Alexander Smith - Lockdown

I saw my chance and took it.

"You still sure you want to stay here?" I asked. Donovan looked up at me, his dark eyes boring right into mine.

"Can you promise me that river exists?" he whispered.

"No, but I'm pretty sure."

"Can you promise me it will get us out of here?"

"No, of course not."

"Can you promise me they won't catch us?"

"No, Donovan. I can't promise anything, except that dying while trying to break free is better than being killed by one of those things."

"Or becoming one of them," he added. He sucked the blood from his knuckle, deep in thought, then turned his face toward the ceiling. "Okay, I'm in."

BY THE TIME we'd made it downstairs we had a plan. Now that Donovan had finally accepted the possibility of escape, he was on fire, his mind blasting out idea after idea in hushed tones as we made our way to the trough room. I could barely get a word in edgeways, but it was a relief to finally hear someone else as optimistic as me.

Zee met us at our table and we hunched together over our plates of mush, doing our best not to look too much like coconspirators. After a quick check to make sure nobody was in earshot, I filled Zee in on the details. He was as surprised as I was to see Donovan's change of heart.

"It's about time, big guy," he said through a grin.

"We're going back in to scope out Room Two," I whispered.

"With a light this time, presumably?" said Zee.

"Yeah, I'll keep my helmet on," I replied. "I may be an idiot, but I do learn from my mistakes."

"What about the guard?" Zee asked. "I mean, he nearly caught you before."

"That's my job," added Donovan, licking his lips and leaning in even farther. "I'll distract him. Won't give you long, but should be enough time to work out what's in there."

"Distract him how?" said Zee. "Do the old feeling sick trick?"

"No, I've got something a little more dramatic planned," he said, flashing us a look halfway between a grin and a grimace. "Just stay by the door in the chipping room, you'll soon see. Five minutes, that's about all you've got. Make it count."

"We will," I said. Zee nodded, then his brow suddenly creased.

"Hang on, we?" he asked, looking frantically between Donovan and me. "Surely it's better if just you go. I mean, not that I wouldn't do it, but isn't it twice the risk if two of us break into the room?"

"But it will take twice as long to search it if it's just me," I responded. "Besides, I want someone to keep me company in the hole if we get caught."

"Alex is right, Zee, it's a big room and there's probably still rocks everywhere. If you're gonna find where that noise is coming from, you need as many pairs of eyes as possible. Hell, if you don't wanna do it, you can always distract the blacksuits instead."

Zee blanched and shook his head.

"Right," I said, pushing my untouched breakfast across the table and cracking my fingers. "Let's do it."

FORTUNATELY, DONOVAN AND I had been assigned to chipping duty that morning. Zee was scheduled for the laundry, but Donovan told him to ignore the duty roster.

"People don't always stick to their jobs," he explained. "The guards make sure everyone on the list for chipping is there, but they don't check to see if there's an extra body in the halls-they figure no one would be stupid enough to do this if they didn't have to, y'know?"

We followed the usual routine, selecting our equipment and marching like drones into Room Three. Zee and I stayed as close to the entrance as possible, but Donovan made his way toward a group of Skulls who had already started hacking at the wall. I wondered what the hell he was doing, and prayed it wouldn't be anything too dangerous. He turned and winked at me, then nodded toward the ceiling prop that was wedged between him and the Skulls.

"Oh no," I said. "He wouldn't."

He did. With a swing of his pick he smashed the wooden prop into pieces. The Skulls all leaped back, yelling at Donovan to stop as a curtain of dust and rubble fell down from the unsupported ceiling. He swung his pick again, sweeping it upward and letting go of the handle. It struck the ceiling where the prop had been, dislodging a massive chunk of rock that crashed to the floor, narrowly missing the nearest Skull.

By now everybody was watching with terror in their eyes, including me. Donovan reached down and picked up a melonsized piece of rock, then lobbed it toward the Skull who'd almost been flattened. It struck him square in the nose, and he crumpled earthward.

"Cave-in!" yelled Donovan at the top of his voice. "Man down!"

The call worked. The blacksuit ran into the chamber so quickly he was almost a blur. He dashed across to where the Skull was lying, leaning over him and watching the blood drip from his nose. The boy was out cold, and none of his friends seemed able to pluck up the courage to speak. Donovan looked at me from the other side of the hall and mouthed something: "Make it count."

"Time to go," I said, running for the door. I didn't wait to see if Zee was following me, just flung my pick onto the equipment room floor and dashed to the wooden boards sealing off Room Two. The bottom board was still unfastened, the missing bolt obviously unnoticed. Pulling it out as far as I could, I hissed for Zee to get inside. With a quiet curse he did, squeezing his body through the gap. Once clear, he used his foot to keep the board away from the wall while I clambered in.

"Piece of cake," he said, his voice shaking.

The hard part was over and I breathed a sigh of relief, staring into the mouth of the abyss that had so terrified me yesterday. We stumbled forward a few paces, keeping our lights off until the equipment room was out of sight. Halfway along the tunnel we heard movement behind us and ducked down. Through the gaps between the boards we saw the blacksuit dragging the unconscious Skull toward the yard, and waited for him to vanish before pressing on.

"Man, I hear it," said Zee as we reached the end of the tunnel. It was pitch-black ahead, but the faint roar filled the darkness. Once again I panicked, thinking that the sound was a growl from the warden's dogs, or the wheeze of a gas mask. But when I flicked on my helmet lamp the only thing it illuminated was rock.

"Jesus, look at this place," Zee whispered, switching on his light. The twin beams did practically nothing to combat the dense blackness of the room, the pale tendrils of light reaching no more than a few meters before surrendering to the shadows.

"Five minutes," I said. "That's all we've got."

"Well, far as I can tell, it's coming from that direction," Zee said, turning his helmet and pointing a trail of light toward the back left-hand side of the cavern. The roar seemed to come from everywhere, but I took Zee's word for it. My hearing never was my strong point.

We made our way across the cavern, forced to scale the massive boulders that littered the floor. Every now and again I'd see a shard of white, or a suspicious stain on the floor, but fortunately the bodies of the kids who'd died here had been removed. Once again I wondered if their souls still remained, but quickly put the thought out of my head.

I wasn't sure how many minutes it took us to cross the hall. Too many, I knew that much. More than once we had to double back after reaching a blockage, or duck under a treacherous archway formed by unstable blocks of stone. But with each step we took, the roar got louder and more distinct, the sound becoming less like a growl, more like the thunder of a waterfall. The closer we got, the fresher the air became. I could have sworn that there was even a fine mist suspended in the cavern, one that clung to our skin and gave us the strength to proceed.

And then, like finding an oasis in the desert, we rounded a truck-sized mound of stone and saw it. Our way out. It was a crack in the floor of the cavern, one that stretched over twenty paces from the far wall to our feet. There was nothing but darkness through the rift, but we didn't need to see. Where we were standing we could practically feel the river that raged beneath us, the torrent that would set us free.