"Something like that."
"But not that."
Olik shook his head. "No."
"Then what, exactly?" Jim looked around. "Since we're all in this together, like you said."
For a moment he wondered if he had gone too far, if he had pushed Olik's charade of familiarity beyond what the man was prepared to accept. Olik suddenly seemed to swell in his seat, as though he had miraculously pulled substance from the air itself to add to his mass.
This is it. I'm dead. Good-bye, girls.
Then the fight dissipated as fast as it came. The big man relaxed. He leaned back in his seat and kicked out a foot, his posture suddenly that of a man with nothing more to worry about than when to get the next beer out of the fridge.
"My commodities are a bit more… perishable… than gold and silver," he said.
"What does that mean?" Jim said.
Olik chuckled. Amused by Jim's inability to divine his meaning. "You are doctor. Smart man. You tell me."
Jim thought. Internet commodities, the man had said. Like gold and silver, but "more perishable." He had no idea.
Olik chuckled again, a deep rumble that turned into a painful cough. He curled around his mangled hand, still jammed into his coat. Jim wondered how long it would be before the guy needed a hospital.
"Cotton?" said Jim. It was the wrong answer, he knew that. No way was an internet cotton mogul wandering around the subway with a pair of silencer-equipped guns tucked into his jacket, ready to make mince-meat of anyone who got in his way. No, whatever Olik was into was something considerably uglier. Illegal. "Drugs?"
Olik was still coughing a bit, but he shook his head. He was smiling. The smile was starting to piss Jim off. Maybe he wasn't some super-criminal like this guy, but he wasn't a moron.
"Sex."
The word seemed to come out of nowhere. It slithered like a serpent out of the darkness, a single syllable that said so much with so little. Jim knew Karen had said it, but only because he hadn't, and it didn't seem like the kind of thing Adolfa would say to a bunch of strangers.
Olik looked at the woman with an admiring nod. "You are one bright kick-ass lawyer."
"You sell sex?" said Jim. "On the internet? Like call girls? An escort service?" His voice must have sounded his confusion to Olik. Another of those irritating seismic chuckles bounced out of the big man's chest.
"No, not escort service." Olik leaned toward Jim. In the darkness the big man's fevered eyes seemed to glint. Jim was reminded of the saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul. He wondered if he was glimpsing a very bright avenue in a particularly hot suburb of Hell. Probably. "I trade in people. Women. Girls. Boys. You have money to pay, I will ship you the goods. Willing and compliant, with all necessary," he coughed delicately, "pharmacological means to maintain compliance." His grin was beyond wolf-like now. It was rapacious. The smile of someone who profits off suffering, off broken families and loss of innocence… and who sleeps like a baby each night.
Jim felt sick to his stomach. "You call that being a businessman?"
"I call it being very rich businessman," said Olik. "Sex trade powers internet. No people looking at porn, no people like me. No people like me, no more of your precious emails and Googles."
Jim shook his head. "That's not how it works."
"Is exactly how it works." Olik looked relaxed. An expert in his domain. "Average person looking at internet is also looking at porn. Who supplies porn? People like me. And then when they are tired of porn, where do they turn? Also, people like me. Because supply always leads to more demand. I am merely filling a need."
Jim glanced at Adolfa. She looked disgusted, but he sensed she wasn't going to say anything. She was too fragile, too vulnerable. And she had pinned her hopes for the future on the strongest person in the car. At least for now.
He looked at Karen. "Doesn't this bother you?"
Karen looked at him like he was something she would hire someone to scrape off the back of her toilet. She didn't say anything.
Jim looked back at Olik. The big man was smirking. "You see? No one likes me. But most people…" and he motioned at Karen and Adolfa, "… they will recognize me as necessary evil, yes?"
"No," said Jim. But he said it without conviction. Like he only half-believed himself. Like maybe Olik was right. Maybe there was necessary evil in the world.
No. That was ridiculous. Jim had always tried to be a good guy. Maybe he wasn't perfect – who was? – but he didn't accept the idea of necessary evil.
Olik put a hand on Jim's knee. "You will come around," he said. "Everyone does eventually, yes?"
Jim didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say.
Olik stood. "Okay then: let us look for way out of this place. Before more monsters come for us, yes?"
Adolfa nodded and sprung – all-too-eagerly – to her feet. She didn't want the monsters to get her, that was clear. She wanted to get back to her grandchildren.
Jim stood, too. But slowly. And couldn't help thinking that by signing on to Olik's team he might actually be joining with the monsters.
THREE
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Olik didn't do anything magical: he just gave each of them a portion of the car to look at. But at the same time, it was an important change and it gave Jim – and, he sensed, the others – a sense of purpose and hope that had been lacking since the lights had gone out.
He wondered how long they had been on the train. Time had seemed to stretch out strangely. He couldn't be sure if it had been minutes or hours. Surely not more than that – he didn't have to go to the bathroom, so that was a pretty fair indicator that the time period was still short.
But good Lord, it felt like it had been forever.
He moved down his quarter of the car. He pulled at the upholstered seats, wondering if any of them might lift up to reveal a hidden compartment or anything else that might prove useful. They were all securely attached to their bases. The only thing he got when he did that was a handful of dust, as though the car hadn't been cleaned or used for months or years. That fit in with the overall feel of the car, which still looked like it had somehow come through some kind of time tunnel from the 1950s.
Jim thought about that. He wasn't a science fiction nerd. He had never been to a Star Trek convention, had never dressed up like a Storm Trooper or tried to impress a friend with a realistic lightsaber purchased via some geek website on the internet. But he knew some things. He knew about worm holes and parallel universes and string theory. Things you couldn't help but know in today's entertainment-saturated world.
Could they have fallen through a worm hole? Could they be in some alternate dimension? Some version of the world where the subway tunnel – and the train itself – just went on forever in a continuous loop?
He rejected the thought as soon as it came. For one thing, it didn't feel right. More important, he had no idea how they would get out of such a situation if that was the case. So he was going to abandon it as a dead end and consider other possibilities.
But what else was there? Alien abduction? Unlikely. Mass hysteria? Unheard of on this kind of level.
Drugs?
That merited some thought. Jim seemed to remember reading of some government experiments with hallucinogens that –
"How am I going to collect for any of this?"
Jim jerked around. He was almost at the center of the car, the spot where the side doors created a gap in the seats that lined the walls. Karen was on the opposite side of the gap, also looking for anything helpful in her part of the car. She looked frustrated, her tan face whiter than usual, her eyes seeming almost to glow in the lights that streaked by outside.
"What did you say?"
Karen didn't stop moving. She patted down seats, pulled on windows. All one-handed. The other hand was still gripping her satchel. That damn satchel, which was starting to annoy Jim beyond reason. He thought that, given half a chance, he would just con
k the woman over the head and take it from her.
"I didn't say anything."
"You did. You said –"
Now Karen stopped moving. She stood and stared at Jim. "No. I didn't. And they lied!"
Her eyes bored into his, and he fell back a pace.
She's losing it.
If they didn't get out of this place quickly, he thought it likely that they wouldn't have to wait for some external horror to come for them. They'd fall apart and rip each other to pieces.
Karen clicked the combination lock at the top of her satchel. It popped open. And as much as Jim had wanted to see what was in there only a few seconds ago, he now wanted just as badly to keep the bag shut. The way she held it, he felt like the opening of the bag was a barely veiled threat. He was in danger.
"Look at this!"
Jim swung around. Grateful for anything that might offer a chance to shift Karen's attention away from him. He saw Adolfa near the back of the car. Looking up at something.
"What is it, abuelita?" Olik hurried to her, still playing the part of the father figure, or the protective older son watching out for his beloved relative. He put a hand around her shoulder. "You find something, yes?"
Jim cast a last glance at Karen, then moved away as well. "What, Adolfa?"
Adolfa gestured to them all to hurry. Jim heard Karen's distinctive heel-less tread behind him. As soon as he reached Adolfa, she pointed at the small bit of wall above the windows, the space usually reserved for ads and for the subway maps. "Look here," she said.
Jim looked. It was barely visible, but he saw pretty much what he expected. "It's just a route map," he said. Though upon further inspection he saw that the map was one he didn't recognize. The colors of the routes were unfamiliar, and instead of the usual letters and numbers, strange symbols decorated the map. Nor did it end, really. It seemed to get fuzzy at the edges of the pane, like it was disintegrating, falling out of existence without actually ending. But whenever Jim tried to look closer at it, his eyes sort of slid away from it. Like there might be something there, but his brain was unwilling to let him look at it, loathe to let him comprehend it.
Adolfa shook her head. Hope animated her face. "Look closer."
Jim, Olik, and Karen leaned toward the map. Jim still didn't see anything. But Olik did. The big man chuffed like a surprised dog. "What are we missing?" asked Jim.
Olik's big finger reached up and tapped a spot on the map. "Ha!" he bellowed.
When the big man pulled his hand away, Jim saw what Adolfa had seen. Though most of the map was written in unfamiliar, almost runic, symbols, there was one spot that said clearly "FIRST STOP." And even better, it seemed like every single color line, every single route, ran through that spot at some point.
Olik grinned. "So there is first stop. We just have to make it there, yes?" He punched Jim on the shoulder, then squeezed Adolfa's arm. "Bien, abuelita. Muy bien."
"No, no," Adolfa waved off his praise, though she was grinning. "You only saw part." She pointed at an area of the map just to the left of where everyone had been looking. "Look."
Jim did. And this time he saw it. It was subtle, especially in the dark. But he saw it.
One of the colored route lines was dark red, perhaps purple. Hard to tell in the dim subway car. But it seemed to pulse in the streaking outside lights, like a living artery with dark blood still pumping through it.
And there, less than an inch away from the location marked FIRST STOP, was something else. A small dot, like a clot pushing against the walls of the artery.
And it was moving.
"What does that mean?" Karen's words had more emotion in them than they usually did. Interest, curiosity… and something else. Jim heard her proclaiming "And they lied!" and wondered how close to the edge of madness Karen might be dancing. Perhaps she had already fallen into that chasm, and was just reaching for the rest of them, hoping to drag them in with her.
"I think…." Adolfa gulped. She couldn't finish.
"It means we're going to get off!" Olik practically screamed it. He started to laugh. A moment later, so did Adolfa. Jim felt himself begin chuckling as well, and a moment later was clutching at his sides, full-bodied laughter gripping him and rocking him back and forth in waves that were almost debilitating in their strength.
We are mad. Gone crazy, insane over the possibility that a dot on the wall is us, that we might be coming to the end of this horrible trip.
But he couldn't stop. None of them could. And it was totally understandable. Horror and humor were two sides of the same coin. There was a reason why so many horror movies had funny scenes, and why so many comedies were really about quite horrific events. At their base, they were the same. Humor was just terror separated by distance or time; sometimes laughter was what you did when it wasn't socially acceptable to scream.
Only Karen didn't laugh. And that sent a chill down Jim's back.
("And they lied!")
What was her deal?
The train lurched. Not hard enough to send anyone stumbling forward, but enough that it registered.
"What was that?" asked Karen.
The answer was obvious an instant later.
"We're slowing down," Adolfa managed to say. Her laughter subsided, replaced by glee. "We're stopping."
"First Stop," said Jim, a grin as wide as the old lady's stretching his own face. It felt like he hadn't smiled in an eternity.
(and another thought – but if this is FIRST STOP then where is the next one and who gets off there? – broke through his laughter for an instant but he pushed it away with thoughts of Carolyn and Maddie and the smell of their skin and their arms in his)
Olik laughed so hard he started to cough. He had to pound at his own chest, bending double before he could stop. "Is all fine," he said. "All fine, yes?"
"So it would seem," said Jim.
Because it was fine. The lights were going by outside the windows, but they were the normal maintenance lights that Jim had seen on his daily commute for years. They weren't going by so fast they were nothing but laser-like streamers, either. They were just passing at normal, manageable speeds. And instead of hanging in what seemed like total blackness, Jim could see they were on the concrete walls and metal pipes that were typical of New York subway tunnels.
Adolfa leaned forward, bracing herself on the seats so she could look out the window, craning her head to see what lay ahead on the tracks.
Only Karen didn't seem happy. She clutched her satchel, which was still open a crack. Darkness inside the bag, blacker than anything in the train.
The darkness seemed to shake the mirth free of Jim's soul. Adolfa and Olik were still giggling, still laughing to themselves as they looked out the windows. But Jim didn't feel like laughing anymore. He felt… wrong. All this was wrong.
"This doesn't make any sense." A strange cloud seemed to have fallen over his mind. He felt muddled. Drugged. Hadn't he been thinking about drugs a little while ago? Hadn't he been wondering if maybe this was some government experiment on them? Maybe it was. Maybe. Maybe, maybe maybe maybemaybemaybemaybemaybe….
He shook his head. Focus.
"How did everything back there happen?" he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the door between this car and the last one, the one where Xavier had died. If he had died.
Then his motion froze. Because when he looked behind him he saw the door. But beyond it was only the darkness of the tunnel. No car. No trace of the car where Xavier had been mangled from within, no hint of the car beyond that one where Freddy the Perv had been flayed to a bloodstain.
As far as Jim could tell, they were once again in the last car on the tracks.
"Guys," he said.
Neither Olik nor Karen took any notice of him. Olik was pumping his good arm manically. His eyes were glassy, like he was only half-aware of what was going on around him. As for Karen, she was looking back and forth between Olik and Jim. Her gaze was the opposite of the big man's: hyper-aware and calculat
ing, as though she was performing a complex mental feat. She didn't look at Adolfa.
"Everyone!" shouted Adolfa, gesturing for the others to come to her window.
"This doesn't make any sense," Jim said to himself.
No one listened. Olik moved to the window the old lady stood at.
"Never thought I would say such a thing," chortled Olik, "but thank God for the New York pigs."
Jim was still shaking his head in confusion, but he felt himself moving as if on autopilot, joining Adolfa and Olik at the window. He peered out and could just see that they were coming up on a subway platform. And that there were flashing lights and groups of men that could only be cops there.
Karen finally joined them. Still clutching the leather case in her red-stained hands. Hands that had been dyed by the blood that flowed from her tablet computer, from the whispering faces of the dead that had appeared there when all this started, when this nightmare ride began.
Olik was still looking out the window. "God bless America and the NYPD, yes?"
"Yes, mi hijo, yes," said Adolfa.
"No."
The voice was quiet. Quiet, but it immediately stopped the mirth. There was a level of desperation in it that cut off the joy in the car as effectively as a machete slashing a throat.
Everyone at the window turned to look at the person who had spoken. Karen. She had backed away from the rest of them, moving into the center of the car –
(the middle car? the back car? which car is this?)
– where she now stood, still clutching her leather satchel. Her eyes were no longer calm, no longer collected. They were wild and fever-bright, lit from within by some strange fire that Jim fervently hoped never to understand.
"The cops are here, the cops are here," she said. Olik started to reach into his coat, no doubt going for his gun. "Don't," said Karen. One hand darted into her satchel, then the case fell at her feet like a discarded cocoon. Only what emerged was no butterfly ready to take flight. Instead her hand was clenched around a much deadlier insect – a small black bug with far too few legs and a deadly bite. An insect that Jim recognized from news reports showing terrorists and middle-eastern commandos as a micro-Uzi.
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