“Yeah, but I took the grille off first.”
“Lucky you. I’ve still got my own crap on my fingers.”
I laughed, picturing Zee’s face on our first morning in Furnace, when he’d been on Stink duty cleaning the toilets. I could see that same gurning expression now.
“Nice,” I clanked.
There was a pause while we both gave our tired hands a rest, then Zee started up again.
“Hear that thing last night?”
I didn’t reply immediately. I couldn’t bear to think about it, especially after finding some scrap of goodness in the hole. The memory of that creature, whatever it had been, clawing and scratching at the entrance to my cell was enough to bring the walls crashing back in, enough to make me feel all alone again. To scare the fear away I banged out a response that I hoped would end the topic of conversation.
“Just noise.”
“Sounded like the thing back in the cavern,” he pressed. He was right, and there was no doubt in my mind it had been one of the creatures, the rats. When I didn’t answer he went on. “Think it’ll come back?”
“Heard shots. Must be dead,” I said hopefully.
“Maybe. Thought I heard it run off.”
I pictured the freak running into the shadows, returning later on tonight, and decided to change the subject.
“How long you think we’ve been here?”
A pause, then the beat of his response.
“Dunno. A day?”
“Only twenty-nine left to go,” I replied, snorting to myself.
“Like being on vacation.”
I laughed again, but Zee’s question about the rat had dredged up memories that showed no sign of departing. I picked up my grille and smashed out another sentence.
“Any way to lock your hatch from the inside?”
There was no response. I figured he was probably investigating his cell door before answering; maybe he hadn’t already done it. I counted the seconds, then the minutes.
“You okay?” I asked. Still nothing. Something had happened. I was about to drum out another frantic message when I heard the bar on top of my hatch swivel around. The shock was so great that my stomach lurched as if on a roller coaster, and I dropped the grille, the sound lost beneath the squeal of hinges as the trapdoor opened.
Light flooded the cell like liquid fire, burning my eyes so fiercely that I doubled over and pressed my face into my hands. But not before I’d seen the hulking shape silhouetted against the inferno, two silver eyes glaring down at me like twin spotlights. It was a blacksuit. They’d heard us communicating, they were here to separate us even further, to take away the grilles. Or maybe just to punish us, to drag us off to the infirmary.
“Bang all you like, you’re not getting out.”
I eased my head from my arms, squinting against the glow. My heart was hammering hard enough to be heard through the wall, but I forced myself to look up, the blurred shadow of the man hanging over me like a storm cloud.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t let me stop you, though,” he boomed, half words, half laughter. “The more you wear yourselves out the worse it will get.” He moved, his hand flashing into my cell like lightning. I ducked, feeling something crash down on top of me, all sharp edges. Hot liquid was running down my face and I thought it was blood, but then it dripped into my mouth and I recognized the unmistakable texture of slop—the almost inedible purée of skin, bones, guts, and offal that passed for food in this place.
“I get to eat?” I asked, genuinely surprised. I don’t quite know how I’d thought we were going to survive for a month without rations of some kind, but the last thing I’d expected was to be fed.
“Enjoy,” said the suit as he closed the hatch, laughing again at the comical expression I must have been wearing. “You’re not getting any more for another two days.”
VISITORS
I DIDN’T KNOW WHICH WAS BETTER—the fact that I had something to eat, or the fact that we’d already been in here for two days.
Luckily the bowl of slop had landed right side up and with most of its contents still in place, a miracle in this place where Murphy’s Law seemed to be an official prison rule. I ate slowly, knowing that if I guzzled down the lot in one go after not eating for so long I’d probably throw it straight back up. It wasn’t much, the sawdust-flavored gunk even lumpier than I’d gotten used to in the trough room, but it chiseled away at the dull ache in my gut and left me feeling full.
I finished the last morsel of salty goo then licked the bowl, my stomach gurgling with satisfaction. Picking up the grille, I clanked out a message to Zee. I wasn’t really sure what to say, so opened with some small talk.
“Yum.”
“Best meal ever,” came his reply a minute or so later.
“Didn’t think they were gonna feed us.”
“Guess they want to keep us alive, make us suffer,” he said, a sentence that seemed to take an eternity. “Thought they had us then.”
“Me too. We were lucky.”
There was a moment of silence. I could picture Zee licking his bowl with the same relish I had.
“Suit said it’s been two days,” I went on. “Believe it?”
“Impossible to say. Feels like forever.”
The guard might have been messing with our heads, but surely if he’d been doing that he’d have told us we’d been there for a few hours rather than a couple of days. No, he’d let it slip without meaning to, trying to torture us by saying we weren’t going to be fed for another two days without realizing he’d given us hope. Hell, if two days could fly by like that, filled with slow but wonderful conversation, then a month would be no trouble.
“Can you think of any games?” I asked after another period of stillness.
“I Spy?” he replied, making me choke with laughter. “Something beginning with D.”
“Donkeys?” I beat back.
“No.”
“Dog crap?”
“Probably.”
“Dickweeds.”
“Nah, they’ve gone.”
More laughter. My arms were killing me where I’d been smashing the grille against the pipe, but I was having too much fun to stop. I found myself thinking back to all the car rides we’d taken as a family when I was a kid, all the times my dad had suggested playing I Spy and I’d been too cool to go along with it. It’s the best game ever, he’d say, always trying too hard. Right now I agreed with him.
“Donovan,” I suggested eventually, struggling to remember more words that began with D. My memories of the outside world had been fading ever since I’d arrived in Furnace, starved of reference to the things I once took for granted. Sure, I still knew what ducks and daffodils and dragonflies were, but it took me a while to dredge up the images and sounds and smells and thoughts that went with the words. And sometimes I just couldn’t manage it. I’d lost the memory completely, I’d never get it back.
Zee hadn’t replied, and I wondered if he was thinking about Donovan. The very mention of his name had sparked the hallucinations again. Patches of white vapor no more substantial than sea mist swirled in front of my sense-starved eyes, coalescing into a vague shape before spinning out and unraveling again. Instead of fighting it, blotting it away like I had done that first hour in the hole, I let it come.
Keeping busy, I see, said the image of Donovan, his skin glowing white and red and even green in places.
“Staying sane, yeah,” I replied. “Well, apart from the fact I’m talking to a figment of my imagination again.”
Don’t call Zee that, he joked.
“I meant you, you idiot.”
The sound of Zee’s grille burst through the illusion, causing Donovan’s body to explode into specks like a flock of birds startled by gunshot. The hallucination bobbed around the cell before forming on the other side of me, my old cellmate now tiny like he was sitting some distance away.
“Where do you think D is?” Zee asked.
Right here,
I thought about replying, my own words coming out of Donovan’s mouth. But only the memory of him existed in my cell right now, and I was pretty sure I knew where the real version was.
“Infirmary,” I chipped out, my ears ringing from the echoes.
Gee, thanks, yelled the hallucination, wearing a frown but grinning beneath it. You could have said on a beach somewhere, eating a burger. Why have you got to imagine me in that place? You shi—
Once more Zee’s response chased the image away. I shook my head, attempting to clear my thoughts. It was difficult enough trying to hold two conversations at once in any situation, never mind one with a hallucination and the other with a guy on the far side of a solid stone wall using a toilet grille and an alphabetic code.
“I hope not,” was all his hammer blows said.
This time, when Donovan re-formed, he was right next to me.
Doughnuts, he said. I looked at him—through him really, as his skin was almost translucent—and shrugged. He couldn’t have seen it, but he was in my head so he knew what I meant. Guess doughnuts, you know, for I Spy.
“That’s stupid,” I grumbled, but tapped out the word anyway.
“I wish,” came the chiming pulse of Zee’s reply.
Diana Wilkes, suggested Donovan. I always wanted to ask her out but never had the guts.
“I don’t think so,” I said, having a flashback to school, and to the girl who sat three seats in front of me in math. Diana Wilkes. I’d had such a crush on her, had even written her a couple of notes on postcards. But I’d never given them to her, never said anything. Never would. I wondered who was sitting in my seat now, idling away the lesson by staring at the back of her neck and wondering what it smelled like. I turned back to Donovan and pretended to punch him on the arm, my hand passing right through like he was a reflection on water. “That’s my life you’re remembering, get your own.”
Pretty tough when you’re made from someone else’s imagination, he said. Speaking of which, I definitely had bigger arms than these.
He flexed them, and the hallucination seemed to grow to ridiculous proportions. He nodded approvingly at his biceps, which now looked like rugby balls beneath his glowing shirt.
“Happy?”
Much better.
There was an impatient hammering from the pipe, the clangs adding up to spell “Give up?”
“Never,” I replied. “Dinosaurs.”
“No.”
“Drive-in movie theater,” an answer that seemed to take about an hour and left me with a blister at the base of my thumb.
“No.”
It’s darkness, said Donovan in my head. The answer is darkness. He can’t see anything in there.
“Duh,” I said, turning to scowl at him. “I know that. I was dragging the game out, having a bit of fun. Way to kill the buzz.”
Sorry, the apparition muttered. Then he looked up at me, eyes shining like pearls in the ocean. Dogs.
“What’s the point?” I answered, putting on a mock pout. “You’ve already ruined the game.”
No, listen, he said. Dogs.
A growl like jet engines above my head, then the unmistakable bark of one of the warden’s mutts. Donovan vanished and I shot to my feet, standing on tiptoes and cocking my ear as close to the hatch as possible. Zee had obviously heard it too, as there wasn’t the slightest sound from the toilet pipe.
I didn’t hear the dog again, but I could make out the sound of feet on the rock above. It was only a whisper, but they must have been moving fast and hard to have produced any sound in here at all. I held my breath, becoming absolutely silent except for the stammer of my pulse. There was a voice, too deep to make any sense of but obviously urgent. It sounded like an order being given.
The footsteps faded, then broke off completely as a muted shot rang out. It was the same thing I’d heard the other night, but softer this time, which meant further away. Two more followed, so close they were almost a single sound. There was a scream, as faint as a fingernail scraping glass. Then that too died away.
I had the grille poised above the pipe to make sure Zee was okay when the screech came again. This time it was right above my hatch.
The lever grated as it was pushed around, the sound of nails or claws on the metal making my scalp shrink. I dropped the grille, reaching up and trying to find something—anything—to grip. There was a slight lip around the circumference of the hatch, barely enough for me to hook my fingers into. I grabbed it as best I could, practically hanging from it to stop it opening.
The pressure in the cell changed as the seal was broken, my ears popping so hard I was deaf. I swallowed to clear them, but instantly wished I hadn’t as the creature outside the hole screamed again. It was a noise of pure rage, so demonic that every muscle in my body lost its strength. It was all I could do to hang on as I felt the hatch shift, something tugging on it from the other side.
It lifted, enough to let in a crack of blood-colored light. I screwed my eyes shut, wrenched the hatch back down. One of my hands slipped off but the other held firm, the steel slamming closed with a jolt that could have torn my spine out. Another shriek, the scrabbling of frenzied claws on metal. Again the hatch was forced upward, this time far enough for me to catch a glimpse of whatever was outside—flesh the same color as the walls, limbs too swollen to be human. But whatever it was had feet—broken and misshapen, yes, but other than that no different from mine.
“Leave me alone!” I howled, the words distorted by my sobs. It only seemed to make the creature more furious, and the hatch was torn up a little further. This time a hooked hand slipped through, the nails sharpened into claws, gripping the edge. It pried the door open a fraction more. Another few centimeters and it would be able to flip it all the way over, leaving me exposed.
I dug my fingers in so hard I felt a nail snap. Ignoring the pain, I jerked my body down again and again, and by some miracle each time I did it the sliver of light breaking through the gap got smaller and smaller. The thing unleashed a gargled roar of defiance, but its strength seemed to be fading. With a crunch the hatch slammed shut, trapping its fingers. Another cry, this one filled with pain rather than anger, and all too human for it.
The creature was cut off mid-scream. One second it was thrashing to try to free its hand, the next there was a dull snap and it fell silent. I pushed its fingers through the gap, desperate to close the hatch before anything else tried to find a way in. They slid out with the sickening sound of grating bones, and I was plunged into the welcoming darkness. I couldn’t lock the hatch from inside, I was just grateful it was shut.
But my gratitude didn’t last long. Before I could suck in a breath the hatch burst open, and I didn’t even have enough air to scream with as a pair of bloody hands ripped me from my cell.
SNATCHED
THE CREATURE’S PAWS WERE LIKE MACHINES, clamping my arms to my sides and hoisting me out of the hole as though I weighed nothing. I thrashed with my legs, but the thing was behind me and my pathetic kicks didn’t even seem to register.
Whatever was holding me paused to knock my hatch closed, using a huge leg to swing the lever back into place. The other creature, the one that had been trying to get to me first, was hunched over and lifeless on the floor, its skinless, glistening body facing down. Its head had been twisted around at an impossible angle—its dead eyes open and fading, its toothless maw gaping like an empty shopping bag, as if it was howling silently at the ceiling.
I screamed for help, throwing myself against my captor and trying to wrench myself free from its grip. From nearby there was a bang, so much louder out in the open than it had been in the hole. It was a shotgun; I recognized the sound from the prison. Three more shots followed in close succession, a booming cry from a blacksuit. I wanted to see one of them run around the corner, appear from the dark tunnels behind us, anything. They might have been scary, but they were nothing compared to the writhing monster of knotted muscle and fist that breathed its blood breath on my neck.
We were in another stretch of corridor, narrower this time, and I managed to bring up my leg and kick out at the stone. I made contact, thrusting hard and sending us both off balance. The creature hit the opposite wall, the impact ripping its hand from my arm. I saw my chance, swinging my head back with every ounce of strength I possessed.
Stars exploded in my vision, first light then pain. But it had been worth it. Something behind me crunched, followed by a howl of agony. The other arm loosened and I tore myself free, staggering on the rock before finding my feet.
The corridor was shorter than the one we’d just left, lightless openings on either side. It bent around again at the end, and I could make out huge shadows bobbing up and down. They had to be cast by guards. They’d probably shoot me as soon as they saw me, but that was better than whatever the creature behind me had in store.
I opened my mouth, ready to call out, but before I could a hand wrapped itself around my face. I felt fingers in my mouth, encrusted with dirt, and bit down on them. Another hand swung around my waist and I was lifted again, like a toddler scooped up by a parent. I saw the shadows growing larger, the blacksuits almost on us. But then the tunnel lurched as I was dragged into one of the openings along the wall, and darkness swallowed me.
I knew what was happening. The creature was taking me to a quiet corner where it could eat me slowly, finger by finger, limb by limb. I lashed out again, hoping to flick a foot out of the doorway, one last chance to draw the attention of the guards. It was too strong, and in one leap we were halfway across a pitch-black room, the door nothing but a block of dull crimson light in the distance. Another leap and it had almost completely disappeared.
The creature pinned me to the ground, its hand still clamped against my lips. I could hear the march of booted feet outside and made one last attempt to scream.
Solitary Page 7