The Fury

It was an ordinary Wednesday afternoon in June when the world came to kill Benny Millston.

It was his birthday. His fifteenth. Not that anyone would have noticed. He sat quietly in the corner of the living room in the tiny box of a house that he’d called home ever since his parents had split up three years earlier. His mum lay on the sofa to his left, idly picking foam out of the gaping holes the dog had made in the ancient green fabric. She was staring at the telly over her huge stomach and between two sets of freshly painted toenails, her mouth open in an expression of awe and wonder, as if she were watching the Rapture, not
Deal or No Deal
.

On the other side of the room, slouched in a wicker bucket chair, sat his sister Claire. She had once been his baby sister, until his
actual
baby sister had arrived a year ago. The youngest Millston, Alison, squirmed in her high chair in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, smacking the hell out of her dinner tray with a plastic spoon. Their dog, an elderly Jack Russell that he had named Crapper when he was a kid, sat under her, snapping half-heartedly at the spoon whenever it came close but too old and too lazy to make a proper effort.

Not one person had said happy birthday to him all day.

This wasn’t what was bugging Benny, though. What was really starting to scare him was that nobody had even
spoken
to him all day.

And it wasn’t just today, either. Strange things had been going on since last week. He couldn’t put his finger on it, exactly; he just knew that something was wrong. People had been treating him differently. He wasn’t the most popular kid at school, not by a long shot, but in the last couple of days even the guys he’d called friends – Adam, Ollie, Jamie – had been ignoring him. No, ignoring was the wrong word. They had talked to him, but it had almost been as if he wasn’t really there, as if they were looking
through
him. And the stuff they said –
We don’t need any more players, Benny. We’re busy now, Benny. Goodbye, Benny
– had been downright hurtful. They’d been treating him like he’d taken an almighty dump in their mouth while they’d been sleeping. They’d been treating him like they
hated
him.

Things were no better at home, either. His mum’s vocabulary was usually limited to about twenty words, of which ‘do it now’, ‘don’t argue with me’ and ‘I’m busy’ were the most common. But this week he’d heard worse. Much worse. Yesterday she’d actually told him to piss off, which had come so far out of left-field that he’d almost burst into tears on the spot. Claire, too, was acting weird. She’d not said anything, but it was the way she glanced at him when she thought he wasn’t watching, the way kids looked at strangers, at people they thought might be dangerous.

She was doing it right now, he realised, staring at him, her eyes dark, lined with suspicion, or maybe fear. As soon as he met them she turned back to the television, pulling her legs up beneath her, crossing her arms across her chest, curling into herself like a hedgehog being nuzzled by a dog. Benny felt goosebumps erupt on his arms, his cheeks hot but a cold current running through him.

What the hell was going on?

Benny reached up and rubbed his temples. His head was banging. It hadn’t been right for a couple of days now, but what had started off as an irritating ringing in his ears now felt like somebody pounding the flesh of his brain with a meat tenderiser. And there was a definite rhythm to it, syncopated like a pulse:

Thump-thump . . .

Thump-thump . . .

Thump-thump . . .

Only it wasn’t his pulse, it didn’t match. If anything, it reminded him of somebody banging at a door, demanding to be let in. He’d taken a couple of paracetamol when he’d got home from school an hour ago, but they’d barely made a difference. It was literally doing his head in.

It was no wonder, though. He’d never been this stressed in his life.

No, not stressed.
Scared
.

He realised Claire was glaring at him again, and the intensity in her eyes seemed to make the room shrink, the peeling floral-papered walls closing in. He pushed himself out of the armchair and his sister actually flinched, as if he’d been coming at her with a cricket bat. He opened his mouth to tell her it was okay, but nothing came out. The only sound in the room was that thumping pulse inside his head, like some giant turbine between his ears.

Benny walked towards the kitchen, Claire’s eyes following him. His mum was watching him too, her head still pointing at the telly but her eyes swivelled so far round that the red-flecked whites resembled crescent moons. He turned his back on them, squeezing past Alison’s high chair. His baby sister stopped banging her spoon, her face twisting up in alarm.

‘Don’t cry,’ Benny whispered, reaching out to her, and the way she pushed back against her seat, her chubby fingers blanched with effort, broke his heart. She wasn’t crying. She was too frightened to cry.

That’s when he felt it, something in his head, an instinctive command that cut through the thunder of his migraine
– Get out of here
– surging up from a part of his brain that lay far beneath the surface.
Run
.

It was so powerful that he almost obeyed, his hand straying towards the back door. Then Crapper shuffled arthritically out from under Alison’s high chair and limped over to him. The dog peered up with such kindness and such trust that Benny couldn’t help but smile. He crouched down in order to brush a hand over his wiry fur, scratch him under the ear. Crapper’s tongue lolled out, his claws chittering on the linoleum, his tiny tail beating with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings.

‘There you go, boy,’ Benny said, tickling the dog under his belly. ‘You don’t hate me, do you?’

And all of a sudden the voice in his head was gone, even the pounding roar slightly muted. Nothing was wrong. He was just having a bad week, that was all. Claire was a teenager herself now, just turned thirteen, and their rivalry had definitely spiralled in the last few months. It was bound to, considering they were like toy soldiers packed tight into this vacuum-sealed house. And God only knew his mum was prone to fits of depression and unpleasantness, especially since Alison’s dad – a tall, quiet guy called Rob who Benny had seen in the house two, maybe three times tops – had decided he wasn’t coming back.

Benny poked Crapper tenderly on his wet nose then stood up, a head rush making the room cartwheel again. He opened up the crockery cabinet, searching the dusty shelf for a pint glass.

It wasn’t like normal was even a good thing, he thought as he filled the glass with water. Normal sucked. He took a deep swig, letting his eyes wander. Something on top of one of the cupboards hooked them, a scrap of colour peeking out from the shadows. Benny frowned and placed the glass on the counter. He scraped a chair across the floor and hoisted himself up, coming face to face with a rectangular box in crimson giftwrap. A ribbon had been carefully tied round it, topped with a bow.

Benny’s grin stretched so wide that his cheeks ached more than his head, and with a soft laugh he scooped up the package. It was big, and it was heavy. About the same kind of heavy as an Xbox might have been. And that’s when the excitement really hit him, knotting up his guts. His mum had never, ever bought him a console – not a PlayStation, not a Wii, not even so much as a DS. But she’d always said he could have one when he was old enough. He’d never known just how old he’d have to be to be ‘old enough’, but now he did: fifteen!

He leapt down from the chair, bundling the box back through into the living room, almost knocking Alison out of her high chair in the process. So that’s what this had all been about: his mum and his sister teasing him, pretending they’d forgotten his birthday, before surprising him with the sickest present ever, probably a 360 with Modern Warfare 3. They’d turn round, see him with the box, and their faces would dance into smiles.
Aw, you ruined it!
His sister would laugh.
We were gonna make you think we’d not got you anything
. And his mum would say,
Go on, open it, I s’pose I can miss a bit of Noel Edmonds while you set it up
.

‘Thanks, Mum!’ Benny yelled, thumping back down in his chair with the box on his lap. There was a gift card under the loop of the bow, and he fumbled with it, his fingers numb with excitement.

To Benny, at long last, maybe now you’ll stop nagging us about it! Wishing you a really happy birthday. Lots and lots of love, Mum, Claire and Alison
.

‘This is so cool!’ he said. ‘I knew you were just
kidding
.’

His headache had gone too, he realised, that generator pulse now silent, obliterated by the unexpected turn the afternoon had taken. He tore at the thin paper, one rip causing it to slough to the floor. Beneath was a green and white box, the Xbox logo plastered all over it, like some beautiful butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. His mum had hefted her bulk from the sofa and was waddling towards him, arms out, and he waited for the hug, for the kisses he should have had that morning, preparing his mock protests –
Agh, Mum, gerroff, I’m fifteen, not five
– but yearning for it, so happy to be that kid again, if just for the day. Just
so
happy.

The slap made fireworks explode inside the living room, raging spots of colour that seemed to burn through his vision. He was rocked back into the chair, so shocked that the box tumbled off his lap, crunching onto the carpet.

You’ll break it!
was the first thought that rifled through his head. Then the pain caught up, a flash of heat as if he’d been standing too close to the fire. There was no time for anything else before the second slap caught him on the other cheek, setting off a high-pitched ringing in his ears and making it feel as though his whole face were alight. He looked up, tears turning the whole room liquid, like it was filled with water. His mum was there, at least a blurred silhouette the same shape as his mum, one arm held high, swooping down.

Crack!
This time it wasn’t a slap, it was a punch. Benny’s mind went black, nothing there but the need to get away. He could taste something coppery and warm on his tongue, dripping down his throat, and he recognised it from the time he’d taken a football straight in the mouth.

Blood.

Panic catapulted him from the chair, and he pushed past his mum hard enough to shunt her backwards. She windmilled across the tiny patch of floor, striking the sofa, looking for a moment like she was about to do a
You’ve Been Framed
-style top-heavy tumble, only just managing to catch herself. She grunted, the kind of noise a startled boar might make, and Benny looked into her piggy black eyes and saw absolutely nothing human there at all.

‘Mum,’ he tried to say, but the word wouldn’t fit in his throat. She teetered, her bare feet doing a weird, silent tap-dance until she found her balance, then she threw herself at him. The air was full of noise, the heavy, wet rasps of his mum’s breathing and something else: a rising pitch, like a kettle coming to the boil. It took Benny a split second to understand that his sister Claire was screaming. She climbed out of the chair so fast that he couldn’t get out of her way, her body flapping into his, skinny arms locked around his neck. Then his mum hit them both, her momentum knocking them to the floor like skittles.

Benny smacked his head on the carpet, his mum falling on top of him, cutting out the light. Her weight was impossible, pinning him to the floor, refusing to let him breathe. He was enveloped in her smell – body odour and shampoo and the stench of nail varnish. He lashed out, throwing everything at her, but he couldn’t get any force behind his blows. And she was hitting him back, fleshy fists bouncing off his temple, his neck, his forehead.

Something white-hot burrowed into his shoulder but he couldn’t turn his head to see what. This time the pain made him shriek, the cries muffled by the heft of his mother’s chest. The agony increased, something wet gushing down the sleeve of his school jumper.

It isn’t real it isn’t real it isn’t real.

But he knew it was; he could see sparks flashing in the edges of his vision as his oxygen-starved brain misfired. And worse, so much worse, he could sense death here,
his
death, somewhere in the dark recesses of the shape on top of him.

The thought gave him strength, so much adrenalin flooding his system that this time when he punched upwards he caught his mum in the jaw. Her head snapped back and she spat out a blood-soaked grunt, her body weight shifting to the side as she flopped off him. He pulled himself out like someone escaping quicksand, his nails gouging tracks in the carpet. Halfway out he saw that Claire’s teeth were lodged in his upper arm, a scrap of flesh caught between them. Then he saw her eyes, so full of rage, and his fist flew automatically, catching her on the nose. With a cry she let go, tumbling away.

Somehow, Benny made it to his feet, careening wildly. He saw that Crapper’s jaws were locked around his mum’s ankles, aware even in the chaos that his dog was trying to save his life. His mum was rolling like a beached whale, her groans ugly, awful. She was trying to get up, he could see the determination in her eyes as they burned into him. She was trying to get up so she could finish the job.

Claire was already on her feet, lurching at him like a zombie. Benny stabbed both hands in her direction, pushing her into the wall. She bounced off, came at him again, and this time it was Crapper who stopped her, leaping over the floundering body of his mum and latching onto her thigh, bringing her down like a snapped sapling.

Benny crossed the living room in two strides, the kitchen door right ahead of him, the back door visible beyond that. He could make it, get out into the light. He
could
make it.

He sensed a shape at his side and turned to the window in time to see it implode. A hail of glass blasted into the room and he ducked to his knees, his arms rising to protect his face. Something crashed into him and he almost went over again, slamming a hand down onto the carpet to stop himself toppling. He pushed himself up, a sprinter’s start, but a hand grabbed his ankle, yanking it hard, causing him to drop onto his face. He kicked out, turning to see his new attacker: a stranger dressed in jeans and a green Latitude T-shirt. He had both hands round Benny’s leg, and his face – bleeding heavily and flecked with sparkling shards of glass – was a mask of pure fury.