She held the light away from him. Almost taunting. Jim wondered if the woman noticed the knife Xavier was holding, or if she was perhaps one of those special class of insane people who believe they are so important to the world that nothing can hurt them. Jim had met plenty of those in his life as well, and they all had one thing in common: they all bled as easily as anyone else.
"You're going to check the car?" she said. "You don't actually believe that there are dead people, do you?" She twirled the LED light in her hand, making shadows dance mad spirals in the car.
Jim could see that Xavier was about to crack. He edged back until he felt a row of plastic seats pressed against his legs. He noticed Olik's stance grow looser as well, as though the older man were preparing for mayhem. Everyone seemed to know the danger except the beautiful woman with the light.
"Listen, bitch –" began Xavier.
"Don't call me that," said the woman. Her voice slapped out, low but dangerous, reminiscent of the sound Olik's gun had made when he discharged it in the confines of the subway car. Then she smiled disarmingly. A genuine smile, full of warmth and perhaps just a hint of flirtation. "My name's Karen," she said, and then stepped past Xavier.
The move was so quick and graceful that the thug didn't have a chance to respond or do more than turn his head and track her with his eyes. She was ten feet from the front of the car before she turned back to him. "Coming?" she said, and actually batted her eyes coquettishly at him, as though this was all some kind of an elaborate prank for some basic cable show and she was the only person in on it.
Xavier's jaw clenched. Jim knew that Karen had to have seen it, had to have seen the deadly look in the gangster's eyes, but she just kept looking at him like she was waiting for a new beau to accompany her on a jaunt to the market. Finally, Xavier stepped forward. But he only took a few steps before he turned back and stared at Olik.
"What'd you see?"
"The dead, coming –"
"Yeah, yeah," said Xavier. He slashed the air with his knife. "That don't tell me shit, Grampa."
Olik crossed his arms across his barrel-chest. "I'm not a grandfather, boy."
Xavier looked like he was ready to start fighting at the word again, but Karen sighed. "When you two are done measuring your penises…." She jerked her head toward the front of the car. "This girl's getting like Alice in Wonderland up here."
"What's that mean?" Xavier demanded.
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Jim.
Karen nodded approvingly at him. "Someone's actually read a book."
Jim felt himself flush. "It's one of Maddie's favorites. My little girl," he said, aware that he was putting a wall between himself and the beautiful woman, also aware that doing so in such a purposeful and obvious way spoke volumes of how attracted he was to her. But it was the right thing to do.
Karen nodded again, and Jim suddenly had the strange impression that she could hear every thought in his head. He flushed; had to actively will himself not to look away from her.
"C'mon, cutie," Karen said to Xavier. The gangster smiled, a predatory expression reminiscent of the permanent grin of a great white shark. That was what the man was, too, Jim could tell. He was one of those hunters that endlessly circled the fringes of the city, one of those killers who understood that for them to rest was to die. Xavier's teeth were startlingly white against his dark skin, bright even in the darkness of the poorly-lit subway car. Not a warm smile, but the death-grin of a monster about to feed.
"Coming," he said, his voice suddenly and shockingly mellifluous.
That's what the spider sounds like in the instant it invites the fly to come on in, thought Jim. And he knew that Xavier had put his sights on Karen. Knew that the beautiful woman was as good as dead if the thug got half a chance.
But not now. Not when the two were in full view of the other people in the car. Xavier and Karen proceeded side by side like a force recon team, he holding his blade before him, she holding her light. They moved slowly, as though expecting something to explode out from below one of the plastic seats that lined the sides of the subway car.
Jim realized he was getting dizzy. He was holding his breath. He let it out, doing his best not to exhale too explosively. He breathed in again, and let himself sink down next to Adolfa. She curled her arm around his. He was glad for the contact, the comfort.
He looked at Olik. The man had his arms crossed, his face set like that of a statue. But he didn't look calm and composed the way he had when he first got onto the subway car. His expression before had been a lack of expression, a complete nothing. Now he looked like he was expending considerable energy making himself show nothing. And Jim knew that in itself showed much. Olik was frightened.
Jim moved his gaze beyond the Georgian. To Freddy the Perv, who hadn't moved from his crouch at the back of the subway. He was no longer trembling, no longer shaking. But he still looked terrified. He had finished his lollipop and was just working the stick around in his mouth until it had become a white, flattened mess. He licked his lips around the stick, and the gesture made Jim feel ill.
"Dammit."
Jim looked back to the front of the car. Xavier and Karen were at the door that separated this car from the next one, shining Karen's light at the glass. From where Jim sat, it looked like the glass has been painted black. That was impossible, of course: it seemed like much longer, but in reality only a few short moments had passed between his glimpsing what looked like a cabin full of dead people in the next car and this moment. Certainly it had been too short a time for someone to steal into the subway car and paint the glass between the cars black, even if such could have been done without them noticing it.
Still, he couldn't deny that was what it looked like. He could even see an almost-perfect reflection of Karen's flashlight in the glass, bouncing toward the back of the car as she angled it now this way, now that in an attempt to see what lay beyond the window. Both she and Xavier were moving around as well, the way a person does when trying to see through a screen door into a dimly-lit room in the middle of a bright summer day.
"Well?" called out Olik. His voice was flat. As though he didn't really expect them to see anything.
Xavier glared back at them. The way Karen's light bounced off the glass behind his face backlit him eerily, creating a strange skull of his features. The tattoos that curled up around his neck took on the appearance of mystical runes, curling snakes of dark magic. The tear-tattoos made him seem like a voodoo priest, weeping blood sacrifices for a dark god of death.
Then Xavier turned back to the door. There was a handle on the door, a handle that every New Yorker knew was for opening the door and moving car to car – just as every New Yorker knew it was illegal to do so. Indeed, there were several signs posted on and around the door warning of the illegality of moving between the subway cars while the train was in motion.
Xavier pushed at it, then pulled at it. He yanked and scuffled with it. Then he abandoned the handle and simply settled for slamming his shoulder into the door itself. The entire car swayed with the force of the blows, but no matter how hard the man hit it, the steel door itself didn't move.
"What do you see?" said Olik.
"Nothing," said Karen. She let her light point down at the same time, as though admitting defeat both vocally and physically. She eyed Xavier. "Easy, slugger."
Xavier slammed into the door one more time, then stopped. He punched the door beside the glass. "Won't open," he said. "The doors are always supposed to open." He hit the door again. "That's against the law."
"It's against the law to open it while the train's moving, too," said Karen, pointing at the signs.
Xavier rolled his eyes. He gave the handle a last jiggle. Jim noted that the gangster's knife had somehow disappeared into his coat. Like Olik, the gangster apparently belonged to a group of magicians who could make weapons disappear at will.
His thoughts were cut off when Karen came back toward them. Xavier followed her. Jim knew the
thug would have denied it, but he strongly suspected that he didn't want to be too far away from the light.
"There was nothing," said Karen.
"What you mean, nothing?" said Olik.
"I mean nothing nothing," said Karen. "Just black. Like we were in a hole."
"That's impossible." Freddy the Perv spoke up for the first time, his voice high and jittering, putting Jim on edge faster than the sound of a dentist's drill on enamel. He stepped toward the group. "There's gotta be something."
"You callin' her a liar?" said Xavier.
Freddy shrank back into the shadows in the rear of the car. "Nah," he said. His voice fell off to a whisper. "If you say there's nothing, then that's what there is."
"It's like someone covered the window," said Karen. "Nothing but black."
Olik looked at Xavier for confirmation. Xavier nodded. "True. Can't see shit."
"Nobody covered over window," said Olik.
"Not saying someone did," said Xavier. "Just saying that's what it looks like." He rubbed at his shoulder. "And I couldn't get through the door, either."
Olik grinned tightly. He had the same shark-grin as Xavier, Jim saw. He reached into his coat. "I have key to any door," he said, and withdrew his gun.
"It will not work, my Georgian friend," said Adolfa.
Olik looked at the old woman in surprise, and even Jim was a bit startled. Adolfa had been so quiet that he had almost forgotten she was there. But Olik's smile quickly returned. "Not many locks stand against this key," he said.
"I don't doubt it," she said. "But this one already has."
"What you mean?" said Olik.
"You shot twice," she said. "Two very good shots, nice and tight, through the window."
"Yes?" Olik's face scarcely moved. It remained a solid slab of white, with only a few wrinkles around his eyes betraying his confusion.
Adolfa waved toward the front of the train. "The window is black, yes?"
"Yeah," said Xavier.
"So this is not a question. The window is black, and that is fact," said Adolfa. "But what is a question is this: where did the bullet holes go?"
Karen swung her LED over, and everyone looked where she pointed it. None of them had noticed – none but Adolfa – but Jim saw she was right.
Olik had squeezed off two shots. Tightly grouped, expertly placed. Two slugs right through the glass window separating the cars.
The window that had been transparent but was now dark.
The window that had held two circles where the bullets had passed through it…
… but was now, inexplicably – impossibly – whole.
SIX
================
================
Olik laughed. It was one of the least-jolly sounds that Jim could ever remember hearing. Almost as cold as –
(the sound of the first hit, the argument just beginning and already we were fighting, already she was resorting to physical abuse)
– the whft of the suppressor as Olik fired another pair of shots through the window. Again they appeared as by magic, twin circles with snow-crackled edges illuminated by the swaying light Karen still held in the speeding subway car.
"There," said Olik. Karen's light swung back to the older man, illuminating his face as he kissed the handle of his gun. As he did so, Olik's coat opened enough that Jim could see a shoulder holster that held another gun, the twin of the one the Georgian man held.
Geez, thought Jim, who is this guy?
Then he felt Adolfa's arm, which had once again curled into the crook of his own, tighten. She hissed. It was a strange sound, one that he had never heard a grown woman make before but which he nonetheless instantly understood.
Danger, the noise said.
The others must have heard the same warning in the sound. Karen swung her light toward the old lady, but Adolfa waved the spear-beam away, pointing a crooked finger toward the front of the car.
Karen pointed her light at the door. The window.
"Your key did not work," said Adolfa.
Olik said something in Georgian, something short and sharp that sounded like it was nothing but consonants and could only be a prayer or a curse.
The window was whole again.
"Gotta be a trick of the light," said Xavier.
"Is no trick," said Olik. His face was whiter than ever, almost glowing in the dark car. "No trick."
"Bull," said Xavier. He walked forward.
Karen reached out and grabbed his coated arm when he passed her. "Don't," she said.
Xavier smiled, now looking more like a wolf than a shark. Something more inclined to mate before it fed. "Didn't know you cared," he said.
"You don't know what's there," Karen said.
"Never will if we don't check it out," he said. He shook free of her almost contemptuously.
Karen shook her head. Not angry, just resigned, like she was watching a rookie make a bad move in a ball game. "Smart money says just wait until we reach the next stop and figure it out then."
Xavier looked back at her, and this time there was no mistaking the contempt in his gaze. "Bitch, ain't gonna be a next stop." He pulled back his coat sleeve and showed her a watch. "Shoulda hit the 'next stop' ten minutes ago."
He moved forward again. "Don't know where we're goin', but wherever it is, it ain't on the transit maps."
SEVEN
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================
Jim did the same thing everyone else did: he checked his cell phone. No one – except Xavier – even had a watch anymore. Not even Adolfa, who seemed like the kind of person who might wear an old-fashioned wind-up, was wearing a timepiece. Just a variety of smartphones and flip-phones that had replaced single-function watches.
It took less than a second to verify what Xavier had said, then another second to glance up at the plastic boards bolted to the subway car here and there that stated what route this was. It wasn't an express, which meant they should have pulled in to their next stop by now.
Karen hummed a quick ditty under her breath that Jim realized was the theme to the old Twilight Zone show. For a moment he thought she was right, then he realized it was unlikely they had found themselves in anything as benign as Rod Serling's classic of strangeness. No, what was happening now was infinitely more bizarre, infinitely more… threatening.
Up front, Xavier was closing in on the door between subway cars, with its once-more-unmarred window. Karen had aimed her light at him, but with the rock of the subway car it was dancing around so much Xavier almost seemed like a ghost, flitting back and forth far too much with every movement he made. At first Jim thought the train must be speeding up, then he realized that Karen was scared. Her hand was shaking.
He looked at his cell phone. Stared at it dumbly for a moment, then laughed. The sound was over-bright, an unwelcome intruder in the darkness. He felt everyone's eyes on him. Even Xavier swiveled to face him, with an angry "What the –?" harsh on his lips.
Jim waved his phone. "The phones," he laughed.
"What?" Olik said.
"We can call someone," said Jim. Olik, Karen, and Xavier just stared at him like he had suddenly sprouted a second head – one that said exclusively stupid things. Only Adolfa seemed willing even to entertain the idea that something as simple as a phone call could get them out of this.
"Go ahead," she said.
But all of a sudden, Jim didn't want to be the one who called anyone. Didn't want to be the one who bore that responsibility. Plus –
(plus who would he call?)
– he had to admit to a suspicion, now that his thumb hovered over the dial numerals, that this wouldn't work. After all, if someone could purloin an entire subway train en route and then replace a bullet-riddled window not once but twice, who was he to think that a mere phone call would get them out of… whatever this was?
"You call," he said, and pushed his phone over to Adolfa.
The old lady looked askance at him, clearly unsur
e why he didn't make the call himself, but she took the phone. She seemed to consider a moment, then simply dialed "911" before pressing the "SEND" button.
Jim could feel the others in the train car, holding their breaths as one, looking at Adolfa as though she held their futures in her hand. Perhaps she did.
She put the phone to her ear. Listened. Frowned.
"Nothing," she said. "No bars."
"Not surprising," said Karen. "We're under a couple of hundred feet of steel and concrete, after all. Hardly the best place for cell reception."
"Not on this line," said Freddy.
"Shut up, man," said Xavier. Jim could tell that the thug felt the same instant revulsion at the mere sound of Freddy's voice that Jim did, and suddenly felt a strange kinship with the man.
"Let him talk," said Olik, and gestured Freddy forward.
The mousy man looked unsure, as though he didn't know whether he'd prefer to piss off Olik or Xavier, but finally he scampered toward the middle of the car. "This line has boosters," he said. "It's supposed to get cell reception."
"Bullshit," said Xavier.
Jim shook his head. "Boosters are for wifi, not for cell reception," he said.
Freddy's expression fell, but only for a moment. "So somebody got a tablet or a laptop?" he said.
Jim looked around. Finally Karen said, "I do," in a tone of voice that indicated she would almost rather be torn to bits by wild dogs than follow along with a scheme proposed by Freddy. Still she walked to where she had been sitting earlier, to the spot where her leather satchel still rested.
She opened it. Jim was a bit surprised that she had left it alone in the middle of the aisle in the first place, then realized she probably wasn't worried about anyone stealing it: where would they go? And there were only seven people total in the car, so if her bag did disappear, figuring out who took it wouldn't be too hard.
Plus, he noted, the bag had a pair of subtle but sturdy-looking combination locks.
Karen unlocked her bag and pulled out a small tablet computer. She shut and locked the bag again, then returned to the group. She pressed the power button and the tablet screen illuminated, showing a lock-screen. The woman keyed in four numbers.
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