Furnace Two by Oliver Swift
My eyes snap open. Total darkness. I blink, once, twice. It has no effect. It is still pitch black and I can’t see a damn thing. I realise I am laying on my back. I try to turn my head, first left then right, but I can’t. I physically can’t. My head is stuck in place like a huge, immovable rock. I try to lift my arms and legs, but they won’t budge either. My fingers don’t wiggle. I speak and no sound erupts from my mouth, not even a soft whisper. Nothing. My throat is a desert. My head starts spinning faster than a ballet dancer performing a sequence of pirouettes and I focus every ounce of my mental strength on stopping the immense feeling of nausea and eventually my mind clears. Who am I? Where am I? To my surprise the answers come quickly. My name is Nick White, I am thirty-three years old and the manager of the Blue Moon Hotel on Haywood Road in Warwick.
A kind of vinegary smell fills my nostrils. The smell is close by and to me it is beautiful, it reminds me of happier times, but my heart then drops as I realise it can only mean one thing. The smell is wood. Oak, to be precise. I know that because I was a carpenter cutting and shaping any kind of wood you can imagine for five days a week, every week, from when I was sixteen and barely out of school to the age of twenty-two. I worked in the family business, basically as an apprentice under my father (my mother was the secretary and bookkeeper). They taught me a lot, not just about carpentry but about life as well. I loved the job, despite it being hard work at times. When I sawed the wood in the wrong place or messed up some of the measurements and got all downhearted and annoyed, Dad would simply stare unblinkingly at me with his brilliant blue eyes and say “Don’t worry Nick, try again. Keep going and don’t give up.” When Dad passed and then Mum twelve months later, I found I couldn’t stomach carrying on in the trade. Staying on without them was like walking through a forest at midnight without a torch. I couldn’t do it alone. It felt fundamentally wrong and that’s why I moved into the hospitality business, to get away from it all. I started off as a waiter in the Blue Moon’s restaurant and worked my way up. Oh God, I know where I am. I scream and nothing happens.
I’m inside a coffin.
I start to panic, and my breathing intensifies. I could do with a cigarette, that would calm me down. I smoke a pack a day. Mum and Dad used to as well. Lung cancer did for both of them. It’s an awful habit I know, but one I just can’t kick. I bet the smoking has got something to do with me ending up in here. I must be believed dead, of course no one puts a living person inside a coffin! But how did I supposedly die? I try to think, try to remember. I desperately search my mind, nonetheless it has gone completely blank. Where exactly is the coffin? Am I in the local undertaker’s or six feet under? I have no way of knowing. I visualize the coffin. The wood is dark and cold. It is silky, as smooth as ice on a frozen lake. The coffin is nailed shut and the nails are brand spanking new, putting to bed any chance I have of pushing the lid open even if I wasn’t almost paralyzed. I’m going to have to get out soon; I have no clue how long I’ve been in here and how long I’ve got until the air runs out. For all I know I could only have a minute left to live. My breathing accelerates and I have to force myself to slow it back down. I forget I can’t see anything and my eyes dart around my prison like a kid who’s sat on an ant’s nest, looking for the tiniest crack in the coffin’s amour. It is futile of course. I imagine myself running out of oxygen, gasping to take another breath into my fading lungs as the air vanishes around me. Please, oh please, don’t let me run out of air!
Then comes the sound of voices. So, I’m not deep in the soil of the Warwick cemetery after all. I must be at the undertaker’s and these people must work here. Maybe they will realize there’s a living person in a coffin and get me out of here. Don’t be stupid. That’s not likely. My body is completely stuck, like a mouse in a trap. The voices are slightly muffled through the thick wood; however, I can make them out all the same. The first is the clipped intonation of an older man. “Come on Harry, put the stretcher against the altar and we’ll get him on.” I hear the squeak of metal wheels on polished linoleum and the coffin moves as I am hauled onto the stretcher.
The second man sounds younger, probably not much older than a teenager. “Alright Jim, I’ll grab the side and we’ll get him down to the furnaces.”
WHAT! THE FURNACES! What do they mean? What is happening? A chilling realization dawns over me, as I recall what is written in my will. I am due to be cremated.
I can feel whatever color left in my face suddenly drain away. I’m probably paler than Count Dracula. White by name and now very abnormally white by nature. I thought suffocation was bad enough. Now I am going to be burned alive in a crematorium oven. I am going to be writhing and pulsing in agony as the scorching flames engulf my body. Being burned alive will be painful. Extremely painful. I read somewhere that being burned alive is the worst type of physical pain a human can experience and somewhere else that crematorium furnaces can reach temperatures of around one thousand degrees Celsius. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, for allegedly being a witch and some of the victims at Auschwitz were forced into ovens during the war. It must be unbearable. Also, a friend of mine, Scott, is a chef. I remember he told me that one time he was taking a boiling tray of food and cooking oil out of the oven when it slipped out his hands and he dropped it on himself. He ended up with third-degree burns on his chest and all the way down his legs and the skin on those areas was a raw pink for months afterwards. Although his life was never in any danger, the pain was agonizing, and he said that what really frightened him about the whole ordeal was the smell of his own flesh cooking underneath his clothes.
But Scott’s pain is naught to what I’ll feel. I will be roasted in an oven like a Christmas turkey. Except this turkey will still be alive and breathing. Soon I’ll be nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not just my body, but my memories, my life, my everything. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I have never been so terrified. HELP ME, I shout, but I only shout inside my head. I again attempt to shuffle around inside my tomb, but nothing gives. I am glued to the floor of the coffin. I sense Jim and Harry push the coffin forwards and then hear the pitter-patter of their leather shoes as we begin to move.
“Which furnace are we taking him to?” asks Jim.
“Two I think,” answers Harry. “Yeah furnace two.”
“Shame about this bloke, he was too young to kick the bucket,” says Jim.
“Yeah he was only a couple years older than me and I’m not ready to die yet.”
“I don’t think anyone ever is.”
“What got him?”
“Heart attack.”
Jim’s words are the catalyst. It’s funny, I’m surprised that’s all it takes for me to remember, but words are powerful. They just have an effect on people I suppose. It happened when I was at work. I should be too young for a heart attack. The smoking is what caused it, of that I’m sure. I think my work had a hand in it too though. Sure, I like my job and the pay is pretty good, but it’s really stressful. The hours are long, there are a lot of night shifts, and I have to deal with all the shit that is part and parcel of being the manager in fairly large hotel like the Blue Moon. It’s so tiring. I haven’t slept well since I got promoted to manager and that was two years ago. I think I’ve got insomnia. I get the hours in but it’s not the good, dreamy sort of sleep that you need to be able to function properly. I bolt up at the slightest sound and am always half-awake at night. I suppose all of it put together equaled me having a heart attack.
It’s Wednesday evening. I pull into the large car park of the Blue Moon Hotel and put my Audi at the end of the row, in between the curb and a transit van (at the Blue Moon, the staff park alongside the customers.) On the radio Lewis Capaldi is singing “Someone You Loved.” I switch off the ignition and clamber out of the car. It is early July, but the concrete is damp and the air redolent of wet grass. I walk towards the main entrance. The hotel is modern and five floors tall, black windows contrasting strongly with the white brick. I glance up at the logo above the door- a dark blue crescent moon and step inside. Jackie, a small ginger woman in her early sixties, is on the desk. “Hiya Jackie you alright?” I say.
“Hi Nick, I’m fine thank you, but you won’t be when I give you the bad news,” she replies.
“Shoot.”
“There’s water leaking into the bathroom of room 202 from the ceiling.”
“Brilliant. How bad is it?”
“Not too bad fortunately. It’s just dripping at the moment. Elsa found it when she was replacing the toiletries.”
“At least a guest didn’t see it.” That would have been bad. The Blue Moon’s slogan is a good night’s sleep is our priority and nobody could have a good kip with that drip-drip-drip sound of water dropping into the bathtub all night. They would think the Blue Moon Hotel is some sort of crumbling, unhygienic dive. And it’s not. The Blue Moon has three stars so it’s a decent place. I want people to enjoy their stay with us. Room 202 is on the first floor. “I’ll go up there now and have a look, see if I can do anything before I ring the plumber.”
“Okay thanks Nick,” says Jackie.
I climb the stairs up to the first floor. It is hard. I don’t normally feel out of breath walking up a flight of stairs. Just as I reach the first floor landing it happens. A crushing tsunami of pain suddenly hits me square in the chest. It feels as if a giant has me inside the fist of his massive hand and is caving my chest in. I bend forwards, placing my hands on my knees. I am trying to stop myself from falling over. The seismic pain in my upper body spreads all the way down my left arm and turns it into a dead weight. Then the same happens with my right. My hands lose their grip on my legs and I can feel myself collapsing forwards. I hit the carpet with a soft thud and then everything goes black.
So, I’m guessing whoever found me couldn’t resuscitate me. Maybe it was Jackie or one of the other staff. Maybe it was a guest. The person that did would have had a nasty shock, imagine walking up a flight of stairs and finding a body when you get to the top. The coffin isn’t moving anymore, I must be either inside or very close to the dreaded furnace two. I am absolutely petrified. Please, I can’t die like this, trapped and alone. But I am going to die. I am going to be burned alive. There is no escape from my wooden tomb. No way for anyone to hear me and get me out. I think of Joan of Arc again, hands tied to a stake behind her back, the smoke and flames billowing around her. How at least she got to die outside, in the open, where she could hear the birds sing and see the clouds drift across the sky one last time. I beg that I will be saved, however unlikely that may be.
Then Jim speaks, “Okay go.”
I can feel the coffin being lifted, and then on its descent there is an almighty bump, jolting my paralyzed body around.
“Oh fuck,” yells Harry.
“We better see if it’s damaged,” sighs Jim.
“Sorry it just sorta slipped out of my hands”
“It’s alright, there aren’t any dents in it. It’s going up in flames in a minute so it doesn’t matter anyway, but just try to be more careful next time.”
“Yeah I will be.”
I must be just outside furnace two, about to go in. I want to shriek at the top of my voice, “YOU’VE PUT A LIVING PERSON IN A COFFIN AND YOU’RE GOING TO SET HIM ON FIRE!” I still can’t shout aloud, nevertheless something is happening. A tingling feeling runs through my body, like pins and needles, from the tips of my toes right to the top of my head. I guess Harry dropping the coffin is what’s done it. I hear a grating noise and feel a huge blast of blistering heat even through the wood of my tomb. It’s the furnace door being opened. The coffin starts to roll forwards. I’m going inside furnace two. I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! It’s now or never. I attempt to lift my arms. Nothing happens. The coffin keeps going. I remember what dad used to say to me when I screwed up. Try again and don’t give up. I squeeze my body and my muscles contract. I start to shake. I’m moving! Fight until it’s over. Don’t ever give up. With all my might I push my body upwards. My head lifts up and keeps going, climbing towards the outside, desperate to be set free. I hit the roof of the coffin with a bruising thump and see stars.
“What was that?” says Harry.
“Stop the conveyor belt and close the door,” Jim answers shakily. Harry must have pressed a button because the coffin suddenly stops. I can sense the fear in the two men standing outside my wooden prison. There is a deafening silence as they try to decide what to do.
“Jim, it sounded like the guy inside there moved.”
“He must still be alive.”
“No, he can’t be, surely. How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. Quick Harry go to the storage room and get a hammer; we need to get the nails out so we can open it up.”
Harry scarpers away to go and find a hammer, his footsteps like gunshots. Jim knocks on the coffin and says, “Don’t worry Mr. White we’re going to get you out of here.”
“Thank you,” I reply, barely audibly. I find my voice has returned, albeit in something croaky and even less than a whisper. I doubt Jim can hear me.
This is a miracle! They know I’m alive! I’m going to be rescued. A wave of relief washes over me. I was so close to an agonizing death, perhaps no more than half a meter. Another ten seconds and I would have been cooked in a fire from hell.
Harry returns. “I’ve got the hammer.”
“Okay let’s get the nails out,” says Jim.
I hear them loosening the nails in each of the four corners and then the coffin lid is withdrawn. After being stuck in total darkness for so long, the light is blinding. My eyes adjust to brightness and I can see the two men standing over me, staring intently in disbelief. They could be dead themselves; they are so pale. I guess you would be in utter shock when a routine cremation turns abruptly into something more. They were only centimeters away from setting a living man on fire. They had been so close to killing me, and not just killing me, but doing it in the most excruciating way conceivable. Jim is obviously the older man with the long, white hair, while the guy who must be Harry is freckled and has thick, curly hair. It would be the cruelest of ironies if Jim and Harry looked at me, decided I was dead and then put me inside furnace two to burn as planned, so I blink to let them know I am indeed very much alive.
“Oh my God,” says Harry breathlessly.
—
Oliver Swift is a young writer. He lives in the rural East Midlands.
