggled with his finger something that looked like a signature. They never checked. Plus, the old bag had her parcel now. He pulled out the keys to the van and opened the door. He stopped, his hand on the handle.

It was that mysterious buzzing sound again, like a swarm of little hornets driving lawnmowers.

‘Crazy,’ he said, clambering into the van. He put the key in the ignition and turned. The van vibrated, the engine rattling back out of its brief sleep. He reached over to grasp for the seatbelt, but didn’t put it on. It’d keep.

This would prove a wise decision.

With a clunk, he put the van into reverse and clicked the handbrake off. Lifting off the clutch, the engine gripped, and it shuddered backwards a couple of feet.

The driver stamped on the brake after hearing three loud thumps on the side of the van. He turned his head. By the door was a man in a helmet. He pulled on the door handle. It clicked, and the door squealed.

‘Out! Out!’ a voice screamed from inside the helmet. The driver looked to the passenger side. A few old manifests littered the seat. The passenger door opened. It was another figure in black leathers, with hot pink piping along the seams. The driver felt himself being dragged out of the van and onto the patchy concrete surface.

‘What do you want?! I ain’t got no cash! Honest!’ the driver yelped. The first figure loomed. Underneath the helmet were piercing petrol-blue eyes and a cloth covering across the rest of the rider’s face.

‘You know what this is?’

The driver glanced to the logo on the leathers, stitched with the pink piping. ‘You’re… you’re them! What do you want from me? I ain’t who you’re looking for, I swear…’

‘This is a yellow zone. You know that?’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘And you know what that means? You don’t belong here.’

‘I’m not from them!’ the driver yelled, holding his hands up in terror. ‘I’m just from the—’

‘Shut it,’ the rider said. ‘It’s a yellow zone. Doesn’t matter. Your kind ain’t welcome here. Your van might as well be blue as the fucking sea. And I don’t like the sea.’

‘Wh-what do you want?’ The driver said, scrabbling until he was up against the tyre of his van. He glanced behind the van. There, a group of five identical mopeds with black-and-pink panniers parked in a semi-circle, blocking him in. He heard the doors opening and grunting with effort. ‘Hey! Those packages ain’t yours!’

‘You gonna do anything, pig?’ the lead rider laughed taking off his helmet. A shock of stark, blonde haired appeared. Then the driver yelped as the lead rider thrust his boot into his side. With a hiss, the driver fell over.

‘Watch him,’ the lead rider said to one of his companions. Then he looked in the back of the van, then to a pile of parcels dumped on the pavement. ‘Nice. This one was worth following. Now he’s on our turf.’

‘Hey, Iceblue,’ another called. ‘What should we do with this lot?’

‘Set light to it. Outside her house,’ he said, gesturing to number fourteen. The driver followed the lead rider’s eyes. A curtain in the house twitched. ‘She’ll know better. And it’ll be a warning to the others.’

The four other riders laughed, tossing the pile of parcels onto the astroturf lawn of number fourteen. One walked back to their scooter and pulled out a plastic bottle of clear liquid. The bottle had the scuffed remains of a sticky label, but the van driver had a good idea of the contents. Each rider took a bottle and threw the fluid over the pile of parcels. The sharp chemical stench of petrol permeated the air. Another rider flicked a flint lighter, and the parcels erupted with a dirty orange flame. Black smoke soared skyward.

In the houses on the opposite side of the street, curtains twitched. But not a single door opened. What was to happen would be left unimpeded. Nobody dared be a hero.

Quivering, the driver clenched his eyes shut as the lead rider – Iceblue – came over.

‘Take him,’ Iceblue said. The others shuffled, pulling the driver closer to the fire with a rough shove.

The wind heaved, pushing smoke from the fire across and around the van. Wispy threads enveloped the driver. The stench of the smoke from the fire went down into his lungs with each pitiful breath. ‘Please, don’t to this to me! I’m just doing a job! I didn’t mean to cause trouble!’

‘And I’m doing a job too,’ Iceblue said, kneeling down. He got up and nudged one of his fellow riders with his elbow. ‘Reckon he’s had enough?’

The other rider snorted. ‘Any more and he’ll probably piss his pants, piece of shit that he is.’

‘Oooh,’ Iceblue said, balling a fist and theatrically pulling it back, as if he was drawing an invisible bow.

‘Don’t,’ another rider said. The lead one gave a glance, and not a friendly one. ‘We ain’t got that right. If he ain’t one of—’

‘Fine!’ Iceblue took a deep breath and lowered his hand. He knelt and slapped he van driver’s face. ‘Little bitch you are, you going to come back here ever again?’

‘N-n-no,’ the van driver whimpered. ‘Never again, I promise you, I’ll—’

‘This is a yellow zone. Always has been, always will be. Now take your piece of shit van out of my sight before my good turn goes away,’ he said, pushing the prone driver over.

The driver took a big snotty snort and picked himself up, throwing himself into the van. Gunning the engine into reverse, he spun the van around at the end of the close in a cloud of loose gravel. The driver glanced in the mirror once, watching his deliveries burn beside the riders. Then, with a squeal of tyres, the van vanished out of Acacia Close.

The news had talked about the battle in the board room, angst in the aisles, but what had happened in Acacia Close was something new.

The residents watched as, in a plume of grotty black smoke, the Price War turned hot like they’d all feared.

Richard Holliday, January 2023

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