Alexander Smith - Lockdown

I stared down at Monty's cell. The gas mask hadn't budged since it had marked the door.

"What are they doing?" I asked again.

"They're not moving."

There was another scream from above, and this time all of the gas masks echoed it. Seconds later the siren blasted out again and I saw more shapes emerge from the vault door below. There were seven blacksuits in total, two of whom held a mutant dog on a leash, struggling to control the animal as it thrashed against its restraints.

Darkness again, and howling. The sound of footsteps against stone, then metal. A fresh round of screams from the gas masks and the same endless cry of "no" from the cell below me.

When the lights came back on I saw that the guards had split up, and were making their way to the marked cells. I crouched down as low as I could get and followed the blacksuit heading toward Monty. When he reached the door he called out for it to be opened. He was almost twice as tall as the shriveled figure beside him, but he eyed the wheezer warily as he waited for the door to slide open, never getting too close.

Monty was still curled up tight inside the cell, but I had never seen anybody look more exposed. The blacksuit reached in and grabbed the boy by his elbow, dragging him onto the platform as if he weighed no more than a sack of feathers. As soon as he was out under the red light Monty uncurled himself, flailing against the guard's iron grip. But the giant simply grabbed him by both wrists in a single mammoth hand and hoisted him into the air.

The gas mask screamed as if in delight. Then it snatched one of the syringes from its belt and thrust it at Monty like a knife. Right then I was grateful that the lights failed. But against the black canvas of darkness my imagination projected its own horrific conclusion to the story-the needle plunging into Monty's arm or neck, filling him full of rot and decay, of dirty chemicals, contaminated blood.

The prison was illuminated once more-just long enough for me to see the blacksuit dragging Monty's limp body toward the stairs, the gas mask right behind watching its prey like a hyena eyeing a corpse, the cell door sliding shut. On the yard below, the other blacksuits were slowly progressing toward the vault door-a sick procession of giants, freaks, and lost boys being dragged to a fate I couldn't even begin to imagine.

Then the prison went dark again, although from the pounding in my chest, the ringing in my ears, and the rush of air as I collapsed to the floor I knew that this time it had nothing to do with the lights.

I WOKE WHERE I'D FALLEN, bowed up like a baby on the hard stone beneath my bed. Opening my eyes, I saw Donovan on the toilet, but there were no jokes this time. He looked at me like I was something nasty he'd just expelled, then turned his attention to the toilet paper.

I hauled myself onto my bunk, my aching limbs protesting about a night spent on the freezing floor. My head was full of the horrors I'd seen during the blood watch, but due to an endless series of nightmares afterward I wasn't sure which of the images were real and which imagined. The wheezers with their dirty coats and filthy needles and gas masks sewn into their faces seemed like something only possible in a twisted dream, but the memory of them was so sharp that I knew they'd really been out there.

With a painful churning in my gut I suddenly remembered Monty, strung up and stabbed with that filthy syringe. Where was he now? What were they doing to him? I put the questions to Donovan, but he simply fixed me with that look of fury again and I quickly shut up.

A couple of sirens later and we all drifted down to the yard. I had never seen so many dark, tired eyes and drawn faces, so many nervous twitches and tear-stained cheeks. That morning, for once, everybody in Furnace looked their age. All the hard stares and swaggers had been replaced by frightened expressions and anxious shuffles as the children huddled in groups for comfort.

Donovan still wasn't talking to me, so I scanned the crowd for Zee. He was standing in a group that included his cellmate and a few others, but it took me a while to recognize him. The cocky smile had gone and his face had drawn in on itself, as if he'd lost half his body weight overnight. He saw me looking and walked over, meeting me halfway across the yard. We both opened our mouths to speak, but neither of us seemed to remember how to have a normal conversation.

The duty roster materialized on-screen, putting me and Donovan back in the kitchen but sending Zee to the laundry. I waited for Monty's name to appear but it had been stripped from the records as if the boy had never existed.

Hard labor was hell that morning. Donovan acted like he couldn't stand the sight of me, posting himself in the canteen serving up mush and leaving the processing to me and another couple of inmates I'd never really spoken to before. I tried asking them questions about the wheezers as we stuffed crate after crate of leftovers into the industrial blender, but they just sent back one-word answers that meant nothing.

To make things worse, Kevin Arnold had been assigned to the trough room too, and several times throughout the morning I was ambushed by flying chunks of rancid meat and mushy vegetables and barbed comments. I remembered the way he'd pushed Monty across the cell last night, sending him to his terrifying fate without a shred of remorse. I wanted to stuff his mouth full of rotten food until he choked, but instead I turned my back on him and suffered his abuse. What else could I do?

Umpteen hours later, after washing the slop from my hair in the showers and donning a fresh uniform, I found myself standing alone in the yard. I didn't realize how much I had come to depend on Donovan. Without him by my side I felt completely lost, utterly vulnerable. I saw him make his way up the stairs to our cell without a backward glance but I didn't try to chase him. Instead I picked an empty table toward the back of the yard and cursed myself for not just curling up in bed last night and ignoring the blood watch like everybody else.

Holding my head in my hands, I didn't hear Zee slide onto the bench opposite me until he coughed gently.

"You look like battered crap," he said as I lifted my head.

"You're no oil painting yourself, mate," I replied, wondering if I still had the ability to smile.

"Where's Big D?" he went on. "You two are like Siamese twins, weird not seeing you joined at the hip."

"I'm not in his good books," I replied after a humorless snort. "After last night. I wouldn't stay in bed, had to see what was going on. He thinks I drew one of them to our cell."

"Seriously?" Zee asked, eyebrows practically leaping from his forehead. "You saw one up close?"

I nodded, trying not to recall the experience in too much detail.

"He'll be okay," Zee went on, cracking his knuckles. "He can be a moody lug, but I'm sure he'll come around."

"I hope so. If he doesn't then I'm a dead man. He's pretty much the only thing standing between me and the Skulls."

"Don't forget me," Zee said with a grin. He flexed his arms, but the satsuma-sized bumps beneath his uniform didn't exactly fill me with confidence. "Could take them all on single-handed with these muscles."

For a moment it looked like we might break free of the gravity of the situation, but it quickly pulled us back in.

"What the hell were they doing last night?" Zee asked, leaning across the table so that his low voice would reach me. "What are those things with the gas masks?" I shrugged and shook my head. "I mean, they look like Nazi storm troopers with those masks and coats. I've seen them on TV. My folks used to watch war documentaries all the time. But why would they be here? And why do they need help breathing? I mean, it's not like this place is full of Zyklon B."