I choked, spasms ripping through my body as it fought for air. But there was none to be had. No air, no warmth, no strength. All I had left was my anger. It seethed and coiled inside me like a living thing, telling me to bunch up my fist again, ordering me to lash out one last time.
The punch was slowed by the water, but not by much. It tore towards the hatch, impacting with enough strength to send a shock wave pulsing down the river. I felt something snap – a pistol shot, deafening in the maelstrom – and thought it was my bones breaking.
Then the hatch swung open and I was pushed through it by the very force that had sought to drown me. I landed hard, slapping my still-bunched fists against the rock as I fought for breath. The water continued to pump through the hatch, but I was lying in a huge chamber full of rocks and the tide pooled harmlessly on the uneven floor.
It couldn’t touch me here. I was safe. I’d passed the warden’s pathetic test with colours flying, if a little ragged. I started to laugh, hacking coughs that were more liquid than air, and so loud that I didn’t hear them approaching until too late.
And it was only when a dozen needled teeth sunk into my flesh that I realised the test wasn’t over yet.
It had only just begun.
SELF-DEFENCE
I kicked out, connecting with something soft and sending it reeling back. The needles slid from my flesh but I barely felt them, my survival instinct forcing me to my feet in time to see a constellation of silver lights turning towards me.
Rats. The chamber was full of them.
The one I had kicked shook itself like a dog, its long forelegs flapping limply from side to side. It wasn’t particularly big – smaller than me – but its bulging jaw was packed full of teeth which glinted in the torchlight. It opened its maw and let loose a chilling scream that echoed round the large room. Then it charged, pounding across the wet rock and throwing itself at me.
I threw up my arms to protect my face as the creature slammed into me like a freight train, locking its jaws around my wrist. We tumbled back, rolling into a pillar of rock which jutted out from the floor. Luckily the rat took the brunt of the impact, the shock loosening its teeth from my flesh long enough for me to wrap a hand around its throat.
It snarled, its entire body bucking against my grip, but I held on as tightly as I could. My knuckles were already starting to swell, the bones grinding against each other inside my torn skin, but I had no other weapons. Pulling back my chainmail fist like a spring, I unleashed another punch, this one catching the rat on the jaw. It sounded like a gun had been fired inside its throat, its head snapping round at an impossible angle and the convulsions becoming weak death throes.
There was no time to gloat. I spun round at the sound of claws on stone, saw a second rat hurtling my way. This one was so disfigured I couldn’t tell what it had once been, its skinny legs and body that of a dog but its face too flat to be canine. Its hairless form glistened in the soft light, every strand of muscle flexing then contracting as it bounded this way.
It was on me in seconds, straightening up from four legs to two and slashing at my chest with razor-sharp claws. I leapt out of its reach, preparing to turn and run, but before I could I heard a growl behind me.
Something slammed into my back, pushing me into the path of the rat. This time its claws raked my stomach, pulling loose stitches. I yelled out as the pain flared, but the sound was cut off by a filthy paw inside my mouth. It ripped at my jaw, jagged claws against my tongue as it pulled me to the floor. Then they were both on me, their hands like some monstrous machine tearing chunks of flesh from my torso.
A long time ago, in another life, I would have laid down and died. But not now. I was the predator, not the prey. I was the hunter, not the meat.
I bit down on the thing inside my mouth, feeling hot blood gush into my throat. I spat it out, heaving in a breath before letting my rage explode from me as a guttural roar. It was a howl of pure animal fury, the cry of a killer, and the rats knew it.
The first leapt off my chest, backing away with a feeble whimper. The other wasn’t so lucky. Before the ghost of my battle cry had faded from the walls I had my hands around its head. The first time I smashed it against the rock it let out a squeal of pain. The second time it was silent. By the fifth time there was nothing left in my fingers but mush.
I got to my feet, the nectar pumping me full of strength, full of anger. Arching my back, I let out another cry, this one tearing around the chamber like a demon. I had never felt so alive, so powerful. This was my domain now, my territory.
The second rat bolted, its razor-clawed feet skidding as it swung round the rocky pillar and vanished. I cracked my swollen knuckles, tightened the chains around them, then charged after it. Anything that tried to mess with me now would pay the price.
I rounded the pillar to see the floor moving. There must have been a whole nest of rats in here, almost a dozen of them squirming across the rock. Most were clustered in one corner and I soon saw why.
Tied to a wooden post like some sacrificial offering was a figure far smaller than any of the rats, a boy whose face was covered in blood but still familiar. I thought he was dead, but as the creatures turned to face me the kid raised his head and opened his mouth. Even from across the other side of the chamber I could understand what he said.
‘Help me.’
I charged, too fast for the rat in front of me. Snatching it up in my giant hands I hurled it across the room, its squeal dying out as it slammed into the main pack. It was like watching skittles fly, the creatures lurching to either side as they saw their brother dashed to pieces on the rock. I didn’t give them a chance to get angry, throwing myself into their midst with my arms flailing.
I caught one with a blow to the temple, hard enough to crack its skull. The second had its teeth in my shoulder before I could stop it, but pain was a distant memory and I used my other hand to pull it loose, barely noticing that it took a strip of skin with it. I threw the creature at the wall, not needing to look to see whether it would get up again.
The rats were starting to panic, crashing into each other as they scrabbled out of my way. I caught one by its hind legs, swung it round like a club and took down two more before launching it into the air. Before they could get to their feet I had a knee on each of their backs, wrenching their heads up until their spines snapped.
‘Jesus, Alex – is that you?’ said the kid tied to the pole. I looked up from my killing ground, fixed him a glare that made him shrink back against his chains. ‘It’s Ozzie. Simon’s friend. Remember? Help me, get me out of here.’
I heard the patter of feet behind me. The last three rats had closed ranks, charging forward as one. The two on the outside were savage but small, running upright. One must have had surgery on its arm, the overstuffed limb hanging uselessly from a narrow shoulder. The other had a monster’s legs attached to its skinny torso.
But the one in the middle was big and mean, every limb except its left leg stuffed with muscle and its torso so huge it looked like it had been chiselled from rock. The creature limped, but that didn’t stop it covering ground like a bear. None of them took their eyes from me and I recognised the expression in their twisted faces. They were angry, they were furious. And it gave them strength.
I ducked my head and charged, knowing that to show any sign of weakness would mean death. One of the smaller rats skidded to a halt, shaking its head and whimpering, but I didn’t care. I kept the big one in my sights, never breaking eye contact with its silver gaze. Travelling this fast, the distance between us shrank away in a split second, and we collided with a thump of flesh on flesh.
The impact ripped the breath from my lungs, giving the rat the advantage. It grabbed my face in one giant paw, slamming it down against the rock, then rammed its knees into my chest. Stars exploded in my vision, fading into blackness. I felt the other one grab my arm, its jaws snapping like a bear trap on my flesh, but with the huge creature pinning me down I couldn’t get leverage
to shake it off.
Snarling like a rabid dog, the huge rat lunged towards my throat, its teeth glinting like broken glass. I barely got my other arm up in time, wedging the chains into the corner of its maw and pushing it away with what little strength I had left. The rat lost its balance, toppling from my chest. I saw my chance, swinging my leg round and ramming my knee into its head.
I didn’t wait to see what damage I had done before wrenching my arm free and backing off. Blood was pouring from me with the same force that water had been leaking from the hatch back in the tunnel, and I was starting to feel light-headed. I knew I couldn’t last much longer. I had to finish this.
With another cry of rage I threw myself back into the melee. Using my left hand this time, I smacked the smaller rat square on the nose, sending it sprawling back onto the rock. Before it had landed I lifted my right arm in an uppercut, catching its bigger friend in the stomach. It was like punching a wall, the muscles like paving slabs, but it was obviously winded as it staggered away from me, growling weakly.
I took my eyes from it for a second, scoured the floor for something I could use as a weapon. It didn’t take long. The chamber was littered with scraps of broken rock, and I hefted one the size of a watermelon. Both rats turned to run, but I was on them in a single leap, molten fury turning my vision white and making my body act as though it had a mind of its own.
The first went down with a sickening whack, somersaulting twice before coming to a rest. The bigger rat almost outran me, but there was nowhere for it to go in the chamber. It didn’t have time to turn and face me before I crushed its head between the wall and my rock.
Turning, I spotted the last rat bolting to the corner where the kid had been tied. I don’t know what it was doing, but there was no escape from the anger that drove me. Three huge strides and I was across the chamber, a scream of defiance bubbling from my bloody throat as I brought the rock down onto its skull. It sagged, its death instantaneous.
‘Thank you –’
Still drunk on adrenaline, I had turned and lashed out before I even knew what I was doing. Somewhere in my head I knew the rats were all dead, knew there was nothing left to kill. But my mind was so exhausted, so filled with fury, that I couldn’t stop myself.
The kid, Ozzie, looked at me in disbelief. His mouth dropped, and from it ran a single thread of dark blood. It trickled down his chin, arcing under his throat and merging with the crimson tide which flowed from the wound in his temple.
‘Alex,’ he said, and although his lips continued to move there was no breath for them to make words with.
I dropped the rock, staggered back, unable to take my eyes from his, even when the light had left them, turning their sky blue to pale grey. He slumped, held up by the wooden post as though his body was refusing to acknowledge its own death.
What had I done? Even though the nectar still seared my mind with darkness, my heart pumping with my victory against the rats, I knew I had committed a terrible crime. The kid had been helpless. He wasn’t a rat, he was a person. And I had killed him.
‘No,’ I growled, fighting against the burning wave of emotion that rose from my stomach. ‘You deserved to die. You deserved to die.’
He did. He had been pathetic, too weak to even free himself. He had been nothing but prey for the rats, nothing but prey for me. I pictured his face, doe-eyed as the vermin closed in on him, too scared even to scream. This was how all the weak of the world would meet their end, devoured by predators like me. Ozzie had been nothing, a nobody, and he had deserved to die.
And I kept telling myself that, even as I stood in the middle of the chamber, racked by tremors that caused my teeth to chatter and sent blood showering from my wounds. I kept telling myself that because it was the only way to survive the guilt. It was the only way to survive the knowledge of what I had just done without taking the rock and stoving in my own brain. It was the only way to survive the test.
Because the warden was right. I was a monster now. And there was no going back.
BELONGING
I wasn’t aware of the blacksuits entering the room until the electrified wire had been looped around my neck. The charge wasn’t strong, like the tickle of a million insects scuttling down my spine, burrowing into my muscles, but I was on the floor before I even knew I was falling.
I couldn’t have fought back even if my life had been at stake. I just lay there, silent but for the hoarse whispers that rattled in my throat, watching the warden’s feet splash across the bloody rock and stop in front of me. He squatted, ducking his head down until it came into my line of sight.
‘Now that was impressive,’ he said, and I couldn’t see his grin so much as feel it. He gently pulled the dripping chains from my knuckles, unlocking the manacles and throwing them across the room. ‘Very impressive. Such bloodlust, such ferocity.’ He stood, and for a second I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished black leather of his shoe – my face too big, like a Halloween pumpkin carved with stitches, my eyes twin candles whose silver light looked on the verge of sputtering out. Then the warden walked off and it was gone. ‘Get him up,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Get him to his bed. He’s earned it.’
The loop of wire around my neck disappeared, strong hands beneath my armpits guiding me back to my feet. I barely remembered how to put one leg in front of the other, but the blacksuits weren’t going to let me fall.
‘That was good work,’ said the one to my left, his bass tones echoing round the chamber. ‘When we saw the water bubbling up from the hatch we didn’t think you were going to make it. That’s where most of them fail.’
‘But you punched through it like it was paper,’ said another. ‘And those rats never stood a chance.’
They chuckled, their laughter so deep I could feel it tremble across my skin like another electric charge. One kicked the limp corpse of a rat out of his way and I watched it slide through a pool of its own blood before folding itself around a rock. Bodies lay everywhere, their silver eyes now the colour of lead, claws and teeth still bared as though they hadn’t quite noticed they were dead. Wet stains bloomed across the walls and the floor like some strange subterranean fungus, looking almost black against the dark rock. The smell of decay already hung in the air, the metallic tang of blood mixed with the dying breaths of the rats, trapped forever in this tomb.
I couldn’t believe I was responsible for such carnage. It had started as self-defence, yes, but surely even the rats hadn’t deserved to be culled so brutally.
We reached a metal door almost completely concealed by a pillar of stone, the warden leading the way through it into a bright corridor beyond. I took one last look into the chamber, saw Ozzie still propped up on his stake, watching over his legions of twitching bodies like he was lord of the damned. Then the scene was lost behind the heavy door, my thoughts drowned out by the thunder of boots.
It was only then that the pain started to seep in. Inside the chamber the adrenaline and the nectar had kept me going, but now that the fight for my life was over my body seemed to just give up. It started as a cramp inside of me, as though every muscle was protesting about what I had put it through. In places that deep, burning agony became something sharper, and in my delirious state I pictured the wounds on my shoulder, in my back and across my stomach and chest hanging open like mouths, screaming.
I glanced down, watching a red rain fall from me as I was dragged along the corridor, the blood steaming as it hit the rock. I tried to draw attention to it, but the warden didn’t seem concerned.
‘You won’t die,’ he said, looking back at me without breaking his stride. ‘You can thank the nectar for that. Your body is, for want of a better word, superhuman. It would take something far more serious to terminate you now. Your wounds will heal in a couple of days, maybe even a few hours. And it will always be that way, just so long as you keep taking the nectar.’
He reached a junction, guarded by a blacksuit. The giant grinned at me as he wrenched open a metal d
oor and ushered us through.
‘Glad you made it,’ the guard said.
His words sparked the tiniest of memories, the ghost of something in my former life. I couldn’t quite picture it, but I knew it had something to do with playing a game, feeling like I was part of a team. I did my best to return his smile, and although my bruised face prevented my lips from parting I could feel the gleam in my eyes.
Thanks, I tried to say, but only blood escaped my open lips.
The room ahead was darker than the corridor we’d just left, the substantial shadows sweeping from corner to corner as though trying to hide what lay ahead. But nothing could be concealed from my new eyes, and as they focused I made out a long, narrow dormitory lined with what must have been fifty or sixty beds. It could have been the infirmary except for the absence of screens around each patient. That and the fact that the hulking giants in these beds weren’t strapped down.
‘These are your quarters from now on,’ said the warden, his soft voice matching the quiet darkness of the room. ‘You will operate in shifts, but we’ll worry about that tomorrow. For now, you just need to rest up and let those wounds close.’
He nodded at the blacksuits who held me, and they eased me gently across the room before laying me down on an empty bed. I winced as the change of position caused the pain to flare up again, feeling the immaculate sheets turn warm and wet. Then somebody slid an IV into my arm and the dusk of the room began to seep through my pores, collecting in my mind.
‘Sleep,’ said the warden, his voice the sound of a razor on a whetstone. ‘When you wake you’ll feel better than you ever have before.’ He turned and marched from the room, the blacksuits a dark cloud in his wake, but he stopped before reaching the door. ‘Because then you’ll truly be one of us.’
I don’t know how long I slept for. Devoid of dreams and nightmares the featureless abyss of time could have been crossed in one night or a hundred years. Even when the darkness parted and I found myself staring at the ceiling I wasn’t sure I had actually woken. My body felt completely numb, the absence of pain surely too miraculous to be real.
Death Sentence Page 7
