Furnace 5 - Execution (31 page)

The thought filled me with such complete and utter horror that I screamed, a noise so loud it caused more dust to rain down from the arches above, a howling that pierced the heart of every single creature with nectar in its blood.

‘I know you’re still in there, Alex,’ said Zee, holding his hands to his ears as my howl died away. ‘You’re my best friend. Don’t give yourself to him, not without a fight.’

I looked at Zee, at the tiny kid who stood before me.
It would be so easy to kill him, kill them all, and yet just like me they could never truly die. They would live on inside my head, inside my memories, they would never let me go – Zee, Simon, Lucy, Donovan, and Alex too, the kid I had once been, the kid I
still was
. I saw him now, his body so different from mine, his scarless face almost unrecognisable, his eyes blue instead of silver. He stood there, in my mind, dressed in prison overalls and smiling sadly.

‘
Alex?
’ I said. ‘
Tell me what to do
.’

‘You know what to do,’ he replied. ‘You always have.’

Then he was gone, just another fading memory. The others stood in his place. There was nothing more they could do. They could only wait and see what my next move would be.

I thought of the creatures under my control, kids just like me. They had been created for one reason, to be soldiers in an army of hate, to turn the world upside down. Like me they had been forced into war for far too long. I wouldn’t make them fight, not any more. I would give them peace.

‘
I know what to do
,’ I said, feeling the stranger’s blood rage like a hurricane inside me, furious at the thought of what was to come. ‘
I’m going to end this
.’

I had made my decision, but the creature whose blood flowed inside my arteries had yet to do the same.

He could sense what I was about to do, and he called to me, demanding to be heard. His power sluiced through my brain like a million voices, all wordless, all somehow saying the same thing.

YOU WOULD NEVER DARE TO DEFY ME
.

Zee was pulling at the straps that held me, trying to cut me loose, but I shook my head. There was no time. I let my mind out, once again occupying the countless nectar-filled monsters which roamed the land. I could read their thoughts, see what they were seeing, feel their emotions as they fought. Hundreds of them – blacksuits, rats and berserkers – all with the same blood-drenched goal. They waited for my orders and I prepared to give them, one last command that would end this war once and for all.

Before I could, however, I felt something take hold of me. It wasn’t a physical sensation but something much, much worse – as though a fist had wrapped itself around
my soul, wrenching it out of this world, out of reality. The chamber vanished, replaced by a void, as though I had been dragged to the bottom of a vast, lightless ocean. It was the same sensation I’d had back in the hospital, on the operating table, when I had died. Only this time I wasn’t alone.

Of course I wasn’t. How could I be? There were two of us in this body now, me and something ageless, something infinitely wicked, something that never had been, and never could be, human.

Shapes began to form in the darkness, pillars of burned wood. It didn’t take me long to realise that they were trees. Gradually the scenery settled around me, a ceiling of branches cutting out the sunlight, plunging the carpet of rotten fruit into shadow. Crows danced out of my way, flapping their wings as they feasted on decay.

I was back in the orchard.

There was no sign of Furnace now, the boy. But the stranger was here. He stood in the shadows between the trees, the same way he had back in my dream. And I knew that this was a dream too, a vision, even though I could smell the decomposing apples beneath me, feel their mush between my toes, hear the whistle of the wind and the forlorn creaking of the skeletal trees.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ I asked, my voice weak, once again that of a boy. The stranger didn’t speak, but I heard his reply.

I
WILL
NOT
LET
YOU
UNDO
MY
WORK.

‘Your work?’ I asked, trying to take a step forward. I
should have known not to bother, I was always a prisoner in my dreams. I realised that he was talking about the nectar, the blacksuits and the berserkers and the rats – the end of the world. He showed me these things with a pride that emanated from his invisible form.

‘That wasn’t your work,’ I spat back. ‘That was Furnace.’

He pushed himself from the trees, his face a nightmare collection of indiscernible parts which folded and unfolded into infinity. Just seeing him there made me want to run, to hand my body and my mind over to him and never look back. This thing, whatever he was, was something that never should have existed, something left over from the darkest moments of creation. He was the opposite of all that was good, of all that was life. Once again he spoke to me without speaking.

I
WORKED
WITH
FURNACE,
WORKED
THROUGH
HIM.
AND
NOW
I
WILL
DO
THE
SAME
THROUGH
YOU.
THAT
IS
OUR
AGREEMENT
–
I
WILL
GRANT
YOU
POWER,
AGELESS
LIFE,
AND
IN
RETURN
YOU
WILL
OBEY,
YOU
WILL
SPREAD
MY
GIFT
TO
THE
CHILDREN
OF
THE
WORLD
.

‘Why?’ I asked.

BECAUSE
THIS
IS
WHAT
I
HAVE
ALWAYS
DONE,
EVER
SINCE
YOUR
SPECIES
TOOK
ITS
FIRST
STEPS.
THIS
IS
WHAT
I
HAVE
ALWAYS
WANTED.
ONCE
UPON
A
TIME,
SO
LONG
AGO,
IT
WAS
JUST
ME
AND
MY
APPETITE
FOR
BLOOD.
BUT
YOUR
KIND,
YOUR
SCIENCE,
HAVE
MADE
IT
SO
MUCH
EASIER,
AND
SO
MUCH
MORE
FUN
.

‘What if I say no?’ I asked.

He lifted his hand, the limb sweeping over the orchard
floor like an evening shadow. Even if I could have moved I wouldn’t have been able to outrun it, the stranger’s long fingers wrapping themselves around my throat. His grip tightened, crushing my windpipe, and when I tried to breathe my lungs stayed empty.

FURNACE
TRIED
TO
SAY
NO
AS
WELL,
IN
THE
BEGINNING.
BUT
THERE
CAN
BE
NO
REFUSAL.
AND
WHY
WOULD
YOU
WANT
TO?
I
HAVE
ALREADY
MADE
YOU
A
GOD,
AND
THERE
WILL
BE
MORE
TO
COME,
SO
MUCH
MORE
.

My guts twisted, the excitement of having the whole world at my mercy, but it was short-lived. All I could feel was the cold flesh of the stranger’s fingers around my throat, the panic as I tried and failed to breathe, the knowledge that I might die here, in this orchard.

It isn’t real
, I told myself.
None of this is real
.

I struggled, managing to wrench a hand loose from the chains of the dream. I gripped the stranger’s fingers, pulling them back, away from my windpipe. Although he had no face, no expression, I could sense his shock. He seemed to glide forward without walking, looming up before me. The way his body moved, like some monstrous engine of blades, was terrifying. I knew that if that face touched me, even in the dream, my soul would be shredded.

I
ALREADY
OWN
YOU.
YOU
ARE
ALREADY
A
MONSTER.
LOOK
…

More figures began to appear between the trees, hundreds of them, shuffling into the orchard. Most were wearing camouflage, the material burned and torn, a
few were dressed in Furnace overalls. Some were missing limbs, others had gaping wounds in their chests and stomachs.

All of them were dead.

They marched towards me, their hands held out, and I could feel their corpses’ eyes crawling over me like insects.

THESE
ARE
YOUR
DEAD,
THE
ONES
THAT
YOU
HAVE
KILLED
.

I shook my head, trying to deny it, but this was the truth: every single one of the men and women – children too – that staggered across the broken ground was dead because of me. I hadn’t killed them myself – not all of them, anyway – but I had caused their murder at the hands of the freaks. The first of their ranks reached me, pawing my skin with their rotting hands.

THEY
SEEK
REVENGE
, the stranger said.
SHOULD
I
GIVE
YOU
TO
THEM
?

‘No,’ I grunted, feeling the weight of the fallen, knowing that they would trample me into the dirt, thousands of them piling on top of me, pinning me, burying me alive beneath a mountain of squirming decay.

ONLY
I
CAN
KEEP
YOU
ALIVE.
ONLY
I
CAN
KEEP
THE
DEAD
AWAY
.

That’s a lie
, somebody from the crowd shouted. I knew the voice, scanning the faces until I saw him there. It was Donovan, the way he had been back in the prison before the wheezers had put their scalpels to his flesh, to his eyes, before I had smothered him with a pillow to
put him out of his misery. The vast wave of corpses moved, pressing against me, and I lost sight of him for a moment. But then there he was again, his smile blasting light through the darkness.
It’s a lie
, he said.
He can’t hurt you because you’re not really here
.

He was right. This felt more real than anything I had ever experienced – the cold flesh of the dead against my skin, the smell of their rotting bodies, the sound of the crows as they feasted on eyeballs and organs – but it was an illusion. I pictured myself, strapped to the machine back in the chamber on the island. I was safe there, my friends were there. This was all in my mind.

Your head, your rules, kiddo
, Donovan said. It was just like when I’d been back in solitary. Donovan had been there too, nothing more than a figment of my imagination, I knew that, but it had been enough. He had saved my life back then, and he had saved my life now.

‘My head, my rules,’ I said, and his smile widened.

You got it, Alex. Now for God’s sake finish this and get us out of here. I never want to see another apple again
.

I laughed, and the sound of it seemed to push the stranger back, as if he didn’t know what the noise was. The movement of his face grew more agitated, his body flickering like a broken light.

YOU
WILL
NOT
DEFY
ME.
IT
IS
NOT
POSSIBLE
.

‘My head, my rules,’ I repeated. This time when I tried to move, the dream let me. I wrenched my arms up from my sides. I looked at my hands. They were normal again. I bunched them into fists, then, with a scream of defiance, I lashed out, catching the stranger
in his temple. There was no pain, my soul wasn’t shredded. All that happened was the beast staggered backwards, his distended hands shrinking, sweeping up to his head. He roared, the noise deafening, full of rage. But it was nothing. I snatched in another breath, unleashing a howl of my own, one so powerful that it blasted the legions of the dead away, bodies exploding into dust as they disappeared between the trees. I saw Donovan there amongst them, his smile the last thing to go, hanging over the ground like a crescent moon.