‘Playing paper-scissors-stone to see who’d be bait for the rats,’ said Simon, snorting a laugh. ‘And stealing all that equipment. Like we really thought we’d be able to use scalpels as climbing gear. We almost made it, though, didn’t we, climbing the chimney. If that bastard Cross hadn’t lit the incinerator then we’d have been home free.’
‘Yeah, Cross,’ spat Zee, his grin vanishing. ‘The warden, don’t forget about him, Alex.’
I couldn’t, even if I’d tried, his devil’s face appearing before me now. I remembered the first time I’d seen him, walking out of the vault door with his sick entourage of blacksuits, skinless dogs and wheezers. I couldn’t meet his eyes, nobody could. Every time I tried it was as if I had been plunged into a pool of black water, all the joy and happiness in the world stripped away. I knew now why those eyes had seemed like vortexes in his head, why none of us could meet them. He’d consumed so much nectar that he had the stranger’s blood inside him – not much, just enough to make him far older than he had any right to be, enough to strip away all but the semblance of humanity.
He had been chosen to become Furnace’s heir. It might have been him here instead of me, hooked up to this machine, commanding his troops to kill. The thought of us as brothers, joined by the same blood, by the same murderous desire, made me sick.
‘You know how much we hated him,’ said Zee. ‘Everything he did to us – the blood watch, the wheezers. Think about what happened to Monty, turned into a freak, then into a blacksuit. Think about what happened to Donovan.’
I saw myself in the infirmary, holding a pillow over the face of the thing that had once been Donovan, putting him out of his misery before he could become another of the warden’s soulless guards. I felt a pressure in my chest, one which rose into my throat and sat there like an iron ball.
‘Think about what happened to you,’ Zee went on, touching my arm, the blade. ‘The warden, Furnace, they tore you apart and tried to make you a monster. Think how hard you fought it back then. You wouldn’t let them take you. You got us out of there, you saved us all.’
I didn’t want to see the memories but there was no stopping them. I had hated the warden, more than anything else on earth. I hated what he had done to me, to my friends. I had hated Alfred Furnace too, the man who sat in the shadows, who orchestrated the madness. That’s why I had vowed to kill him, wasn’t it? So that this would all end. Not so that I could take over. It was all too confusing, I couldn’t make sense of any of it while the stranger’s blood still churned.
‘Think back, think about when we were inside the prison,’ said Zee, relentless. ‘You wouldn’t have wanted this, you would have killed yourself rather than become like him.’
And I was like him. I was the force behind the darkness, the mind behind the chaos. I was the very thing that I had despised so passionately. I was Alfred Furnace.
The thought filled me with such complete and utter horror that I screamed, a noise so loud it caused more dust to rain down from the arches above, a howling that pierced the heart of every single creature with nectar in its blood.
‘I know you’re still in there, Alex,’ said Zee, holding his hands to his ears as my howl died away. ‘You’re my best friend. Don’t give yourself to him, not without a fight.’
I looked at Zee, at the tiny kid who stood before me. It would be so easy to kill him, kill them all, and yet just like me they could never truly die. They would live on inside my head, inside my memories, they would never let me go – Zee, Simon, Lucy, Donovan, and Alex too, the kid I had once been, the kid I still was. I saw him now, his body so different from mine, his scarless face almost unrecognisable, his eyes blue instead of silver. He stood there, in my mind, dressed in prison overalls and smiling sadly.
‘Alex?’ I said. ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘You know what to do,’ he replied. ‘You always have.’
Then he was gone, just another fading memory. The others stood in his place. There was nothing more they could do. They could only wait and see what my next move would be.
I thought of the creatures under my control, kids just like me. They had been created for one reason, to be soldiers in an army of hate, to turn the world upside down. Like me they had been forced into war for far too long. I wouldn’t make them fight, not any more. I would give them peace.
‘I know what to do,’ I said, feeling the stranger’s blood rage like a hurricane inside me, furious at the thought of what was to come. ‘I’m going to end this.’
Power
I had made my decision, but the creature whose blood flowed inside my arteries had yet to do the same.
He could sense what I was about to do, and he called to me, demanding to be heard. His power sluiced through my brain like a million voices, all wordless, all somehow saying the same thing.
YOU WOULD NEVER DARE TO DEFY ME.
Zee was pulling at the straps that held me, trying to cut me loose, but I shook my head. There was no time. I let my mind out, once again occupying the countless nectar-filled monsters which roamed the land. I could read their thoughts, see what they were seeing, feel their emotions as they fought. Hundreds of them – blacksuits, rats and berserkers – all with the same blood-drenched goal. They waited for my orders and I prepared to give them, one last command that would end this war once and for all.
Before I could, however, I felt something take hold of me. It wasn’t a physical sensation but something much, much worse – as though a fist had wrapped itself around my soul, wrenching it out of this world, out of reality. The chamber vanished, replaced by a void, as though I had been dragged to the bottom of a vast, lightless ocean. It was the same sensation I’d had back in the hospital, on the operating table, when I had died. Only this time I wasn’t alone.
Of course I wasn’t. How could I be? There were two of us in this body now, me and something ageless, something infinitely wicked, something that never had been, and never could be, human.
Shapes began to form in the darkness, pillars of burned wood. It didn’t take me long to realise that they were trees. Gradually the scenery settled around me, a ceiling of branches cutting out the sunlight, plunging the carpet of rotten fruit into shadow. Crows danced out of my way, flapping their wings as they feasted on decay.
I was back in the orchard.
There was no sign of Furnace now, the boy. But the stranger was here. He stood in the shadows between the trees, the same way he had back in my dream. And I knew that this was a dream too, a vision, even though I could smell the decomposing apples beneath me, feel their mush between my toes, hear the whistle of the wind and the forlorn creaking of the skeletal trees.
‘Why have you brought me here?’ I asked, my voice weak, once again that of a boy. The stranger didn’t speak, but I heard his reply.
I WILL NOT LET YOU UNDO MY WORK.
‘Your work?’ I asked, trying to take a step forward. I should have known not to bother, I was always a prisoner in my dreams. I realised that he was talking about the nectar, the blacksuits and the berserkers and the rats – the end of the world. He showed me these things with a pride that emanated from his invisible form.
‘That wasn’t your work,’ I spat back. ‘That was Furnace.’
He pushed himself from the trees, his face a nightmare collection of indiscernible parts which folded and unfolded into infinity. Just seeing him there made me want to run, to hand my body and my mind over to him and never look back. This thing, whatever he was, was something that never should have existed, something left over from the darkest moments of creation. He was the opposite of all that was good, of all that was life. Once again he spoke to me without speaking.
I WORKED WITH FURNACE, WORKED THROUGH HIM. AND NOW I WILL DO THE SAME THROUGH YOU. THAT IS OUR AGREEMENT – I WILL GRANT YOU POWER, AGELESS LIFE, AND IN RETURN YOU WILL OBEY, YOU WILL SPREAD MY GIFT TO THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.
‘Why?’ I asked.
BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS DONE, EVER SINCE YOUR SPECI
ES TOOK ITS FIRST STEPS. THIS IS WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED. ONCE UPON A TIME, SO LONG AGO, IT WAS JUST ME AND MY APPETITE FOR BLOOD. BUT YOUR KIND, YOUR SCIENCE, HAVE MADE IT SO MUCH EASIER, AND SO MUCH MORE FUN.
‘What if I say no?’ I asked.
He lifted his hand, the limb sweeping over the orchard floor like an evening shadow. Even if I could have moved I wouldn’t have been able to outrun it, the stranger’s long fingers wrapping themselves around my throat. His grip tightened, crushing my windpipe, and when I tried to breathe my lungs stayed empty.
FURNACE TRIED TO SAY NO AS WELL, IN THE BEGINNING. BUT THERE CAN BE NO REFUSAL. AND WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO? I HAVE ALREADY MADE YOU A GOD, AND THERE WILL BE MORE TO COME, SO MUCH MORE.
My guts twisted, the excitement of having the whole world at my mercy, but it was short-lived. All I could feel was the cold flesh of the stranger’s fingers around my throat, the panic as I tried and failed to breathe, the knowledge that I might die here, in this orchard.
It isn’t real, I told myself. None of this is real.
I struggled, managing to wrench a hand loose from the chains of the dream. I gripped the stranger’s fingers, pulling them back, away from my windpipe. Although he had no face, no expression, I could sense his shock. He seemed to glide forward without walking, looming up before me. The way his body moved, like some monstrous engine of blades, was terrifying. I knew that if that face touched me, even in the dream, my soul would be shredded.
I ALREADY OWN YOU. YOU ARE ALREADY A MONSTER. LOOK …
More figures began to appear between the trees, hundreds of them, shuffling into the orchard. Most were wearing camouflage, the material burned and torn, a few were dressed in Furnace overalls. Some were missing limbs, others had gaping wounds in their chests and stomachs.
All of them were dead.
They marched towards me, their hands held out, and I could feel their corpses’ eyes crawling over me like insects.
THESE ARE YOUR DEAD, THE ONES THAT YOU HAVE KILLED.
I shook my head, trying to deny it, but this was the truth: every single one of the men and women – children too – that staggered across the broken ground was dead because of me. I hadn’t killed them myself – not all of them, anyway – but I had caused their murder at the hands of the freaks. The first of their ranks reached me, pawing my skin with their rotting hands.
THEY SEEK REVENGE, the stranger said. SHOULD I GIVE YOU TO THEM?
‘No,’ I grunted, feeling the weight of the fallen, knowing that they would trample me into the dirt, thousands of them piling on top of me, pinning me, burying me alive beneath a mountain of squirming decay.
ONLY I CAN KEEP YOU ALIVE. ONLY I CAN KEEP THE DEAD AWAY.
That’s a lie, somebody from the crowd shouted. I knew the voice, scanning the faces until I saw him there. It was Donovan, the way he had been back in the prison before the wheezers had put their scalpels to his flesh, to his eyes, before I had smothered him with a pillow to put him out of his misery. The vast wave of corpses moved, pressing against me, and I lost sight of him for a moment. But then there he was again, his smile blasting light through the darkness. It’s a lie, he said. He can’t hurt you because you’re not really here.
He was right. This felt more real than anything I had ever experienced – the cold flesh of the dead against my skin, the smell of their rotting bodies, the sound of the crows as they feasted on eyeballs and organs – but it was an illusion. I pictured myself, strapped to the machine back in the chamber on the island. I was safe there, my friends were there. This was all in my mind.
Your head, your rules, kiddo, Donovan said. It was just like when I’d been back in solitary. Donovan had been there too, nothing more than a figment of my imagination, I knew that, but it had been enough. He had saved my life back then, and he had saved my life now.
‘My head, my rules,’ I said, and his smile widened.
You got it, Alex. Now for God’s sake finish this and get us out of here. I never want to see another apple again.
I laughed, and the sound of it seemed to push the stranger back, as if he didn’t know what the noise was. The movement of his face grew more agitated, his body flickering like a broken light.
YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE.
‘My head, my rules,’ I repeated. This time when I tried to move, the dream let me. I wrenched my arms up from my sides. I looked at my hands. They were normal again. I bunched them into fists, then, with a scream of defiance, I lashed out, catching the stranger in his temple. There was no pain, my soul wasn’t shredded. All that happened was the beast staggered backwards, his distended hands shrinking, sweeping up to his head. He roared, the noise deafening, full of rage. But it was nothing. I snatched in another breath, unleashing a howl of my own, one so powerful that it blasted the legions of the dead away, bodies exploding into dust as they disappeared between the trees. I saw Donovan there amongst them, his smile the last thing to go, hanging over the ground like a crescent moon.
‘Thank you,’ I said when my voice had returned. And he answered me with laughter.
The stranger looked like he was about to attack again but I moved first. My body seemed to expand, growing as big as the trees, far bigger than the creature. I wrapped a fist of my own around his scrawny neck, his skin as wet and cold as an eel, and I lifted him from the ground. I could almost see his outrage emanating from his body like a dark mist, but what could he do? It may have been his blood pulsing through my body, but it was still my mind controlling it.
I WILL KILL YOU, he screamed wordlessly. I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU A MILLION TIMES OVER.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You won’t. Because if you kill me, then you die too. That’s what happens to parasites, they need a living host.’
The stranger knew that I spoke the truth, another strangled groan breaking free from him. He struggled against my grip, the same way I had against his own only moments ago. But he had no more power here, no more power over me.
‘You’re a prisoner,’ I spat. ‘Inside my head. I’ll never let you out.’
I didn’t know whether I’d be able to make good on that threat, but the stranger believed me. He seemed to shrink, substance bleeding out of him like ink, pattering on the orchard floor. I let go, disgusted, watching him shrink into what he really was – the dried-up husk that was all that remained after he had poured his blood into the young Alfred Furnace. He had no body in the real world. He could do no harm, not any more. The roots of the trees coiled up from the earth beneath him, knitting a twisted cage around the stranger. A single spidery finger poked between the bars, one last desperate shriek creeping from the darkness. And then the last of the gaps closed over, encasing his soul – if such a thing as this could ever have one – in a coffin of living wood.
I took one last look at the orchard, knowing I would never return. Then I pushed myself up from the dream, rising from it as if swimming up from a great depth, leaving the stranger far below with only the crows and the maggots for company.
Promises
I emerged from the dream gasping for breath, coughing and wheezing so hard that the entire machine rattled and shook. Simon and Zee and Lucy all fell backwards in shock.
‘Jesus!’ said Zee when he had recovered. ‘You almost made me cack myself. What the hell was that?’
I clawed in a breath, hacking up a spitball that tasted like dirt and rotten fruit. It took me a while to remember what had happened in the dream. The events in the orchard were fading fast. But I could sense the stranger there, locked inside my thoughts, unable to escape. His blood still pumped through me, but for now his wordless voice had been silenced.
‘My head, my rules,’ I said, my voice a hurricane of sound.
Zee frowned, looking at me like I’d gone mad. It wasn’t surprising, really, considering that my eyes were still whirlpools of nothingness in my head.
‘All right, there’s no need to shout. You okay, though?’ he asked.
I nodded, reducing my voice to a whisper.
‘Just had to take care of something,’ I said. ‘But it’s done now.’
I could hear the muted bark of gunfire from outside, knowing that I still had a job to do. There were no doubts now, though. The blacksuits and the berserkers were kids, but they had been torn from their world and turned into monsters. Their thoughts were only of rage, of hatred, of murder, utterly relentless, and that was no way to live. At least in death they would be at peace.
‘What are we gonna do?’ asked Simon.
‘The right thing,’ I said. ‘It’s time for the war to end.’
‘How?’ asked Zee. ‘You just gonna surrender?’
‘I’m going to try.’
I closed my eyes, my mind splitting into thousands of pieces as I entered the heads of Furnace’s creations. They welcomed me back, and I could feel their fury there, their insatiable hunger for mayhem and murder. The battle on the mainland was still in full swing, the blacksuits and berserkers winning. I could see endless piles of human dead on the streets, slumped like sandbags. The stranger’s blood began to boil inside me at the sight, and for a heartbeat I almost succumbed to his call. But it was only a heartbeat, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
I focused my thoughts, trying to make my command as clear as possible. Then I sent out that message, directing it like a blade into the head of every single one of the blacksuits, berserkers and rats.
Stop fighting.
Their reply echoed back to me, confusion quickly becoming disbelief which in turn led to more anger. Some obeyed, even if they were in mid-battle. They simply froze, and I watched as their consciousnesses went black, substance turned to absence as they died. It was unbearable. I felt as if I experienced every one of their deaths, each more painful than the last.
But the ones who surrendered were the minority, just a handful. Most ignored my order. It was no surprise. I just didn’t have the control that Furnace had, the conviction. They didn’t obey me because they could sense that I didn’t really know what I was doing, that I didn’t believe in my abilities. Like a dog discovering that his master is weak. Even with the stranger’s blood inside me I had just a fraction of Furnace’s authority. He had been able to stop the ones on the island from fighting even when they were being attacked. But their instinct for self-preservation overrode my childish command. That and the fact that these creatures were machines built for war, for destruction. They knew no other way to live.