On the other side, the wheezer was writhing as though in agony, its scarred hands ripping the gas mask from its face. I couldn't bear to look, but in my dream I was unable to turn away. With a grotesque sucking sound the mask came free, revealing a wet, raw mouth with no lips and no teeth, just a gaping hole in its head that seemed to have no end. I screamed again, and as I did the prison wall exploded inward, the weight of the water like a giant fist knocking me backward.
A siren broke out, different from any I had heard so far-endless bleats that sounded more like a car alarm. The wheezer began to scream, its filthy maw growing impossibly large, stretching so that it was wider than its head, wider than its body, wider than the glass cell. The water began to change direction, disappearing into the creature's mouth, flooding down its throat. I fought against the flow but to no avail, and I was carried wailing into the fleshy wound, its color the same as the rock walls of the prison.
I woke moaning, clawing at my face and almost tumbling out of bed. For a moment I thought I was still in my dream, as I could hear the unfamiliar siren, but as the last vestiges of sleep retreated I found myself wide awake.
Everything was red. It was the blood watch, they were coming back.
"Donovan," I whispered, knowing that he would probably just tell me to shut up but desperate to hear his voice, to know that I wasn't alone. "Donovan?"
"Quiet, kid," came his hushed reply. "Told you once, ain't gonna put up with this again."
He wouldn't have to. After last time there was no way I was getting out of bed.
"They're coming," I hissed. I was surprised to see Donovan's head appear from the top bunk, his features the color of blood.
"Not for us," he said. "That siren, it means they're bringing someone back."
"Back?" I said, startled. I sat up in bed, looking through the bars down into the yard. I saw Donovan's hand fly out, slapping me around the ear.
"Doesn't mean they won't take you if they catch you ogling them," he said before disappearing.
I remained upright, trying to stretch my neck to see the vault door. Bringing someone back? It didn't make any sense. I'd always assumed that once you'd been taken, that was it, that there was no return.
"I thought nobody came back alive?" I risked.
"I didn't say they were bringing him back alive. Now shut the hell up."
This time I did as I was told. Down below, I heard the hiss and boom of the vault door, followed by an all too familiar screech. It was the wheezers, twitching and convulsing into the yard. I heard another noise from behind them, a long, low moan that spilled out into the prison and made my heart bleed.
I stared into the shadows of the door as some more figures materialized from the darkness. Two blacksuits strode forth, each holding a metal pole connected to something behind them. As they entered the yard I saw that they were leading a creature that writhed and twisted against its restraints, an animal that moaned and howled as it fought to break free.
The flickering red lights made it impossible to see what the monster was, but I assumed it was another of the warden's dogs. It was about the same size, and thrashed around on all fours, but there was something about it that set my nerves on edge, something that wasn't quite right.
The group headed slowly toward the staircase on the far side of the prison, the blacksuits struggling against the sheer ferocity of the animal. At one point it pulled so fiercely on its poles that it managed to gain ground, charging into a cell door with such power that the bars buckled. The guards pulled on their poles and dragged it back, one smashing his gloved fist into the creature's distorted head-an attack that only seemed to make it angrier.
I counted the floors as they rose to the fifth level, and by the time they were halfway along the platform, I knew where they were going. So did Kevin. He peered from the bars of the cell he once shared with Monty, his fear so intense that everyone in the prison could see the whites of his eyes.
"No, no, no, no!" he screamed, over and over again as the procession drew near. "Get it away, get it away! It's not fair. Get it away!"
His pleas did nothing except make the blacksuits grin, their shark smiles glinting in the red light. One shouted for the cell door to be opened, and with a clatter it began to slide back. Before it had budged more than half a meter, Kevin made a break for it, squeezing between the gap and almost getting past the guard. But the blacksuit was too quick, snatching out his bear-trap hand and snapping it around the boy's neck, hurling him back into the cell. Kevin hit the bunk and scrabbled to his feet, but by then it was too late, the door was open.
Laughing, the two guards twisted their sticks and pushed the thrashing creature into the cell. They twisted again and the poles detached from the beast's collar, and after another call the door began to slide shut. The blacksuits stood to one side to allow the wheezers to see into the cell, but I wish they'd stayed where they were. Now I had a front-row view of the horror.
The hunched animal that I had thought was a dog threw itself against the bars, bending them outward. Then, to my horror, it stood up on its hind legs, rising to well over six feet in height as it hurled itself at the door. It was moving so quickly I couldn't get a good look at it, but what I saw told me exactly what it was. Or at least what it had once been.
The creature's face was human-ravaged and mangled and broken, yes, but still with eyes and a nose and a gaping mouth. The skin was marked with fresh wounds, as if a child had been trying to decorate it with a knife. It was naked, but there was something wrong with its skin, like it had been cut open and had something stitched underneath. Muscles bulged everywhere, flexing each time it moved and occasionally even splitting the skin with their size.
Tired of thrashing against the door, the monster turned its attention to the back of the cell. It didn't take it long to spot Kevin, cowering behind the toilet. With a roar that made me think of dragons, the freak leaped across the tiny cell, gripping the toilet and tearing it from the rock like it was made of tissue paper. Water burst from the severed pipe, obscuring my view even further. But I saw the creature grab Kevin, lifting him off the ground and throwing him into the far wall.
By the third time he'd done it, Kevin's screaming had become a soft groan. Five times and the boy was no longer moving. I kept watching as the monster went to work on the corpse, but my brain refused to acknowledge what I was seeing, editing it out as if it knew the images would drive me insane. I couldn't tell you what I saw in there, even though I watched the whole damn thing.
Some time later the blacksuits called for the door to be opened, jamming their metal sticks into the creature's collar with a spark of electricity. The murderous freak fought against them but the giants were too strong, dragging it out of the dripping mess in the cell. They pulled it back along the platform, eventually disappearing from sight down the stairwell.
But not before I'd seen something that filled me with terror.
On the creature's arm, distorted and pale but still unmistakable, was a birthmark.
It was Monty.
A DISTRACTION
THAT NIGHT I BEGAN to wonder if I actually was in hell. I'd never been a believer, skipped Sunday school and scoffed at the kids who prayed in assembly. I always figured that if there was a God, then he'd have stopped me doing bad things, but there were never any signs, any warnings. Until now, of course.
I lay there in the pitch black, Monty's inhuman cries still echoing through my skull, blending with the sobs and screams that played endlessly from outside my cell. I wondered if maybe I had died on the night we broke into that house, tripped as I climbed in through the window, snapped my neck or something without even knowing it. Maybe the blacksuits had been angels of death, come to trap my soul and drag it down to the pits of hell.
I was so tired and scared that my mind was delirious, and the more I lay there thinking about it the more I was convinced that Furnace was Hades, Gehenna, the pit where sinners are sent to rot away for all eternity. It made perfect sense-the warde
n and his devil eyes, the blacksuits with their superhuman strength, the wheezers that looked like the tortured ghosts of Nazi storm troopers, and the way that poor Monty had been scoured of everything recognizable, forced to become a demon that thrashed and ripped and killed. What if that was the fate of all of us, turned into the very basest of creatures, the very essence of evil?
So if this was hell, where did the river go? I thought back to school, to the stuff we'd learned about Greek mythology. This was back when I'd wanted to be a magician, to live a good life, a free life. I'd devoured all that stuff, fascinated by stories of myth and legend and magic. I remember the picture of Hades we looked at, the Greek underworld. To get there you had to cross a river, I forget the name. Once you'd crossed it, you were in hell, but if you could get back over from the other side, maybe you were free.
Half dreaming, half awake, I saw myself diving into the river, its water clean and pure and cold, carrying me through the raw red tunnels of Furnace, buoying me upward toward the light on a surf of bubbles and foam. I saw myself laughing as I breached the surface, emerging on a crystal clear night with all the stars of heaven welcoming me back and the cool wind speeding me across the world, taking me home.
I was still chuckling gently when Donovan woke me the following morning, but not for long. As soon as I opened my eyes the four walls of my cell slammed down on my memories of freedom, cutting off the air and making me struggle for breath. I sat up in bed, shocked to find myself back behind bars after such a vivid dream, clutching my throat and gasping for oxygen.
"Easy there," said Donovan, sitting on my bed and placing a hand on my shoulder. "Deep breaths, don't panic."
I inhaled the hot air as deeply as I could, my whole body shuddering with the effort. My lungs filled, the fear ebbing away. Looking out of the doors, I saw people in their cells reluctantly getting ready for another day in Furnace.
"Did I sleep through the siren?" I asked, yawning. Donovan nodded, pulling on his overalls and standing by the door.
"You were away somewhere nice," he replied. "Giggling like a baby all night. God knows why, though, after…"
The pause was just long enough to bring back the horrors. They flooded the silence, ripping through my brain like razor wire and settling in the tender flesh of my stomach.
"It was Monty," I said, picturing the beast as it tore through the cell, through Kevin. "That thing, that monster."
Donovan didn't move, just stared in silence.
"I know," he said eventually. "It's not the first time someone has come back."
"What happened to him?"
Donovan turned slowly, then slid down the bars until he was sitting on the rocky floor. He ran his fingers through his hair, then let his head fall gently into his hands.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "No one here does. It's only happened a few times, five or six maybe. I don't know, maybe more. Most of the time people get taken, they never return, they just disappear. Dead, most likely. Sometimes, though…"
"They come back," I finished unnecessarily.
"The first few times I saw them I thought they were creatures, animals. Like monkeys or something. They were brought in just like Monty was last night. I never saw what happened before, they were always out of sight. I just thought they whaled on the inmates a little, taught them a lesson.
"Then one time I saw this kid get taken. Real nasty one. He was young, but he had all these tattoos of guns and knives and death and things, all over him. Gang ink, you know? Well, a few days after he was taken, the blood watch brought in this monster, like last night. They dragged him to a cell on this level, only a few away from ours. Walked right past the bars, and I saw these things weren't no monkeys."
He wiped his eyes and I saw he was crying.
"Its skin was all ripped and stitched, all bulging in weird places with all those muscles underneath. But I could still see those tattoos. It was him, that kid, no doubt about it."
"But what happens to them?" I repeated. "Monty was taken two nights ago, what the hell could they have done to him to change him like that?"
"Don't know," was his reply. "Don't want to neither. Only one way of finding out for sure, if you follow me, and by that time it's you who's ripping through your old cellmate."
"But why bring them back? Just to scare us?"
"To scare us, to kill us, to give us something to talk about in the morning. How the hell should I know? This is Furnace, Alex, they can do what they like." He paused for a minute, then lashed out, smashing his fist against the bars hard enough to draw blood. "Christ, that thing killed Kevin. I mean, it tore him to pieces."
I saw my chance and took it.
"You still sure you want to stay here?" I asked. Donovan looked up at me, his dark eyes boring right into mine.
"Can you promise me that river exists?" he whispered.
"No, but I'm pretty sure."
"Can you promise me it will get us out of here?"
"No, of course not."
"Can you promise me they won't catch us?"
"No, Donovan. I can't promise anything, except that dying while trying to break free is better than being killed by one of those things."
"Or becoming one of them," he added. He sucked the blood from his knuckle, deep in thought, then turned his face toward the ceiling. "Okay, I'm in."
BY THE TIME we'd made it downstairs we had a plan. Now that Donovan had finally accepted the possibility of escape, he was on fire, his mind blasting out idea after idea in hushed tones as we made our way to the trough room. I could barely get a word in edgeways, but it was a relief to finally hear someone else as optimistic as me.
Zee met us at our table and we hunched together over our plates of mush, doing our best not to look too much like coconspirators. After a quick check to make sure nobody was in earshot, I filled Zee in on the details. He was as surprised as I was to see Donovan's change of heart.
"It's about time, big guy," he said through a grin.
"We're going back in to scope out Room Two," I whispered.
"With a light this time, presumably?" said Zee.
"Yeah, I'll keep my helmet on," I replied. "I may be an idiot, but I do learn from my mistakes."
"What about the guard?" Zee asked. "I mean, he nearly caught you before."
"That's my job," added Donovan, licking his lips and leaning in even farther. "I'll distract him. Won't give you long, but should be enough time to work out what's in there."
"Distract him how?" said Zee. "Do the old feeling sick trick?"
"No, I've got something a little more dramatic planned," he said, flashing us a look halfway between a grin and a grimace. "Just stay by the door in the chipping room, you'll soon see. Five minutes, that's about all you've got. Make it count."
"We will," I said. Zee nodded, then his brow suddenly creased.
"Hang on, we?" he asked, looking frantically between Donovan and me. "Surely it's better if just you go. I mean, not that I wouldn't do it, but isn't it twice the risk if two of us break into the room?"
"But it will take twice as long to search it if it's just me," I responded. "Besides, I want someone to keep me company in the hole if we get caught."
"Alex is right, Zee, it's a big room and there's probably still rocks everywhere. If you're gonna find where that noise is coming from, you need as many pairs of eyes as possible. Hell, if you don't wanna do it, you can always distract the blacksuits instead."
Zee blanched and shook his head.
"Right," I said, pushing my untouched breakfast across the table and cracking my fingers. "Let's do it."
FORTUNATELY, DONOVAN AND I had been assigned to chipping duty that morning. Zee was scheduled for the laundry, but Donovan told him to ignore the duty roster.
"People don't always stick to their jobs," he explained. "The guards make sure everyone on the list for chipping is there, but they don't check to see if there's an extra body in the halls-they figure no one would be stupid enough to do this if they didn't hav
e to, y'know?"
We followed the usual routine, selecting our equipment and marching like drones into Room Three. Zee and I stayed as close to the entrance as possible, but Donovan made his way toward a group of Skulls who had already started hacking at the wall. I wondered what the hell he was doing, and prayed it wouldn't be anything too dangerous. He turned and winked at me, then nodded toward the ceiling prop that was wedged between him and the Skulls.
"Oh no," I said. "He wouldn't."
He did. With a swing of his pick he smashed the wooden prop into pieces. The Skulls all leaped back, yelling at Donovan to stop as a curtain of dust and rubble fell down from the unsupported ceiling. He swung his pick again, sweeping it upward and letting go of the handle. It struck the ceiling where the prop had been, dislodging a massive chunk of rock that crashed to the floor, narrowly missing the nearest Skull.
By now everybody was watching with terror in their eyes, including me. Donovan reached down and picked up a melonsized piece of rock, then lobbed it toward the Skull who'd almost been flattened. It struck him square in the nose, and he crumpled earthward.
"Cave-in!" yelled Donovan at the top of his voice. "Man down!"
The call worked. The blacksuit ran into the chamber so quickly he was almost a blur. He dashed across to where the Skull was lying, leaning over him and watching the blood drip from his nose. The boy was out cold, and none of his friends seemed able to pluck up the courage to speak. Donovan looked at me from the other side of the hall and mouthed something: "Make it count."
"Time to go," I said, running for the door. I didn't wait to see if Zee was following me, just flung my pick onto the equipment room floor and dashed to the wooden boards sealing off Room Two. The bottom board was still unfastened, the missing bolt obviously unnoticed. Pulling it out as far as I could, I hissed for Zee to get inside. With a quiet curse he did, squeezing his body through the gap. Once clear, he used his foot to keep the board away from the wall while I clambered in.
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