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 warden 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 have 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.
"Piece of cake," he said, his voice shaking.
The hard part was over and I breathed a sigh of relief, staring into the mouth of the abyss that had so terrified me yesterday. We stumbled forward a few paces, keeping our lights off until the equipment room was out of sight. Halfway along the tunnel we heard movement behind us and ducked down. Through the gaps between the boards we saw the blacksuit dragging the unconscious Skull toward the yard, and waited for him to vanish before pressing on.
"Man, I hear it," said Zee as we reached the end of the tunnel. It was pitch-black ahead, but the faint roar filled the darkness. Once again I panicked, thinking that the sound was a growl from the warden's dogs, or the wheeze of a gas mask. But when I flicked on my helmet lamp the only thing it illuminated was rock.
"Jesus, look at this place," Zee whispered, switching on his light. The twin beams did practically nothing to combat the dense blackness of the room, the pale tendrils of light reaching no more than a few meters before surrendering to the shadows.
"Five minutes," I said. "That's all we've got."
"Well, far as I can tell, it's coming from that direction," Zee said, turning his helmet and pointing a trail of light toward the back left-hand side of the cavern. The roar seemed to come from everywhere, but I took Zee's word for it. My hearing never was my strong point.
We made our way across the cavern, forced to scale the massive boulders that littered the floor. Every now and again I'd see a shard of white, or a suspicious stain on the floor, but fortunately the bodies of the kids who'd died here had been removed. Once again I wondered if their souls still remained, but quickly put the thought out of my head.
I wasn't sure how many minutes it took us to cross the hall. Too many, I knew that much. More than once we had to double back after reaching a blockage, or duck under a treacherous archway formed by unstable blocks of stone. But with each step we took, the roar got louder and more distinct, the sound becoming less like a growl, more like the thunder of a waterfall. The closer we got, the fresher the air became. I could have sworn that there was even a fine mist suspended in the cavern, one that clung to our skin and gave us the strength to proceed.
And then, like finding an oasis in the desert, we rounded a truck-sized mound of stone and saw it. Our way out. It was a crack in the floor of the cavern, one that stretched over twenty paces from the far wall to our feet. There was nothing but darkness through the rift, but we didn't need to see. Where we were standing we could practically feel the river that raged beneath us, the torrent that would set us free.
"We were right!" I shouted at Zee, no longer caring about the noise. "I don't believe it, there's a way out!"
But he didn't share my enthusiasm.
"Are you seeing something I don't?" he muttered. "I mean, did you happen to bring a crate of dynamite with you?"
I looked back at the cracked rock and frowned. Then, feeling like someone had just punched me in the gut, I saw what he meant. The rift in the floor may have split the cavern wide open lengthways, but the solid stone had only parted a few centimeters. Our way out was no wider than a fist.