Lockdown

THE RETURN

WE ARGUED ABOUT MY revelation through practically the whole of trough time, Donovan scoffing at the idea with his usual disdain. As soon as we'd sat down with our trays of mush, he began listing the reasons why it was impossible.

"They didn't just pick a spot in the gorge and plonk the prison down inside it," he ranted between, and often during, mouthfuls. "I mean think about it, they must have done a hundred checks first, a million. Rock samples, scans of the tunnels, analysis of the caves already here, probably even psychological tests on the bugs that live underground. They'd have seen a river if there was one."

I poked my plastic food with my plastic fork and mulled over what he was saying.

"And if the cave-in had breached the river, then surely we'd all be floating by now," he went on.

"Not if it's beneath us," added Zee, using his fork to steal some of my mush. The idea of escape seemed to have finally filtered through his skepticism, and he was at last taking my side. "I mean, the cave-in could have opened up a rift that went down, not up."

"So what use is that?" Donovan asked. "Burrow even deeper into your own prison, head farther underground. Great idea."

"Well, that water's got to go somewhere," I said.

"So you think you'll just pop up in the girls' showers at the local gym, then," Donovan hounded. " 'Hello, ladies, don't mind us, we're just escaping from jail. By the way, you've missed a spot, allow me.' "

We all laughed at the idea.

"Okay, it probably won't end up there," I said. "But what if it goes up top?"

"What if it stays underground for a hundred miles?" Zee said, shuddering. "We could end up drowning."

"Better that than this, right?" I asked, but both boys were shaking their heads.

"Got life here, Alex," said Donovan. "Ain't much of one, but I'm still breathing. Just isn't worth the risk."

"He's right, you know," muttered Zee. "I'm not much of a swimmer, and I don't much like being stuck in small places neither. I think we should just stick it out here. You never know, they might close this place down tomorrow."

"They might come and take you tonight," I retorted, but it was no use. Zee started talking to Donovan about soccer, and I tuned out the conversation, retreating into the comfort of my own mind. The more I thought about it, the more the noise made sense-the distant, muted rush and roar of a million tons of water speeding past beneath our feet. If I could just get to it, maybe it would carry me home.

AFTER LUNCH WE headed back out into the yard. Donovan claimed he wanted to go to the gym, so Zee and I jogged up the stairs to my cell, sitting down on the bunk and preparing for another afternoon of mind-numbing boredom. We'd only been chatting idly for a few minutes before Donovan came storming into the cell, his eyes full of murder.

"They wouldn't let me in," he fumed, pacing up and down as best he could in the tiny space. "That new kid has taken over. Now the gym's out of bounds for anyone who isn't fighting. He's got the Fifty-niners on his side too; they're too scared to argue."

"So why not go in and knock his block off?" Zee asked. "I mean, you're easily as big as him, go and teach him a lesson."

"Not worth it," said Donovan, sighing loudly then climbing onto his bunk. "It's just not worth it. I don't mess with them, they don't mess with me."

Zee and I looked at each other as we listened to Donovan punching the wall in frustration, then he fell silent.

"Plenty of gyms on the surface," I hinted, but there was no response.

We sat there as the minutes ground by, life running in slow motion. In here, even time seemed moribund. My mind was already beginning to rot. I'd forgotten half the books I'd ever read, lost the TV shows I once loved. I struggled to even remember what certain colors looked like, as Furnace's relentless palette of reds and blacks and grays had long since rendered blues and greens and oranges a distant memory, as vague and delicate as a spider's thread.

To pass the time Zee and I summarized our favorite films, doing our best to act them out to one another. I ran through the Indiana Jones saga, impersonating my hero and even using a pillow as his hat and the sheet as a whip. My amateur dramatics had Zee in stitches, and even woke Donovan from his funk as I acted out the plot of the seventh film, which he'd never seen.

Zee picked a trilogy about some kid inventors, although his memory was useless and he was forever stopping and going back to fill in a vital piece of the story that he'd missed out, or revealing the end before he'd reached the middle. By the fifth time he'd said, "Oh, wait, that never actually happened," Donovan and I were rolling around on our beds, tears streaming down our faces. They were good tears, though.

The siren blew for dinner midway through my account of the third Darren Shan movie, but we deliberately waited as long as we could before traipsing downstairs. Our delay worked, and by the time we reached the trough room it was almost empty, the inmates behind the canteen already starting to clear away. We grabbed the last few plates of swill and wolfed them down as quickly as possible.

The only other boy in the room was Kevin, who sat alone on a bench near the door, devouring his food with a nervous twitch that reminded me of a rat eating trash. He saw me looking and snarled, but soon broke eye contact, pathetic in the absence of his gang.

From there, we headed back to our cells. Zee claimed he was beat, and disappeared down the platform on level four. Donovan and I continued upward but we walked in silence, both too exhausted to bother with conversation.

As soon as we entered our cell, I lay down on my bunk and felt my eyelids droop. I didn't struggle, letting sleep gather me up in her gentle arms and carry me far away from Furnace. I should have stayed awake. I had no idea that she was about to betray me, that she would carry me to the most horrific thing I'd witnessed since I descended to the bottom of the world.

IT ALL STARTED with a dream, the same one I'd had so many times since I arrived here. I was trapped inside a glass prison, one that looked out over my old home. Each night I had the dream, the house looked different, less solid. It was like a little piece here and there had been erased from existence, forgotten.

My parents were inside, as always. They were strangers to look at, my unconscious mind no longer able to picture them as they once were, but I knew it was them. It was always them.

And it was always the same sequence of events. I watched through the glass as the blacksuits and the dogs approached my front door, the beasts crashing through the windows, gripping my mom and dad in their dripping muzzles, sucking the crimson life from their veins.

The wheezer slammed on the other side of my prison, a twisted reflection that I still didn't understand. I beat the glass and screamed until my throat was raw, but nothing could stop them dragging my loved ones away, throwing their writhing, stained bodies into a prison meat wagon.

This time, however, something was different. I kept beating on my transparent prison cell, my bleeding fists creating cracks in the glass. The cracks spread across the entire wall, each one letting in a trail of clear liquid, as if the prison was submerged underwater. The harder I struck, the bigger the cracks got, until the glass cube began to fill up.

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.