Retribution Chapter one

I trudged through the street. The few streetlights still standing cast a dim glow about me. In the past year I had learnt that things didn’t just get better from grabbing a few bottles off a shelf and heading for the streets. You had to adapt, evolve. I like to think I’m a pretty smart guy, but when faced by groups of teens best described as beasts, demanding everything you have and have worked for, you realise brain doesn’t beat brawn. The baseball bat under my bed sure as hell does though.
My beaten trainers carried on past hooded figures leaning against walls, bottle in hand and knife in pocket. Any other person would have crossed the street, even turned around and hurried back the way they’d come, but when you’ve lived in hell for your whole life, you learn to dance to the devils tune.
“Gives us your, gives us-” mumbled a silhouette of a scrawny lad, barely older than myself. I laughed, trying to sound unimpressed as I strode on with my heart in my mouth, chewing on arteries as I willed he was too drunk to cram a knife into my back as I carried on.
Hey, I said I had evolved, not stopped being a complete coward.
“Yeah, you jog on mate!” I think he said, but by then I had turned the corner and reached my apartment block. A smile played on my lips, as I pretended to press in some random code on the rusting old security code for the door, hanging by a single wire and caked in several layers of graffiti. It was something I always used to do when I was younger, and well, old habits die hard so they say.
I traversed the numerous bodies lying on the floor, an occasional cough or muttered curse about the ‘damn heating’ the only sign of life in the malignant halls. Two storeys up, I kicked open the umpteenth door of our apartment, its hinges bought ready rusted and we'd found a real bargain on the decaying frame.
“Mum?” I called half-heartedly, and received a large burp and small giggle in return. “Joe, ha! Joe come, come here!” she cried. Sighing, I went into the lounge, to find my mother in her usual place, drawn out over the sofa with a half empty bottle of wine amidst a pile of bottles that could easily fill a couple of bin liners.
“Look, look! I’ve found, I,” she erupted into a round of giggles, then held up a pair of darned underwear, “It’s your-”
“Underwear, I know mum, you showed me last night,” her eyes dropped, and she sniffled a bit.
“I just wish your father was here to see this,” she mumbled, then her head drooped and she fell to sleep, underwear in hand. I moaned, wishing for the billionth time in my life that I could switch parents, find some with a decent house and some money about them.
It’s not that I don’t love them, if anything I feel sympathy for them. My dad’s a nice guy, I think. On the rare occasion he comes home from his job, he usually brings back a fish ‘n’ chips, and he tells us some jokes and some crap about his job at, I don’t know a pencil factory maybe? Mum even only has a few drinks, so stays relatively sober for the night.
But like I said, big house, money and a decent education. Or a rundown apartment, drunken mother and who knows what father. It’s pretty clear which to choose.
I nuked a ready meal in what I was convinced was the first microwave ever invented, then grabbed a can of coke from the cupboard and headed for my room.
Consider your average teenagers room. Brimming with junk all over the place and exceedingly close to your average skip. Now imagine the room of a teen who’s fairly poor, with the floor viewable beneath the few pieces of rubbish strewn across it.
My room’s neither. I suppose you could say its military style, bed, desk, cupboard, and no rubbish in sight. Except mine is probably that of a military base that had been hit by a bomb and crudely reassembled.
It was gone midnight, and after a few minutes my eyes began to close and I fell asleep, sitting up in bed with bubbling pasta balanced on my knee and a rumbling stomach.

My eyes snapped open.
A loud banging came from the front door. Five urgent bangs that had probably left a dent in the weak material.
“It’s probably your father!” called mum, her usual screechy sober voice cutting through my ears. I relaxed, but still wondered what was so urgent that he came back home in the middle of the night.
Groggily I rolled my head, working out the crick in my neck form sitting upright all night. I reached for the covers and felt something wet and cold. Groaning, I flicked aside the spilt meal onto the floor and hit the lights. After a dazed few moments the splurge of tomato sauce and pasta pieces came into focus and, cursing my life, I bundled up the duvet and sheets and headed for the small kitchen.
As I walked through the lounge I glanced at my mum by the door, turning the handle just as another round of bangs emanated from the door. She had pulled on her dressing gown in a haste and only had one slipper on.
Opening the door a creek, she peeped out of the small slit between the door and its frame. I had reached the middle of the lounge now and began traversing the heap of bottles as my mother shrieked and tried to slam the door shut.
I turned just in time to see the door crash into my mother, sending her flying into the small cabinet by the door. A large black man walked casually in, not even looking as he raised his silenced pistol and put an end to my mother’s life.
It was the sheets that saved me. After a few seconds of shock I did what most people in my position would, chuck the sheets up in the air, scream and run for the kitchen. Luckily, throwing the sheets had blocked the man’s vision, because bullets tore through the walls around me but none hit. If I had had time to appreciate the sudden turn of luck, I would have, but the six and a half foot murderer had another clip, and as appealing as having a 6mm round rammed into my forehead sounded, I think I’d pass.
In three steps I dived through the door to the kitchen, leaving an avalanche of bottles behind as I booted the door shut. Luckily, the few action films I had seen taught me that cramming a chair under a door handle is the highest tech defence mechanism in your average kitchen.
As the handle began wiggling vigorously, I scanned the room for something, anything to defend myself with. In desperation I grabbed a large, rusting saucepan. Before fear could get the better of me, I kicked the chair out and flung open the door. Unfortunately, my spout luck had run out, as it had been that moment that the man had chosen to shoulder barge the door.
In a tangle of arms and legs we both collapsed to the ground, and I punched and kicked his muscular form for all I was worth. The man managed to get a decent punch in and my stomach exploded in pain. Now I had been hit in the gut before, and if I thought that had been bad, I hadn’t met a full grown man who was no stranger at the gym.
Clutching my stomach with one hand, I managed to crawl to the door and grab the saucepan, which I’d dropped when we hit each other. Gritting my teeth, I hauled myself up and faced the man who had murdered my mother.
He had also lost his weapon in the sprawl, and it now laid a few metres behind me by the mix of broken glass and spilt wine. There was a slight pause, as his eyes met mine. They were the eyes of a cold blooded killer, and I had a feeling my mother wasn’t the first corpse he’d created.
“Now there’s only one place I’m ‘gonna go, and that’s-”
“Straight to hell!” I roared and, adrenaline pumping through my veins and my fear boiling away to red hot rage, I charged. He smiled, taking on a fighting stance. At the last moment, as I was sure the pan was going to crack open his skull, he ducked and weaved out the way, hitting my ribs so hard if they weren’t broken, they were definitely fractured.
The man stepped over me, heading for the gun, but in desperation I kicked out, and my foot connected with bone and a large snap resounded through the room.
“Holy!” the man began, as his knee caved in and he fell forwards. I covered my head, waiting for a bullet to fly into the back of it. A few seconds ticked by. Silence.
Cautiously, I lifted my head up and rolled onto my back, propping myself up on my elbows. The sight that met my eyes was both gruesome and frightfully satisfying.
It was safe to say his life had been ended, the bottle protruding from his neck pretty much said as much. I silently thanked my mother’s drinking habits, and took back all the times I had said it was worthless.
Mum...
A beady droplet formed in the corner of my eye, as I glanced over at her lifeless form. A small pool of crimson blood encircled her head, and realisation of her death finally dawned on me. My hands began to shake, and I curled into a ball, tears streaming down my face, the full on water works.

An hour of crying and mourning for my mum and a box of Kleenex later, I brought myself to get up and go over to her. I have to admit, I couldn’t help but give the man’s bloody corpse a good kick, but that didn’t help as much as I hoped kicking a dead man would.
I think I’m still shock, well who wouldn’t be. A stranger had burst into my house in the middle of the night, murdered my mum in cold blood and tried to kill me. Looked like life was going to get pretty crap from now on and, trust me, that means allot coming from someone with a life like mine.
Not willing to look at my mum’s face for fear of another round of tears, I grabbed her duvet off the bed and drew it over her body. The murderer got no such treatment, only another sharp kick and torrent of curses that would’ve put the kids in my school to shame.
Now I suppose your wandering why I haven’t called the police yet. The answer is, other than the fact we don’t have a working telephone, like I said, I’m fairly smart, and I can see exactly what the police would see. Anger management teenage boy with AZBO, two corpses and enough DNA swipes to see me in prison for the rest of my life.
As for next door neighbours, they’re either baked out of their minds or on the floor covered in vomit.
All of a sudden a thought occurred that seemed so obvious it made me want to hit something for missing it. Why the hell did the guy murder my mum and try to kill me? If he wanted money he was in the wrong place and he could have just taken it when I was in the kitchen.
I decided to search him.
Now if you’re wondering what searching a corpse is like, it’s not as simple as what the action heroes on T.V. make it look. His bodies still warm, and the bloods sticky underhand, not to mention the fact the guy weighed a ton and it took me a good minute to heave him onto his back.
After a few minutes of rummaging through his pockets, I stood up holding a large hunting knife that had been strapped to his thigh, a crumpled up packet of crisps and a letter.
I tore the letter open, and pulled out a small sheet of paper. There were three lines of black print:

Your payment is in the safe beneath the double bed.
The code is 5.3.3.1
You will find a phone. Text me if they are dead, then destroy the phone.

I crammed the paper into my pocket, and then lurched to my feet. My head was swimming. It made no sense, who would pay to have me and my mum killed?
Kicking open the door to my parents room, I shoved the bed aside, then took out the message.
The safe was bright blue and crudely made, like the type you would give to a kid. I dialled in the numbers and it clicked open. I gasped.
Inside was a pile of £50 notes that filled the safe. There had to be at least five grand’s worth in there. And, as the note said, a simple nokia sat atop the mound. At that moment I realised what I had to do.
I pushed aside all thoughts of my mother, burying them deep. Breathing deep and calm, I took out the phone and looked at the contacts. There was only one, ‘Uncle’. I clicked on his name and pressed the button to send a message. “It’s done,” I wrote, then sent it to the sick man that had ordered my death.
Pocketing the phone, I tore up the note, and then grabbed my school bag. I stuffed it full with the money from the safe, and then put the gun, knife and all the other money I could find in the house (which wasn’t exactly much) on top and zipped it up.
After a quick thought, I grabbed the gun out and stuffed it in my jeans, the extra clip as well. A grim look on my face, I took one last look around my home, then headed for the kitchen. I opened up the fridge and pulled out some cans of beer.
Ten minutes later I was ready.
I walked through the puddles of alcohol soaking into the carpet, past the corpse of the man that had ruined my life and up to the front door. I lone tear of guilt welled in the corner of my eye, and I kissed my mother’s cold forehead for the last time.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Painfully, I composed myself, then gritted my teeth and punched the fire alarm. The old horns down the corridor wailed into life, and numerous voices began cursing. Bodies filed out of the building in the closest thing to an orderly fashion that a bunch of tired drunks could do in the middle of the night. As the last one left, I pulled out my mother’s lighter, watching as the flame came to life.
Without time to change my mind, I chucked the lighter into my home, slammed the door shut and ran for the stairs.
I didn’t look back.