Solitary

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  “What’s going on?” whispered Zee. “Is that him? That kid?”

  I didn’t answer, concentrating on avoiding the shelves and boxes that were nothing more than shadows against shadows in front of me. I heard the scratch of matches ahead and was bathed in a warm amber glow.

  “Hurry,” said Simon, holding the match as far from himself as he could. He squinted at the light through the fingers of his other hand as though he were afraid of it, and after a couple of seconds tossed the flame to the floor. We trod carefully around a metal shelf and sat beside Simon, the match flaring up in an arc of deep orange—like a dying breath—before it was overrun by the darkness.

  “That was stupid,” his voice snaked up from nowhere. “Every time I come for you I risk my life. Blacksuits are everywhere; they’ll shoot me on sight.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “But Zee and I work together, we’re a team. You want me to help then you’re gonna want him too.”

  “Help?” said Zee. “You mean escape?”

  Simon’s silver eyes bobbed up and down as he nodded. I looked over my shoulder at the storeroom door, the corridor deserted and silent beyond.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “The blacksuits?”

  “Breach took place on the other side again, the north door. Guards’re all up there. Will be until they can secure it.”

  “Secure it against what?” said Zee. I heard Simon utter a grunt of frustration.

  “You don’t need to know. It’s not important, not now. You need a clear head, Alex, you need to help us find a way out. If you knew what was going on, if you knew what they were doing…”

  “I need to know everything,” I cut in. “We need to know everything. If we’re going to get out of here, then we have to know the truth.”

  Simon was probably right, I’d be better off not knowing, better off using every scrap of brain power I had looking for an exit. The truth, the unthinkable horrors of Furnace, would only sink into my consciousness like a poison, clouding my mind. But right then it didn’t matter. I just wanted to know. The kid sighed, the sound of a breeze kicking leaves along the pavement.

  “The rats, they’re people,” he said, his voice shaky. “They’re boys, like you, like me. They’ve just”—he seemed to choke on his own words—“they’ve just gone wrong.”

  “What do you mean, ‘boys’?” said Zee, his voice rising. “What’s happened to them? Why are they down here?”

  “The warden, the wheezers, they bit off more than they could chew,” Simon went on. “They were messing with forces that they couldn’t understand, couldn’t control. Ever since this place opened they’ve been using us. I can’t tell you why, I can’t tell you how. All I know is they take us from our cells down to that infirmary, and they … they change us.”

  “That’s crazy,” muttered Zee, although I knew from the way his voice trembled that he believed it. How could he not? We’d both seen the wheezers picking their victims, watched in horror as they pumped them full of darkness. We’d seen the kids return, barely enough left to identify them with as they howled and pounded their way through the prison. It was crazy. Even with the evidence right before us it was insane to think that something like this was happening with the world going about its business on the streets over our heads. But it was true.

  “I would have thought it was insane too,” said Simon, the emotion drained from his voice. “Until it happened to me.”

  There was another flare of light as the kid sparked up a match. I screwed my eyes shut against the brightness, then eased them open to see Simon sitting before us, hands held out to his sides to give us a front-row view of what they’d done to him.

  The first thing I noticed was that the overalls hanging off him were the same as the ones Zee and I were wearing. They’d been torn to shreds, sewn up and tied where possible, but were unable to conceal the body beneath. Every visible patch of skin had been sliced open then stitched back up, the lumps that I’d spotted earlier angry swellings that made me think of infections. Something strange had happened to his torso. It looked like it had been sculpted by a child from Play-Doh, stretched too far and allowed to slump back on itself. I could see lines around his stomach where the skin had been pulled taut, patches translucent like a balloon too full of air.

  I lifted my gaze to his face, blinking away the tears. It was still that of a boy, maybe sixteen, only now I noticed that the cheeks were swollen, charcoal-gray veins outlined on the pale surface. His eyes flashed in the weak light as if forged from steel, and I thought I could make out scars dripping from each one like teardrops. I gagged, but then the match flickered out and the feeling was snatched away along with the image.

  “Jesus,” breathed Zee. “Why?”

  “You think they tell us?” Simon spat back. “Hell, most of us never even know it’s happening, we’re so doped up. It’s only when something goes wrong … when they dump you…”

  “Dump you?” I said, ignoring the burn in my chest.

  “Their experiments don’t work on everyone. Sometimes it just messes them up, like me. If that happens, they dump you, throw you out. Most times that happens they chuck the bodies in the incinerator. Not always, though.”

  “But what do they do to you?” I asked. “I mean, what do they do to you that can change you like that? It’s impossible.”

  He didn’t answer, and a second later I realized why. Something was moving out in the corridor, the slap of bare feet against the rock and the wheeze of a breath. When Simon spoke again his voice was so low I could barely hear it.

  “I don’t know, only the wheezers do, they’re the ones who run the infirmary, the labs. All I know is they try to change you into a blacksuit. They make you strong, Alex, they make you fast, but they rip out you, your personality, everything that was good inside you.” I felt a finger tap me gently on the chest, leaving behind the imprint of its heat. “You can’t fight it. It’s like your head is flooded with darkness and anger, and the only thing that will make it go away is if you forget who you are. I can’t explain it.”

  “But why us, why kids?” was all I could manage.

  “The warden talked about it.” His whispered voice was laced with impatience but he continued. “The procedures only work on children. Our bodies, our cells, they’re still tough enough to be ripped apart and put back together without serious damage. Try it with an adult and they die.”

  The slap of feet outside was getting louder, and I looked over at the door. Faint light from the corridor was creeping in, but there was no sign of anything else. Not yet.

  “How did you survive?” asked Zee.

  “They dumped me, and I would have burned like the others, except the rats got into the compound, gave me time to escape. They’ve been through the same experiments too, you see, only they’ve gone too far. They’re not humans like us anymore, and they’re not blacksuits either. They’re something much worse.”

  He was speaking quickly now, as if he knew he didn’t have much time. There was a growl from outside the door, like an injured lion.

  “They live in the tunnels outside of Furnace, the rats, but they’re always trying to get back in. Nothing can keep them out, not the doors they keep putting up, not the guns, not the blacksuits. They force their way in and they tear everything they see to pieces.”

  “Why?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.

  “For food, mainly. For revenge too, I guess, even though their brains are too messed up to know it. You can see it in their eyes, though: pure hatred. Somewhere in their heads they understand what they’ve become, and they can’t stand it.”

  “And that’s the war you mentioned?” I pressed. The growl outside got louder.

  “Keep your voice down,” Simon replied. “Yeah, that’s the war. If you thought things were bad up in the main prison, in gen pop with the gangs, then you’re in for a nasty surprise. The wheezers created something evil, something deadly, and they’ve filled these tunnels with it. It’s raging out there,
this war—the brute force of Furnace’s elite guard against the filth that they unleashed. And we’re stuck smack bang in the middle.”

  Something flat and hideously ugly poked its head around the door, sniffing the air with two ragged holes in its face that might once have been a nose. It didn’t have silver eyes, in fact it didn’t seem to have any eyes at all, and when it shuffled forward on all fours it knocked clumsily into the wall.

  “It’s blind,” I said, and the creature tilted its head as if homing in on the words. A throbbing snarl rose up in its throat again as it eased its way into the room. But it couldn’t have been a dog, not with a body like that, not walking on its knuckles. It looked more like an ape.

  “The breaches are happening more regularly,” Simon whispered. “The rats are getting hungrier, they’ve tasted human flesh too many times, and they know they’re winning. I’ll come back for you soon, then we can find a way out.”

  I saw my chance and took it, ignoring the dull slaps of the beast as it closed in on us.

  “I’ll help you find a way, I’ll get us out of here, but I’m not going without Donovan.”

  “The guy in the infirmary?” Simon replied. “No way, we can’t go in there, it’s impossible.”

  “It’s either all of us or none of us,” I said. “Your choice.”

  I heard him swear under his breath, then he nodded.

  “You need to run back to your cells. I’ll come lock you in so the blacksuits don’t suspect anything. Just bolt and don’t look back, okay? Don’t look back.”

  The creature was halfway across the room now, nothing but a humped shadow framed in the light from the door. We’d have to squeeze right past it if we were going to get out, and I prayed that it actually was blind. I braced myself, taking on a sprinter’s start and tensing my muscles.

  “Alex?” came Zee’s uncertain cry. But it was too late to say anything.

  “Go!” screamed Simon. I sprang, seeing the creature rise up before me and howl as it sensed its prey on the move. It lumbered onto its back feet, towering over my head and swinging its long, loose limbs in wild circles. There was a crunch from my side as Simon leaped onto a shelf, then I felt wind on my ear as the kid flew over me. He struck the creature with a thump, sending them both crashing across the storeroom and clearing a path to the door.

  “Go!” yelled Simon again, and we obeyed, speeding toward the rectangle of light and the relative safety of the corridor.

  I know I shouldn’t have looked back, but I did. It was too dark to make out much, but there was no mistaking what was happening in the shadows. I could see the ape-like beast on the floor, pinned down despite its size. It was no longer growling but whimpering, thrashing pathetically at the air while Simon perched on its chest. The boy had bent down and bitten into the beast’s neck, the sound of tearing flesh filling the room. The whimper became a low moan, then faded altogether, replaced by a wet noise that sounded like frantic gulps.

  Two silver coins peered from the mess, watching me, and I saw them shake softly from side to side. Don’t look back. Then Zee grabbed my overalls and pulled me into the light.

  PREPARATION

  WE SCRAMBLED BACK TOWARD OUR CELLS, gripping each other’s overalls, too frightened to let go, stopping only once at the bend in the corridor to make sure the coast was clear. There wasn’t a living thing in sight, the rock walls so still that time could have stopped, the air silent except for our hoarse breaths.

  “You’re not thinking of getting back in the hole?” Zee whispered frantically. “We should go now, make a run for it while there’s no one here. We might not get another chance.”

  “We can’t go,” I replied as calmly as I could. “We don’t know where we’re going, and we’re dead if we run into a blacksuit or … or one of those things.”

  “We’re dead if we stay,” Zee shouted back, too loud. He broke his hold. “I’m not getting back in there.”

  I ignored him, knowing that someone could appear at any minute. Compared with what I’d heard, what I’d seen, being torn to shreds by shotgun pellets was a pretty good way to go, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. Jogging up to the first hatch, I kicked out at the stubborn lever with my heel, managing to spin it enough to unlock the cell. Zee was still talking at my back but I shut him up with the fiercest look I could muster.

  “Zee, you have to trust me. This is the only way. The warden’s given us a month down here and nothing else is going to happen until that time is up. Right now the hole is the safest place we can be.” I thought about the rat that had tried to break into my cell but shoved the image from my head before it could take root. “If you make a run for it now you’re as good as dead. We’ve got to come up with a plan, find a way out, then we’ll go together. Trust me.”

  “I trust you, Alex,” he said, walking up to the cells. “It’s that thing I don’t trust, that boy. We don’t know anything about him.”

  “We know he’s one of us,” I replied. Then, as if to try to convince myself: “He is one of us.”

  I bent down and grabbed the lever, straining to lift Zee’s hatch. After a couple of seconds he appeared at my side and grabbed the lip, and together we managed to haul the solid steel manhole cover open. We did the same with mine, then stood in silence staring into the infinite blackness of solitary confinement.

  “I can’t spend much more time in there,” Zee said eventually. “I’m seeing things, you know, things that aren’t there. Things that come out of the walls. I think … I think there might be bugs in my cell.”

  I looked up at him and for the first time I noticed how thin he was, how frail—his eyes watery, his skin gray and loose and streaked with dirt like unwashed laundry. He caught my glance and mirrored my expression. I knew I must have looked just as bad. For a second he smiled at me, nothing more than a glint, and I snorted a laugh.

  “Don’t we make a pretty picture,” he said.

  “Yeah, but it’s good to have a conversation without beating the hell out of my toilet,” I replied, offering another dry hiss of a laugh. He nodded, then leaned forward and gave me a hug. It was unexpected, but the feeling of contact after all this time was euphoric. I returned it, slapping him on the back a couple of times like I’d seen my dad do to his male friends, then we separated.

  “Tell anyone we did that and I’ll deny it,” he said as he sat on the edge of his cell. He dropped in, disappearing like a rock in a tar pit, his voice muffled. “Just find a way, okay; get us the hell out of here. And soon.”

  I nodded, pulling on the hatch until it got caught by its own weight and slammed shut. The lever wouldn’t turn all the way, but with another few kicks I managed to slot it back into its casing. I sat on the edge of my cell, the floor invisible beneath me, and wondered if Zee had been right. Maybe we should have made a break for it while we still could. Maybe it was the height of stupidity not to have gone when our cells were open and the corridors were abandoned.

  But my gut was telling me we’d be dead in minutes if we fled. As ridiculous as it was, I knew we had to lock ourselves away before we could set ourselves free.

  Grabbing the edge of my hatch, I tilted it forward until it was vertical, then I slid into my cell, pulling it behind me. It fell like a ton weight, the change in pressure making my ears ache as if I had dived too deep in the pool. I swallowed, twisting my jaw, until they popped, then leaned back against the wall.

  “Honey, I’m home,” I said to myself, followed by a noise that could have been a giggle but which was laced with an edge of madness that chilled me to the bone.

  * * *

  FOR A WHILE I did nothing except stand against the wall staring into the dark, letting the night seep into my head and snuff out the thoughts that were squabbling for attention. It worked, and for maybe a minute or so I found the closest thing I’d ever got to peace in the hole.

  Then I heard hurried footsteps on the ground above me, the sound of the lever on my hatch being pulled tight, and Furnace forced itself back in.<
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  I pictured Simon fleeing along the corridors, heading back to some dark tunnel where he was safe from the rats and the blacksuits. How long had he been down here? I wondered, the first of hundreds of questions that swooped and called in my head like a flock of seagulls. His stitches looked fresh, his skin bruised as if he’d only just escaped from the wheezers. But the way he spoke, the way he acted, was far older than his years, and made me think he’d been trapped in the underbelly of the prison for a long time.

  I shuddered as I pictured what he might once have looked like, a year or two older than me and slimmer too. Had he been locked up in the hole first? Tormented by his own demons, reduced to a shivering husk of a human before the wheezers got to have their way? It made sense. I mean, that was one way to avoid going crazy in solitary—just forget who you were, forget all you had ever been.

  Is that what was happening to Donovan right now? Everything that once defined him being stripped away like wallpaper, covered up with a new personality, the psychotic menace of a blacksuit? I felt the anger swell inside me, making my muscles heavy and my head pound, but there was nowhere for it to go so it just fizzled out into the shadows of my cell.

  Anger was quickly replaced by fear as I wondered what our own fate was, Zee’s and mine. Were we doomed to be carved up inside and out, body and mind, to become blacksuits? Or would we fail to make the cut and be dumped, incinerated? Or, worst of all, would we somehow survive and become one of them, the rats, stalking the passageways feeding on the flesh of the guards, of the kids who’d once been our cellmates?

  It wasn’t exactly a great menu of options.

  I tried to change the channel in my head. I thought about when I’d been up in my cell on top, watching the blacksuits and the wheezers and occasionally the warden emerge through the vault doorway from the passages beyond. I’d had no idea—none of us up there had had any idea—that below our feet a battle was raging, that the calm, wicked faces that peered up at us in our cages had been fighting tooth and nail with the very freaks of nature they had created. I wouldn’t have believed it if somebody had told me. Hell, I barely even believed it now and I’d seen the evidence with my own eyes.