Solitary

He didn’t wait for me to reply, just eased down the hatch then slowly slid the lever across. It was only seconds after the sound of his feet faded that I heard the familiar stomp of the blacksuits. There was the squeal of a lever, and I thought I could make out a shout of distress, then a dull thump. Someone else must have been brought into solitary, some other poor soul banished to the hole to be tortured by his own demons. I wondered who it was, whether I knew him. It was probably a gang member from gen pop, one of the Skulls or Fifty-niners, punished for trying to break out. I listened to see if I could hear anything, but the solid walls did their job well, immersing me in lightless silence.

  I slid the scalpel from my overalls and tentatively felt the blade. It was wickedly sharp, the faintest touch leaving a hairline cut on my skin that wasn’t deep enough to bleed but which stung nonetheless. I didn’t really know what I could use it for—it was too small to leave more than a scratch on a blacksuit and sure as hell wasn’t going to let me tunnel my way free—but it felt good to have it, made me feel a little less feeble in the face of Furnace.

  Tucking it in the corner of my cell where I wouldn’t accidentally slice my hand off, I curled up on the floor, too exhausted to do anything else. We’d only been in the infirmary for a few minutes, but it seemed like hours, every sick detail carved into my brain.

  I saw Gary, knew that when those bandages were removed he too would have eyes of cold silver. And I saw Donovan, his body morphed almost beyond recognition, his soul trapped inside a casket of mutated flesh and growing weaker with every second. If we didn’t do something soon, then he would be gone forever, a prisoner inside himself as he became a monster, a blacksuit.

  It took me a while to notice that I wasn’t alone in my cell. Tilting my head up, I made out a familiar cloud of white that seemed to hover above me. I blinked and it swirled into a rough shape—that of a boy sitting against the wall, knees curled up to his chin—but it didn’t seem to want to focus. I knew why, and the thought of it made me wish the shape away, pray to be left alone. But my imagination was adamant that I had company.

  That’s charming, Donovan’s voice ebbed around the cell. Or at least it ebbed around my head. A little cosmetic surgery and you can’t even stand to look at your old mate. I tucked my head into my arms, screwed my eyes closed, but he was still there. Not laughing at my jokes anymore either, I see.

  “They’ve killed you,” I said, speaking the words aloud even though I knew I didn’t need to.

  Whoa! he shouted back. Not yet they haven’t. I’m still in there somewhere, I just look a little different, that’s all. His voice became urgent. Don’t give up on me yet, Alex.

  “I won’t,” I said, sitting up and staring at the blurred shape, a figure on the other side of frosted glass. “I’m not. I made you a promise, I’ll get you out.”

  Good, kid. Because I really didn’t look too hot back there.

  “I don’t know, it’s more effective than going to the gym,” I replied with a twitch of a smile. The image seemed to solidify for a moment, its chest exploding outward, stomach hardening to a grotesque cluster of cramped muscles, one leg swollen up like a victim of elephantiasis. Donovan’s eyes glinted back, half metal and half moonlight, and he flexed his arms.

  You’ve got a point there, he said. Hope they do my arms too, though, or I’m gonna be as lopsided as your new mate Simon.

  “Yeah, he’s got a pretty unique look.” We laughed, but it was forced. Donovan’s body deflated like a balloon, returning to its original size. It didn’t stop there, continuing to shrink as the hallucination spoke.

  Find a way, Alex. Get us the hell out of here.

  “What if I can’t?” I asked the figure, now nothing more than a thread of light that hung from the invisible ceiling like a spider’s web.

  You can, was all it said. Then it was gone.

  I wasn’t feeling too positive about escaping, but some part of my mind seemed to be holding out hope. Somewhere deep inside my subconscious I must have had faith in myself, and why not? I mean, I had found a way out of Furnace. Okay, it hadn’t got us very far, but we’d got out of gen pop. We’d beaten it. I tried to remember how I’d felt standing on the lip of the chasm in Room Two, the rock still smoking, the river raging beneath us like our own private expressway home. For all we knew we were about to die, but we’d done it, we’d cracked the prison open like an egg and, for that moment at least, we’d been free.

  The memory of those feelings was still there, a faint and insubstantial ghost of an emotion rather than the real thing, but I could still taste it. I wanted it again, I wanted to be standing on the edge of freedom knowing that all it would take to get out was one simple step. And I would find a way. I swore to myself right then and there that I would split the prison open once again, and that this time there would be no doubts, no uncertainty about our fate. There would only be the outside world and us in it, drenched in sunlight and warmth and gulping down burgers by the beach.

  “You’ve got me started now,” I said to the empty space where Donovan had been, imagining chunks of salty beef and thick mayo and moist bread and burnt onions sliding down my throat, the wind in my hair and the sound of gulls as they dived for our scraps.

  Oh yes, I’d do it. The next time Simon came I’d find our way out.

  Only Simon didn’t come.

  * * *

  I WAITED PATIENTLY, so patiently, counting the seconds as they passed, the minutes, then the hours. At one point I heard footsteps again and got myself ready, hoping that the hatch would open and Simon’s face would appear. But they passed overhead and vanished.

  I kept counting, rocking my head back and forth with each passing beat to try to keep track of the time. It was just about the most monotonous thing I’d ever done in my life, but it kept my mind busy, kept the bad thoughts away. And I was counting toward something, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the kid reappeared. At least I thought I knew.

  I lost count at somewhere over 15,000, thrown off stride by the sound of Zee from the next cell. I calculated the time even as I decoded his message, the clank of his grille against the pipe knocking out even more seconds. Four hours. It had seemed like forty.

  “Think D’s okay?” he asked. I wondered why he’d waited so long to get in touch. Maybe he’d been asleep.

  “He will be,” I banged back, the wounds on my hand opening up again as the grille smashed against the toilet. “When we’re out.”

  “Hope so,” came Zee’s reply. “You okay?”

  “Just dandy,” I struck, laughing as I did so. “Waiting for Simon.”

  There was a pause, then the muted metallic thuds started up again.

  “Suppose he’s been caught?”

  I’d been trying not to consider that possibility. Of all of us Simon was the most at risk, spiriting through the passageways of Furnace’s underbelly where the blacksuits or the wheezers or the warden could find him at any time, then retreating to whatever hole he’d found, praying that the rats didn’t sniff him out. Like he’d said, his life was in danger every time he came to release us. I was amazed he’d lasted as long as he had.

  “He’ll be back,” I replied eventually, ignoring my own doubts. “Won’t be long.”

  But it was. I started the count from scratch: 3,600 seconds in every hour, 3,600, 7,200, 10,800, after which I drifted off, dreaming of Donovan in the infirmary screaming numbers at me as if they were a combination to unlock the restraints that held him.

  The sound of the hatch woke me and I sat up, my heart lifting, waiting for Simon to appear. But the door didn’t open. Something was scratching at the lever, something with claws rather than fingers, something that panted and growled as it tried to dig its way to me.

  It was a rat, all bloody claws and lamprey-mouth.

  I scrabbled for the scalpel, luck letting me grab it by the handle as I shot to my feet. There was a thump, the thick metal hatch buckling inward a fraction. Another impact, another dent. It wasn’t much but I knew the door coul
dn’t withstand an onslaught like this for long. I prayed for the blacksuits to appear, to shoot the thing that was trying to get in, but I soon regretted it.

  The sound of scratching became the unmistakable racket of a scuffle—a grunt followed by a scream and then a crunch as something else slammed onto the hatch. I stood there, scalpel by my side, fear for my life the only thing keeping me upright.

  I heard the lever grinding open, then the hatch was ripped outward. For a fraction of a second I thought I saw the outline of Simon, the pinpricks of his eyes so bright they looked like holes in his head where the light was streaming through. Then the outline lashed out, catching me around the head with its clubbed fist. Fireworks exploded in front of my eyes, and my legs gave out. That probably saved my life.

  The rat lunged into my cell, its clawed arms like some living combine harvester that churned the air. I curled up as tightly as I could, hands over my head, the scalpel dropped and lost. Warm spit and a retching growl dripped down on me and I waited for the next blow, the one that would finish me. But it never came. Instead I heard the throb of thunder, the booming laugh of a blacksuit.

  “What do you think?” came the voice, so thick, so powerful that it cut right through the squeals of the rat. I risked a look up, saw the creature halfway into my cell, its mouth so wide that its jaw looked dislocated, rows of teeth like broken glass embedded in its gums. It saw me watching it and lunged again, but something was holding it back. A fist, locked tight around its throat.

  My eyes drifted past the thrashing beast, saw the immaculate suit beyond, the shark’s grin. The blacksuit loosened his grip and the rat sank deeper, its claws so close I could smell them, like trash left too long in the sun.

  “No one would ever know,” the blacksuit went on, pulling the rat back then dropping it in again. “Everyone knows the vermin like to get in the cells, help themselves to some fresh meat. This one would have had you already if I hadn’t come along.”

  The rat tried to squirm around, biting at the gloved hand that held it. The blacksuit simply bunched up his other fist and struck out, the blow causing the creature’s head to snap back, blood dripping. It shook itself, obviously stunned, then resumed its efforts to reach me.

  “So, should I drop it in? Let you get to know each other? Who knows, you might have been friends already, up in gen pop.”

  More laughter, like a storm was raging above my cell. The blacksuit lowered the rat even further and I felt a searing heat on my arm where its claws had drawn blood. There was a snap like a bear trap inches from my ear as its jaws closed in.

  Then it was gone, hauled out of the hatch back into the corridor. I peered up through trembling fingers, saw the blacksuit wedge his shotgun into the rat’s waist then pull the trigger. The corridor flashed for a second, the lightning once more followed by a dull rumble.

  “The warden wants you left alone for a month,” the guard said, leaning over the opening. “But he doesn’t call all the shots around here. Next time, you might not be so lucky.”

  He kicked the hatch shut. For once I was thankful for the darkness, which hid the crimson beads that pattered like gentle rain to the floor of my cell.

  LOST BOYS

  I’M NOT ASHAMED TO SAY that I almost lost it after that. Lying there—the echo of the shot still gunning through my skull, the sting of the rat’s claws making my arm pound, the grin of the blacksuit as he dangled my own death over me seared into my light-starved retinas—I felt myself start to unravel. I could picture my body unwinding into threads, then flooding down the pipe into the toilet with all the other waste.

  I know it seems strange that I was thinking about death with the same anticipation and hunger with which I was clinging to life only hours earlier. But the two were one and the same right then. My existence was a living hell, fraught with the knowledge that the hatch could be opened at any time and my nightmares would climb inside with me. And death promised a new life. Whether it was in the afterlife my mom had always told me about, or as a ghost wandering Furnace for all eternity, or even just the wonderful oblivion of nothingness, it meant freedom.

  And now I had the means to get there.

  A shudder passed through my body as I realized what I had thought. But it was difficult to ignore the obvious. I mean, something had made me take that scalpel, even knowing that I could never hope to use it as a weapon against the legion of giants and gas masks that dwelled down here. Maybe a part of me, a part so far inside me I could barely hear it, knew the real reason I’d want a blade in my cell.

  And it would be so easy. Two clean cuts and I’d be out of here, I’d have my escape route. No more guards, no more wheezers, no more warden. No more responsibility for saving Zee and Donovan and Simon. I smiled, picturing the next blacksuit to come and torment me as he realized I was free, that I’d slipped out from right between his fingers.

  Yeah, because you’ll really be showing them, won’t you. Talk about cutting up your wrists to spite your fate.

  Where had that come from? It hadn’t sounded like me, or like Donovan for that matter. I wondered how many voices there were living in my head, and how they could all have such different opinions. Not that I wasn’t grateful. If it hadn’t been for that chirruped burst of sarcasm somewhere in my subconscious, then maybe I would have just picked up that scalpel again and finished the job.

  Instead, I located the blade with my fingertips and pushed it across the cell. It hit the lip of my toilet pipe and stopped, as if imploring me to think about what I was doing. But I was, and with a prod I sent it tumbling toward the sewage below. I know, I know, I should have kept it. It was a weapon, and however small it was it could have at least given me the element of surprise if I found myself in a skirmish. But you have to believe me when I say that down here that blade was the closest thing to the exit key I had, and sooner or later I would have used it.

  Dumping the scalpel seemed to take some of the weight off my shoulders, although the fear was still perched on my chest like a demon. What had happened with the blacksuit and the rat hammered home once again how vulnerable I was here.

  And there was still no sign of Simon.

  For the first time since I’d been thrown in the hole, the bad hallucinations started. I saw a figure start to form from the strands of gossamer strung web-like across my cell and somehow I knew it wasn’t going to be Donovan this time. I was right. Neither was it my old friends and family, who would have been welcome even if they were screaming at me with hatred and anger and sadness. It wasn’t even the freaks of Furnace.

  No, this was something else, something I couldn’t quite identify. A figure shrouded in black who sat on the fringe of my vision and shifted whenever I tried to focus on it. It didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything, just sat and stared at me. Like it was waiting. Like it was waiting for me to die.

  I felt panic grab hold of my guts and I swung around, the figure always one step ahead of me. I slapped the walls in frustration, then started punching them, imagining that the hooded creep was laughing at me, urging me on. I was yelling at it, swearing at the top of my voice, challenging it to show itself. But the angel of death—because I knew that’s what it was—hung back, content to watch me suffer.

  Eventually I must have passed out, vertigo sucking me up like a tornado, the cell spinning. I cracked my head as I fell, knowing even in the pitch black that my vision was failing. I waited to drop from this waking nightmare right into a cruel dream, but it seemed that my mind had grown tired of tormenting me, switching everything off and letting me rest in peace—if you’ll excuse the expression.

  I don’t know how long I was out for, but it took the sound of my hatch being unlocked to wake me. I didn’t even bother to sit up, too exhausted to try to escape my fate. But when the door swung open it was Simon I saw in the dull light. He grinned lopsidedly, then offered me a hand.

  “Miss me?”

  * * *

  WE RAN SILENTLY ALONG the corridor, Simon taking the lead and Zee and
I treading on his shadow. I asked him where he’d been and he shut me up with a steely look, glancing nervously at the deserted passageways.

  “Got to be quiet,” he whispered as we reached the T-junction that split off toward the infirmary. “Blacksuits everywhere.”

  I bit my tongue, saving my questions for later. We turned left, and for a minute I thought we were heading back toward Donovan. But although we slowed down as we passed the plastic curtain, we didn’t stop. Doors flashed by, gaping black mouths in the red walls, and I could make out voices from inside more than one—deep chuckles, guttural snarls and at one point even a high-pitched, tuneless song that sent shivers up my spine.

  We reached another junction, one I didn’t remember from before even though we must have passed it the day we were first dragged to the hole. I glanced right and felt something inside me run cold, as if I’d just stepped into a freezer. There was nothing there, nothing I could see anyway. The stretch of barren stone was deserted. But all the same something seemed to hang in the air, a dark presence that tried to hook itself into my soul as we ran past.

  “Warden’s quarters,” Simon hissed in explanation. Then he turned left and the feeling vanished. I glanced back once as we sprinted the other way, invisible eyes boring into my back from the ever-growing shadows behind us.

  Two more openings, one on either side of the corridor, no sign of life from inside, then we reached the massive vault door that separated the prison’s underbelly from the caverns beyond. It still hung off its hinges like a broken limb, its thick surface pocked and scratched. Simon motioned for us to stop, edging around the corner and flashing his silver eyes into the cave beyond. I could tell from the way his gray face was suddenly illuminated that the spotlights were on, but there was obviously nothing else there, as after a moment or two the kid darted off again.

  I followed, keeping my head low as we entered the huge cavern where we’d been caught. It was empty save for the lights, and we cut right across it, past the tunnel where Zee and I had thought we’d seen sunlight, toward the far end. Here the ceiling drooped as if unable to hold up the vast weight above it, leaving a crack between its jagged edge and the floor that was too narrow for even the halogen beams to penetrate.