Smith Escape from Furnace 4: Fugitives

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-25987-8
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

The gripping fourth instalment in an epic series about Furnace - a terrifying, underground prison for teenagers - now with a stunning new cover. Alex thought that escape was impossible. He was wrong. We broke out of Furnace but we're still not free. The city is in lockdown - roads sealed, police everywhere. And there are worse things here: creatures of death sent to bring the world to its knees. I'm turning into one of them, into a monster. To put an end to this blood-crazed madness I have to travel into the heart of darkness. I have to find Alfred Furnace before he finds me. Soon the whole world will be a prison. Action-packed, gritty and gruesome - this is the perfect read for thrill-hungry teens. With striking new covers that really bring these chilling stories to life.

Alexander Gordon Smith is the author of the Escape from Furnace series, as well as The Inventors (shortlisted for the Wow Factor competition) and The Inventors and the City of Stolen Souls. He has also written a number of non-fiction books, as well as hundreds of articles for various magazines. He is the founder of Egg Box Publishing, an independent press that promotes talented new writers and poets. He co-owns a production company, Fear Driven Films. He lives in Norwich.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Alexander Gordon

Leseproben

Daybreak

The huge main doors of Edwards Mall were still shuttered so we walked further down the street and turned left at the next junction, walking along the side of the mall until we came to the loading-bay entranceways. They opened up into nothing but darkness, and the way they sloped tunnel-like beneath the ground made my skin crawl.

‘Déjà vu, anyone?’ Zee said with a nervous laugh.

‘Come on, it’s just a mall,’ I replied, leading the way. My silver eyes penetrated the shadows as though I was holding a flashlight, peeling away layers of gloom to reveal an empty service road that curled down and to the left. If we carried straight on we’d get to the car park, but we swung round the bend to find ourselves in an enormous underground loading dock. I let my eyes drift up to see three sets of double doors in the far wall. It was then that I noticed the blinking red lights studded into the ceiling.

‘We’re being watched,’ I said, pointing. ‘Security cameras.’

‘Forget them,’ Simon said, making his way cautiously towards the doors. He reached the low wall of one of the bays and began to haul himself up. ‘They’re just recording; won’t nobody see that footage till we’re long gone.’

As if to prove his point he flicked his middle finger at the ceiling, waving it around for a second before crouching down and offering Zee his hand. Zee took it, letting himself be pulled up. I followed with a graceless leap, my muscles crying out as they propelled me onto the platform. Simon made his way to the nearest door, pressing gently on its handle.

‘It won’t be—’ was as far as I got before the door clicked open, flooding the bay with light. Simon turned and flashed me a lopsided smile.

‘My brother used to work in a mall, over by Carlton,’ he said. ‘We’d sneak in sometimes after dark. Same thing everywhere – shops are all locked, front and back, but the access areas are always open.’ He pushed through. ‘Great for playing manhunt.’

Beyond was a wide corridor of breeze block and concrete, lined with metal doors and lit by just about the brightest bulbs in existence. I had to squint as we jogged along it.

‘Computer games?’ Simon said, reading the names of the shops stencilled on the back of the doors. ‘Nope. How about some books? Yeah, right. Alex, you remember if there was a department store in here?’

There had been. Another vivid memory flashed up – a vast shop occupying one corner of the mall, filled with just about every item imaginable. My parents had let me spend ten minutes in the toy department each time they visited, but they had rarely bought me anything. I let myself get lost in the past, realising with sadness that I could picture every inch of that toyshop – the stuffed bears around the till, the magic sets stacked on the shelf opposite the elevator, the vast tree they always put up on the top floor every Christmas – but I couldn’t remember what my parents looked like. In my head they were faceless mannequins that stood in the corner of my vision, moving every time I moved so I could never see them clearly.

‘Yo, Alex!’ said Simon, giving me a gentle tap on the shoulder. The memory flew, but left behind a dull throb of heartache. ‘You still with us? Department store? Remember?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah there is one. No idea where, though, sorry. Coming in this way, everything’s all back to front.’

Simon muttered something and carried on, the doors flashing past us on either side – furniture, phones, music and DVDs, underwear, pharmaceuticals, sweets. It was five minutes later, so deep into the warren of passageways that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to navigate my way back, that we reached a double door marked ‘Harvey’s’.

‘That’s it!’ I blurted. ‘Harvey’s, like the rabbit.’

Simon stopped and began to run his fingers along the edge of the right-hand door, eventually pulling free a thick cable. He peeled it away from the wall, splinters of paint fluttering earthwards.

‘This won’t take a second,’ he said, frowning in concentration. He used a long fingernail to split the insulation lengthways, then he clamped one of the wires in his broken teeth and bit down.

‘Whoa!’ said Zee. ‘You crazy?’

Simon shook his head, chowing down on the wire like a rabid dog until it finally surrendered. He carefully folded the split ends away from each other then let it fall back against the wall.

‘Stand back,’ he said. We did as we were told, and Simon threw himself at the doors. They were strong, and with a wheeze he rebounded onto his backside. Zee’s laughter tinkled down the corridor, the sound like wind chimes. Simon clambered to his feet and looked at me. ‘You wanna do the honours?’

I tensed my upper body and ran at the doors, hitting them square in the middle. With a squeal that sounded almost human, the lock sprang and both sides flapped open. I stumbled forward into shadow, skidding across the smooth floor and almost losing my balance. By the time I turned round Zee and Simon had followed me in and closed the doors behind them. Simon slapped the wall a few times before hitting a bank of switches, flipping them all. Gradually the lights blinked to life, revealing another narrow corridor, this one lined with clothes rails, stacked pallets and various loose ends. Limbless store dummies eyeballed us.

‘How’d you know how to get in?’ asked Zee, collapsing onto a shrink-wrapped sofa. He lifted his foot and I noticed it was bare aside from a covering of blood. Paper shoes weren’t much use on the outside. I flexed my toes inside the boots the warden had given me, happy that I hadn’t thrown them on the fire the same way I’d thrown my black suit.

‘Piece of piss,’ Simon replied. ‘Done it countless times. I weren’t no angel on the outside, remember?’ He looked at me knowingly. ‘Hell, none of us was, right?’

‘Right,’ I replied. ‘Come on.’

I made my way to the end of the corridor, past a stockroom which was too similar to the ones in Furnace for my liking. I peered inside, half expecting a rat to bound from the darkness and lock its teeth into my throat, and I turned away before I could think the creature into existence.

‘Oh God, I’m not getting in that,’ came Zee’s voice. I followed his line of sight to the elevator at the end of the hallway, the doors open as if inviting us in. It was about the same size as the one in Furnace, not the main lift but the smaller one that linked the bottom of general population to the blood-drenched tunnels below. I was with Zee on this one. I had no desire ever to ride in an elevator again. I just wouldn’t trust it not to carry us to the bowels of hell.

Fortunately there was another door beside it, the round glass panel revealing a staircase beyond. We bounded through and started upwards. Every step felt like my last. I could have happily curled up right there and then on the cold concrete and slept for a thousand years. I could barely even remember the last time I had rested, an age ago in a bed deep beneath the surface. I had just completed the warden’s test, he had welcomed me into his family and called me his son. And I had slept better than I had ever done in my life.

The thought sent a chill scurrying up my spine and I forced it from my mind. I’d have all the time in the world to sleep when we were out of the city. Right now I had to stay sharp. But still tiredness gripped me like a funeral shroud, numbing my body and my mind, making the world seem dreamlike. And behind the exhaustion something else, a feeling that I was hollow, empty. It was almost like hunger, but deeper, as though it came from the very core of my being, as though my soul was starving.

I realised my thoughts were bordering on delusional, tried to switch them off in order to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. We climbed three flights before coming to a door, and Zee pushed it open.

‘Women’s clothing,’ he said. ‘Anybody fancy it?’

Simon nudged his way past Zee and through the door, holding it open for us. I staggered in to see that the store was alive, the lights on, the elevators running and the gentle buzz of mall music giving the scene a surreal atmosphere. I shrank back, half expecting to see shoppers milling about between the racks of clothing, then realised that Simon must have switched everything on when we first arrived. There was no sign of a clock anywhere and I had no idea what the time was, but given that the sun had barely risen, we probably still had a few hours before the mall opened for business.

Not that it would be opening today, I thought, given the fact that the entire neighbourhood was crawling with escaped convicts and armed police.

‘Come on,’ said Simon, setting off across the shop floor. Harvey’s was huge, each level a seemingly endless expanse broken up by various displays and till points. Simon made his way towards the nearest escalator, where a directory listed the various departments. He pressed an oversized finger against ‘Menswear’.

‘Let’s get some kit first,’ he said, hopping onto the moving steps.

‘I don’t know, but I think this might be the best thing for you, Alex.’ I turned to see Zee holding up a pair of huge blue maternity dungarees covered with friendly-faced sunflowers. He pressed them up against me and murmured approvingly. ‘They’re probably the only thing in here that will fit you. And besides, the denim really brings out the colour of your bruises.’

I brushed them away with a half-hearted...