Feeling the ache in my legs I slid down the wall and stretched them out before me, rubbing my skinny calves. I must have lost a ton of weight since I arrived in Furnace, and I didn’t exactly have pounds to spare when I got here. My mom would have loved it, she was always trying to slim down. If I did get out, if I ever reached the surface, maybe I’d send her the recipe for Furnace slop. A bowl of that once every two days and she’d be a size zero in no time.
I wanted to laugh again, but I couldn’t find the energy. Even the thought of eating slop seemed like a dream, one that made my guts feel as though they’d been compressed into a solid lump that sat in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t hungry, I was too hungry to be hungry, but I knew I was starving. Another tactic to wear us down, make us weak, force us to forget who we were. Next time I was in that storeroom I’d be sure to check if there were supplies inside.
I swallowed, the inside of my mouth like cotton wool. Shuffling around I ran my tongue up the wall, feeling it soak up the little moisture that was there. I felt like a cow licking its salt block, and “mooed” softly, giggling to myself again. Yup, there was no doubt about it, I was crazy.
It must have taken me half an hour to slake my thirst, after which my tongue felt numb and swollen from the rock. I lay down diagonally, staring at the patch of black where the ceiling should have been, and tried to bring some order to my thoughts.
Escape. It was almost too painful to even think of the word after everything that had happened. We’d been so close, allowed ourselves to believe we were free, only to be snared again. It had broken our hearts, snapped our spirits, and the thought of trying it again sat on me with greater weight than the mile of rock above my head. Even if we did find a way, who’s to say it wouldn’t just lead us right back to where we were now?
And what were the odds that, even if we did make it out of our cells, the rats wouldn’t get to us? The idea sent a chill running up my spine, and, more to chase it away than because I genuinely thought I could escape, I attempted to think of a plan.
I started by trying to get a mental picture of the prison’s underbelly. From what I’d seen of it when we were escorted to the hole it was a labyrinth of corridors, all chipped doorways and shadowed rooms. I knew the infirmary was one of them, and a few must have been storerooms where they kept weapons and food and probably plenty of black suits. We’d rarely seen the guards go up in the elevator that led to the surface when we were in gen pop, which meant they slept down here too. How many were there? Maybe thirty blacksuits? It was impossible to tell because they all looked so similar. They probably each had individual rooms in another stretch of the basement, the wheezers too.
What else did I know? It was pretty clear that they got their fresh water from the river. I mean, how stupid had we been, thinking that the warden hadn’t known it was there? The river had probably been one of the reasons they’d built the prison here, one less link to the surface. Knowing about it now wasn’t going to help us, though, as throwing ourselves back in would be nothing more than a death sentence.
I felt the claustrophobia start to set in, the weight of the world so great that I was convinced I was breathing it, darkness pouring into my lungs and making it impossible to find oxygen. For a second, panic gripped me, so hard that my entire body tensed and I could feel the blood rush in my head, then I screwed my eyes shut and forced it out.
Urged on by the frenzied beating of my heart, I tried to pick out what else I knew. This section of the prison was basically built in the tunnels and caverns of the earth, the exits sealed off by heavy steel doors like the one we’d passed on the way in. It had looked thick enough to withstand a nuke, but the rats had pulled it off its hinges as if it were tinfoil. No doubt we could find our way out into the subterranean world beyond, but what then? There was obviously no exit that way, otherwise Simon and whoever else was there would have been long gone. And I really didn’t fancy being out there in the dark with those things on the loose.
Think, I mentally screamed at myself, lifting my legs up to try to get some blood to my aching back. What else? There had to be an electricity generator somewhere, probably connected to the river somehow. I didn’t know much about it, but there would need to be a hell of a power source to light up the prison. Even if we found it, though, what good would it do us? Especially as the blacksuits and the beasts with their silver eyes seemed to be able to see in the dark. There was an incinerator too, Simon had said, which wasn’t a fat lot of good for anything unless we found some marshmallows to toast. What did that leave?
I was halfway through a spluttered sigh of desperation when I heard the lever on my hatch start to turn. I staggered off the floor, pumping myself up for another trip out of the cell. Maybe I’d get a better idea of the prison’s layout this time, maybe I’d get that whiff of fresh air, see the silver thread sparkling off toward an exit.
But when the metal circle swung open it wasn’t Simon’s face I saw there, it was a blacksuit’s. He looked down at me, surprised at my determined expression and my purposeful stance. It was all I could do to stop myself saying, “Oh, it’s you,” but instead I let my gaze drop to the floor and did my best to look dejected and broken and empty. The guard snorted, then slid a bowl of gunk into my cell. It hit my shoulder and spun, decorating the walls with slop.
“Enjoy,” the blacksuit growled, kicking the hatch shut before he noticed my lips curling up into a smile.
THE INFIRMARY
I WOKE WITH A SCREAM, the nightmare of needles in my cheeks so fresh I could still feel the sting. I pictured the bodies of the boys hanging upside down, their arms reaching for me, the gas mask pressed against my face. Panicking, I lashed out, my knuckles cracking against something solid and the pain chasing the last few scraps of dream away.
“Christ!” I slurred, welcoming the darkness around me like an old friend. I ran my hands along the stone, and only when I’d covered every surface with a trembling touch did I relax. I slumped back down, rubbing my temples and cursing my brain for betraying me while I slept.
I’d always had occasional nightmares, like anyone else, but most of the time I’d forget them as soon as I’d woken up, their horror nothing more than a bad taste in my mouth.
The ones I had in Furnace, though, they were unlike anything I’d ever experienced before; terror on a completely new level. The visions of a glass prison I’d suffered so many times in general population, with my reflection that of a wheezer. And now this same recurring dream I had night after night in the hole. I could understand the fear. I mean, if dreams are a reflection of what’s plaguing your subconscious then I’d obviously be spending my nights in the company of the prison freaks. But why did I always see myself as one of the enemy? I tried to ignore the obvious answer but it spilled into my brain.
Maybe it was a glimpse of my future.
“Enough,” I said, the volume of the word after so much silence scaring the last few flecks of dream away. To keep myself busy I felt the floor of the cell, looking for any slop I’d missed. I’d got most of it before falling asleep, licking the tasteless slime off the stone. It had made such a mess when it landed that there had to be specks here and there. My stomach made a noise that sounded like an earthquake, my guts squirming in pain as they cried out for food.
“I’m doing my best,” I told them, feeling a fleck of something suspiciously close to the toilet that was probably better left alone. I moved my search to the other corner of the cell and discovered a splotch of slop congealing in the angle between the wall and the floor. I took my time with it, savoring the minuscule amount and pretending I was stuffing my face with eggs and bacon and whatever else I used to have when my dad made a Sunday fry-up.
I was enjoying the memory so much that I didn’t hear the lever on my hatch until the light was already seeping in. I snapped my head up, feeling like a rat that had been caught gnawing on trash and was now cornered. For a second there was nothing but a dark silhouette against the searing light of the corridor, but th
en color began to seep into the shape and I saw that it was Simon.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the boy said, offering me his hand.
“I was just trying to enjoy a quiet breakfast,” I replied as he pulled me out of the cell. “Here I am, thinking I’ll have a nice holiday in the hole, won’t get disturbed for a few weeks, but it’s like Piccadilly Circus in there, what with you and the blacksuits and Zee banging away on his toilet.”
Simon flashed me a puzzled look, then lowered my hatch quietly and jogged over to Zee’s. Seconds later he was out, the cells were secured, and we were all sprinting down the corridor again. We turned the corner, pausing for a moment to check that it was deserted, but to my surprise we passed the storeroom and ended up swinging through another door.
“Blacksuits check the storerooms more frequently now after finding the remains of that rat,” Simon explained in his soft sandpaper voice as he walked across the room. It was pitch-black in here, but I guessed from the echo that it must have been empty. We hunched over in the far corner, a stone’s throw from the door. “We got lucky today, the blacksuits are all busy.”
“Another breach?” asked Zee.
“No, a riot. A whole bunch of the inmates up in gen pop tried to smash their way through Room Two to get to the river. Fifty or sixty of them from the sounds of it, mainly Skulls. It had been sealed off but they all just went for it.”
“How do you know?” I said, excitement making my whisper louder than it should have been.
“The blacksuits,” Simon replied. “I heard them talking. They’ve pretty much all gone up there, except for a couple guarding the north door. They’re not too pleased with you right now.”
“Me?” I said.
“Yeah, they’re blaming you for giving hope to the other kids. There have been a couple of attempted breakouts, although nobody’s managed it yet. Except you, that is.”
“I thought the warden told them we died,” said Zee.
“Guess that don’t matter. No one cares if you survived or not. The important thing is that you got out, one way or another. You made it real, the idea of escape. For them and for us, down here.”
I wanted to ask who else was with him but he started talking again.
“Speaking of which, we need to get started, we need to think of a plan, make the most of it before the blacksuits come back down.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “So where do we begin? The tunnels? The doors?”
Simon’s eyes narrowed, slivers of steel caught in the light from the door. They darted left then right as he shook his head.
“We start with your friend. We start in the infirmary.”
“No.”
I said the word without meaning to, so loud that it reverberated around the room like a pistol shot. I clamped my mouth shut, ignoring Simon’s shocked silver eyes and Zee’s—invisible in the darkness but burning into me with just as much heat.
“What?” asked Zee. “It’s Donovan, Alex, he needs our help big time.”
“I know,” I snapped back. “It’s just…”
Just what? That I wanted to focus on the task ahead, try to find a way out before we risked going in for D? No. That I needed to get a better idea of the layout of the prison, just in case we were rumbled trying to break him out and had to make a quick getaway? Yeah, right.
Truth was that I was terrified of the place and the mere thought of going anywhere near it made me want to curl up and die, made me want to pretend I hated Donovan, or that I’d never known him, to forget all about him for the rest of my miserable life just so I didn’t have to find out what lay behind that plastic curtain. That was more like it, that was the real me, the coward.
I shook my head, too ashamed to try to come up with an explanation. I was grateful for the darkness, which concealed my blazing cheeks, except Simon could see me like I was lit up by a million spotlights. He knew exactly what was wrong. He knew I was afraid. I could tell by the way his head shook that doubts were starting to form.
And if he decided he didn’t need us, then we’d be trapped in the hole until the warden came.
“What about the wheezers?” I asked, trying to bury my terror beneath logic. “Aren’t they always in the infirmary?”
“Not always. They have to sleep too. We should be fine.”
Should? I managed not to question it out loud, instead saying, “And the rats? Won’t they be making the most of the fact the blacksuits are up top?”
“There’s always that danger, but I wouldn’t worry too much. I haven’t seen them all day. Besides, they never go in the infirmary, ever. They’re scared of the place. It’s where they got turned into what they are. We’ll be safe once we’re inside.”
So long as the wheezers don’t wake. So long as the blacksuits don’t appear. So long as the warden doesn’t find us.
“When we go in, Alex, you take the left-hand side, Zee the right. Find your friend. I’ll keep watch. There are plenty of hiding places if things go wrong, but we really, really don’t want to be there if the wheezers wake up. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Zee, more tremor than voice.
“Okay,” I said eventually, realizing all eyes were still on me. “We’ll go get Donovan, then find a way out of here.”
Simon was on the move before I’d even finished talking, his shadow flitting silently back across the room. For a moment I didn’t think my legs were going to function, as if they were locked up and bolted to the rock. But Zee tugged on my overalls, pulling me after him.
We flew past the solitary cells, up the passageway where Zee and I had been chased by the dogs, turning left at the junction ahead. Thirty meters of growing terror and I saw the opening in the wall, the stenciled letters. It was like being punched in the gut, and I struggled to claw in my next breath. I thought about Donovan, about my promise that I’d come back for him. I tried to remember the times he’d been there for me, but my mind drew a blank. Had he ever truly been a friend? Or had he just been using me to escape? Surely the latter. I mean, why would a guy like Donovan choose to hang around with a kid like me?
I hated myself right then, hated what I was thinking. But better to hate yourself and survive, right? Like I’ve said before, so many times before, I’m not a good person, I’m not a hero. I’m a criminal, a liar, a cheat, a killer. It was them or me and I wanted to live.
Then we stopped running and Zee turned to me, placed his hand on my shoulder, and that simple action knocked my cowardly train of thought off the rails. He managed a weak smile.
“Remember, all for one, Alex,” he said softly.
“And let’s get the hell out of here,” I replied. He squeezed my shoulder, then dropped his hand. Simon was waiting by the curtain, staring through the translucent plastic at the blurred shapes beyond. Nothing seemed to be moving, but I could hear the relentless beeps of several heart monitors like some artificial dawn chorus. My fear still sat like a brick, weighing me down, but at least the voices had stopped; the hatred, the self-loathing. I was here for Donovan, just like he’d be here for me. He would be here for me.
“We have to be quiet,” Simon whispered. “And we have to be quick. Remember, take one side each. If you hear me give the alarm, then we go, no hesitation. Ready?”
No, I almost barked again, but I kept my mouth closed and settled for a nod. Zee returned it, then Simon, and with a collective sigh of fear shuddering from our lips we pushed our way through the curtain.
To come face-to-face with a wheezer.
I would have cried out, but Zee’s legs crumpled and he fell back, slamming into me and stealing the air from my lungs. I straightened my back, grabbed hold of Zee, kept him standing, desperately trying to repair the shattered pieces of my brain to come up with a plan.
Any second now the filthy creature was going to lurch forward, stick its needles into our necks. The first thing that crossed my mind was that it was a trap, that Simon had set us up, led us to the infirmary. I l
ooked up at him, waiting for the kid to pounce, to pin us down while the wheezer pumped us full of poison, but to my surprise he simply held one bony finger to his lips and motioned us forward with his head.
I stared back at the wheezer, noticed that its eyes were closed—the lids as scarred as the rest of its hairless, weathered face but mercifully concealing the shriveled-raisin eyes within. It was breathing slowly, rhythmically, and I traced the pipe of its gas mask to see that it was connected to a socket in the wall. Every now and again it spasmed, jerking wildly, but other than that it was still.
“It’s asleep?” I whispered as quietly as I was able. Simon nodded as he passed it, his deformed body tensed, ready to pounce if it showed any sign of waking. Zee was still pressed against me and I pushed him gently forward, navigating around the silent specter.
“Why don’t you just kill it now?” Zee asked.
“Too risky. Blacksuits would know it wasn’t a rat, they’d know we’d been here.”
The wheezer didn’t shift as we entered the room ahead. It was vast, long rather than wide, the flesh-colored walls rising to a ceiling so high it was lost in shadow. Countless lights hung down on long cords, like spiders, swinging gently even though there was no breeze. The glow emanating from each one was so thick, and so red, that it could have been raining blood. At the far end another door led away into darkness. But our attention was gripped by what was before us.
Lined up along both sides of the room were two seemingly endless rows of screens made up of steel frames and white cloth curtains—the kind you see in hospitals to provide privacy. But a hospital ward usually contained perhaps a dozen well-spaced beds; here there must have been a hundred of them, so close to each other they were almost touching. All the curtains were drawn tight, but I knew that behind each one was a bed occupied by some poor kid who had been stolen from Furnace.