The learning curve

POV Cadet. Luke Jennigan

The Police called the 'Murder of the Century'. Affected families called it disgraceful. The Army hadn't commented. Nobody knew how a sociopath had managed to get into the British military cadets. Luke knew. Ben may have been completely out of his mind, but he was good at hiding it. Everyone who knew him properly, also knew he was unstable. And it was only a matter of time until he cracked.

The news went crazy over the case, the BBC, ITV, and B-Sky-B were all telling the tale of a teenager who shot and killed four British Army personnel, before being gunned down by several riflemen. It was being investigated by the Metropolitan police and they had only found out what was already known; A kid who really should have been in care, had been pushed beyond his limit once too often.

Not that it made much difference to the community. People were talking about it, but it wasn't too much of a big deal. Which is probably why he did it. Ben knew that he wouldn't be missed by pretty much everyone, so he took a chance and broke free from his mental bonds. He had gone crazy and done some big shit before, but this was more than that. He killed people.

Luke had been questioned by detectives as leads indicated he was the closest non relative to Ben. That doesn't mean he was actually close though. Ben was more open minded and calm around his family so they really had no clue what could have caused him to snap so schoolmates were the next best thing. At school, Ben was not afraid to be his deranged self. The part if him hidden from his mother and father. He scared Luke. Constantly acting like he was about to cut your throat anytime your back was closed. He was surprised none of the teachers had noticed. But again, he was good at hiding it.

Everyone in the house was quiet. He had several mates hanging around at his place. They had been passing the time playing COD:Ghosts on the PS4 but that had quickly lost its charm, and they had resorted to watching TV instead.

"I still can't believe he did it..." Solomon put his head in his hands. "... I knew he was crazy but killing people?"

"Yeah dude. It's pretty deep."

"Wha'd'ya think, Luke? You knew him best."

Luke was silent for a few seconds before he opened his mouth, he had to think about what he was going to say this time.

"It was only a matter of time. It was gonna happen eventually."

"I hear ya dude. I mean, you were in the same base as him. You could have been caught up in that."

Luke shook his head.

"I doubt it. Ben may have been crazy but he wouldn't kill anyone he didn't need to."

"Then why did he?"

"He was very decisive. Someone must have gotten in the way and forced it out of him."

The quiet once again filled the living room. Everyone stared down at the floor and dared not break the ice. Suddenly a phone rang in a loud Samsung ringtone, scaring the shit out of Solomon and one of the other guys in the room. Luke smiled and took his phone out from his pocket. That's if you can even call the Samsung Galaxy series an actual phone. It looked like it was getting pretty close to small tablet to him.

"It's my mum."

"Ask her if she's up for it tonight."

Luke gave the guy an unamused look before placing his finger on the answer icon, and swiping his finger across to answer the call.

"Hi mum ... Yeah, I'm fine ... Yeah sure what do want doin'? ... Urgh, really? Do I have to? ... Fine ... Na, don't worry about it ... Ok, see ya! ... Bye!"

Luke ended the call and locked his phone, before sliding it back into his pocket.

"Yer' mum want a blowjob?"

"Fuck you, man. No she wants me to go and get my dad a newspaper before they get back."

"When they coming back?"

"Now, I think. You guys better go, I gotta haul ass."

There was a collective 'aww' from the group as they hesitantly picked up and left. One by one they left the house, each saying goodbye on their way out. When the door was finally slammed shut, Luke put his trainers on and left by the back door.

The street was semi busy, as usual. Props of living in a popular market town, the place looked good 24/7 with the exception of Friday nights. That was when all the drunkards were wandering about the streets, getting into scraps and wobbling around like jellies. The roads had a constant flow of traffic flowing through them as some were starting to come back from work. Crossing the road at the junction, he headed over to the BP feud station to buy a newspaper.

The green, yellow and white logo stood on a board that had the Unleaded, leaded and diesel prices on them. Fuel prices were skyrocketing at the moment. Good thing 'The Sun' sells their papers for 10p, they're about the only thing in Britain that's isn't really affected by inflammation. Pushing the door open, the familiar 'ding dong' of the door bell rang out and people momentarily looked his way. He picked up a paper from the rack and lined up at the counter. He waited for a good five minutes before the asshat at the front of the queue stopped flirting with the till lady and left with a packet of crisps and a Mars bar.

Jesus Christ, some people..,

Eventually, he came to the counter and put the paper on it along with the ten pence piece. The till lady smiled at him and spoke up.

"Hi Luke. How are you?"

"Fine thanks, how are you?"

"Same here. Glorious day, isn't it?"

Looking outside, the sun glared in through the window and made him squint. There wasn't a cloud in sight.

"Aye, it is."

The lady scanned the paper and put the coin in the till before handing the paper back to him.

"Have a nice day, Luke." She winked at him, and he winked back.

He walked out of the door and the first thing he noticed was the smell. Methane... Lots of Methane. He began to jog off, not wanting to be around much longer with flammable gas in the air. As he got to the opening into the road, a red Honda pulled in and knocked him of' his feet. His head smacked the bonnet and the driver stopped.

The force flung him from the car about five foot back toward the fuel station and he rolled a little. His chest and face hurt like shit. He felt very achy, but he slowly picked himself up, clutching a section of his ribs. The driver of the car ran toward him and put his hand on Luke's shoulder rather hard. Luke gasped and staggered backward.

"Shit man, are you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

The driver sniffed the air and a frown appeared across his face.

"Is that... gas?"

Luke nodded and picked up the paper. Footsteps rang out behind them and the till lady ran to their sides.

"Oh my god, Luke are you ok? You need to go, there's been a gas leak."

Luke looked at her concerned face and nodded. He hobbled away as fast as his battered body would let him. The red Honda reversed past and the driver shouted an apology through his window. He simply responded by raising his hand as he began to recover from being run over. Limping down the street, several police cars drove past, sirens blaring. He could see them parking up about twenty metres from the station to be safe. He was about five times further so that put him at least one hundred metres away.

He stopped and spectators the police doing their job. They appeared to be running around and getting into positions around the area, quarantining it to stop anyone inhaling dangerous amounts of gas. The white cars with high visibility blue and lime stripes lined the street as one of them started to call other emergency services. Suddenly one them was greeted by another who appeared to be panicking. He made rushed hand signals and spoke to the caller. He then ran off again, and the police began to widen the quarantine zone.

Luke took this as a bad sign, and began to walk away once more. He couldn't have been walking for more than ten seconds before the rumble of a flash fire escaped into the town, coating the houses with an orange under glow that made everything look like it would on a good sunset. He turned to se a fireball enveloping the police and rising outwards, into the air. He turned to run and made about fifty metres before the ground shook and he was stopped by an ear splitting pressure wave.

An earth shattering boom bellowed out, shattering windows and knocking onlookers to the ground. Luke jumped back to his feet and ran. He want running for long. Luke could hear a gentle 'whizzing' that indicated small parts of debris flying away from the fiery explosion. He glanced back and saw a giant cloud of smoke rising up toward the sky, and mushrooming out at the top.

The screams of pedestrians running for their lives filled the air, and their moving bodies filled the pathways ahead of him. They were watching the event with cameras. Luke gestured for them to move out of the way and as they started to budge for him, a high pitched whistling caught his attention. He rotated to face the direction of the sounds origin.

His eyes reduced to pin pricks as they focused on a fast moving object, coming in at a sharp angle. Coming in towards him. The object slammed into him, pinning his body to the floor. The crowd was silent for a moment and then erupted into screams. When Luke tried to get up, he found he couldn't. He looked at his chest and gasped.

A metal rod had impaled him and locked him onto the ground. The pain built up slowly and he grabbed the rod. He didn't dare pull it out though, he didn't want the pain to increase. But it it did. It increased slowly but it didn't stop. It grew to horrifying levels as he panted furiously. Blood poured from the wound and some spurted out of the rod.

His vision began to fade as did his breathing. His desperate movements were starting to relax. Tension was releasing from his body as his brain started to shut down. His darting, tiny pupils dilated and he stared into the spotless, blue sky. He dropped his arms as he lost the strength to hold them up and he felt his heart stop.

Every muscle in his body released their will to move as the darkness began to fade in. The world blurred, and everything went black.