The Fury

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  She approached the grave, her thoughts turning to her own parents. Would they be underground now? She wiped tears away furiously, but they kept coming. How could people do that to their loved ones? How could they put them in a hole in the ground, cover them up with dirt and just leave them there for all the worms to eat? She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped in the cold ground, in the dark, all alone with nothing to do, forever and ever and ever.

  She hurried away from the grave. There was a banging noise coming from somewhere nearby, and when she walked down the back of Fursville she realised it was coming from one of the small metal sheds against the fence. She passed ‘Utility’ then ‘Sanitation’ then ‘Danger: Do Not Enter’ before coming to an open door marked ‘Caretaker’. She peeked around it to see Brick inside, rummaging through piles of junk.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked. He glanced at her, then went back to whatever the answer was, throwing sheets of corrugated iron against the wall of the shed. The clatter was deafening. Eventually he reached down and grabbed something, holding it up.

  ‘Bingo,’ he said, tripping out of the shed into the light. He held up a hammer that was so rusted it looked like it had been dipped in bright orange gunk. It didn’t have a handle any more, just a short metal nubbin. He set off back the way Daisy had just walked. He didn’t even look at the grave as he passed it, using the little hammer to hack through the jungle of the crazy golf. Daisy followed, careful not to get scratched by the jaggies that pinged back after him.

  When she caught up she saw that he was hammering a big nail into the fence. It was awkward because he couldn’t really get any strength behind it, but he was taking his time and making sure he hit the nail squarely on the head. Gradually, millimetre by millimetre, it disappeared into the soft wood.

  ‘This bit was loose,’ Brick said, running his thumb over the sunken nail. ‘Whole fence could open up. No good if we want to keep the ferals out.’

  He pulled another nail from the pocket of his jeans.

  ‘I’m sorry about Lisa,’ Daisy spluttered, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them. Brick tensed up, studying the nail in his hand as if it had the answer to everything written on it. Daisy stood there, hoping he wouldn’t be mad. After a moment or two he looked at her through red-rimmed, exhausted eyes. He nodded, and she understood that it was a thank you. He placed the nail against the flapping fence panel and began to hammer again.

  ‘There’s another boy here,’ she said. He paused, then carried on. ‘He’s very thin. He said there were others but . . . but they didn’t make it.’

  He finished the nail and started on a third. Daisy hopped from one foot to the other. She was hungry, thirsty too. She didn’t want to ask Brick about food, though. She didn’t want to give him any reason to go inside and see Rilke. Only bad things could come from that. But there was another matter she wanted to talk to him about.

  ‘Brick,’ she started, talking over the hammer blows. ‘Did you feel it too? Yesterday.’

  He didn’t even pause this time, tapping away at the nail until it vanished. He gave the fence a shake, the panel still flapping at the bottom, before reaching into his pocket again and squatting down.

  ‘It was really horrible,’ she said. ‘Just this . . . a kind of feeling, like being numb, but being really sad too.’ He still didn’t reply. Daisy chewed her thumbnail, wishing she was better at finding the right words. ‘It was like something had gone wrong with . . . with life.’

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Brick hammered away, the nail going in at an angle. Daisy waited a moment more then turned to go. She didn’t really need him to answer. She could see it in his head, in his thoughts. He had felt it, he knew exactly what she meant. Only there was more there, in his mind. She focused, pulling an ice cube free, trying to work out what was inside it. It didn’t make any sense, there was only chaos, like a whirlwind, and a constant, gasping noise that made her flesh crawl. Something awful, something evil, something . . .

  She glanced back at Brick to try and fine-tune the image. He was looking at her, and as their eyes met an understanding clicked home.

  This storm, this whirlwind, this bad thing, it wasn’t a something, it was a nothing. It was the absence of something, and that absence was spreading – deleting, erasing, cancelling everything it touched. That’s why it felt so sad, so horrible, because this thing was the very opposite of life, the opposite of death too, it was the opposite of everything.

  Antimatter, the word that floated to the top of her thoughts belonged to Brick, not her; she didn’t even know what it meant. She knew that he was thinking the same thing as her, though. They both knew what it wanted, this other. It wanted to take everything and turn it into nothing, to devour it, to wipe it from existence.

  And when it was done, reality would be nothing but an empty hole in time.

  Rilke

  Fursville, 8.42 a.m.

  ‘Please, Rilke, I just need to talk to you.’

  Rilke stood by the restaurant doors listening to Cal rant and rave. He’d been out there for a while now, pacing back and forth like a wolf, first pleading, then threatening, then fuming.

  ‘Rilke, we need our food, our drink. It’s not fair, that’s our stuff.’

  He banged on the door, flakes of ice drifting loose. Rilke’s silent laugh came out as little puffs of breath. She clutched the gun, her hand so numb from the cold that she couldn’t feel it, only its weight.

  ‘Look, you don’t have to speak to me, you don’t have to see the others. Just let me in for five seconds and I’ll get what I need. You can keep some of the rations, okay?’

  The door rocked on its hinges, making her take a step back. Cal kicked it again, hard, the wood creaking.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said Rilke.

  ‘Then let me in,’ Cal said. ‘We need food. I’m coming through these doors one way or the other, Rilke.’

  She didn’t answer, happy to let him stew in his own anger. He was so predictable, thinking he could do what he wanted because he was a boy, because he was strong. Rilke knew why she had been chosen, but why Cal? Why the others? They were pathetic.

  ‘Rilke!’ he snapped. ‘I mean it, you have to let me in.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  Her smile widened. She was in charge because she had all the food. Cal and the others couldn’t just stroll down to the nearest Tesco’s and do their grocery shopping.

  ‘Open the door!’ Cal yelled. ‘Seriously, I’m getting really pissed off. Are you gonna shoot us all? Tell me what you want or I swear to God I’m gonna break this door down and give you a slap, girl or no girl.’

  Rilke uttered a brittle chuckle that seemed colder than the breeze.

  ‘I only want one thing,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to Daisy.’

  Cal protested, but after a while he gave up. She listened to him retreat down the stairs, his curses eventually fading into the immense quiet of the pavilion. She pressed her forehead against the frozen wood of the doors, wondering if he would give her what she had asked for.

  He will. He has to if he wants to eat.

  She straightened and walked over to the nearest table, laying the gun down beside a flickering candle. She had to peel her fingers from the cold metal. It was incredible, really, that something so small could be so deadly. That simply squeezing your finger could result in the end of a life.

  But the two people she had killed, the two humans, they hadn’t deserved to live. None of them did. That’s why she was here, why she had been chosen. And very soon she’d have weapons which would make this gun look like a plastic toy. Isn’t that what she’d felt last night? The knowledge that there was something out there, something terrible and yet wonderful. A force of pure destructive power.

  Schiller lay in his pocket of ice, his body still radiating cold like an inverse sun. He hadn’t so much as twitched since the previous evening, but she knew he wouldn’t stay like that forever. She wasn’t sure how she knew, sh
e just did. He wasn’t dying, he was changing, like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

  ‘But into what, Schill?’ she whispered. ‘What are you becoming?’

  Daisy had the answers. The little girl didn’t realise it, but they were locked away somewhere inside that pretty little head of hers. She just needed a little bit of encouragement to get them out.

  The candle was struggling, as if the darkness had weight, snuffing out the solitary flame. Rilke took another one from the pile she’d collected, lighting it from the first and planting it in a socket of melted wax. It, too, began to stutter against the heavy gloom. She smiled at the blatant metaphor. We few are the flames, she thought to herself, mesmerised by the dancing colours. We are the light in the darkness.

  And what could the darkness be, other than humanity? This crushing, heaving mass of people who had no legitimate right to life. How many souls lived on earth now? Six billion? Seven? All of them like insects, crawling around on their hands and knees or slaughtering one another in pursuit of scraps. They were ignorant, they were cruel, they were the night that smothered the day. They did not deserve their existence.

  That’s why all this was happening. That’s why she and Schiller had been attacked – why they’d all been attacked. The people sensed something different in them, something special. And they hated it, because it was better than them. She remembered the men and women back at the rave, the way they had turned into beasts – biting, clawing, scratching, howling. They had acted like animals because that’s all they were, because they had sensed that Rilke and Schiller were more than them, that she and her brother were dangerous, that they were . . .

  She paused, unable to think of the right word. The twin flames fluttered but they didn’t go out. They wouldn’t go out, they wouldn’t succumb to the darkness.

  And what about the thing she had sensed last night? That wave of utter nothingness, that awful knowledge that what lay beneath the skin of the world was an infinite abyss of absence. She wasn’t sure, but this creature, this force – whatever it was – might be here to show them the way. As dark as its image had been, it might be the light they needed to follow. Why else would she have seen it?

  Footsteps, more than one set. Rilke cocked her head, feeling Daisy’s presence outside even before Cal’s voice came through the doors.

  ‘She’s here,’ he said. ‘She says she’ll talk to you, but only if you let us have some food.’

  Rilke walked to the doors, then doubled back and picked up the gun. Cal was too pathetic to try anything, she was pretty sure about that, but she couldn’t afford to take any chances, not when the truth was so close. She slid back the lock, then pulled open the door with her free hand. Daisy stood there, squinting. Cal was beside her.

  ‘You don’t have to go in,’ he said. ‘Whatever she has to say, she can say it right here.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Daisy. ‘She isn’t going to hurt me.’

  Daisy gave Cal a hug, then walked into the restaurant. Cal watched her go, then glared at Rilke.

  ‘You’d better not,’ he hissed. ‘You’d better not lay a finger on her. I’ll be right here, Rilke, I’m not going anywhere.’

  Rilke laughed at him, then let the door swing shut in his face.

  Daisy

  Fursville, 9.03 a.m.

  Daisy walked to the table with the candles and sat down, putting her trembling hands between her knees so that Rilke wouldn’t notice she was scared. She had lied to Cal, she didn’t know if Rilke was going to hurt her or not. But she had to do something to get some food or they’d all starve. She glanced around as innocently as she could, but she couldn’t see the carrier bags anywhere.

  ‘I’ve put them somewhere safe,’ said Rilke, her eyes gleaming. She walked over, placing the gun in the middle of the table before sitting opposite Daisy. Her face had the same crazy look as yesterday. It was dangerous. ‘Just until we’ve had a little talk.’

  ‘About what?’ said Daisy, shivering. It was colder than ever in here, Schiller entombed in ice on the sofa.

  ‘You know what,’ said Rilke, planting her elbows and stretching her hands across the table. The way her forearms uncurled made Daisy think of a praying mantis. She didn’t offer her own hands. ‘About this, about everything.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything,’ said Daisy. Where would the food be? In a corner, somewhere. Or under a table.

  ‘I think you do,’ said Rilke, her face splitting into a grin, her eyes burning. ‘I think it’s all there, in your head, you just don’t know how to read it.’

  Daisy didn’t answer. Maybe Rilke was right. There had been all kinds of things happening in her brain that she couldn’t make any sense of. The ice cubes, rattling and clinking around, showing her things she couldn’t possibly know. They were doing it right now, but they were moving too fast, the way they seemed to do when she was frightened.

  ‘I don’t want you to be scared of me, Daisy,’ said Rilke, gentler now. ‘We’re the same, you and I.’

  Except I don’t murder people, she thought but didn’t say.

  ‘I had no choice,’ Rilke went on. ‘You know how dangerous the ferals are. You can’t have forgotten what happened to you already?’

  Daisy shook her head, thinking of the ambulance man and his horse’s teeth.

  ‘Things are changing, Daisy. The world is changing. You felt it too, didn’t you? Yesterday evening. All I want is to know what it was. Because I think something is trying to tell us what to do. It’s trying to guide us, only we don’t know how to listen.’

  That made a strange kind of sense. It did feel a bit like when she was at school sometimes and she didn’t really understand what the teacher was saying.

  Rilke stretched her hands out a bit further, opening them to Daisy.

  ‘I know things have been really bad. I’ve lost people too, I’m worried I’m going to lose my brother. The whole world has turned against us, we have to be there for each other. We’re different now, different to the rest of them, all of us – me, you, Schill, Cal, Brick and the others. We’re a family, we have to trust each other.’

  Daisy liked the idea of a family. Cal already felt like her brother. In fact it was as if she’d been friends with all of them forever, even the new boy Marcus who, she knew without being told, liked loud music and hated football – she hoped Cal wouldn’t mind this last fact. Rilke, too, was not a stranger. She never had been. She relaxed a little, her hands creeping towards Rilke’s.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ Rilke asked. Daisy chewed her lip, then nodded. Rilke’s smile widened even further, revealing a row of perfect, small teeth. ‘Then take my hands.’

  This time, Daisy didn’t hesitate. She threaded her fingers through Rilke’s, the girl’s skin as cold as marble. Rilke held her tight – not so hard that it was painful, though. The contact felt nice. She smiled back at her, forgetting why she’d been so worried before.

  ‘You’re a special girl, Daisy,’ said Rilke, her voice barely louder than the flutter of the candles. ‘You can do amazing things. I think we all can. Not yet, maybe, but soon. I think we all have a gift.’

  ‘What kind of gift?’ Daisy asked. Her ice cubes didn’t feel anything like a Christmas present. She wasn’t sure she even wanted them when they made her feel sad and frightened. Rilke squeezed her.

  ‘Think about it, Daisy. Why would the whole world turn against us? Why would they try to kill us?’

  ‘Because they hate us, I suppose,’ Daisy replied, shrugging. Rilke shook her head.

  ‘Think, why would they hate us? What would make them behave that way?’

  Daisy frowned, wishing that Rilke would just tell her. She hated being asked questions that she didn’t know the answer to. Then, out of nowhere, she said:

  ‘Because they’re scared of us.’

  Rilke nodded, obviously delighted, and Daisy felt some of the stress drain from her chest. It made a certain kind of sense, she realised. People did do silly things when they were really scared. Even so, t
hey didn’t usually start trying to pull your arms and legs and head off. They—

  Don’t they? said Rilke, interrupting her thoughts, and Daisy couldn’t tell whether the other girl had spoken or not. ‘It’s happened before, throughout history. The ones that are different, who rise above just being human. People get scared of them, they kill them. What if they are supposed to be scared of us, Daisy? What if they’re right to be scared of us?’

  ‘Why?’ Daisy said, struggling. Rilke eased her grip, but she didn’t let go.

  ‘Don’t be frightened. I’m not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you. Don’t you see? Don’t you remember that feeling from yesterday?’

  Daisy shivered just thinking about it, that wave of utter sadness that had washed over her when she was standing outside. No, it hadn’t been sadness exactly, it had been worse than that. It had been as if all emotion had gone, as if there was nothing left. She couldn’t explain it, only that it had felt like standing alone in an endless dark room and knowing that there was nobody else anywhere in the whole universe.

  ‘It’s a sign,’ Rilke said. ‘A sign that everything is going to change.’

  ‘But why?’ Daisy asked, feeling her throat tighten. ‘People will get hurt, I don’t want that. People are nice.’

  ‘Are they, Daisy?’ Rilke said. ‘Think about it, really think about it.’

  She didn’t want to but she did – thoughts of the times she’d been bullied, back in her old school when she’d had eczema on her arms and everyone had called her names; the little boy in her town who’d been murdered by the creep who’d delivered leaflets, whose body had never been found; all the riots on telly, people beating each other up for stupid things they didn’t even need; and even her own mum, when the cancer had been bad, when it had made her say things that were really cruel. There was another memory too, but this one was Rilke’s, a man with rough fingers and long, dirty nails and breath that smelled of coffee and alcohol, his huge face looming in. Daisy squirmed, pushing the thoughts away, so sick of having other people’s hate and fear and confusion inside her head, ready to scream, Leave me alone!