The Fury (17 page)

‘It’s okay,’ he said, keeping his voice low, soothing. ‘It’s all going to be okay, I promise. We’ll find out what’s going on and then we’ll know how to stop it, we’ll fix it, then our mums will be okay, they won’t be angry with us any more. I promise.’

He was making a lot of promises for a guy who knew nothing about what was going on, but what else could he do? It didn’t seem to be working anyway. If anything he’d made the girl cry even harder. He put his hand back on the wheel, seeing a huge green sign advertising Norwich in fifteen miles and Yarmouth in forty. The satnav said they’d be there within an hour. They would be late, but he was pretty sure Rick_B, whoever he was, would hang around.

He drove in silence for the next few minutes, the satnav lady chirping up and navigating him around a series of roundabouts. It was a while later that the girl stopped sobbing, her face rising from behind her kneecaps. Cal smiled at her as gently as he could, not wanting to say anything else in case he set her off again. But she seemed like she was cried out, wrung dry. She looked up at him, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

‘You really think there’s a way to make things normal again?’

The look she gave him, suddenly so full of hope, of trust, meant there was only one answer he could give.

‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘I really do. Whatever this is, we’ll work it out together. I promise.’

She wiped her nose again, sniffing. Cal leant over and popped the glove box, a half-empty pack of tissues inside. He gestured at them and she took one, patting her eyes dry then scrunching it up and tucking it in her sleeve. She took a deep, juddering breath that seemed to shake some colour back into her cheeks.

‘Thanks,’ she said, a ghost of a smile in her thin lips, her pale eyes. ‘My name’s Daisy.’

He was late.

Either that or he was dead. Where had he said he was coming from? London? If things were as bad as Brick thought, that was one hell of a journey – a gauntlet of ten million psychotic people trying to slaughter you on the street. Thinking about it that way, it would be a miracle if he made it here at all. That made his stomach crunch up, like he’d eaten something bad. As much as he hated to admit it, he really didn’t want to be on his own.

He rested his head on the warm sand, enjoying the comforting touch of the evening sun – not too hot, not yet muffled by the evening chill. He was lying on the slope of one of the dunes that ran the length of the beach, one of the big ones that would have looked at home in the Sahara if it wasn’t for the wavy sea grass comb-over. Ahead of him was the unbroken slate of the sea, almost perfectly waveless, so smooth that he half thought he could run right over it to Holland or Denmark or whatever lay beyond the horizon.

On the other side of the dune was a short stretch of pine forest, a bed of soft-needled trees into which the sun was slowly sinking. A dirt track led from them to a small concrete car park, the ugly square block of the toilets sticking up like an ulcer. There were boards over all the doors and windows, smeared with graffiti too windblown and rain-washed to read. The soft lap of the waves and the whispering pines made him feel inexplicably at peace.

Maybe the guy had decided not to come. Brick hadn’t exactly been a charmer in his messages. He tried to think back to what he’d written, unable to recall a single word other than to come alone. That in itself had been a pretty stupid thing to say – if CalMessiRonaldo was like him then he wouldn’t exactly be mobbed by friends right now. Why had he been such an asshole?

Blame it on stress
, he thought, twisting a long strand of grass between his fingers.
Blame it on shock, on fear
. But the truth was much more simple than that. He
was
an asshole. He promised himself he’d make an effort to be nice as soon as the guy showed up.

If
he showed up.

He wished he had a watch, or the phone he’d dropped when he was riding away from the garage. Norfolk was as flat as a pancake, which meant the daylight stretched right out into the evening, but once it hit ten it would get dark. Really dark. He’d have to be back at Fursville by then or he’d end up spending all night on the beach.

An ant struggled past right under his nose, its feet moving so fast they were just a blur as it attempted to negotiate the crumbling sand. He lowered a piece of grass in front of its nose, watching it climb on board before gently letting go. The ant scuttled off along it, vanishing into the tangled web.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, sitting up to stretch his spine, trying to shake the blood back into his legs. The knees of his jeans were wet. How did sand always manage to stay moist even on a day like today? He was brushing the blotchy stains with his hands when he heard a car, distant but unmistakable.

He ducked back down, peering through the mess of sea grass, his heartbeat rising along with the pitch of the engine. It seemed to take an eternity before it finally showed itself, the thing that trundled from the treeline not a car but one of those baby Land Rovers. There was something –
Blood?
– spattered all over the crumpled bonnet, as bright as paint. The passenger windows were wound down, or broken, and a massive crack stretched diagonally across the windscreen, making it difficult for him to see inside. The car limped over the concrete and pulled up next to the toilet block.

Nothing happened. Nobody got out.

‘Come on,’ Brick whispered. He worked his jaws, his ears feeling like they were blocked, the same way they did when he swam too deep. The strange silence clashed with the fear, making him feel weirdly seasick. The car was pointing straight at him and he got the feeling that whoever was inside was watching him, waiting for him to make his move. It was ridiculous, of course. Nobody would be able to spot him tucked behind the dune. Unless . . .

He looked to his left and right, scanning the beach. What if the guy hadn’t come alone? What if there was more than one of them? His friends might have spread out, flanking the car park, ready to attack him from all angles. He swore. Why hadn’t he brought a weapon? Fursville was full of metal bars and old tools, there were even knives in the restaurant. All he had here were his own two fists.

It wasn’t too late to retreat. If he slid down the dune he could walk back along the shore. They’d never be able to find him –
unless they follow your footsteps in the sand
. He swore again, his mind wheeling. He’d had hours to prepare for this, what the hell had he been doing all that time? Sunbathing and rescuing ants.

Calm down
.
You’re panicking like an old woman. Keep it cool, it’s going to be okay
.

Was he supposed to make the first move? It was like one of those old spy films. He wiped a hand across his forehead, sand sticking to the sheen of sweat that had broken out there. He still felt that weird pressure in his head, a silence that was almost a sound. It was as though something was inside his brain, inside his thoughts, and he suddenly felt ridiculously exposed. He squinted, trying to make out the shape behind the steering wheel. There was definitely somebody there –
What did you expect, Brick, a ghost?
– but was that somebody in the passenger seat too?

The car horn blared and Brick almost screamed, his rasping cry lost in the flap of a dozen birds that took flight from the trees. Adrenalin was a white heat in his veins. Suddenly he was all too conscious of how uncomfortable he was, of the damp creeping into his clothes and the sand scratching in the crook of his elbows. The horn honked again, twice.

‘Get out of the car,’ he hissed into the dune.
I’m not showing myself until you do.

His words were too quiet to carry, but they worked anyway. There was a loud clack, then the driver’s door swung open with a painful squeal. Somebody clambered out, and Brick had to lean to the side to see him through a loop of sea grass. It was a kid dressed in grey tracksuit trousers and a T-shirt. The boy brushed a hand through his hair as he scanned the car park, looking maybe sixteen or seventeen.

‘Hello?’ the boy called out, the tremors audible in his voice even from where Brick was lying. More birds blasted from the trees and he spun round, his hand moving towards his lower back. There was something under there, Brick realised, a lump beneath his shirt. The kid had a weapon. Again that instinctive need to get away almost ripped him from the dune, numbed by the same weird, calm silence that sat like cotton wool inside his head.

‘Is anyone there?’ the boy called out, his words drifting effortlessly over the hot ground. ‘Rick?’

Rick?
Brick thought, before remembering his login name. He felt an answer surging up from inside him of its own accord when he heard the sound of the passenger door opening. He clamped his mouth shut as the boy shouted something at the car, gesturing at whoever was inside. Brick couldn’t hear the reply but it didn’t matter. The kid had broken the rules.

He began to retreat. This wasn’t worth the risk. One teenage boy he could handle, but if there were two or maybe more in there then he was in trouble – especially if they started to attack him the same way as everyone else. The car was almost out of sight when the passenger climbed out. Brick paused, shuffling back to the top of the dune. The other person was a little girl, tiny next to the Land Rover, her face crumpled by anxiety. She was wearing black trousers and a burgundy polo with what might have been a school badge.

A boy and a kid, maybe brother and sister. Even if they did go crazy Brick thought he’d be able to handle them – so long as he took out the guy first he could easily outrun the girl.

I guess we’re about to find out
, he thought. Then he ran his hand over his forehead once more and got to his feet.

‘There’s nobody here,’ Cal said to Daisy.

‘Yes there is,’ she replied, looking up at him. ‘Don’t you . . . don’t you
feel
them?’

Cal shook his head, but there was something there, that same strange, ebbing sense of peace ringing round his skull. He swept his eyes over the car park again, nothing but cracked concrete and small drifts of sand. The toilets were boarded up, which was a definite relief. Some places were just plain creepy. The gun was tucked into the waistband of his trousers, and every time he nudged it back into place he worried he would set it off and blast away half of his backside. He should have left it in the car.

‘See,’ Daisy said. He followed her line of sight to the dunes that hid the sea from the car park. Somebody was walking down them, a tall man with hair so ginger that it glinted like copper in the fading sun. He was wearing jeans and a filthy white T-shirt, and his long, gangly arms were held out to his side, fingers spread.

‘Is he going to hurt us?’ Daisy asked, running to his side. Cal didn’t reply, holding her tight with one hand. He felt the weight of the gun, cold and sharp against his back.
Please don’t let me have to use it, please God let him be okay
.

The man – it was difficult to tell how old he was – stopped at the bottom of the dune, about ten or fifteen metres away. This close Cal could see the bloodstains on his T-shirt, looking more like chocolate in the growing pool of shadow. Dried blood pocked his face as well, an ugly looking wound above one eye. There was something about the guy that made Cal instantly suspicious, something in the bluntness of his cheekbones, the narrowness of his eyes. And yet there was something inside his head – more the absence of something, really – a feeling that was telling him it was okay, that the red-haired man was one of them.

All the same, for a good minute or so nobody moved, everybody wary of the same thing – that someone was about to start screaming, to charge across the car park fists flailing and teeth biting and eyes boiling. Those sixty-odd seconds seemed to stretch out forever, everything perfectly still, only the quiet lull of the unseen waves and the crack of the trees letting Cal know that time hadn’t frozen.

Daisy was the first to stir. ‘He isn’t attacking us,’ she whispered, looking up. The guy must have heard her because he snorted a laugh. His hands lowered to his sides, but he was still visibly tense.

‘Are you Rick?’ Cal asked.

The man squinted, holding up a hand to shield his eyes. The sun was over Cal’s shoulders, nesting in the treetops, lighting the kid from the chest up. ‘What do you think?’ he said, his brow crinkling. ‘I thought I told you to come alone.’

‘Um, this is Daisy,’ Cal said, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly protective of the girl. ‘I found her on the way. She’s like—’ he almost said
us
, but it was too soon for that. ‘Like me, she got attacked too.’

Daisy lifted her hand and gave a flick of a wave.

‘I’m Cal,’ Cal went on. Then he ran out of things to say. The man watched warily, his eyes dodging back and forth between him and Daisy.

‘CalMessiRonaldo,’ he said. ‘You like football, then?’

It was spoken more like an insult than a question so Cal didn’t answer. He could feel his hackles rising. The gun slid further down the waistband of his trackies and he had to nudge it back. It was so heavy that if he wasn’t careful he’d be standing here in a minute in nothing but his pants. The silence that followed was just about as awkward as silences could be.

‘I’m Brick,’ the guy said eventually.

‘Brick?’ asked Daisy. The man smiled, just a slight twitch of his lips but a smile nonetheless. It seemed to make his face more human.

‘Because of my hair,’ he said to her. ‘It’s the same colour as a brick.’

‘No it’s not,’ she replied. ‘Bricks are sort of pink and your hair is bright orange.’

Brick’s smile grew, finally reaching his eyes. Cal could see that, despite his height, Brick wasn’t much more than a boy himself.

‘You can call me Carrot if you like,’ he said. He looked back at Cal and the smile vanished. Seconds of silence ticked away, the gulls circling overhead like
vultures
. ‘What’s going on out there?’

‘It’s bad,’ Cal said. ‘You’re the first person I’ve seen who hasn’t tried to rip my head off, other than Daisy. It’s like the whole world has gone insane.’

Brick nodded. He glanced to his right, then back at Cal.

‘Yeah, it’s really hit the fan alright.’ He was chewing on something, and after a moment or two he spat it out. ‘Gonna get dark soon. I’ve got a place, a safe place I think. It’s about twenty minutes from here. No food or lights or anything—’

‘We’ve got food,’ interrupted Daisy. ‘Got loads of stuff in the car. It’s Cal’s, not mine.’

‘That’s good,’ Brick went on. ‘It’s not ideal but nobody knows about it. You can come if you want.’

Duh,
thought Cal.
We just drove all this way to say hi but now we’re gonna hit the road again. Of course we’re coming
. But instead he said: ‘Sure, okay, can we bring the car?’

Brick looked at the Freelander as if it was another unwelcome stranger. Cal shifted his weight, and as he did so he felt the heavy knuckle of metal slip from his waistband and down his legs. It hit the concrete with a crunch. Brick’s eyes widened as he saw the gun there. Then, before Cal could say anything, he turned and ran.

‘Wait!’ Cal yelled. The guy was bolting with impressive speed, his arms and legs pistoning him back up the dune. ‘Wait! It was just in case, I wasn’t going to use it!’

Brick wasn’t listening, practically vaulting over the dune in a shroud of kicked-up sand. Cal swore, then bent down and snatched the gun.

‘Wait here!’ he said to Daisy, legging it across the car park. He jumped onto the dune, his feet sinking as he charged upwards. He reached the top in time to see Brick sprinting down the beach.

‘Brick, wait!’ he shouted. The older boy didn’t stop, didn’t even slow. Cal started down the slope, making it four or five paces before realising that, as fast as he was, he was never going to catch up with him. Instead he lifted the gun, pointed it straight up and pulled the trigger.

The recoil juddered down his arm into his shoulder, ending up as a painful cramp beneath his ribs – so shocking that he almost dropped the revolver. His ear broke into a high-pitched song. It worked, though. Brick missed his footing and sprawled onto his face. He spun round, crawling backwards like a crab, the whites of his eyes visible even from where Cal was standing.

Cal kept the gun high, pointing towards the skies, half thinking that the bullet was going to come right back down and cave in his own head. He took a deep breath, gunpowder like firework smoke in his lungs.

‘I’m not going to shoot you!’ he yelled. ‘I only brought the gun in case you were crazy. Look.’ He lobbed the pistol towards Brick. It landed halfway between them, burrowing itself into the sand. Then he held his hands up, ignoring the part of his brain that was screaming at him –
You’re an idiot, do you know what you’ve done? He’s going to kill you now!
‘It’s yours, take it, just don’t leave us here, okay?’

Very slowly, Brick got to his feet. He was stooped over, hunched into himself like he was expecting another shot to come from somewhere else. He walked back through the craters of his own footsteps, picking up the gun by its barrel and holding it away from him. It reminded Cal of a kid carrying scissors.

There was a frantic puff of breath and Daisy appeared by Cal’s side, grabbing his right hand with both of hers. They looked at Brick, who stood statue-like, the gun still held out before him, his shadow a huge lower-case ‘t’ on the beach.

‘Please don’t leave us,’ Daisy said. ‘We weren’t going to hurt you.’

It seemed to take an age for Brick to nod at her.

‘We’d better go. The sound of that shot must have carried for miles.’ He turned and walked slowly along the shore, keeping close to the water. ‘Leave the car here. We don’t want to leave tyre tracks. Just grab your stuff and follow me.’