"Don't suppose either of you know how to cook?" Donovan asked, lifting one of the crates from the floor and dumping it down onto the counter beside the stove. With a tug he broke the crisscrossed strings that kept the vile contents inside. We both shook our heads. I could just about manage toast and cheese at home, but even then I tended to burn the bread.
"Well, it isn't exactly cordon bleu," he went on, making Zee snigger. "Grab one of those pots and put it on the burner."
I looked beneath the counter to see rows of giant pots, each resembling a witch's cauldron. It took both me and Zee to heft it onto the burner. Donovan grabbed a massive bottle of oil and poured about half of it into the pot, then he opened up a panel on the side of the stove and reached inside. I heard something pop gently, followed by the hiss of gas.
"Grab one of those safety lighters," he said, nodding to one of three long, thin lighters chained to the other side of the oven. Zee lifted it and held it beneath the pot, pressing the button to produce a pathetic flame. I noticed the pungent smell of gas hanging in the air and took a step back. "Gotta get this right or the whole prison will go kaboom," Donovan went on, fiddling with the gas supply inside. "Hold it closer."
"What, and lose my fingers? I don't think so," Zee retorted. But he inched the flame closer to the burner until, with a roar and a splutter, the gas ignited.
"And we have liftoff," said Donovan, getting to his feet. I glanced through the panel and saw three or four vast canisters of gas inside, bolted securely to the wall. Donovan wasn't kidding-if one of them were to explode then we'd all resemble the meat in those crates, only barbecued.
Donovan began pulling handfuls of leftover food from the crate and dropping them into a sink embedded in the counter beside the stove. He motioned for us to do the same, and after pulling on the uncomfortable rubber gloves Zee and I lifted a couple of crates and began chucking slops into the sink, trying to ignore the smell of rot and decay. When Donovan's crate was empty he threw it to the floor, picked up a stick, and began prodding the disgusting mixture down the drain.
"Stand back," he said, reaching across the counter and punching a switch. A sound not unlike a chain saw in mud rose up from the sink and the slop slowly began to disappear.
"Is that a garbage disposal?" I asked, speaking over a series of gargles and wheezes from the spinning blades down the drain.
"Nope, this is Furnace's patented flavor mixer," he replied, ramming the stick down the drain to clear a blockage. "Guaranteed to blend ingredients in just the right order to produce a scrumptious meal."
We forced a couple more crates of food into the sink, watching as it was sucked into the hole. Donovan even risked a carton of meat, holding it upside down until the flesh inside gave in to gravity and plummeted earthward like so much pink porridge. I thought I glimpsed a number of pale forms wriggling their way free of the rotting guts, but I put it down to my imagination. Surely even this place wouldn't feed us maggots.
Donovan switched off the machine and opened a door in the counter. Beneath the sink was a huge bucket, practically overflowing with the brown goo that dripped from the pipe above. Grunting, he picked it up and tipped it into the cauldron. There was a brutal hiss as the gunge met the boiling oil.
"Another couple of bucket loads and you'll have made your first batch of trough slop," he said as he repositioned the bucket. "Leave it to boil for an hour or so until it loses all taste and color, add in some filler and salt, and bingo, perfection on a plate."
"Doesn't seem so bad," I heard Zee mutter.
"Well, let's see if you're still saying that when you've made your thirtieth pot of the day," Donovan answered. "Got a lot of bellies to fill in here."
Like everything in Furnace, slopwork was a dirty and draining duty, but being with Donovan and Zee made it feel a lot less like a chore. We chatted and joked as we processed the stinking crates, filling each other in on our histories, our likes and dislikes, our proudest moments and most embarrassing memories. I doubt any of us were really telling the whole truth-I know my boasts about captaining the school soccer team and getting a story published in Sci-Fi Monthly were a far cry from reality-but the simple act of bragging about ourselves and remembering a lost world took some of the crushing weight from our chests, let us breathe a little easier.
"That's one thing I really wish I'd done before I came here," Donovan said when the topic of conversation eventually came around to food. "I'd do anything to know how to cook a decent meal."
"With you there," I replied. "Never even thought twice about cooking. Mom and Dad did it all."
"I used to bake a few cakes and things with my gran," Zee added. "But I wouldn't have a clue how to start that now. Never really paid attention, just did what I was told."
"Yeah," Donovan went on as if he hadn't heard us. "What I wouldn't give to be able to rustle up some meatballs and pasta, a bacon cheeseburger, a little sausage casserole."
We all licked our lips and nodded, lost in the memory of good food.
"I used to cook," came a voice from behind us. I swung around to see Monty standing at our backs, holding his mop and staring at the remaining crates. His voice was soft and distant, and when he carried on speaking, his shining eyes never left the floor. "Me and my sister made up our own recipes. Garden-gnome spaghetti. We had a vegetable patch in our back garden and it was guarded by this gnome. We had to try to dig up what we needed without him spotting us, otherwise we had to do the dishes after dinner."
It was the most I'd ever heard him say, and after his outburst the other morning I was shocked to see this side of him. All three of us stood in silence, letting him speak.
"Susan always got to do the chopping because she was older than me. But I stirred the pots. That was the important job, stirring. Too little and it burned, too much and it didn't cook properly."
Abruptly he let his mop fall to the ground and leaned over the crates. Rummaging through one he selected a few bruised peppers and held them out. Nobody moved, staring at the faded vegetables in his hands like they were a monster turd. We stood like that, a bizarre tableau, until Monty raised his head and studied us.
"I was never much good at anything, outside," he said. "But I could always cook." He shook the hand holding the peppers and I stepped forward to take them from him. He rooted through another couple of crates, selecting things that hadn't deteriorated too badly in the heat, and we took them, placing them on the counter. Finally, he poked tentatively through a crate of meat until he found what looked like a brown steak. Walking to the counter, he studied his ingredients. Then, before our astonished eyes, he began to cook.
There were no knives or cutlery of any kind in the kitchen, so he hacked at the meat with the edge of a tray until it lay in rough cubes on the surface. He gave me and Zee instructions to heat up another pot, which we did with enthusiastic giggles while Donovan crushed some overripe tomatoes in a bowl.
It was amazing watching Monty work. Where practically every action had been clumsy and graceless until now, his plump fingers moved like lightning over the food, blending, mixing, seasoning, and shaking with expert skill until he'd turned the disparate ingredients into something actually resembling food. With a little flourish, performed with nervous embarrassment, he tipped the bowl into the second pan and slapped his hands together. Almost immediately the smell of simmering vegetables and meat rose from the cauldron, so good I started dribbling.