Furnace 4 - Fugitives (7 page)

Visions

The first thing I realised was that I was hanging in midair, a hundred metres or more above the earth. And the first thing I saw was a building.

It rose from a burning city, silhouetted against a sky that was so cloudy and so dark it could have been forged from obsidian. Smoke roiled against the encroaching night, and in those coiling tendrils I saw shapes – twisted bodies that swarmed over the streets below, that leapt effortlessly from rooftop to rooftop, and that crouched in dark corners gnawing on hidden feasts. Every time I tried to focus on one of those forms it vanished, becoming smoke once again.

The building was alight as well, smoke pouring up from the windows like inverted waterfalls. I studied it, trying to work out where I had seen it before. It was an office block, similar to all the rest – a tombstone of concrete and glass that rose maybe forty, fifty storeys from the inferno at its feet. Crowning the structure was a short four-sided spire, like a pyramid, although against the smoke-stained, blood-reddened sky it looked more like a pyre.

I tried to breathe but hot air, devoid of oxygen, filled my lungs. I struggled, but I couldn’t move. Somewhere, behind the illusion of the city, I could still see the creature that held me, fizzing in and out of existence every time I blinked. I twisted my body, trying to find a way to escape the berserker’s grasp, but even if I could have done so, the flames beneath me extended in every direction for as far as I could see, as if the whole world was burning.

It is
, somebody said, the voice so loud and so close that it was as though the dying city had spoken.
The whole
world is an inferno. It will burn until every nation has fallen,
until all who oppose us are dead, until people see the true light
.

The building ahead was getting bigger, growing from its bed of fire. No, it wasn’t getting bigger, it was getting closer, pulling us towards it with some malevolent gravity. As the voice spoke the tower block grew brighter, the windows near the top coming alive and glowing with a sickly yellow light. I was still too far away to make out what lay inside, but I could see shapes there, as deformed and demented as those I had glimpsed in the smoke below. I fought against the grip but I was powerless, dragged relentlessly up towards the building’s spire.

‘What do you want?’ I screamed, though all that emerged was a whimper strangled by smoke.

You know what I want
, the voice replied. It was distorted, comprised of the roar of flames and the crack of breaking bones, but I knew who it was. There was no mistaking the tone of Alfred Furnace, filled with power yet tinged with insanity.
We showed you, Warden
Cross and I. We showed you what the future would bring
.
And here it is, a world in flames and a new race ready to
emerge from the ashes
.

I thought back to my time in the tunnels beneath the prison, when the warden was turning me into one of his soldiers, into a blacksuit. He had spoken of a war, a judgement day where the strong would destroy the weak once and for all; a new Fatherland which would stand for ten thousand years. I had almost been ready to become a part of it, my mind washed of all sense by the nectar, my body butchered and rebuilt. I had almost staked my place in this new world, given myself to Furnace and his legion.

And you still can
, the voice went on, reading my thoughts.
You betrayed me, but you also betrayed yourself.
Would you deny yourself a role in a world born from strength,
from victory? Look, Alex, and see what awaits you if you
answer my call
.

I peered down into the smoke, churning like an ocean between the burning buildings. The shapes there were clearer now, row upon row of faceless soldiers marching down the street, goose-stepping towards the tower block. Their bodies were puffed out, packed tight with muscle, their eyes piercing silver blades that cut open the wall of smoke before them. Everything about this force smacked of power, of determination, of strength, of victory, and I felt the emotion vomit up from my stomach.

Is it not better to be a soldier in the new world than to be a
corpse in the old?
Furnace went on.
You continue to surprise
me, Alex. You have fought with courage. You are the kind of
soldier who can change this pathetic little world and make it
something wonderful. You are the kind of soldier who can fight
at my right hand. And I need a new commander, Alex, because
my old friend the warden has disappointed me. A man who
cannot keep his house in order cannot be expected to have a
roof over his head
.

The small nugget of pleasure I got from hearing him insult the warden was lost almost as soon as it appeared. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him that I’d never join his army, but I couldn’t find the strength. Or was it something else? My stomach was still churning, my head ringing, and I knew it wasn’t from fear. It was excitement I felt, the same terrifying rush as when the warden had shown me what it would be like to crush my enemies beneath my heel, to break their bones and leave their smouldering corpses in my wake. It was power, pure and simple, and it felt good.

There couldn’t have been much nectar left inside me, but what little was there began to thump through my veins, turning my blood black and filling my thoughts with violence. I tried to fight it, but as I pictured myself storming through the streets, the entire world on its knees and begging me for mercy, I found myself grinning, a dull rumble of a growl escaping my throat.

See them weep, Alex
, Furnace said, his voice emanating from the tower block like a pulse.
See them plead. For I
am their new emperor, and you are their new prince
.

It suddenly dawned on me where I’d seen the tower before – in the city, of course, its spire visible on the skyline, replicated in countless postcards and posters.

We were closer to it now, and through the windows I caught a glimpse of what lay within. In every room was an operating theatre, decorated with blood and crammed to bursting point with wheezers. The creatures breathed through their ancient gas masks, parting flesh with filthy fingers and screeching with delight. I don’t know how many windows there were – dozens, maybe hundreds – but they were all portraits of death and decay as Furnace churned out more soldiers for his force of freaks.

Side with me or side against me
, he said as we drew inexorably closer.
This vision is the truth of the world. Your
antics inside the prison have forced me to play my hand a little
earlier than I would have liked, but no matter. Perhaps you
have done me a favour, boy, in making me act now.
He laughed, the throb of his lunatic chuckle making the fires rage even more fiercely.
Perhaps, when the last cities fall
and the people embrace me, then it is you I will be thanking for
giving me the opportunity to lay the foundations of the new
world now. Yes, Alex, because of you the war begins this morn
ing. The future starts today. Look at it, Alex, and tell me which
side you would rather be on. Look at it, and make your choice.

My lungs were empty, crying out for air, but even if they weren’t I couldn’t have given Furnace an answer. We were nearly at the spire, and as we approached I saw yet another nightmare emerge through the smoke, through the shimmering haze of heat. A creature was clinging to the sloped roof with hands like blades, bigger than any berserker, its body strangely distorted as though its limbs had been stretched on a rack, its skin shimmering as the nectar pulsed through its veins. And
its eyes. Those twin silver moons radiated a power and a strength that cut through everything else, which shone like beacons, like twin beams from a lighthouse, dousing the flames and blasting the smoke away until the city gleamed as if new and the skies blazed blue.

Furnace. Alfred Furnace. It had to be him.

The creature howled, a cry loud enough to rock the world to its knees. Then it began to laugh, a noise which faded into birdsong over the newborn paradise beneath my feet.

Look at it, Alex. Make your choice
.

But I couldn’t, even as the air flooded back into my lungs, even as my senses returned. I couldn’t give an answer because right then I didn’t know the truth, I couldn’t make a choice.

I honestly didn’t know which side I’d pick.

Nectar

The vision of the city began to clear, dissolving back into reality like sugar in tea, but the reality was no better than the illusion had been. I blinked the tears from my eyes to see the berserker in front of me, its drooping clown’s face inches from my own, its fingers wrapped around my neck. It was grinning, the lips forced open so wide I thought they must have been stitched that way, nectar still dribbling out between them. Then, with another infant laugh, the creature released its hold on me.

I dropped like a stone, landing on my back and gasping in a lungful of stale air. I clamped my hands to my throat, feeling the ridge of bite marks there. There was no blood, the nectar had seen to that, but the whole side of my neck and face was itching madly, as though somebody was running a feather duster down the inside of every vein.

Simon was beside me, his back arched in agony. My entire upper body was throbbing, as though I’d been cooked alive in the flames of my hallucination, but
somehow I found the strength to sit up and focus on what was happening.

The berserker seemed to have forgotten all about us. It bounded down the platform, running on all fours like an orang-utan as it closed in on the fleeing inmates. It was on them in seconds, swinging its hammer fists in a horizontal arc and knocking the blond kid and his quiet friend away. They rolled over the edge of the platform like rag dolls, accompanied by the clack of breaking bones.

The sight of them on the lines made me remember Zee. I scrambled across the concrete on my knees, peering over the edge of the platform to see a motionless shape below. The lower part of his face was a mask of blood, but I could tell by the pale blue eyes it was Zee. They were open, and they weren’t blinking.

He must have hit the electrified rail. I knew it. For a second I didn’t feel anything, then a blinding flash of white light popped in the centre of my head, expanding hot and fast like a supernova.
Not him
, I screamed inside.
Not him, not Zee. NOT ZEE!
With each plea the flare of the supernova darkened, the nectar numbing the emotions the way it was supposed to, killing the sadness the same way it killed the physical pain. I let my guard drop, willing the poison in, urging it on so I wouldn’t have to deal with the truth of what lay before me, the body broken and slumped on the tracks.

The body that was moving.

‘Gonna kneel there all day,’ came a whisper of a voice, strained as though he had been badly winded, ‘or do you think maybe you could give me a hand?’

The words flushed the nectar from my head, leaving me with nothing but a blinding pulse of agony, so deep that it felt as if it had always been there. But, more than that, I felt joy. The sensation was so strong that pearls of tears clustered in my eyes. I looked at Zee open-mouthed and wide-eyed, and my expression must have been a sight because he laughed.

‘Jesus, Alex, close your mouth before you drool on me,’ he said, glancing at the rail beside him, the one he had missed by a hair’s breadth.

I cast a look over my shoulder just to make sure the berserker hadn’t changed its mind. It had pinned the Skull against a wall, its massive hands held out either side of it to stop the kid from running. Not that he was going anywhere. He was hunkered into a ball, his arms hanging uselessly by his side, no blood left in his face as he waited for the monster to attack.

I heard a distant squeal, the rattle of the tracks. The air was trembling, as if it was scared of the bullet of metal and glass that was tearing this way. Not wasting another second, I eased myself over the platform and dropped into the pit between the rails, grabbing Zee under the armpits.

‘Oh crap,’ he said as I was hoisting him up. I followed his line of sight to see that the tunnel was growing lighter, two headlights visible and getting bigger with terrifying speed. I threw Zee up towards the platform but his foot caught on the nearest rail and he cried out in pain. I lost my grip and he slipped back into the pit. I took him by the scruff of the neck, using the last of my
strength to hurl him upwards just as the train exploded out of the tunnel. I crouched, the sheer velocity of the oncoming engine almost enough to make me drop down dead from fear. In the blink of an eye it had reached me, and as I leapt for safety I saw the driver’s face, inches away, frozen into a rictus of panic.

I almost made it, ninety per cent of me over the threshold of the platform. But the train was too fast, clipping my legs at forty miles per hour. I cartwheeled like a spinning top, the world unravelling as I flipped end over end and came crashing to a halt at the foot of the stairs. Even when I stopped the world was still moving, my brain a gyroscope that threatened never, ever to calm. I screwed my eyes shut, feeling like I was on a white-knuckle ride at a leisure park, my stomach threatening to hurl even though it was empty.

Through the confusion I heard the berserker’s spine-chilling laughter and I forced myself to look. The beast was still in the far corner, although the view was spinning so much that I could barely tell which end of the platform was which. It now had the Skull clasped between its bulging palms, and for a bizarre moment I thought it was kissing the kid. Then I realised its embrace was something far worse.

The berserker had its jaws locked around the boy’s throat, its blunt teeth in his flesh. There was blood dripping down the kid’s prison overalls, but even from where I was lying I could see that it was black, not red. The nectar dripped onto the floor, forming a pool beneath the freak and its prey. It might have just been my
imagination, but it looked different from the nectar I’d seen back in Furnace, the poison that had been pumped into me by the warden. The flecks of colour in the darkness weren’t silver and gold but red, like splinters of rubies.

‘You seein’ that?’ Simon said, and I realised he was kneeling beside me, one hand on my shoulder. Zee was crawling towards us, the strength returning slowly to his limbs but his face as pale as wet paper. ‘What’s it doing?’

‘Feeding,’ I said, although I knew this wasn’t true.

‘Can you walk?’ Simon asked. I nodded, but to be honest I wasn’t sure if I could move at all. My legs felt like rubber that had been stretched too far, still no pain as such, just that infuriating itch. ‘We should get out of here before that thing finishes doing whatever it’s doing.’

With a sucking sound that reminded me of a foot being wrenched from mud the berserker pulled its teeth free of the kid’s neck. The wound that it had left was as black as pitch, a ring of ragged holes that reached from ear to shoulder, reminding me of a shark bite. The red-flecked nectar was still dripping, but it looked like it was dripping upwards as well as to the floor below. I blinked in disbelief, squinting into the shadows to see that it wasn’t leaking from the boy’s neck at all. It was spreading beneath his skin, radiating outwards like channels of dirty water beneath ice.

Is that what it had done to me? No, it had bitten me but it hadn’t pumped me full of nectar, not like this. I’d have felt it.

The Skull, still held by the berserker, began to tremble, his entire body rocked by spasms so violent that I thought he was going to shake himself to pieces. His veins were pulsing with the nectar inside them, resembling a cobweb of black lines that slowly spread over his face and beneath the collar of his overalls. He thrashed for a moment longer, then he arched backwards, unleashing a desperate, deafening howl at the ceiling. His eyes snapped open and I could see that they were black wells, so deep and so dark that they could have been hollow pits inside his face.

The Skull’s cry went on for what felt like forever, filling the platform with white noise. Then his head lolled on his shoulders, his eyes looking right at me. I stared into those sockets as tears of ink drew down his cheeks, black blood leaking from his nose and joining the fluid that gushed from his mouth. It looked as if he had been pumped full of nectar, so much so that it had split open his skin, gushing out of every pore.

The berserker laughed again, then it hoisted the Skull over its shoulder as though the boy was nothing but a sack of meat. With a single leap it threw itself over the platform and back towards the stairs, not even sparing us a look as it crouched and propelled itself upwards, landing on the top step.

It paused there for a second, as if to get its bearings, and as it did so the Skull lifted his head and gazed down the stairs through those blood-blackened eyes. I could see the fabric of his overalls stretch and split as the limbs inside grew, his fingers bulging out joint by joint like
sausages fattened and flyblown. His face too was almost unrecognisable, swollen like a month-old corpse.

But even though the kid had been disfigured beyond repair, even as his face began to warp and split like old wood, there was no denying the expression there. His eyes, as dark as they were, were hungry. And his mouth was twisted upwards manically, the lips drawn, teeth glinting against the nectar.

He was smiling.