The street he was in now was all shops, closed this time of night. Not a soul about. Why should there be? Who would want to walk down this empty, characterless shopping street? Towns today were all the same. The same shops, the same banks, the same cafes. Bloody Starbucks! Sold every bloody coffee under the sun, except Nescaff, and that was the only one you really wanted. Nescaff, milk, two sugars. They’d look at you like you were mad. And then order you to have a nice day, because that was what some prick in California told them to say.

High Streets now were soulless in the day, dead at night. Dead streets. Streets of death.

His anger spurred him on, pushing him to a brief sprint.

Another side road on the right. He grabbed the signpost and used it to swing into the narrow road. Offices either side of the road. And there, a couple of hundred yards in, the back of a department shop blocking off any escape.

Dead street. Dead end. Dead quiet. Dead of night. Dead on his feet. Dead on the ground, back there where they had tried to mug him, the yellow sodium lights turning the blood black as it seeped through the back of the boy’s hood. The iron bar, just the right size to hide in the sleeve of his raincoat, a dead weight in his hand.

He slowed to a walk, panting hard. The remaining two muggers had reached the blank wall of the store, and had realised that there was nowhere further they could run. One of them banged on the delivery bay doors, but there was no-one there. They turned and saw him walking towards them.

They were just kids. Kids. But they pissed their time away on cider and drugs and sluts and mugging innocent, decent people. No more.

He hefted the heavy bar, making sure of his grip. He started to run, a wordless roar rising from his throat, iron bar lifted high over his head.