by L. D. King
“Stan, I love you,” said Rosie, “But not on your life am I going to be first. I’ll be back here with my girls, in the back. You and Mike can hold hands if you need to. I’ll be back here with Jennifer and Mary.”
“Fine, Rosie, as long as we can get going. We’re running out of time to play laser tag before we eat.”
Mary was getting tired of all waiting around. She looked at Stan. She put one hand on her hip, and pointed directly to Stan with the other.
“Stan, I’m getting sick of all the talking. If we’re going, then let’s get on with it. If not, then I’m going back to my room. How about it?”
“Okay, you’re right. We’re pissing around not doing anything. Come on, let’s go. Don’t get close to the third rail. It’s that one over on the other side of the track. It might still be charged. If it is, and you touch it, you’ll be dead, just like that. So keep away from it. With all the time we’ve wasted, we might not even have time for laser tag. All we might get to do is eat.”
“Oh, my, Stan, that will just crush me — not!” said Rosie. “I think us girls are only going for the food. If you can’t play laser tag, oh well, too bad, so sad. You guys have been talking long enough. Let’s go eat. And I don’t want to walk back after our dinner. I want to take a cab. I’m not walking back through this tunnel again. It gives me the creeps.”
Jerry was standing there waiting to see if anyone was going to take charge and get everyone going. He was getting a tired of waiting around as well. Rubbing his fingers through his stubbly crew cut, he spoke up with authority: “All right, you girls win. You can follow whoever you want. We’ve wasted too much time standing around. No more. I’m tired of this. We start moving now. Stan, you have the lead.”
“Jerry, I don’t have a full charge so my phone,” said Mike. “If we don’t get going now, my phone is gonna be dead before we get out of this tunnel. I doubt if your phones have too much of a charge either. When our phones die, we’ll be walking in the dark. I for one do not wanna be here in the dark. I’m with Mary. This place is creepy.”
“Good idea, Mike. Let’s move.”
They had walked about 200 feet into the subway tunnel when Mike came to a quick stop, with Jennifer next to him. Jerry was following so close behind that he nearly ran into Mike. Stan was in the front, and had walked another few steps before he stopped as well.
Mike was standing still, cupping his hands over his ears as he listened. What he had heard was not an ordinary sound. He whispered to the others in case whatever was making that sound could hear them as well.
“Stan, do you hear anything? It sounds like something’s scraping or grunting or growling or something out there in front of us.”
Stan stopped. He turned to face the others. “Mike, you know my hearing isn’t the best. Do any of the rest of you hear anything?”
Rosie was holding her nose. She said, “I don’t know about the sound, but whatever it is it stinks like a sewer. Does anyone else notice that this place smells? The further we walk the worse it smells. It smells worse than the tourists. Do all subway tunnels smell like this?”
Everyone was quiet, trying to hear the faint sounds that Mike was talking about. They could also smell the nauseating stink in the tunnel. As Stan was standing facing back toward the group, he whispered, “Guys, I don’t like the smell. I’ve been in a lot of subway tunnels, but I’ve never smelled anything like this. I don’t know what the sounds are. I’ve never heard those before, either. Either way, we need to get moving so we don’t miss laser tag before we eat.”
Stan turned to start forward again. By this time Rosie was really scared. She called out to him from the rear of the group. “Stan, wait… I want to walk next to you. I’m scared. Okay, baby?”
“Sure, Rosie, I’ll wait. Come on up here with me.”
As Stan waited for Rosie, the sounds got a little louder. Rosie was practically babbling with fright. “Stan, this is the darkest part of this damn tunnel. There are more lights broken than there are working, and my flashlight app doesn’t work worth a damn. Wait for me, please.”
Stan stood waiting for Rosie to catch up with him. Rosie was only a few steps away when she saw something reaching out of the shadows toward Stan. She stopped, frozen in place, and screamed.
“Stan, look out! Something’s behind you. It’s gonna grab you! Move!”
But it was too late for Stan. The thing was a creature like none of them had ever seen before. It grabbed Stan around his neck with the claw at the end of its mutated arm. The creature’s other arm was missing the skin and flesh from the elbow down to the clawed hand, which was wrapped around Stan’s waist, pulling him back into the shadows, to its chest. With a quick, single movement, it pulled both of its arms across Stan’s neck and belly, gutting him like a toddler might pop a balloon. The creature let Stan fall to the floor, kneeling next to him to rip into him one more time.
Rosie, screamed as she ran to Stan’s lifeless body, her hands balled into fists. She fell to her knees next to the creature, beating on it with her fists. Her long black hair was falling across her face. As the creature was ripping into Stan’s body, it was flinging great gouts of his blood everywhere, including on Rosie. She was being drenched from head to toe with Stan’s blood. Her screams echoed through the tunnel.
“Damn you! You can’t have my boyfriend! You can’t have him, damn it! You can’t have him!”
Beating on the creature with her fists to save Stan — pointless, as Stan was already dead — the shadowy creature knocked Rosie onto her back with a single swing of its arm. Once on her back with one quick swing of its claws, it tore her open from chest to belly. Rosie took her last breath sprawled on her back between the subway rails.
Stan’s lifeless body lay on the ground, his intestines pouring out around him. One lung had been exposed when his ribs were ripped away. Rosie lay dead next to him, torn to shreds by the creature’s claws. Her belly and chest gaped open. The contents of her savaged body spilled onto the ground and mixed with Stan’s. Blood was everywhere.
The other four friends stood, staring through unblinking eyes their mouths hanging open, unable to speak a single word. This was supposed to be an end-of-summer fling. Now they had just watched their friends die right in front of them. This wasn’t supposed to happen to teenagers on vacation. Not in Manhattan. Not anywhere.
Mary’s body was locked in fear. Her feet felt like they were encased in lead. Her brown eyes were wide open, staring at the bodies of their two friends. Her fingers were twisted into her auburn hair. Her mouth was hanging open, but no words came out. She tried to speak or shout or scream, but she could not. She stood like that for what seemed like minutes. But it was only seconds; five? Ten? Twenty?
As Mary finally caught her breath, she realized she was shouting at Jerry.
“Jerry, what is this? They can’t be dead! This isn’t supposed to happen to us — we’re here to have fun! They can’t die. Not them, not anyone of us should die.”
Jerry pulled Mary close to him. With his arms wrapped around her, he held her close, trying to comfort her. He held her tightly so she wouldn’t fall to the ground.
“It’s all right, Mary. I’m here. I’ve got you. Oh, my god, that thing shredded them. I don’t know what it is. I’ve never seen anything like it, ever. We need to get back to the platform, now!”
Mike had fallen to his knees, his mouth hanging open. His eyes staring forward, unblinking. Jennifer was stiff, frozen by what she had just witnessed behind Mike. Her blue eyes were sharply focused on her dead friends. Her hands were resting on Mike’s shoulders. She was trembling, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Finally, Mike broke out of the fear that gripped him. Mike grabbed Jen’s hands. She looked at him with her eyes were full of tears. Her long, blonde hair spilled over both of their faces. With Mike looking at her, all of her feelings rose up inside of her. She screamed at Mike, “Oh my God! Look at them! Their insides are pouring out. It’s just mixing together
on the ground. We have to help them. We can’t leave them like this. They need our help.”
Mike took a deep breath. With tears in his eyes, he spoke to her. “Look at them, Jennifer. They’re all ripped open. They’re dead. There’s nothing that we can do to help them. We need to get the hell out of this damn tunnel. I don’t know what those things are, but they just killed our friends, and if we stay here, they will kill us. This shit is fucking crazy! We need to get out of this damn tunnel. Grab Mary and Jerry. We need to run as fast as we can back to the platform. Now.”
Mike grabbed Jennifer by the arm and started to run back towards the platform that they had come from. Mike looked at Jerry and saw that he was doing the same for Mary. Jerry shouted, “Run! Run now! Come on, everyone, run! Those goddamn creatures are starting to follow us! If we don’t get the hell out of this tunnel, we’ll be the next to die!”
As they ran, the thoughts and images of the horrible, savage death of their friends cascaded through their minds. Why didn’t they take a cab? Why did they have to take this shortcut? They couldn’t shake the thought that teenagers are not supposed to die. Not like this.
The four of them that were left desperately wanted this nightmare to end. They wanted to go back to before their friends were killed. They literally ran for their lives.
As Mike was running, pulling Jennifer along with him, the lower platform was coming into view. He shouted, “There’s the platform! Come on! Don’t stop! Run! They’re behind us!”
Mike was the first one up the steps to the platform. He pulled Jen up the narrow stairs and pointed to a section of the wall that had a working light. He pushed Jennifer in that direction. Mike waited for Jerry and helped him and Mary up the steps. After they were all on the platform, they huddled under the one working light, catching their breath. The girls were doing much better. The run helped shake the numbing fear out of their minds. After a few minutes, Mike could see the first creatures stumbling down the tunnel towards them. He shouted, “They’re coming! We need to move… Go up the stairs to the ticket platform, and from there we can get to the street. It’ll be safe there!”
They ran up the dozen steps to the ticket platform and stopped again to look around. Jen slumped against the back wall, crying uncontrollably. Mary knelt next to her with tears in her eyes. She looked up at Jerry.
“Jerry?” said Mary. “Why did they have to die? They weren’t hurting anyone. Why, Jerry? Why did they have to die?”
Jerry was kneeling next to Mary, holding her close to him, while still keeping an eye out down the stairs. He knew the creatures would still be after them; he just didn’t know how far away they were or how far into the light they would dare to come.
“Come on girls,” Jerry said. “You need to get it together. There’ll be time to cry later. We need to get out of this station right now. Mike, are you all right? Is everything good with you? We need to get up to the street as soon as we can. It’ll be safer up there. Come on, let’s get moving.”
Mike was helping Jennifer to her feet. He looked around for the creatures that had killed their friends. He looked up the stairs to see if it was clear that way as well. He said to Jerry, “I’m good, and Jen’s ready to go. Come on, let’s get out of this hellhole.”
Like Mike, Jerry was looking around, checking the tunnel in both directions. He knew that the creatures must be close behind them. Neither of the boys knew if there were other creatures down here with them, elsewhere in the tunnel. They looked like their heads were on swivels, their eyes looking for danger everywhere; the stairs up to the street, however, looked safe, as far as they could see.
“Okay, I know this is probably not the best time to bring this up,” Mike said, “but we have to talk about this sometime, and now is as good as ever. We just watched two of our friends brutally slaughtered back there. There’s no guarantee that this is a one-time event, or even that it was a random act of violence. We found the creatures down here, or better put, they found us. The chance that there are more of them is very good. I hope I’m wrong, but right now we can’t take a chance that there aren’t more of those things around. We’ve already seen three or four. There might be a whole swarm of them down here with us. We all need to keep in mind that there might be many, many more.”
“I’m scared!” said Jennifer.
“Come on,” Mike continued. “Let’s get out of this place. We need to be up on the street, where it should be safer. It’s more likely we could find help up there.”
Jerry and Mary, walking hand in hand, started up the last set of stairs to the street. Jennifer followed, with Mike bringing up the rear.
They talked as they were climbing the last set of stairs. Mike asked, “Does anyone have any idea what the hell those things were?”
“I’ve never seen anything like them before,” said Jerry. “In all of my ROTC training, I was never told about anything like them, ever. In all the books that I have read or TV shows I’ve watched, there’s never been anything like what we just saw. They stand upright like a human, but humans don’t have claws for fingers or fangs for teeth. Your guess is as good as mine right now. All I know for sure is they are vicious and very effective killers, but they don’t move as fast as a human does. Rather than walk, they shuffle or lurch as they move. They seem to have some kind of spasms running through their bodies.”
“Did you see how fast they killed Stan and Rosie?” asked Mike. I don’t ever want to run into those things again.”
“I know,” said Jerry.
Mary said, “Did you notice they had tattered clothes on? All torn up, and just hanging on them. Animals don’t wear clothes. What the hell are they?”
“I know,” said Jerry, “But their clothes were torn to hell. But yeah, they had clothes on.”
“Jerry, what’s going on?” said Jennifer. “This can’t be real, can it?”
“Jen, I can’t tell you what they are or where they came from, or if there are any more of them. Right now all I want to do is get back to our room where we can rest. From there we can figure out what we should do. All I know right now is I want to get out of this city.”
They were just two or three steps from street level; nearly there. They felt like they would be safe soon, and this whole ordeal would be over. From the street, they would go to their rooms, get their bags and go home. Everything would be better once they got home. They knew it would.
Little did they know was that the street was not going to be safe for them. They would not be able to get home. Not now. Maybe not ever. Their nightmare had just begun. The deaths of their friends marked the start of their troubles. Before this would be over, they would see many more people die. It could be months, if not years, perhaps even decades before this would end — if it would end at all.
Tomorrow they would start back home.
Tomorrow they would be running.
Every tomorrow for the rest of their lives they would be running.
Today they did not know how bad it was going to get.
With any luck, they might stay alive to witness the world die.
Chapter 2
Mazatlan, Mexico
It was early on Friday morning, August 15, 2036, while it was still dark, that he first heard the screams. No one in their home who heard it knew what was happening outside. Those who were awakened by the screams lay in their beds, hoping it was only a bad dream.
When they heard the first screams, they looked at their bedside clocks and realized that it was still two hours until the time they would normally get up to start their work day.
The family owned a tourist booth on a nearby dock right where the cruise ships docked. Cruise ships came to Mazatlan three days a week during the summer cruise season. This provided the main source of income for most of the families which operated booths on the pier.
They had three hours to get ready before today’s cruise ship would dock. Their goal was to be set up and ready to hawk their souvenirs to the tourists disembarking from the ship. They didn
’t want to miss a single opportunity while the pier was full of tourists with their fists full of money to spend. They had never missed meeting a ship.
It was about 2:30 AM when 39-year old Gumercindo Ortega was awakened by the screams. He lay on his bed listening, wondering what was happening. He didn’t move. He lay staring at the ceiling so he would not wake his wife, Esperana, a year younger than he.
Lying there, he had a sinking feeling about the day’s prospects. After some time, just before it was time for their alarm clock to go off, he reached over to his wife, gently shaking her in order to wake her.
Esperana opened her eyes and looked at her husband, smiling. Gumercindo wished that he was as sound a sleeper as she was. Once he got to sleep, it didn’t take much to wake him.
He smiled back at his wife, telling her good morning. He got up, used the bathroom and got dressed quickly. He went to their son’s bedroom. Maurico was 20 years old. Gumercindo lightly knocked on his door. Maurico called to him: “Good morning, Father. I’m awake. I’ll be ready for breakfast soon.”
Gumercindo continued down the short hallway. Their middle child, Lucinda, was eleven. After knocking, he called through the door, “Lucinda, it’s time to get up. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”
“I am awake, Father,” she answered him. “I have been since the screams started last night. Is everything all right? I was scared!”
“I don’t know. All I heard was the screams. No gunshots, nothing. If we keep to ourselves, we should be fine.”
The last bedroom door belonged to the family’s oldest daughter, Annalicia, age 14. Gumercindo knocked on her door, telling her it was time to get up. She answered, “Father, I’m awake. The people screaming outside have kept me awake. I will be down for breakfast soon. Thank you, Father.”
