‘Keep running and don’t stop,’ I said, throwing myself forward. I ran wildly round one wheezer, twisting my body out of the way as it raised a gloved hand towards me. I barrelled into another, sending it sprawling to the floor. The wheezed screams of its brothers grew more urgent as they staggered from their cells, but they were too slow to stop us.
I’ll give you something to cry about, I thought, kicking out at the gramophone as I passed it. The woman’s voice vanished in a scratch, the record smashing as it struck the stone. The wail of distress that rose up in surround sound from all around me shredded my nerves, but before it could reach a crescendo we had swung open the door and skidded into the corridor beyond.
I pulled the door shut, bending the metal lock round the same way I had before, and was about to head off when I heard Zee’s breathless retching. He was puking in the corner of the corridor, nothing but a thin trail that looked like gruel dangling from his trembling lips. He gagged once more, then looked up at me through watery eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I would have waited for a better time but, you know … Once it’s on the way up there ain’t no stopping it.’
I put a hand under his armpit and eased him gently up. The siren was even louder out here, and I could hear the stamp of booted feet on stone. But this time I knew what to do. So did Zee.
‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ he asked.
‘What’s that?’
‘The Wookiee gambit,’ he answered with a smile. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but somewhere in my head a distant memory was forming. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Christ, Alex, what have they done to your brain? You don’t remember Star Wars?’
I shook my head, but even as I was doing so more memories bubbled up to the surface, cut off as the thunder of footsteps grew louder. Zee laced his hands behind his back as though he was wearing handcuffs, bowing his head and shuffling forward. I knew what he was getting at, keeping my hand firmly on his shoulder and straightening my back. We marched round the corner, then took the first right that led up to the infirmary.
A group of blacksuits nearly hit us as they charged out from the plastic curtain. One stopped and lifted his gun, and it was all I could do not to throw myself to the floor as I stared into the bottomless barrel. But I steeled myself, glaring at him as fiercely as I could, and he quickly lowered it.
‘Where’s the warden?’ he boomed over the siren, glancing at the bloodstains on my shirt where Gary had slashed me, then at Zee. ‘And why is he here?’
‘Number …’ I thought back to one of the conversations I’d heard when I was in the infirmary, the number they’d given to Gary. ‘195 is loose. They’re trying to contain him. I was told to bring this one back to his bed.’ I shook Zee roughly by the collar, hard enough to rattle his teeth, and he glared at me. ‘You’d better go help, it’s a mess in there.’
Several pairs of suspicious silver eyes looked me up and down.
‘I said go!’ I growled, as deeply as I could. The suit in front charged off without another word, the guards like a dark shadow sweeping after him. I didn’t wait to see what they’d make of the bent lock on the door, letting go of Zee and pushing through the curtain of plastic slats.
‘Piece of cake,’ he said.
‘Piece of cake,’ I repeated. And it was a good thing that the infirmary was empty of blacksuits and wheezers because we were giggling with relief as we set off across it.
A RESCUE MISSION
It was Zee who remembered Simon.
I stopped running when I realised I couldn’t hear his footsteps any more, spinning round to see him peering through the curtains that hid each bed.
‘Come on,’ I hissed, expecting the blacksuits to burst into the infirmary at any moment, the warden at their head and ordering our immediate execution. ‘We’ve got to find somewhere to hide.’
‘Not without Simon and Ozzie,’ Zee replied, ducking behind another screen. ‘Check the other side.’
I couldn’t move. My mind filled with visions of Ozzie’s face as he pleaded for my help, his limp body after I’d snatched the life from him. Zee emerged again, his face falling when he saw my expression.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘You know where they are?’
Yeah, I knew. Ozzie would be in a pile of corpses ready to go into the incinerator, his eyes staring blindly at the ceiling. Either that or he was already ashes lining the chimney that led to the surface. Maybe some of those charred specks would make it all the way to the top. Maybe that way he’d be free.
Or maybe I was just telling myself that so I’d feel less guilty about killing him.
‘Alex, if you know where they are then you’ve got to tell me. They both risked their lives getting us out, we can’t leave them here.’
I shook myself free from the paralysis that gripped me, running to the other side of the room and looking behind a curtain. The bed was empty, the ancient bloodstains on the mattress like the shadow of its previous occupant.
‘I don’t know where Simon is,’ I replied. ‘But Ozzie is … I think he might be dead.’
I looked back across the infirmary to gauge Zee’s reaction, and the moment our eyes met it was clear that he knew what I was saying. He froze, his mouth dropping open, but he managed to stop himself asking the question I was dreading.
‘Then we have to find Simon and get the hell out of here,’ he said eventually, pushing his head past another set of curtains then wrenching it out a split second later. I did the same, seeing a boy with a bandaged face in one cubicle and a couple more empty beds after that. It was as I was peeling back the next that I heard Simon’s voice. It was faint over the relentless siren, but unmistakably his.
Zee had obviously heard it too and we set off down the infirmary together, listening for his call in the quiet valleys where the alarm faded into itself. After a couple of failed attempts we ripped open a set of curtains to see him strapped to a bed, his silver eyes as wide as the grin that welcomed us.
‘Y’know, you two really don’t get the meaning of subtle, do you?’ he said, almost laughing. ‘I could hear you yabbering away as soon as you entered the infirmary.’
We laughed quietly, Zee popping his head back out to act as lookout while I unfastened Simon’s buckles. Although there was an IV drip by his bed, he didn’t look like he’d been through any more surgery – his disfigured body and single, enormous arm the same as they had been the last time I’d seen him. He struggled to sit up, a worrying series of clicks emanating from his muscles as he stretched.
‘I thought the warden had already given up on you,’ I said, remembering Simon’s stories of being dumped.
‘Guess he figured I deserved a second chance,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘What about Ozzie? You found him yet?’
I let my eyes drop to the floor, my confession ready on my lips.
‘He didn’t make it,’ Zee said before I could speak. ‘Suits got him. I’m sorry, Simon.’
Despite the siren, silence seemed to hang heavy in the room. Simon thumped the bed and I heard the grief choked in his throat. It was almost too much, Ozzie’s face once again swimming before mine, his eyes glaring at me. Then I felt Zee’s hand on my arm and the illusion vanished.
‘He wouldn’t want us to mourn him,’ Zee said. ‘He’d want us to get out of here. Right?’
‘Right,’ replied Simon, getting unsteadily to his feet. He rested his large arm on my shoulder and we staggered forward like two oversized kids in a three-legged race. Zee checked once again to make sure the coast was clear, then vanished in a flash of white.
We pounded after him, heading for the plastic curtain at the far end of the room. I could hear more shouts beyond, and the barking of dogs, but they seemed distant. We had time.
‘Left or right? Which way?’ said Simon as we pushed through the cold plastic. Both Simon and Zee turned to look at me, as if by being a blacksuit I knew a secret way out. I hated to disappoint them.
‘I don’t know,’ I shrugg
ed, my pulse quickening as I heard the growl of the dogs drawing closer. ‘I don’t know. I say we find somewhere to lie low until we can figure out a plan. The caves? The steeple?’
‘Okay,’ Zee and Simon said in unison. ‘Right it is.’
Zee took the lead, swinging out of the door. With every step I thought we’d smack right into a platoon of guards and their dogs but fortunately the sounds seemed to be coming from behind us, back towards the solitary cells. The doors of the storerooms were a blur as we hurtled past them, reaching the T-junction that split off towards the caves.
I expected the vault door to still be off its hinges, the way the rats had left it the last time they’d broken through, but the closer we got to the end of the passageway the clearer it became that the way out had been resealed. There wasn’t even a door now, just a slab of solid concrete that didn’t budge by so much as a millimetre as we thumped into it.
‘No way,’ Simon groaned, throwing a pathetic punch at the grey wall. ‘They can’t do this!’
But they had. The warden had obviously grown so sick of the rats breaking into the compound that he’d sealed off the exit to the caverns beyond. We were well and truly at a dead end. Simon threw another punch, but this time he left his knuckles resting against the concrete.
‘Pete’s through there,’ he mumbled, his entire body shaking. He looked up at me like I might have an answer to his unspoken question, but I just lowered my gaze. If Pete was still alive behind there, which was doubtful given the state of his broken body, then there was nothing we could do for him. Simon left his hand on the wall for a moment longer, his lips mouthing some silent goodbye, then his expression hardened.
‘There’s another way out, right?’ Zee was saying, his words broken into pieces by heaving breaths. ‘In the north wing. I remember hearing you talking about it.’
‘It’s probably been sealed off as well,’ Simon said, sucking the blood from his knuckles.
‘And even if it hasn’t, I’m not going back that way,’ I argued. ‘That’s where the warden is, and Gary.’
Simon looked at me, obviously confused, but there was no time to explain. Instead we paced back and forth along the corridor, listening to the sounds of the guards and the dogs growing louder then receding as they turned into the infirmary. It wouldn’t be long, though. As soon as the suits managed to rouse the warden he’d tell them exactly what had happened, then they’d be back here with murder on their minds.
‘Okay, let’s think,’ I said, smashing a palm against my head. ‘We need to find a map or something, a security room. Somewhere we can plan an escape.’
Simon and Zee stared back at me, their shoulders hunched and their eyebrows raised as if I’d just said the stupidest thing they’d ever heard.
‘Yeah, sure,’ snapped Zee. ‘Let’s find the magic room filled with maps and weapons and escape plans. Maybe a teleporter. Good thinking, Alex.’
I scowled at him, realising he was right. But then I looked over his shoulder, another memory floating to the surface: the warden being escorted down this very tunnel, taken into a room down the corridor. With it came more distant thoughts: a telephone ringing from the same room, a voice on the other end that struck fear into me, even though I couldn’t possibly have heard it.
‘The warden’s quarters,’ I said.
‘What?’ asked Zee. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘No, they’re right there,’ I pointed down the passageway to a door visible in the wall. ‘Think about it, he must have plans of the prison, stuff like that. Maybe we can find a way out.’
‘Right,’ said Simon, turning to look at the door. ‘He might have weapons too, keys maybe. But …’
Simon didn’t have to add anything. I knew exactly what was worrying him. More memories blossomed in my head like dark flowers, the feeling I’d got the first time I’d walked down this corridor, that I was being watched by something bad, something evil. Even now the thought of it chilled me to the bone.
‘But nothing,’ I managed eventually. ‘What choice do we have? Hide in a storeroom until the dogs sniff us out? It’s our best bet. It’s our only bet.’
As if they were twisted mirror images of each other, Simon and Zee’s expressions relaxed then tightened again.
‘Alex,’ said Zee, a tremor belying the calmness of his tone. ‘That’s the first place the warden’s gonna go when he gets back here. I really don’t want to get caught in there.’
I smiled at him as best I could. Then I ran towards the door, towards the warden’s quarters, yelling over my shoulder:
‘Then we’d better be quick.’
LAIR
The door was closed, which was no surprise. But when Zee cautiously turned the handle there was no resistance, the thick barrier of metal swinging inwards without so much as a creak. We looked at each other, not believing our luck.
‘I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy,’ said Zee, pushing the door all the way open. Beyond was a short corridor, like an entrance hall, at the end of which we could make out a dimly lit room.
‘Maybe the warden doesn’t think anyone is stupid enough to trespass into his quarters,’ I said, ready to take a step forward.
‘Or maybe it’s booby-trapped,’ added Simon.
I froze, my leg hovering over the stone floor beyond. I didn’t honestly think there were traps there ready to snare us if we set foot in the warden’s lair, but there was something stopping me moving forward. I couldn’t say exactly what, just a feeling that this wasn’t right, that we should turn and run. Suddenly it didn’t matter that the blacksuits were after us, or the dogs. The only thing that was important was getting away from this room.
I looked at Zee, the sickly colour of his skin revealing his own fear.
‘You first,’ he said.
‘Papers scissors stone?’ I risked, but both boys shook their heads. I tried to swallow, my throat too dry. ‘Fine, you chickens, I’ll go.’
I finally let my foot drop, the echo surely too loud as it bounced back and forth along the short corridor. There was enough light ahead to make out a large room, drenched in shadow, and although there was no sign of life I couldn’t shake the feeling that something inside was watching me.
Come on, I screamed, giving myself a mental kick up the ass. I lifted my other leg and passed through the door, the sensation like stepping into a hot shower. I thought for a moment the siren had stopped, then realised that I could still hear it, only as though from far away. I turned to make sure that Simon and Zee were following and my heart almost missed a beat. They too seemed to be distant, just specks at the end of a vast, black tunnel, their voices nothing more than the susurration of bird wings.
Then I blinked and they were right next to me again, the siren pounding at my ears and the passageway just a passageway.
‘You okay?’ Zee asked. ‘You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’
I didn’t reply, just wiped the cold sweat from my brow and led the way down the corridor. Simon closed the door gently behind us, and after just a few paces we found ourselves in another world.
‘Christ alive,’ muttered Zee. ‘This dude is messed up.’
‘Like we didn’t already know that,’ Simon replied, his voice faint, as if the room had snatched his breath away.
Dominating the chamber was a flag. It hung from the ceiling to our left, covering one entire wall. It showed a blood-red background, on which sat a white circle. The bold, black insignia inside could easily have been something else, but instead it showed the Furnace logo, the three circles arranged in a triangle, each with a dot in its centre connected by straight lines.
Beneath the flag was a desk, bigger than a snooker table and made from a wood so dark it looked burnt. Carved into it were figures, and we had to take a few steps towards it to work out what they were. We soon wished we hadn’t.
Each carving showed a kid, no older than us, being executed. On one leg was the twisted, emaciated corpse of somebody hanging from the gallows, his face stretched
into an expression of pure terror. Above him, decorating the panel between the leg and the top of the desk, was what looked like somebody on the rack, their body already broken beyond repair but the pain detailed in their eyes that of somebody fighting tooth and nail for life. Next to that was a teenage boy facing a firing squad, his face masked by a hood. Everywhere my eyes fell lay another nightmare, the work so detailed I could feel the bile rise in my throat.
And running along the edge of the desk, carved in letters the size of my hand, were four words:
THEY ARE ALL GUILTY.
The desk brought back more memories that I thought had been lost forever – me on a bus with Zee and some other kids, seeing the looming body of Furnace’s surface building, the Black Fort, growing larger and larger until it blocked out the view from every window. There had been figures carved onto the stone there, too, the same scenes of torture and death, and that word – GUILTY – emblazoned above the door, the last glimpse of the outside world I thought I’d ever have. If any desk belonged in Furnace it was this monstrosity.
But even the desk itself didn’t fill me with as much fear as what lay on it. The huge expanse of polished wood was bare but for one thing.
A telephone.
It resembled something from decades ago, something my gran might have had, solid black with a dial in the centre and a small receiver mounted on brass prongs. Just looking at it made me feel like the life was ebbing from me, leaking from my pores, evaporating into the cloying heat of the room. I pictured my soul being ripped from my body, becoming part of the desk in front of me – my screaming face carved into the wood for all eternity.
‘Anyone want to make a call?’ asked Zee, his voice making me jump. I snatched my gaze away from the phone, scanning the rest of the room. It was empty apart from a leather couch that sat opposite the desk, its surface so clean and crisp that it might never have been used.
Furnace 3 - Death Sentence Page 11