Darkbound 2014.06.12

by Michaelbrent Collings

  And now, as the drop of Olik's blood on the floor was joined by another, and then another, the zombies all turned their heads toward the slowly-closing door. They seemed to notice for the first time that they were not alone.

  "Close door!" shouted Olik, and his face grew bright red with the strain.

  "I'm trying, man!" screamed Xavier.

  Jim watched in horror as the teen-things, faces and bodies raw and bloody and maimed, opened their mouths as one. Their teeth, like their fingernails, were neglected and half-rotten. They had become splintered shadows of themselves, pointed shards that looked wickedly sharp.

  They screamed. The scream was like a single voice, a lone entity that spoke through many mouths. A beast that knew nothing of pain or fear or love or empathy. Only hunger. Only feeding.

  The ghouls shuffle-ran toward the door.

  And Jim knew – absolutely and certainly – that there was no way the door was going to be closed in time.

  The things – the things that didn't notice when their faces were torn off, when their arms were ripped from their bodies or when their guts yanked out – were going to get into the car with Jim and his fellow travelers. And the things were clearly very, very hungry.

  SIX

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  Jim felt like the blood in his veins had been replaced by quick-drying cement. He couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't so much as breathe. The sight of a horde of snarling, shuffling, snapping things that might once have been high school-age kids moving his way was almost too much for his mind to cope with.

  He wondered for an insane moment if he would have had the fight with Carolyn and Maddie if he had known the day was going to turn out this way.

  Thought of his girls snapped him out of his stupor. He wanted to see them again. To whisper sorry and I forgive you and I love you. To hold them and never let them go.

  He couldn't die here. He couldn't.

  Jim sprang forward. He thought he might lend a hand pulling on the door. Might add his strength and perhaps with his help the group could pull door shut and secure it before the horde fell upon them. But that was foolish. Only a moment before he hadn't moved to help because there hadn't been room, and that hadn't changed. Xavier, Olik, and Karen were pulling, screaming and shrieking with the effort. There was no room for Jim.

  So what was he going to do?

  Karen let go. She started to crawl away. Whimpering. And that was when Jim knew what he could do. "No you don't!" he shouted. He shoved her back into place.

  "We're not going to make it!" she shouted. She tried to pull away from him.

  Jim didn't think about anything but Carolyn and Maddie. Their faces hung before his eyes for an instant, and the next thing he knew, he was reaching into Olik's jacket. The big man grunted but couldn't stop pulling on the door, not even when Jim pulled one of the man's guns free of his shoulder holster and then ground it into the back of Karen's head. There was no time for them to change places; it had to be her. Her or they were all dead.

  "Pull, dammit!" he screamed.

  Karen shrieked in fear. But she kept pulling. The door closed, inch by inch. And the things beyond the door came toward them, foot by foot.

  It was going to be close.

  Jim saw the blood on the floor, the spots where Olik's cut had dripped. He thought of the things fighting over the grotesque remains of Freddy. Then he moved again, slamming his hand against the back of the nearest seat. He hit a hard ridge of plastic. The seam slashed through the back of his hand, and he felt a hot rush of pain as blood coursed from the cut.

  He took three steps back to Karen, Olik, and Xavier. "Duck!" he shouted to Xavier. Xavier did, and Jim pushed his hand between the gap between door and jamb. He flicked it, and droplets of dark blood flew into the rear car. They disappeared from sight almost immediately, but out of sight was not out of mind in this instance: the ghouls immediately lifted their noses like starved prisoners of war who have just smelled a three-course meal. They fell to their knees, snuffling and licking at every surface they could find.

  "Good, good!" shouted Olik, returning to his position and continuing to pull. The door was almost shut.

  Then one of the things, a ghoul that looked like it might once have been a redheaded girl of sixteen, suddenly threw itself toward them.

  It moved with more speed and alacrity than the others. Whether that was because she had gained strength from the feast of Freddy, or because of "natural" prowess, or some other reason, Jim couldn't say. But she was ten feet away one moment, and in the next, Olik was screaming.

  The scream was surprising, both in its suddenness and because it turned the man's voice from a deep bass to a high soprano. It might have been comical in other circumstances. Not here, though. Not now.

  The redhead grabbed Olik's hand, the one that was still on the outside of the subway door, and began chewing it. Like Freddy's coat, Jim could tell there was no intent to simply bite it for effect: the thing was resolutely attempting to eat Olik's flesh, to swallow it whole.

  Olik's scream rose, rose, rose. He fumbled with his other hand, reaching in his coat. Not finding what he wanted.

  Xavier stood, pulled out his knife. He reached around the door. Slammed the knife through the redheaded girl's eye. The eye seemed to pop, gray jelly and too-dark blood splatting down her cheek. Xavier grunted and pushed, and all six inches of the blade disappeared into the girl's head. Deep into her brain.

  It didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. She grunted. Bared her teeth, which were clamped around Olik's three smallest fingers and part of his wrist.

  And she kept chewing.

  Olik drew breath. Screamed again. Another scream joined his. It was Karen, shrieking but not letting go of the door, still pulling it shut.

  The rest of the things in the rear car started to stand. Apparently they had licked Jim's blood clean. They moved toward Olik, who was spurting the precious fluid now, his blood coating the floor between the cars.

  Olik was still fumbling in his coat, and finally managed to get at what he had been trying for. He pulled out his second gun and unloaded a flurry of shots at the redheaded ghoul. She jerked and shuddered as each slug entered her. Even in his distress Olik aimed precisely, placing the rounds in the ghoul's head and face. And Jim realized that the bullets must have been some kind of soft- or hollow-points, because each one seemed to take off half a pound of flesh as it passed through the ghoul's head. By the time Olik emptied his magazine it was nothing but jaws and hanging shards of skull and flesh.

  But the thing kept chewing. Gnawing. Eating.

  Xavier looked at the rest of the things heading at them and returned to pulling at the door. He looked at Jim. "Shoot him," he said.

  "What?" Jim said. Shook Olik? He felt numb. Overloaded again.

  "Shoot him, man!" screamed the gangster. "Shoot him and buy us some time."

  "No!" shouted Olik.

  Karen pulled at the door. Screaming wordlessly. Her eyes seemed blank, like she had checked out mentally.

  "Don't do it," shouted Olik, and put another shot through the shredded nub of bone and teeth that were all that remained of the ghoul outside the car door. He almost sobbed. "It won't let go."

  "Shoot him!" shouted Xavier.

  For a second, Jim couldn't figure out why Xavier was telling him to shoot Olik. He had almost forgotten that he was holding Olik's other gun. Then he looked down. At the gun. At Olik. At the horde. They were almost there.

  "Don't," whispered Olik. "I fix this." He dropped his gun. Empty. He held out his hand to Jim. "I fix this."

  "Shoot him!" screamed Xavier.

  Jim thought of Carolyn. Maddie. He only had a moment.

  SEVEN

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  Jim handed over the gun.

  It was part decision, and part preordination, a strange sense of fate that gripped him in that instant, as though no other choice were possibl
e or permitted. He felt like a puppet with strings kept tight, a thing of flesh but no will.

  So Jim handed Olik the gun, and the big man pushed it out the ever-shrinking crack of the doorway, and pointed it. Jim saw what he was doing through the thick glass window, and didn't have time to realize what the Georgian was doing before the man pointed the gun and inhaled sharply.

  Olik didn't point his gun at the ghoul that was still eating its way up his hand. And it made sense that he wouldn't: gunshots hadn't done much thus far. No, instead Olik pointed his gun at the point where the thing was doing the chewing. At the juncture between the monster's flesh and his own.

  Olik took a breath, and Jim had an instant to wonder at the other man's guts, at his insane bravery. He wondered if he would be able to do what was coming if he had been in the big man's place. If his survival instinct would be so strong.

  Olik pulled the trigger. There was a roar, and another of the man's high-pitched screams, and then he fell into the subway car, free at last from the teeth of the ghoul.

  Olik's left hand was a mass of blood and flesh that looked like it had been run through a meat grinder. Between the effects of his own bullet and the young ghoul's teeth, there was little left of it: pretty much just a thumb, one finger. The rest was just stringy bits of sinew and bone poking out of a ragged purse of skin.

  Jim took a step, thinking he might help with the man's injury. Olik shook his head, teeth gritted. He pointed at the door with his good hand. "Close it!" he shouted.

  Jim nodded, and took the spot Olik had vacated.

  As Olik had done, Jim had to grab onto the door with both hands, one on each side. His left hand tingled as it passed onto the side of the door where the ghouls fought and screeched and lapped at Olik's blood. He could feel the air of them, the fetid fumes coming off them in almost visible waves.

  But none of the zombie things seemed to notice him. Or rather, they noticed but didn't care. Not while there was blood at the ready. And there was plenty. Olik's blood seemed to be all over the inside of the door and the flooring between the cars. The ghouls crawled over and around themselves like human-shaped grubs, lapping at every drop of blood. Their sore-crusted skin was within easy reach of Jim, their snapping teeth within mere inches of his exposed hand.

  "Come on," said Xavier.

  The door continued to move. But slowly. Jim didn't know if it would finish closing before the things finished licking up the last dregs of Olik's blood. And when that happened… then what? Would they stand silently? Would they remain calm and simply wait until blood flowed again?

  Somehow he doubted it.

  As if in answer to his unspoken question, some of the child-fiends – the ones that were farthest from him, the ones who had no access to Olik's blood, or who had already lapped up what blood they could reach – started to hiss and spit and bite at one another. The horde started to roil, to become a teeming mass of violence.

  The door was almost closed.

  The nearest ghouls reached for him. With fingers, with teeth. Jim could almost feel their jaws clamping on his hand.

  "Pull, dammit!" He didn't know who screamed, if it was him or Xavier or Karen. It didn't matter.

  A finger touched his. A caress that was soft, so soft it was almost obscene, like the touch of a lover come to call, the first tentative kiss of a long-absent sweetheart. "Let me in," the touch said. "Let me in and you will know… delight."

  Jim screamed in revulsion and fear and – worst of all – in a kind of long-buried yearning. As though part of him hoped for death at the soft touch of the creatures on the other side of the door.

  He pulled. The door inched toward the metal jamb.

  And then suddenly the door was closed enough that he was able to switch his grip so that both hands were on the inside of the door. He didn't think he'd ever been more grateful of anything in his life.

  Dead gray fingers started to reach around the door. Then hands, grasping, clutching.

  Xavier and Karen had also switched their holds, pushing with their full combined strength on the door, forcing it shut. Now Xavier let go of the door with one hand long enough to hack at the intruding hands and fingers with his knife. Some of the hands withdrew. Some of the fingers he cut off, and they remained on the inside of the car, crawling like sightless grubs, mindless worms that still carried an impossible hunger within them.

  The door shut. Xavier pulled off his belt one-handed and used it to lash the door to the nearest seat supports.

  Jim didn't let go. He knew he'd have to at some point, but he didn't trust that this was over. It couldn't be over.

  He looked through the window.

  The things were there. Standing just beyond the glass. No longer fighting, no longer attacking one another. They simply stood with their pus-ridden bodies, their scarred skin and their dead eyes and lank hair.

  And they stared.

  Waiting.

  Jim looked back at Olik. Adolfa had moved up at some point and was now helping the big man bind up what was left of his hand. It looked like she was using a ripped piece of her skirt.

  Xavier let go of the door. Gingerly at first, clearly waiting to see if his belt would hold the door shut, then stepping away with what looked almost like defiance.

  "I think it's gonna hold 'em," he said. Then he yelped as he stepped on one of the still-squirming fingers he had cut off with his knife. He kicked it away, disgust rippling across his face.

  Jim heard something. A sound he hadn't heard much of before this night, but one that was so distinctive that he would never forget it.

  A gun being cocked.

  He turned and saw Olik, holding his gun. Pointing it at Xavier.

  "You told him to kill me," said Olik. His bass tones were back. His face had always been white, but rage and loss of blood had turned it to a shade that was almost blinding, even in the near-darkness of the subway car.

  Jim's stomach crawled, because whether the door held or not, he realized anew that the monsters in the car behind were not the only ones he had to worry about. There were other monsters in the car right here with him.

  He wondered if he would ever live through this. If he would ever see his girls again.

  And suddenly he was possessed by a feeling so strong it was more like a premonition, a prophecy, a sure knowledge. A conviction that the fight he had had with Carolyn and Maddie would be the last he ever saw of them.

  EIGHT

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  Jim had watched both Olik and Xavier move. Under normal circumstances, he thought Olik was the more dangerous person. That suspicion was born out by the fact that Xavier had seemed – for whatever reason – to defer to the big Georgian, and Jim suspected that Xavier wasn't the type to defer to anyone he didn't fear.

  But this was hardly a normal circumstance. Olik was down, badly wounded and almost certainly in shock. Jim didn't know if Xavier analyzed those variables. Probably not. The gangster probably saw the weapon and simply reacted. But regardless of whether the gangbanger's move was calculated or instinctive, it was effective.

  Xavier threw himself to the side. Olik managed a pair of quick shots, but both went wide. Another sign of the bigger man's incapacitation: the fact that he missed, a far cry from the perfect groupings of shots he had been able to squeeze off earlier.

  Jim noticed this only peripherally. Primarily he was involved in his own survival. He dove for what cover there was, hunching down and throwing his hands over his head in the classic "Please-God-save-me-I'm-screwed" position. He saw Karen doing the same, then lost sight of most of what was happening around them as he buried his face in his hands. Another shot cracked out, and a bullet zinged off metal somewhere nearby. Then there was only the sound of scuffles, the noise of close-quarters survival: heavy breathing, thuds, grunts.

  Jim looked up after a moment, the need to know what was happening overcoming his animal desire to hide. He saw Xavier on top of Olik, the gangster wrestling with
both hands to keep the bigger man from pointing his gun at him. Then Xavier twisted and brought his elbow sharply around, cracking it into Olik's cheek.

  The Georgian barely seemed to notice the hit, but it did distract him long enough for Xavier to hammer his knee down on Olik's mangled hand. That Olik noticed. He screamed, and lost control of the gun. Xavier tore it away from him. Hit the bigger man with it. Again, Olik seemed barely to notice.

  Xavier hit him again. And again.

  The third time, Olik's body seemed to accept the fact that it was being pistol-whipped into submission. The big man finally started to lose consciousness, his eyes rolling back in his head. He kept struggling, but the fight oozed almost visibly out of him.

  Jim wondered if he should help. Wondered who he should help.

  But then it was too late. Xavier hit Olik one more time and the Georgian's eyes closed.

  Xavier stood, fist clenched around Olik's gun. He was breathing like an ox in heat, his cheeks slick with perspiration. "What the hell's wrong with you?" he screamed, and kicked Olik's unmoving form viciously in the side. Olik moaned but didn't regain consciousness.

  Xavier looked around, and Jim shrank from the man's gaze. The gangbanger looked like he had taken a bad drug trip, like the fight with the ghouls and then with Olik had been the straw that broke the back of his sanity. He pointed the gun at each of the remaining passengers in a hand that trembled enough for Jim to fear the man might accidentally discharge the weapon, but not so much that he thought Xavier might miss if he decided to shoot someone purposefully.

  "What's wrong with all of you?" he spat. "You," he said, pointing at Adolfa. "You, what've you done to help, Gramma-cita? Other than run away and be a pain in my ass?" He swiveled to point the gun at Jim. "And you, you white-ass, sniveling pussy. Only thing you been good for is to close that door there. Other than that, you done nothing. Nothing!"