The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

so-called best friends had run off, abandoning him in the middle of London Zoo. Well the hell with them, he wasn’t going to stand around like an idiot waiting for them to show their faces. He moved away from the café, his head banging as he walked alone into the hot, heavy summer evening.

Brick
     
    Fursville, 6.56 p.m.
     
     
    By the time Brick arrived back at Fursville the sun was well on its way towards the white heat of the horizon. It was no cooler, though, the coast flattened by an invisible muggy fist. He was dripping with sweat, not helped by the fact that he’d been sandwiched between the bike’s overworked engine and Lisa’s limpet-like grip for the last thirty-five minutes.
    ‘OMG, Brick, you’ve crippled me,’ she said as she clambered off the pillion seat, nursing her backside with both hands. ‘When are you gonna get a car?’
    ‘When I can afford it,’ he said, waiting for her to stand clear before swinging his leg over. His muscles put up a fight – that was nearly two hours he’d spent riding today, and another thirty minutes to go when he took Lisa home – but he ignored them. He stretched, hearing his spine pop, then he weaselled off his helmet. The pain of his pinned-back ears began to ebb, leaving the strains of an approaching headache. He recognised the discomfort, like the first rolls of thunder from a distant storm. It was nothing to worry about yet, but later that night he’d be lucky if he didn’t have a full-blown hurricane between his temples.
    Why on earth had he brought Lisa here?
    It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, a stupid spur-of-the-moment thing. After he’d picked her up they’d ridden over to Riverside, the leisure complex, stopping at his house for a spare helmet. She’d demanded that he take her to the cinema to make up for being so late, and he’d reluctantly agreed, even when the only thing about to start had been some awful romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston and some guy he half recognised from a comedy show on the telly. Brick hadn’t laughed once during the whole thing except when Lisa had dropped her bucket of popcorn halfway through the big love scene while trying to fish her mobile out of her bag. And that laugh hadn’t lasted long because she’d made him go and get her some more.
    After the film, Brick had been so relieved to be out in the sunshine again that he’d had a sudden rush of euphoric happiness. The only other place he’d ever really been this happy was Fursville, and in some bizarre and flawed twist of neural logic he’d decided there and then to let Lisa in on his secret.
    ‘You wanna see something cool?’ he’d said as they made their way back to the car park. ‘Come on, it won’t take long.’
    She’d protested and grumbled and moaned, and it only took about five minutes of riding out towards the coast with her voice in his ear for Brick’s mood to plummet off its tightrope. He should have turned back, dropped her home, but for some reason he’d just kept his head down and roared east. Now here they were, in his haven, his hideaway, Lisa’s nasal whine like some invading naval fleet.
    ‘What the hell is this place?’ she asked, pulling off her own helmet, smoothing out her ponytail. For a second, as she did so, she looked unbearably pretty to Brick. Then her face crumpled up into that all-too-familiar mask of misery and disappointment. ‘Fursville? Didn’t this used to be an amusement park or something?’
    Duh , thought Brick, glancing up at the big wheel, or what remained of it. With only one of its gondolas still attached and its broken spokes bent out at all angles it resembled some leprous, anorexic giant.
    ‘Please tell me you didn’t drag me out to see this crapyard,’ she spat. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t dare. He felt ridiculously protective of the place. Hearing her talk about it this way made his blood boil. He bit his tongue, looking away, his head pounding. He could hear his pulse ringing in