Furnace 4 - Fugitives (6 page)

‘We obviously weren’t the first to think of doing this,’ Zee whispered.

We scampered along the length of the platform and into the tunnel at the other end. Even my supercharged vision struggled to make sense of the shadows, and I kept my hand firmly against the wall so I didn’t stray to my death. Tiny objects kept popping beneath my feet and it took me a while to realise they were probably rat skulls, weakened by time. The smell, too, was age old and rotten. It reminded me, more than anything, of the warden’s breath; of decay, of bodies pulverised and putrefied. And it was difficult not to picture ourselves strolling down his throat.

‘You hear that?’ Simon said, his words turning my bones to ice water. I tried to calm my heart, cocking my head to see if I could make out what he’d heard. There was still a distant, banshee-like squeal of brakes, along with the echo of our steps and the constant whine of the electrified rail. But other than that I couldn’t make out anything new. ‘Thought I heard shouting,’ he went on. ‘Probably my—’

He stopped, and this time I heard it too, a dull voice that could have been a pipe clanging. It was too far away to tell. We moved as stealthily as we could, marching in time until once again the gloom of the tunnel began to peel away, the distant glow rising like daybreak, a semicircle of tired yellow light breaking free from the night. It grew as we approached, as did the noises. Simon had been right, they were shouts.

‘What should we do?’ asked Zee as we crept towards the Twofields platform. It was deserted, but there were definitely voices filtering through the doors, echoing off the cold, clean tiles and making it sound like they were right there in front of us. Like they were ghosts.

‘Leave them,’ Simon said. ‘Keep moving to the next station.’

‘But this is the one we need,’ Zee replied. ‘It’s a junction stop. The Elizabeth Line is through those doors. If we keep going then it’s five or six more stops to the next junction, and then we only get on … I can’t remember which line is up there but it will take us in the wrong direction, I’m sure of it.’

Another noise tore through the arched opening of the tunnel, this one somehow far more unnerving than the rest. It was a laugh, high-pitched and lunatic. I looked at Simon, then at Zee, meeting each boy’s gaze with the same reluctance.

‘It might be even worse if we carry on,’ I said.

‘Okay, that settles it,’ Zee said, putting his hands on the platform and clumsily hauling himself up. He stood, brushing his hands on his jeans. ‘We watch each other’s backs, same as always.’

‘Same as always,’ I said, waiting for Simon to clamber up reluctantly before leaping onto the platform. The noises may have been even louder up here but it was good to be back in the light. We cautiously made our way towards the nearest exit, peering through the archway to see a sight that might have belonged in a war movie.

The first thing I noticed was the colour. The pristine white tiles had been splashed with so much red that it looked like a hospital morgue. It was so vivid that it didn’t look real. There were more bodies, slumped and broken, dead eyes staring at the rolling escalators to our left as if wondering why they couldn’t get to the top. These corpses were a mix, just like the last lot – maybe three or four sets of Furnace overalls as well as a number of police and SWAT uniforms. The smell of blood was fresher here, and the taste of gunpowder hung like cigarette smoke in the back of my throat.

‘Jesus,’ whispered Simon. ‘What happened?’

‘Gangs,’ Zee replied. ‘Skulls or the Fifty-Niners. Or maybe they’re all working together now.’

Zee’s words caused a thought to explode, so powerful and so overwhelming that I almost doubled over. I began to shake my head, trying to deny the revelation, but I couldn’t. The truth was there, right in front of me. I couldn’t quite believe I had never thought of it before, but I can honestly say it hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d been so focused on getting out, on being free, that I’d been blind to the consequences of my actions, blind to the real nightmare.

We were free, but so was each and every inmate in Furnace, the ones who had survived, anyway. And for every kid like me who’d been framed there were ten, twenty, maybe a hundred who were guilty of their crimes – murder, arson, assault, and worse. They were out, on the streets, the same cold-blooded killers who had been responsible for the Summer of Slaughter, the same brutal gangs that had made the streets run red.

They were free, and it was my fault.

‘This way,’ said Zee, leading us off in the direction of the voices.

I did my best to ignore the nausea, to shrug off the guilt, following him with a heavy head and a heavier heart. Signposts showed us the way to the Elizabeth Line, and we followed them round a bend, down another vast escalator and along a narrow tunnel lined with bare crimson footprints. At the end of it was a staircase that dropped onto the platform. This one was larger, kiosks embedded in the green tiled walls. Shadows danced and
played against the empty stalls like a puppet show. We waited, frozen at the top of the stairs, knowing we needed to get down them but unable to take that first step.

‘Jesus, when are we gonna catch a break?’ Simon muttered.

‘Ignore it,’ I said. ‘Whatever’s down there, whoever it is, we leave them alone and they’ll leave us alone.’

‘Or maybe we could just wait,’ Zee said. ‘They’ll be gone soon, surely. We don’t want any trouble.’

It was a tempting idea, but I knew that no amount of waiting would help. Trouble just had a funny way of finding us.

Ambush

We descended the steps slowly, every muscle tense, ready to defend ourselves. We didn’t know what was down there, but if experience had taught us anything it was to expect the worst.

Zee had taken the lead, but when he reached the bottom he stopped and motioned for me to proceed.

‘I don’t want to cause them too much damage,’ he whispered with a nervous grin, flexing his non-existent biceps. I wasn’t in the mood to laugh, stepping past him onto the platform. The noises were even louder down here, but the wide staircase blocked our view. Only the strange shadow puppet show on the wall continued, a parade of phantom limbs and elongated torsos.

‘Forget it,’ a voice pulled itself out of the cacophony, louder than the rest. ‘You saw those things up there, you wanna die then go ahead, bruv’, but I ain’t wiv you.’

The shouts rose in pitch, a dozen people arguing. I was surprised to hear a female voice in there too, the sound so alien to me after Furnace that at first I didn’t recognise it. We moved cautiously around the staircase,
the other half of the platform sliding into view. The first thing I saw was three inmates in torn overalls, two leaning against the wall and another – a Skull – pacing back and forth, a rifle gripped in his white-knuckled hands. He pointed it across the platform towards something out of sight, his finger wrapped around the trigger.

‘I told you to shut the hell up,’ he said, his voice desperate and broken. ‘This ain’t none of your concern.’

I took a few more steps, lifting my arms into the air and coughing gently. The prisoner with the gun spun round and loosed a shot, the bullet flying up and gouging a chunk of concrete from the ceiling. The sound seemed to startle him as much as everyone else and he almost lost his grip on the weapon. He blinked furiously, seeming to recognise us, but if anything this made him even more wary.

‘Hell you doing here?’ he yelled. The other inmates had pushed themselves up from the wall and were backing away.

‘Looks like one of them,’ said a small, blond-haired kid. ‘Shoot it.’

‘Whoa,’ I said, raising my arms even higher. ‘We’re with you. We don’t want trouble, okay?’

The Skull looked at me down the barrel of the rifle, using his free hand to wipe the sweat from his nose. He squinted, then lowered the gun a fraction.

‘You’re him,’ he said. ‘The one who got us out.’ I nodded and his face suddenly opened up into a crooked smile. ‘We sure glad to see you. You guys alone?’

I nodded, letting my arms fall to my side as I walked
around the stairs. There was a small group of people cowering in the corner of the platform – two middle-aged men in suits holding briefcases, a younger guy in builder’s fluorescents and a girl about my age. They were all looking at the floor, glassy-eyed and terrified. All except for the girl, that was. She glared at me with such intensity that I had to turn away.

‘Can’t be too careful,’ said the Skull, pointing the gun at the floor. ‘You seen what’s goin’ on up there?’

‘Police everywhere,’ Zee replied, stepping past me and offering a half-hearted wave at the group. ‘Nearly got us.’

The Skull snorted, but it was the blond kid who spoke next.

‘Ain’t talking about the cops,’ he said. ‘You not seen nothing else out there? Not heard nothing weird?’

‘Like what?’ I asked.

‘Like those things back in the prison,’ said the Skull. ‘Those monsters. We got jumped by one, it took three of us, started … it started to …’ He let the words fall into silence, swallowing hard.

‘Berserkers?’ I asked. ‘The same one from Furnace?’

All three inmates shook their head.

‘Ain’t seen this bastard before,’ said the Skull.

‘Forget it, okay,’ Simon said, swallowing nervously. ‘We’re just here to catch a train. Heading north, be fewer cops out there.’

‘Good plan, boss,’ the Skull shrugged, looking at the tracks. ‘Won’t be catching no train here, though.’

‘Why’s that?’ I asked. The Skull didn’t answer, just
turned to the tunnel at the end of the platform. I started to ask my question again but a soft squeal surrounded by a dull thunder cut me off. The sounds grew in volume, accompanied by a light that bloomed in the shadowed archway. It got brighter and brighter before solidifying into a pair of headlights that tore from the opening and blasted towards us. The train ripped past so fast that it took my breath away, sucked through the other tunnel like it had been hoovered up.

‘That why,’ the Skull said. ‘You wanna try and climb on board one of them you be my guest. Come every five minutes or so but they don’t stop, not for us.’

‘Must have set up a quarantine,’ Zee said quietly. ‘All around this area. Trains won’t be stopping here, or any of the nearby stations.’ He swore, stamping his foot. ‘And they’ve kept the trains running up here, which means we can’t even walk the lines.’

‘So what do we do?’ Simon asked. ‘Head up, take the streets? Might be far enough out by now.’

‘Nope,’ said the Skull. ‘No getting out that way, either. All the exits are sealed up tight, we tried ’em. Po-po out there, they’ll gun you down the second you poke your noses out.’

‘Why aren’t they coming in?’ Zee asked, directing the question to me. ‘Storming the place.’

‘They got enough to deal with on the streets,’ the Skull said. ‘Something real strange goin’ on up there; inmates goin’ wild.’

‘You surprised?’ Zee asked. ‘First time they’ve been free in a long time, they’re bound to go crazy.’

‘Not what I mean,’ the boy continued. ‘They’re goin’ wild, like animals. Didn’t seem human no more.’

‘You see the bodies?’ the blond kid asked. ‘Cops killed, torn to pieces, but the inmates didn’t take the guns. ’S like they’re rabid or something. Tearing each other to pieces as well as the po-po.’

‘Rats?’ Zee asked, looking at me. ‘How’d they get out so fast?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I replied, confused. The rats had been shut down in the tunnels beneath Furnace, along with the warden. There was no way they could have broken out this quickly. I looked at the Skull. ‘What’s your plan? How are we gonna get out of here?’

‘That’s what we was just talking about,’ he replied. ‘We fresh out of ideas. But now you here, you can tell us what to do, right?’

‘You need to hand yourselves in,’ came a voice from the corner. I glanced up at the girl, her expression twisted by rage. Her fists were clenched by her side and she looked like she could take down all of us single-handed if she wanted to. ‘Before it’s too late.’

‘We’ll take it under advisement,’ said Blondie with a shy smile.

She scowled at him, and looked like she was about to say something else when a noise broke free behind us – that same clownish giggle that we’d heard before, scraping over the tiles like fingernails down a blackboard. The Skull aimed his rifle up the stairs, his face a mask of fear.

‘They found us,’ he hissed. ‘Brought ’em with you. Led ’em right here.’

‘Who?’ Zee asked, stepping behind me. ‘What’s up there?’

The air suddenly grew thin, replaced by a thunder that flooded the platform as another train tore past, seeming to snatch all the oxygen from the air before disappearing with a scream. The laughter came again, mixing with the echoes of the train into a nightmare serenade. It was followed by the thump of bare feet overhead, something big heading our way.

I felt the adrenaline in my veins, felt the nectar start to do its job. I knew what would happen: it would cloud my mind, make me stronger and faster, capable of doing terrible things. But it would also try to make me forget who I was. It would try to turn me into a monster.

‘Get ready,’ I heard myself say, the words coming out as a throbbing growl. ‘Here it—’

Something blasted from the top of the stairs, a hulking black shape which crashed down them so fast that it was just a blur. The inmates cried out in fear, skittering back across the platform as the immense, knuckled form rolled across the floor towards us. The Skull fired his rifle, the bullet flying wide and punching a hole in a coffee-shop window, but the figure kept coming, bladed limbs carving the air, threatening to dice us all.

I threw myself at it, but I’d taken only a couple of steps before it stopped, doing a couple of clumsy somersaults before skidding to a halt on a bed of black blood, its long limbs flopping uselessly beside it. I saw its face and recognised it instantly. The creature was just as I remembered, rigid and scarred as though it had been carved
from rosewood, one eye pure molten silver, the other lost in the gaping wound I had punched into its mangled skull.

It was the berserker, the beetle-black one that I had fought inside the prison.

And it was dead.

‘I thought you said—’ I started.

There was another burst of childish laughter from above us, then something huge leapt over the handrail from the top of the steps and crunched onto the platform, hard enough to create a cobweb of cracks in the concrete. Everybody scattered back like bowling pins, and past them I saw a creature sitting on its haunches, nothing but a ball of tortured muscle.

Then it straightened, its body unfolding to an impossible height – towering three feet over me. From a distance it could have passed for human – pink flesh that was so dark it looked sunburned, its arms and legs bulging but in proportion, its torso covered with a network of scars and dressed only in a pair of faded grey shorts.

But the more I studied the beast the more I realised that although it may once have been human, it was something much worse now. Its hands were huge, far too big for its arms, and swollen into clubs. There was something wrong with its bones, jutting up as if it was wearing a suit of armour beneath its flesh. And between the blades I could see its muscles moving, as though there were snakes in there desperately trying to find a way out.

Its face, though, was the most horrific thing about it. Not because it was disfigured, or because it was unrecognisably alien, but because it was that of a child – swollen, yes, and bruised, but a kid’s nonetheless, nine, maybe ten. It swivelled on those giant shoulders, wearing an infant grin so permanent that it could have been painted on. Nectar dripped from that grin as though a tap had been turned on inside its mouth, splashing down the front of its body and leaving a trail on the tiles.

The creature studied us all with eyes that flashed gunmetal grey. Beside me the Skull fired again, the bullet thudding into the berserker’s chest hard enough to rock it backwards. The creature peered down at the wound more from curiosity than with any sign of pain, and the skin around the ragged hole began to pulse black, revealing a network of veins. In seconds it was sealed by a plug of nectar, the berserker flexing its grotesque muscles and grinning at me with that mannequin’s smile.

It laughed, a giggle that danced up my spine. There was no warmth in that laugh, no sympathy, only madness and cruelty.

‘Run,’ I yelled, but before the word had even left my mouth the berserker was on the move, covering a quarter of the platform in one bound. With another cackle of delight it swiped Zee out of the way, sending him flying over the ledge onto the rails below, wrapping its other hand around my head and neck. I felt my tendons stretch to breaking point as it lifted me off the ground, only half noticing that Simon was gripped in its other fist.

The berserker pulled us closer, its jaws distending impossibly wide like a snake preparing to devour its prey. Its whole face seemed to stretch with the movement, its eyes drooping as the skin beneath them was pulled down, its cheeks almost tearing with the effort. Inside its maw were blunt blocks of rotten enamel that had once been teeth, and its breath smelt like the charnel room inside Furnace, like it was engulfing me with death.

Then it leant forward and sank those teeth into my neck.

My vision sparked, black explosions that slowly erased the creature and the platform from view. The berserker pulled free its barbed teeth, and the last thing I saw was its eyes, pale silver and filled with black tears.

Then the darkness swallowed me.