Solitary

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  “Hurry,” Simon hissed, grabbing my arm and steering me toward the ugly strip of darkness. He glanced behind him and I thought I saw movement from another of the fractured corridors that led from the cavern. “Suits,” Simon explained. “They patrol around here. Hurry!”

  I ducked under the uneven lip of the ceiling, finding myself in a small pocket of air surrounded on all sides by rock and jagged piles of rubble. I wasn’t sure where to go, but Zee was soon in and Simon too, and the bigger kid began to scramble up the wall opposite, vanishing into the gloom.

  “Where are you going?” Zee asked. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Just follow me, it’s easier than it looks.”

  He was right. The wall was full of cracks we could wedge our feet into and hooked lumps that served as handholds. The higher we climbed the darker it got, but it was easy enough to feel our way ahead. After a good ten minutes or so of slow progress the acoustics of the space changed, and soon after that the wall leveled out. Simon grabbed me, pulled me up the last little bit, and while he waited for Zee I tried to get a better sense of where we were.

  That’s when I heard the noise up ahead. A click that could have been the chattering of teeth or the dry voice of some giant insect.

  “You hear that?” I asked, wondering how fast I could get back down the wall if I had to make a quick exit. It was so dark I couldn’t even work out where we’d climbed.

  “It’s okay,” Simon called from the shadows. “They’re with us.”

  They? He took hold of my overalls and guided me forward, steering me gently around a post of rock before angling sharply right. We’d taken a few more twisted turns before I heard the spark of a match. The world flared and I was shocked to see a pair of frightened faces only a few paces ahead. They scattered back like startled mice.

  “It’s me,” Simon said, his voice louder but still cautious. “I brought him … them.”

  There was a soft pop and a flashlight fluttered on, the light weaker and more uncertain than the match in Simon’s hand. We were standing in a small cave, barely larger than one of the cells up top, the ceiling arched above us. There were two other kids in the space, their bodies so hunched and distorted that they looked for a moment like crude paintings on the wall. One stared at us with silver eyes as large as saucers, while the other, the younger, blinked at me through pools of watery blue. I thought I recognized him from Furnace: one of the kids who’d been taken during the blood watch, dragged off by the wheezers.

  The boy with silver eyes ducked his head and I saw that he was eating something, gnawing at it with animal ferocity. My stomach seemed to turn itself inside out with excitement at the thought of food, until the splintered bone caught the lamplight and my stomach turned for a different reason.

  “Is that…?” I asked, pointing. Simon followed my outstretched finger, his stance suddenly becoming defensive.

  “We have to eat,” he snapped, but his face twisted into a mask of shame before dropping to the floor.

  “You Alex?” asked the kid with the blue eyes. As far as I could tell he’d escaped the wheezer’s blades. His overalls were rust-colored in places but other than that he just looked like he’d stepped from his cell in gen pop. “I remember you. You used to hang with Carl Donovan, right?”

  I nodded, unsure what to say.

  “And you can get us out?” said the figure in the middle of the room. Like Simon he’d been cut open and stitched back up, although only his torso was affected—a bloated sack from which skinny limbs stuck out like spider legs. This time I didn’t respond. The kid shuffled forward as if to get a better look at me. “We heard the blacksuits after you escaped. Man, they were pissed.” His throaty laugh was contagious, spreading to the blue-eyed kid and to Simon.

  “Alex, Zee, meet Pete.” The mutilated teenager nodded a welcome. “He used to be a Skull but he’s okay now.”

  “Better than ever,” Pete said, laughing again.

  “The kid there is Ozzie.”

  I smiled uneasily at them both as Pete continued to grind his teeth down on whatever it was he was eating. It was good to see some friendly faces, but part of me had been hoping that Simon commanded an army up here, a band of fifty kids or something who were ready to storm out of Furnace. This ragtag bunch of children didn’t look capable of escaping from the cave we were in, let alone fighting their way to the surface. Not that I could talk, I suppose. I don’t know what they’d been expecting of me, but right now I looked like a walking skeleton only held together by the tattered remnants of my overalls.

  “How have you survived down here?” Zee asked. “Why haven’t the blacksuits found you?”

  “They would have,” Simon answered, picking an upturned IV bag from the floor and offering it to me. It was full of clear water, probably from the river, and I drank deeply, the cool liquid putting out a fire in my gut that I hadn’t even noticed was raging until now. I passed it to Zee as Simon continued. “The dogs have followed our scent a few times but there’s no way they could get up that wall, the suits neither. They probably just think they’re picking up a rat’s trail.”

  “Getting pretty bored, though,” said Pete. “It’s been, what? A few months at least.”

  “Just weeks for me,” said Ozzie. “Feels longer though. Glad you’re here. You know a way out?”

  I shook my head and, sensing my discomfort, Simon slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Not yet he doesn’t, but I know exactly where to start.”

  THE STEEPLE

  OZZIE CAME WITH US as we crossed the cave, exiting through a narrow cleft at the back. Pete did his best, but he had barely taken a couple of paces on his wasted legs before they crumpled.

  “Damn them,” he said with another forced laugh as he passed the torch to Simon. “They could at least have given me the limbs to match this body.”

  “You wait here, keep an ear out,” Simon said over his shoulder, taking the lamp and pressing on. “We won’t be long.”

  “Is there a way out up here?” Zee asked as we shuffled sideways along a passage that was barely big enough for any of us. It sloped down, sometimes so sharply that I thought I was going to tumble into the darkness below.

  “We’re not sure,” Simon replied. “I’ve searched all these tunnels, trust me. Been through them again and again and again, tried every crevice, every hole, every damn shadow in the ceiling. Nothing. They’re all dead ends, blocked by rock falls, or they just plummet straight down. But then we found the steeple.”

  “Steeple?” I asked, sliding on a carpet of loose stones and clinging onto the wall to stay upright.

  “I called it that,” came Ozzie’s voice, muffled by the shadows. “Reminded me of a church.”

  The flickering light from Simon’s torch did little to pick out the route ahead, which seemed to close up the farther we walked as though it was trying to force us back. Just to help ward off the fear, I kept the conversation flowing.

  “So how long were you in Furnace?” I asked, directing the question forward. But it was the younger kid behind me who answered again.

  “Just a year,” he said, then laughed. “I say just, it felt like a lifetime. Got sent down for murder after my parents were killed. Not by me, I might add.”

  “Blacksuits?” I asked.

  “Yeah, blacksuits. Framed me.”

  “Same here,” I said. “I’m supposed to have murdered my best friend. What about the others?”

  “Guilty as charged. Pete got locked up during the Summer of Slaughter, with the Skulls and all. Doesn’t really say much about it. Simon … well, he’ll tell you.”

  “Thanks,” Simon’s sarcasm echoed off the walls as he tried to squeeze through a crack in the rock. He vanished with a pop, his voice filtering back with the weak light. “Yeah, I was an idiot. The gang fights had finished but me and my mates got locked up for hitting a jewelry store. Things got out of hand, the owners had a gun.” His voice faded as he walked off, and I sucked in my breath to press mysel
f through the gap. “The guy threatened to use it, we fought, the gun went off and the rest, as they say, is history. Watch where you walk.”

  We’d emerged into another vast cavern, Simon’s voice suddenly swallowed by the immense weight of darkness. His lamp revealed that we were on a narrow ledge, which dipped away into an ocean of pitch that seemed to have no end. The wall we’d come through stretched up, the dark canvas above us like the night sky and just as cold. The jutting rock narrowed as it climbed, like a needle. Like a spire.

  “Well, this is it,” said Simon, gazing up at the invisible ceiling far above our heads.

  “That’s it?” Zee said, emerging from the hole and brushing the dust from his overalls. “That’s our way out?”

  Simon flashed another defiant look our way but it didn’t last, and after a second his face fell. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, from us, but I didn’t see anything that resembled a way out. There wasn’t even a glimmer of hope in my mind. It was just another cavern, and a pillar of rock that stretched toward nothing.

  “It’s all we’ve got,” said Ozzie as he joined us. “Don’t look like much, I know, but it’s the only part of this whole system that goes any higher. Like Simon said, all the tunnels dead-end or go deeper. But this one looks like it could stretch up to the top.”

  There was no way of telling. The light from the lamp clawed its way maybe ten meters into the heavy shadow but there it stalled.

  “I think this is part of the gorge, the one they put the prison in,” explained Simon, holding the lamp above his head but failing to illuminate any more of the steeple. “It could lead to the surface.”

  “Ever seen any sunlight up there?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

  “No. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any.” Simon shifted his gaze to the chasm at our side, as deep as the space above us was high. “It has to be, Alex. Because there is no other way out.”

  “Even if it was, how would we get up there?” asked Zee. “We’d need ropes, spikes. Nobody would be able to make that climb barehanded.”

  The mood was sinking fast and the darkness seemed to sense it, pressing down on us.

  “We could climb it,” Simon said, unwilling to give up. He sounded like the child he was, almost stamping his foot to emphasize the point. “Anyway, you’re here now. You can help us find a way, come up with something. You did it before.”

  The rock of the steeple was rough and cracked, like the slope we’d climbed a moment ago, and there were splits that looked big enough to rest on. But Zee was right, it would take someone at the peak of their physical ability to scale the steeple, which none of us could claim to be right now. And even if we got there, reached the top, who’s to say it wouldn’t just end at the cavern roof, leaving us stranded on a rocky pillar with no way down. I realized everyone was looking at me, and that I was shaking my head.

  “I’ll think about it,” was all I could find to say. “There might be a way. If one of us could scout it, maybe, take a rope. I don’t know.”

  I could hear the doubt dripping from my voice, but for Simon the mere mention of an idea seemed enough. He grinned, and for a moment I thought he was going to throw his hulking body forward and hug me.

  “I knew you’d be up for it,” he said. “It doesn’t even matter if we all can’t make it—like, I can’t see Pete getting up there with his legs, you know—if just one of us can get out we can find some help.”

  I stared up again, and for a moment I could see it—the steeple pushing relentlessly toward the surface, the ancient rock breaking through the crust of the earth and leaving enough room for us. I imagined my hand pushing through the loose soil, gripped by sunlight, which pulled me out from my grave, laid me down on the warm grass.

  “See, you feel it too,” said Simon, and I realized my cheeks were aching from the grin they were holding up. “There’s something about this place. I come here sometimes, lie on the ledge and look up, pretend that it’s the night sky up there. Sometimes it’s so real I can see the stars, feel the breeze. It’s gotta be our way ou—” His last word was snapped off early and he tilted his head, listening to something I couldn’t hear. Then he walked past me, back to the wall. “Come on, it’s pretty safe here, but the rats’ll home in on any sound and I don’t fancy being stuck on this ledge if they show up.”

  “We’re staying with you, right?” I asked his misshapen back as he vanished. “In the cave?”

  “No, we need to get you to your cells.”

  Zee and I protested with the same cry of alarm but he was still talking.

  “If you go missing, then the blacksuits’ll start to suspect something. Especially if there’s no blood. Right now they don’t know anything about us, but if they come looking for you then they might find us too. We can’t take that risk.”

  “I don’t know how much longer we’re gonna stay alive in there,” I replied, the rock against my chest and back weakening my words. “Blacksuits will kill us whether the warden wants it or not.”

  “Just another day or so,” said Simon. “Till we can think of the best way to get up the steeple.”

  I was about to keep arguing when I realized what was going on. Simon didn’t trust us—not completely, anyway. He was scared we’d make a run for it, find a way out and leave them behind. And if he kept us locked up then he knew we couldn’t go anywhere without him. It seemed pretty harsh, but then Furnace doesn’t exactly inspire trust.

  “Why haven’t you tried to climb it yet?” came Zee’s voice from behind me.

  “I did,” Simon replied. “Couple of times. Didn’t get far before I started to panic. Couldn’t find a way to get up there safely. Then when we heard the blacksuits talking about the bust up top we figured we’d wait, see if someone actually made it out, see if we could follow them.” I heard him breathe a sigh of relief as he pushed himself out into the cave. “Now we’ve got you, and I know you’ll think of something. I was never bright, never did well at nothing on the outside. But you came up with the plan, blew the walls.”

  “Yeah, you’ve gotta tell us how you did it,” said Ozzie as we all filtered out into the tiny space.

  “Another time,” said Simon, walking past the expectant face of Pete. “Right now you’ve got some thinking to do.”

  * * *

  THE TRIP BACK INTO FURNACE wasn’t half as easy as the trip out, and several times I found myself pleading for Simon to let us stay with him. I should have put my foot down, given the order.

  Yet the truth was I was scared of him. His silver eyes were always on me, glinting as if he knew something I didn’t. I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the guards, which chilled me to the bone. On top of that I’d seen what he could do. I’d never forget the way he’d taken down that rat, then ripped out its throat. Bitten it out. If he wanted, he could tear me limb from limb as easily as a blacksuit or one of their dogs could. And something about him, something about the intenseness of his stare, made me think he was right on the edge of sanity, that he could drop off into madness at any time and take us all down with him.

  Who can blame him? I thought as we lurked in the shadows beneath the cavern’s low ceiling, waiting for two distant blacksuits to disappear into the tunnels. Whatever I’d been through, he’d had it a million times worse.

  We were about to move when another guard appeared from a tunnel to our right and walked through the battered vault door, dragging a bloody corpse behind him. It left a red trail as he vanished, a crimson stream that seemed to glow in the spotlights.

  “Is that a rat?” I asked when the figure was gone. “Where is he taking it?”

  “To the incinerator, probably,” Simon replied, his body tensing, ready to make a run for it. “They burn them, make sure they don’t feed on each other, make sure they don’t, you know, decide they aren’t dead and start roaming around again.”

  Both Zee and I looked at Simon but he had already leaped up. I ran behind him, clumsily sprinting across the cavern floor and wishin
g once again that the heat on my face was daylight rather than halogen.

  We skidded past the vault door, following the slick trail up to the first junction. One path split off toward the warden’s quarters. The feeling of dread I’d got last time I’d passed was gone, but we had to duck into a darkened room while two more blacksuits strolled past. My heart was pounding so high up in my throat I could taste it, but they obviously didn’t suspect a thing, the military rhythm of their footsteps fading after a few seconds.

  A couple of cautious sprints later and we were back at the cells. My heart dropped right from my tonsils to my stomach as soon as I saw them, but it was too late to argue. Simon held mine open like he was tucking me in, and when I was once again gripped in its smothering fist he winked at me.

  “I’ll come again after your next meal, if I can. That should give us plenty of time to do this.”

  I reflected his expectant nod, but I couldn’t bring myself to imitate his wide—too wide—grin as the hatch once again slammed shut.

  BREAKING AND

  ENTERING

  MY NEXT MEAL came a few hours after Simon had locked us back in, and when the blacksuit wrenched open the door and chucked in a bowl of slop I was surprised to see the warden standing alongside him. He’d obviously come to see how I was faring in the hole, and his mere presence outside the hatch made me double over. Even then I could feel his gaze boring into the back of my skull, transmitting images that I could make little sense of but which were always composed of a palette of reds and dirty whites.

  I made out a rasping laugh, each breath of which seemed to hammer the pictures deeper into my head, forcing them to take shape. Not that I could tell you what I saw. Those images were so twisted, so terrifying, that they slipped right out again, each one stealing a little more of my sanity and leaving filthy traces in its place.