Solitary

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  I didn’t want proof but it was there anyway. Pitiful groans rose up from hidden faces, quiet sobs tore at my heart, a symphony of distress almost lost in the chirrup of the monitors, the pump of some hidden machine and the endless wheeze of the sleeping monster by my side.

  Simon waved his hand, snapping me back to attention. Donovan was in here somewhere, and we didn’t have long to find him. I darted to the left-hand side of the room, took a deep breath and pulled back the cloth of the first screen.

  Empty.

  There was a bed, metal sides and a thin mattress with pillows but no sheets. Beside it was a machine that I didn’t recognize, all polished steel and rubber tubes. Two red lights on a monitor blinked at me as if wondering who I was, and I let the fabric fall back just in case somehow it could see me and sound the alarm.

  One down, fifty or so to go. I peered over my shoulder to see Zee on his third screen, moving fast, his determined expression making me pretty sure those ones had been empty too. Simon was standing behind the wheezer, each as motionless as the other.

  Come on! I screamed at myself, moving to the next screen and pulling back the curtain. It was deserted too, except for a stripped bed and another strange machine, this one dead. The next was the same, and the two after that, and by the time I’d reached the sixth cubicle my sense of dread was fading.

  I should have known not to let my guard down.

  I wrenched back the screen of the next compartment and had to rest my hands on the foot of the bed beyond to stop myself keeling over. Lying on the mattress, held in place by several thick leather straps, was Gary Owens. His top half was bare, several wires taped to his chest linking him to the machine by his side. It bleeped away softly to a heartbeat that was slow and unsteady, like a clock in desperate need of being wound.

  Looming above him were three skeletal poles, each with a transparent bag hooked to it. One was filled with a dark red substance that had to be blood, another the color and consistency of crap. But there was one more, packed with something that didn’t look liquid or solid, that seemed to be both dark and silvery light at the same time. Specks of color swirled inside it as if caught in some hidden current, or as if impatient to flow down the tube into one of the needles lodged in Gary’s arm.

  Aside from the IV drips, he looked untouched. Bruised and cut from the river, yes, but with none of the stitches and swellings I’d seen on Simon or Monty or the other freaks.

  Except for his eyes.

  His head was tightly bandaged, the gauze layered from the bridge of his nose to the top of his forehead. And there were two crimson circles right where his eyes should be, like that part of his face had been drawn in crayon by a toddler. Even as I watched I could see the circles spreading outward: too much blood for it to be a graze.

  The scene blurred and I realized I was crying. I turned to look at Simon, hoping he’d be able to do something to make this all better. But he had his back to me, his gaze never leaving the wheezer. Zee too was focused on his job, a quarter of the way up the room already and a hell of a lot paler than he’d been a few minutes ago.

  I wiped my eyes, let the curtain fall. Gary hadn’t heard me, he certainly hadn’t seen me. I doubt he’d even been conscious, especially if he’d just had surgery on … I couldn’t even think about it. I moved toward the next compartment. What else could I do? If there is time, if we can find a way to make it work, then I’ll take you with us, Gary, I thought silently. And even though I knew it wasn’t true, it made me feel better.

  There was a cry behind me, a muffled retching. Spinning around I saw Zee stumbling away from a screen, hand to his mouth. He tripped over his own feet, falling, and too late I noticed the trolley of equipment in his path.

  “No!” hissed Simon, propelling himself across the room so fast I barely saw him move. He dived to catch Zee but didn’t make it, and with a crash that could have woken the dead the two boys slammed into the cart. It exploded across the room, shedding pans and scalpels and things I didn’t recognize before grinding to a halt on its side.

  The reaction from the wheezer was instantaneous. It came to life like a clockwork toy, its movements staggered and exaggerated, its cry wet and weak before breaking free of its throat as a scream.

  “Hide!” shouted Simon, pulling Zee across the floor by his collar and vanishing behind a screen. I half turned, half tripped across the room, knowing I should have ducked into one of the cubicles on my side but unable to bear the thought of being on my own. I risked a glance as I ran, saw the creature starting to turn, its pipe popping free of the wall with a hiss. Then I was past the curtain, Zee and Simon by my side. Surely out of sight.

  At least that’s what I thought until the wheezer shrieked again, the crunch of its boots growing louder as it headed our way.

  SPECIMENS

  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

  The voice in my head never got the chance to break free from between my lips. I was too scared to find the breath to speak, my shell-shocked brain forgetting how to form words. It was happening again. I was trapped and powerless as a wheezer approached just like on the night before we made our break. I pictured it stopping on the other side of the screen, its piggy eyes lighting up when it sensed us trembling inside. Visitors. Intruders.

  Specimens.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, hot fingers singeing my skin. Simon was there, a finger on his lips and the rest of his face a mask of fear. I turned to Zee, so pale he could have been transparent against the white curtains that separated us from the rest of the infirmary.

  The wheezer’s steps grew closer, scuffed against the smooth rock of the floor. I heard the sound of it convulsing, the needles strapped to its chest clinking and its leather coat flapping. I wanted to check the cubicle for something we could use as a weapon, but I knew that if I turned away for a second I’d look back to see it peering through the curtains, the stitches of its gas mask straining as its face split open into a smile.

  A shadow sprouted up from the bottom of the screen. I could make out the dome of its head, the curve of the pipe once more fastened into a tank on its back. The dark shape grew as the wheezer came to a halt on the other side of the curtain.

  A meter, maybe two, separating us from it. It took a long, ragged breath, its asthmatic hiss like an ancient, scratched recording of a string quartet. Then it unleashed its hellish cry, so loud that the sound was like a dagger in my ears.

  Something answered it. I thought at first it was an echo, but the distant scream repeated itself and the wheezer in the infirmary returned the call. It reminded me of vultures announcing the location of a new corpse on which to feast. Or three, in this case.

  I glanced at Simon again, hoping he’d take on the wheezer with the same fearlessness with which he’d tackled the rat. But he was petrified, his eyes stretched so wide they were more vein than anything else—veins that pulsed black rather than red. Right now he didn’t look like he could tie his own shoes, let alone take down the wheezer.

  Correction, wheezers.

  I heard the second freak walk into the room. It must have come from the other door, its footsteps hurried. The silhouette before us made a noise like it was choking, which morphed into a wet gurgle, almost a purr, and seconds later we heard it in stereo.

  The longer we waited the more danger we were in. If we moved now we might just make it past the first wheezer, and the second was approaching from the far side of the room. I’d never seen them move faster than a stagger, I was pretty sure they couldn’t sprint. If we just started running, surely we could make it?

  But my muscles were carved from stone. I might as well have been strapped to a bed for all the good they were doing me. I could no more take a single step than start singing “Jailhouse Rock” at the top of my voice.

  The shadow on the screen moved, coming closer, a hand reaching out for the curtains ready to draw them back.

  Only it never did. Instead the wheezer made another noise, halfway between a gulp and a murmur, its unste
ady arm pointing down. Then it turned, becoming smaller, fuzzier around the edges as it shuffled away from us. I could just about see it bend over, long limbs reaching for the equipment that littered the floor, then it moved on again and vanished.

  The three of us waited for what must have been a full minute before daring even to take a breath. Only when the sound of the wheezers’ boots had retreated to the other side of the room did I give my lungs permission to work, sucking in so much oxygen the world started spinning.

  Simon nodded his head toward the side of the cubicle. There was a slight gap between the screen and the back wall, easily big enough for us to squeeze through. If it was the same all the way down, then we should be able to sneak back to the infirmary door without being seen. I checked Zee to make sure he knew what we were doing, but he was staring behind me, his eyes wide pools that shimmered in the rusty light, the corners of his mouth turned down so much it was as if they’d been caught by invisible hooks.

  I didn’t want to turn around. I didn’t want to see what Zee was looking at, what had sent him reeling across the room minutes ago. But I did anyway.

  At first I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t in a bed like the other kids I’d seen. He was strung up in some kind of coffin, a sarcophagus of black metal tilted back against the wall at a forty-five-degree angle. The straps that held him in place weren’t made of leather but of steel, as wide and as thick as my fist, and manacles bound his hands and feet like something from the Middle Ages.

  It was easy to see why. Donovan had been big before, but now he was enormous. Well, parts of him were. His torso looked like a rag doll that had been overstuffed, his stomach and chest swollen up so much that the stitches that ran from his navel to his sternum, and across from armpit to armpit, looked like they might tear loose at any minute. The muscles beneath flexed with a life of their own, their shapes bulging through his weakened skin.

  One of his legs was also much larger than the other, the size and color of a tree trunk. The sutures here were fresher, droplets of blood still winding lazily toward the floor.

  His face was just how I remembered it, although grayer. Even though his brown eyes were now silver, staring blindly up at the shadowed ceiling, it was unmistakably him.

  “Donovan,” I breathed. I reached up, rested a hand on his arm, only to pull it back a split second later because of the heat that radiated from him. Simon was tugging at my overalls, desperate to pull us away, but for a moment even my fear of the wheezers paled as I called out his name again, still a whisper but louder this time. “Donovan.”

  “Come on,” came a breath in my ear, both ears, actually, as Simon and Zee had spoken the same words at the same time. I ignored them, reaching out and touching Donovan’s arm again. This time he seemed to stir, his head easing around then lolling against his chest, his silver gaze finding me for a moment then slipping away. His mouth opened, it seemed like it opened too far, and a long, low groan slid out. It changed at the end, becoming a word.

  “Alex?” Too soft to be heard by the wheezers, but loud enough to break my heart. “That you?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, my grin stretching from ear to ear but the tears still falling. “Yeah it’s me, and Zee too.”

  “Hey, D,” said Zee, stepping up.

  “You came back,” he said, his voice soft and slurred. “You came back for me.”

  “I told you we would,” I said. “We’re going to escape, Donovan, all of us. I promise. We’ll get you out of this thing.”

  I’d already started pulling at the steel buckles when I felt Simon’s hand on my arm, more insistent this time.

  “You can’t take him,” he said.

  “We can pull these loose,” I argued as quietly as I could. “Or pick the locks. We can get him out.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Simon went on. “It’s too late.”

  “It’s not too late,” I snapped, too loud. The sound of feet from the other side of the room kicked up again, that chilling purr like a cat with a throat full of blood. I froze, but my outburst seemed to have gone unnoticed in a fresh round of groans and sobs that emanated from the hidden infirmary beds. “It’s not too late,” I spat into his ear. “He’s coming with us, so help me open these chains.”

  “It’s not the chains,” Simon explained, pointing to the side of the sarcophagus. I hadn’t noticed the IV drips there, another bag of blood and two more filled with darkness and light, the mixture reminding me of space and the galaxies that spiraled in the abyss. I followed the tube, saw where it entered Donovan’s neck and arm, the arteries there pulsing black beneath the sheen of his dark skin. “If you stop the feed now, then he’ll die. After everything he’s gone through, after the surgery, that stuff is all that’s keeping him alive.”

  “We getting out of here or what?” Donovan said, his voice so weak it sounded like a radio with poor reception, fading in and out. “I feel like battered crap.”

  “We can take it with us,” I said, talking to Simon. “Take that feed, whatever it is.”

  “It won’t be enough,” the kid replied, looking nervously behind him to check the wheezer hadn’t made its way back to the screen. “He needs to stay. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

  “So why did you bring us here?” I asked, my temper almost fraying again. It was all I could do not to scream my frustration at him, wheezers or no wheezers. Simon sighed, then looked down at the floor.

  “Because I wanted you to know that it was too late for your friend. I wanted you to focus on getting us out of here. I’m … I’m sorry.”

  Something in my chest seemed to wither up, pushed into my throat where it sat there as uncomfortable as broken glass. I wrenched my arm free of Simon’s grip and tried once again to unclip the metal straps that held Donovan’s legs. They didn’t budge. Somewhere in the infirmary a pair of curtains were drawn back, a dry wheeze broken into what sounded like soft chuckles. Too close.

  “Alex?” said Donovan again. “You just gonna stand there?”

  “Listen to me, Donovan,” I said. “We will get you free, okay? But we can’t do it yet.” I remembered what Monty had told me. “Don’t forget your name, okay? Carl Donovan. Just hang in there, we’ll be back for you real soon.”

  “Hang in there,” echoed Donovan, smiling. His metallic eyes swung back and forth before finding me again, and I realized he was probably doped up on painkillers or something. “Good one, Alex. I’ll just hang around, right here.”

  “Just think about that burger, okay big guy?” I went on. Simon was already squeezing between the back of the screen and the wall, Zee hot on his heels and beckoning me on. I followed, Donovan’s smile fading as he watched me go.

  “Alex? Don’t leave me.”

  “I’ll be back, I promise. We’re just down the hall, we’re not going far.” I reached the wall, Donovan trying to twist his neck around to watch me. This time it felt as though my heart had been crushed, but I had no choice. “On my life, I swear to you, I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  Then I ducked past the screen, Donovan’s great, heaving sobs following me all the way.

  ABANDONED

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT WAS MORE OF A RELIEF—the fact that there was enough room for us to pass through the dozen or so cubicles without difficulty, or the fact that only one of the beds was occupied. It was the next but one from Donovan’s, a kid a few years younger than me. He was awake, and uninjured—his body strapped down and covered with a sheet—but his mind was obviously in a better place than this, his pale blue eyes barely even acknowledging us as we passed by.

  I wanted more than anything to free him, take him with us, take them all with us. For a fleeting moment I pictured myself running out and fighting the wheezers, tearing off their masks, felling the blacksuits with a single blow, then smashing my way up to the surface with all the lost boys of Furnace in my wake. But even as I thought it I realized how pathetic it sounded, and instead followed Simon and Zee as they eased around the bed, my
body slumped, heavy, useless.

  Not before I noticed another trolley of equipment, however, a torturer’s kit of stainless steel lying by the boy’s bed—all sharpened blades and hooks and clamps. Instinctively I lifted a scalpel from the tray, sliding it into the waistband of my overalls as we squeezed through the gaps left by the last few screens.

  We emerged against the wall we’d come in through, the main door visible maybe five meters away. Simon crept to the end of the screen, easing himself around the corner to check the infirmary before turning back to us.

  “Wheezers have gone,” he whispered. “Must be in the cubicles or something. Follow me and keep quiet.”

  We did as we were told, jogging across the polished floor. The plastic curtain of the infirmary slapped shut behind us, imitating the soft patter of our feet as we made our way back to solitary. It was as we reached the junction that led back to our cells that we heard voices, too deep, too loud to be anything other than blacksuits. Simon cursed, his pace quickening.

  “I thought we’d have more time,” he said, bending down to flip open Zee’s door as if it weighed nothing. “Get in.”

  Zee looked reluctant but he didn’t argue, vanishing once again into the gloom. The voices were getting louder, and I recognized the growl of the dogs too. I didn’t particularly fancy another eternity locked in the hole but there was nothing else for it. I nodded at Simon as he held open my hatch for me like a butler, then I jumped in. He paused before closing it.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. “I hope you understand why I did it. He’s gone, Alex. He’s turned. Next time I come, we focus on getting out, okay?”