Lockdown

THE DESCENT

FOR THE FIRST MINUTE or so none of us spoke. We didn't even look each other in the eye. It was a strange mix of emotions. There was fear, of course, so thick you could almost smell it beyond the stink of dust and oil, but there was also something else. I guess it was pride-if we acknowledged each other, then we were also acknowledging our own helplessness, our own panic, and after what we'd just been through, nobody wanted to do that.

In the end, it was me who broke the ice.

"I just want to get this out in the open," I said above the sound of the elevator's descent. "I didn't kill anyone. They framed me, they shot my friend and set me up for the fall. I'm not a killer."

Gradually, the other three boys raised their heads, and for the first time we all got a good look at each other.

"Join the club," said the kid who I'd seen in court. He was shorter than me, but wider, his body tensed like a cat that's puffed up its fur. He brushed a strand of untidy dark hair away from his face and cast a nervous gaze up at the machine gun in the ceiling before continuing. "Those guys in black drove a car into some old woman. Killed her. They knew everything about me, they got my prints onto the wheel, they knew I wouldn't have an alibi that night or any way of proving I didn't do it. Name's Zee, by the way."

"Zee?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. The question brought a brief smile to his face.

"Got four older brothers and sisters. Mom was adamant that I was the last one, so she called me Zee. What about you?"

"Alex," I replied. I looked at the other two kids. They were the complete opposite of each other-one resembled a beanpole, his uniform hanging off him like rags on a scarecrow, the other had probably eaten way too many chocolate bars in his time, but his green eyes were sharp and his gaze fierce.

"Jimmy," said the beanpole, hoisting up his trousers. "Yeah, I didn't kill nobody either. Same story as you, Alex, they murdered a friend of mine. Stabbed him, though."

We all turned to look at the fat kid. For a minute it seemed like he was going to cry, then his expression hardened and with his fists clenched he spat out two words that sent chills down all of us.

"My sister."

There was still no sign of the elevator stopping. It might just have been a psychological trick to make us feel like we were going deeper than we were, but I doubted it. It takes a long time to travel a mile underground.

"You saying they framed us all?" asked Zee, shaking his head. "Doesn't make any sense. Why would they do it?"

"Maybe they've got cells to fill, targets to reach," suggested Jimmy, but his tone of voice made it clear he didn't know. None of us did. Not then.

"Listen," I said, certain that the elevator car was bugged and motioning for the other boys to come closer. "Whatever happens in there, whatever they've got in store for us, we've got to stick together. Right?"

"I've got your back," said Zee. "I'm getting out of here no matter what."

"The only way you're getting out is in a coffin," hissed the kid who had lost his sister. "Haven't you heard about this place? There is no way out."

"Well, I'm with you guys," said Jimmy, ignoring the remark. "Ain't no way I'm spending the rest of my life in this hole."

The noise of the elevator shifted pitch and with a bone-breaking shudder it came to a halt. Before the doors could open, however, there was one last hate-filled remark from the corner of the cabin.

"We're all going to die in here."

THE MOMENT THE elevator doors opened my senses came under attack. I can describe what I saw when I stepped out into Furnace but I can't tell you how I felt. I was so overloaded by what lay before me that I'm sure part of my brain shut down just so that it wouldn't overheat. It was like a survival mechanism to stop me going insane. I took in the details but they didn't register on any emotional scale.

The elevator had taken us to the very depths of the prison-a stretch of bare stone that was easily the size of a soccer field-and above us for as far as we could see lay its tortured, twisted interior. Furnace certainly deserved its name. The walls were made from the very rock of the earth, their surfaces rough and red, and the half-light of the room made them flicker as if they were on fire. The sunless yard was vast and circular, and arranged in rings around the outside were countless cells, the gray metal platforms and jagged staircases resembling a rib cage against the fleshy walls.

I stared at the elevator shaft, which rose in a relentless line above our heads, the top barely visible where it entered the red rock of the ceiling-broken only by a giant video screen hanging over the doors. The elevator was the only way in or out, and there was absolutely no other means of getting back up.

The hiss of pneumatics snapped my attention back to the walls beside us and I saw two more machine guns protruding from the rock like black limbs. They trained their sights on us as we staggered from the elevator into the vast chamber, each with an unblinking red eye that seemed to assess our every move. I wondered whether there was a human at the other end of the controls, or whether some dark robotic intelligence had its finger on the trigger, ready to fire at the smallest sign of trouble. I couldn't decide which would be worse.

I was so overawed by the prison itself that it took me a while to notice it was full of people. They swarmed across the courtyard in front of us, mostly kids about my age, some a little older and even a couple who looked like they should still be in middle school. Some hung out in groups, their stares and swaggers a clear message that they were in charge. Others hung back in the shadows or peered over the bars of the platforms, all sickly faces and baggy eyes. Most were staring at us, some laughing and shouting "new fish," others shaking their heads in compassion. Their gaze made my cheeks burn, and I lowered my head so nobody would see.

It didn't take long for a few of the kids to step forward, but it was pretty clear that they weren't a welcoming party. Each of the six boys wore a black bandanna with a crude picture of a skull painted on the front. It would have been laughable if they didn't all look as though they were about to make us walk the plank.

"Let me guess," I said, starting to speak before I even knew I was doing it. "You're in here for piracy."

I heard Zee snigger to my side, but there wasn't even a hint of a smile in the pockmarked faces before me. One of the boys, not the biggest but by far the ugliest, stepped right up to me, so close that I could see the dirt clogging his pores.

"Get this straight from the start, new fish," he said, jabbing me in the chest with a filthy fingernail. "You on our turf now, so you take orders from me."

My heart was pounding so hard it felt like something inside me was about to burst. I tried meeting his glare with one of my own, and was holding up pretty well until I suddenly started thinking that this was how the kids at school must have felt when Toby and I had pressed them for money-powerless, furious, ashamed. The thought washed through me like acid, and my head dropped. Looking back, that little moment of self-realization probably saved my life. I've seen the Skulls kill people for nothing more than standing up to them.

"You all belong to me," the kid continued, speaking slowly and emphasizing each word by prodding us one by one in the chest. "No getting away from that. You all Skull Fodder now."

Zee started to say something-it sounded like it was going to be a witty comeback-but fortunately for him he was interrupted by the sound of a siren. It was deafening, cutting through my head and reverberating up the steep walls of the prison until the echoes died out near enough twenty seconds later. By that time the boys had backed away, joining the rest of the inmates who were flooding toward the center of the giant courtyard. I noticed a yellow ring painted onto the floor and wondered whether we should be heading toward it too.

But it was too late to move. The siren rang out again, and a metal door the size of a bus to the left of the elevator began to hiss and rumble, mechanisms inside grinding and turning as they released a series of locks. With a blast of steam the vault door swung open lazily on its enormous hinges, revealing a sight that I knew there and then I would take with me to my grave.

THE GUARDS CAME OUT FIRST, three of them all in black suits and all holding shotguns in their massive fists. They strolled from the steam-filled corridor beyond like they were going for a walk in the park, their silver eyes full of cold humor. They made me nervous, no doubt about it, but that wasn't what filled me with terror.

Behind them came two more figures that looked horribly familiar-their stunted bodies covered by leather overcoats, their shriveled, pasty faces concealed by ancient gas masks that wheezed noisily. They were almost lost in the shadows of their guards as they twitched and shook their way out, but their black eyes-which looked as lifeless as the lumps of coal in a snowman's face-never left us. I recalled the first time I'd met one of these monstrosities, the way it had picked Toby to die without the slightest trace of emotion. I felt anger well up inside me, but I was powerless to do anything about it.

Besides, it wasn't even these freaks who made the scene ahead so horrific. It was the man who walked out after them. At first glance he seemed like an ordinary guy in his forties-pretty tall, very lean, dark hair, and a clean gray suit. But the more I studied him the more I realized there was something very wrong with the way he looked. His face was too angular, the skin pulled tight against the bone beneath like he was a skeleton dressed in someone else's flesh-flesh that looked more like leather when it caught the light.

The weird thing was that I tried looking him in the eye but I simply couldn't do it. My gaze just bounced off, like there was some kind of force field around his face. I know that sounds stupid, but I can't think of any other way to describe it; whenever I looked him right in the eye, I found myself staring at something else instead-his chin, his suit, the wall. I mean, what the hell was that all about?

The cherries on the sick cake that lay before me-the sight that really struck fear into my heart-were the two creatures who trotted out after their master. If the devil had dogs, it would be these. They were huge, bigger than Irish wolfhounds, their heads easily level with my shoulders. The creatures glistened in the red light of the prison, and it took me a while to work out why. When I realized, I almost threw up my guts again.

They didn't have any skin. Their slick bodies were made up of muscles and tendons that bulged in plain view, throbbing gently with the beating of their hearts. As they moved you could see their insides working, the muscles stretching then contracting, finally tensing when the group came to a halt. Their faces too were entirely devoid of fur, two silver eyes embedded into their flesh and glaring at our group like we were dinner.

I took an involuntary step back but stopped dead when the dogs started growling.

"It doesn't take long to learn obedience in this place," came a voice so gravelly and deep that for a second I thought it was being broadcast directly into my skull. But the man with the dogs was moving his mouth, so I assumed the words came from him.

"And obedience is the difference between life, death, and the other varieties of existence on offer here in Furnace." The man stepped forward, his dogs trotting by his heels. "Obey my rules and you'll do just fine. Disobey them and you'll soon learn that here your nightmares exist on the same plane as you, they stalk the same corridors and haunt your cells. It's only me that stands between you and insanity.

"Anyway, where are my manners? My name is Warden Cross, and I run this institution. I know who you are, and I know your crimes. But here everybody is guilty, so we do not judge you by the paths you took, only by the way you choose to live in this prison."

He stopped a short distance before us and I could swear the temperature dropped several degrees. I don't know why but I started to think of him as a black hole, like he sucked all the life and warmth and goodness from whatever was nearby. The closer he got the more it felt as though something was being wrenched out of my body. I squirmed in discomfort, beads of sweat forming on my forehead.

"You've already broken the first and most important rule of Furnace," the warden went on. "But since you didn't know it, I guess we'll excuse you this once. When the siren sounds, you must be either in your cell or in the yellow circle in the yard. Anyone breaks that rule then I can't guarantee their safety." He gestured at the guns on the wall. "It's a precautionary measure, you understand." I didn't, but I kept mum.

"If you hear one long blast on the siren, then you must get to your cells. That means lockdown, and that's when things really turn nasty if you're left outside." This time he nodded at his dogs, which began to drool messily on the stone floor.

"There are, of course, other codes of conduct, and you will all have plenty of time to become acquainted with them. But let's get you settled in. I mean, we're not monsters." His face erupted into a crooked smile. "Well, not all of us."

One of the men in black handed the warden a sheet of paper, and he studied it for a moment.

"Zee Hatcher," he read. "Prisoner number 2013832. Your cell is D24, fourth level. Cellmate Carlton Jones." There was a shuffling from the crowd of inmates, and a small, redheaded boy stepped to the edge of the yellow circle. He nodded nervously in the direction of the warden, then motioned for Zee to approach him. I watched him go, feeling like I'd been robbed of my best friend even though we'd only just met.

"Montgomery Earl," the warden continued, looking at the doughy kid. "Prisoner number 2013833. Cell number E15, fifth level. Cellmate Kevin Arnold."

"Hell no," came a voice from the crowd. It was the ugly kid dressed like a pirate. I felt my heart sink for poor Montgomery. I knew exactly what life would be like for him paired with that thug. The warden glared at Kevin and the boy stopped his protests, muttering something to the other Skulls who stood nearby.

"Better get moving," the warden said. Montgomery trotted off toward the yellow circle but I couldn't watch to see what happened.

"Alex Sawyer. Prisoner number 2013834. Cell number F11, sixth level. Cellmate Carl Donovan."

I looked over at the crowd but nobody came forward.

"I said Carl Donovan," the warden hissed, his leathery face creasing in displeasure. Gradually a tall, well-built kid a little older than me stepped forward, pushing past the people in front of him and staring at me like I was something his cat had coughed up. I ran a hand through my hair, then walked slowly across the uneven stone. The warden was dishing out a cell to Jimmy, but I wasn't really listening.

"Hey," I said meekly when I reached the boy who I'd be living with for God only knew how long. He looked down his nose at me and just snorted, then turned and started walking back through the crowd. Behind me I heard the warden shout out across the courtyard.

"Beneath heaven is hell, boys, and beneath hell is Furnace. I hope you enjoy your stay."