by Welker, Wick
Wait, no, I'm here, and I need to just look around. I need to see what's happening. But what happened? Then he thought of Dave and thought that he was dead and all the rest flooded in on him; Janice's severed arm, leaping on top of hundreds of diseased people and the army shooting pellets in the streets. He opened his eyes, felt an exquisite stabbing in his neck and hip, and heard the wailing of a single woman in the distance. In one final conscious effort, he realized that the train had crashed. He woke up, felt the two cigarettes in his pocket, and saw the dim yellow lights of the rail outside of a glassless window. He turned his head to look at the faint silhouettes of bodies around him, and a jolt of pain climbed up his neck into his head. This time, he really did wriggle his toes and was thankful that at least his legs would work.
“Hello?” Keith spoke softly in the darkness and almost convinced himself that there was complete silence, but then he realized there was a soft churning sound in the distance.
“Hello? Is everyone okay?” He closed his eyes when no one amongst the dozen of bodies around him had replied or moved. No one was okay. Realizing he was lying on a man's chest, he got to his feet and grabbed hold of a vertical railing in front of him. The side of his hip stung, and he felt moisture seeping through his pants. Reaching down, he tried putting his hand into his pocket but stopped when it made the stinging in his hip escalate even more. Feeling with his fingers, he realized that a pen from within his pocket had stabbed upward into his hip and was still under his skin, pinning the fabric of the pocket to his hip. Gripping it tightly, he yanked it out and lowered his belt so it lay directly on top of the wound to stop the bleeding.
Through the faint light he could make out that almost all the windows in the cabin had been shattered, and he stepped over a body to get closer to one of them. He bent down to the person below him to listen for breathing. When he couldn't hear anything, he placed his index finger on the person’s upper lip to feel air but nothing came. More dead people, he thought. He felt like it was the major theme of the day so the shock had little effect. At least they weren't getting up to kill him. He never thought he would feel relieved to be around a dead person. Okay, time to go, time to go. Time to remove yourself from the dank subway catacombs of New York somehow.
He placed his foot in between two silent bodies on a bench and winced from the pain in his hip but felt like it wasn't enough to slow him. Using his other foot, he kicked out the remaining shards of glass in the window frame, steadied his weight and dropped down onto the soft, unknown ground of the subway tracks. Looking down the direction the train had come, revealed nothing but little yellow lights converging into one point of space. The other end showed several cars of the train turned sideways on the track from the crash. Apparently, not all the trains were fleeing the city; there must have been a stopped train, and the driver was going too fast to slow down, he thought. Damned idiot, he's killed us.
He felt grateful for the dim lights that were going to hide the scenes of carnage that awaited him from the crash as he started his journey in the direction to the front of the train. He had no time to marvel at his own survival. He only had time to walk without thinking, so he did. The pain in his hip made him walk uneven with one foot staying on the ground longer than the other to bear most of the weight.
A sound behind him made him freeze: a low muffled sound like a snort. He turned his head to listen but it went away. One step later, it came back a little louder, a long snoring sound. No, no, they're not down here, no, they can't be down here, he thought. His thoughts ran in his head trying to dissuade him from the possibility of the sick coming after him. They couldn't have made it this far. I'm safe and I’m out of the city. Then a voice shot out into the silence, “Hey, hello? Is someone there?” Keith had forgotten the possibility that he might not be the only survivor of the crash.
“Yes, yes, are you badly hurt?” He shouted into the air.
“No, I don't know. I don't think...” The voice was coming from the train car just behind him. “I'm bleeding, but I don't know from where. I think I'm in shock. I'm in shock.”
“Can you wiggle your toes?”
“Uh... yes.”
Keith waddled over to the train and peered in. There was a silhouette of a head moving. “Good, then that probably means your legs work. Try to get up.” He could see the man's head bobbing up and down, struggling to find a good foot holding amongst all the bodies on the floor. After a few moments, he could see that the man had made it to his feet. “Alright, great, looks like you're okay.”
“Yeah, I think I am, but there's blood everywhere. The floor is sticky with it.”
“It's probably not yours. Look, try to jump out here, but be careful, there's probably glass everywhere.”
“Yeah, yeah okay.” The man made it to the edge of the car and Keith could faintly make out his face. He had a massive neck with wide cheeks and a broad, shaved head. Keith was trying to read his countenance, but in the dim light, he couldn't make out what the man really looked like. He could tell the man was probing Keith's face, trying to guess him as well.
“Did the train crash?”
“Yes, I think so; I can see a bunch of the train cars up ahead that have derailed. I think we were lucky being towards the back.”
“I'm not surprised. The driver wasn't stopping at all. Just cruising along like the damn Titanic. Alright, buddy, I'm jumping out of this coffin.” Keith backed up and the man jumped down and stood in front of him. “Hey, thanks for stopping, man, I really appreciate it.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Are you hurt, because I don't think I have a scratch on me.”
Keith was startled at the man's nonchalant attitude after just surviving a massive train wreck. “You seem very calm, that's good.”
“So you're not hurt?”
“Uh, no, no just a little. Actually, a pen in my pocket stabbed me a little, but it’s okay, the bleeding stopped. I may have gotten a little whiplash but I'll be okay.”
“We need some light here. Do you think there might be flares or something in the train? Or maybe there are emergency boxes in the tunnels.” The man flipped out his phone and tried dialing. “You getting any service?”
“No, well, I don't have my phone.”
“Well, wouldn't matter anyway, I'm getting nothing.” He walked up to another train car down the line and looked in. “This isn't looking good.” He stood on his tiptoes and pulled himself up to the window. “Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Anybody... okay?” Complete silence was his only answer. “I think we should start walking down by each car and yelling into them, see if anyone's alive.”
They began to shuffle down a corridor that had been formed by the train and the side of the tunnel. Keith saw a rectangular hump protruding from the wall, and when he got closer, he saw “Emergency” stenciled into the front of a yellow plastic box. Feeling with his hands, he produced rectangular reflectors and thin cylindrical rods that he hoped were flares. “Hey, I think I've got something here, flares maybe.” The man came over to him, took one of the rods and hit the end of it, producing a bright shoot of pink light. “Hallelujah.”
He walked over to a train car window and peered in. He saw bodies and heads, some not associated with each other. “Oh... these people are hurt bad.” He looked towards the front of the cabin of the train and could see that most of the people had been crunched together when the train crashed. They had all slammed into each other from the force of the impact, which had claimed some limbs, and heads of the passengers.
He couldn't see a single person moving in the bright pink sparkles of the flare. He turned to Keith. “No one in this one is alive.”
“Are you sure? Should we get in there and look?”
“I'm pretty sure. If you don't believe me, I invite you to take a look, which I don't think you want to do. That was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I didn't know people could ever look like that.”
Keith could see the horror in the man’s face illumin
ated by the flare like a man telling ghost stories around a campfire.
“The best thing that we can do for any of the survivors is to get to the ground level and get paramedics and fireman down here.”
Keith looked down towards the crash site, at the overturned cars in the distance and sighed. “You're right; we can't search all of these on our own. How many train cars do you think there are?”
“I don't know. They usually have about twenty, don't they?”
“Let's find out.”
They began to walk down the grime of the subway tracks, the flare slowly dimmed and then made a slight popping sound as it extinguished. Keith could see the man turn to him, “Better save the rest of the flares.” He paused and looked down as he walked, “Hey so what’s your name? Normally, I wouldn't ask but I have a feeling me and you are going to remember each other’s names after this day.”
“Keith.”
“I'm Dean Walters.”
“Dean, it's nice to talk to someone who doesn't want to eat me.”
Dean immediately erupted into laughter, which filled the tunnel and startled Keith. Keith didn't say anything; only readjusted his belt over the wound in his hip.
They approached the first train that was turned sideways off the track. “Hello, hello? Can anybody hear me?” Dean yelled out towards the train cars in front of them. The silence offered a resounding, “No.” Keith feared that the casualties were probably worse towards the point of impact and they wouldn't find anybody alive. He began to wonder about end-of-world scenarios and started to remember the lingering feelings of a doomed apocalypse that he had felt at church when he was a child. What had transpired in the last five hours was the closest thing he had ever seen to the world actually ending.
They continued past more cars and could finally see movement ahead of them, towards the site of the crash. There was the unmistakable glow of dancing light from a fire up ahead and Keith thought he could see shadowy movements.
“Hey, there are people up there. Maybe someone has already got the paramedics down here.” As they approached, Keith could see small fires around shards of metal and puddles of mechanical fluids seeping around the tracks. He saw shadows of people moving around on the walls and ceiling of the tunnel.
Dean popped another flare so the people could see the light of their approach. They walked around a car that was completely upside down with its front end torn open with bodies spilling out from it. Gaping mouths and disfigured necks stared up at them from the ground. Keith looked at them and then looked ahead at gigantic blasted shards of metal sidings, plastic benches and other bodies strewn around all the tracks of the tunnel. This portion of the train was what had taken most of the impact, ripping the cars apart and throwing the passengers in every direction. The flickering pink light of the flare gave the entire scene a cheesy horror ride feeling to Keith, as if all the bodies were going to get up any second, wipe the ketchup from their foreheads, and go home for the day.
The impact had pushed several train cars in a circular pattern creating a crater of debris with no easy passage through for them to continue forward. Every time they approached a space in between two train cars to pass, they quickly saw that metal, fire, or bodies obstructed it. After several minutes of crossing the entire span of the crash, trying to find a way through, they stopped and stared at each other.
Dean looked up at the top of a train car in front of them, “We have to go over. I'll boost you on top and you can lift me up.”
Keith looked up, “Yeah, I think you're right.”
As soon as Keith was on top, he reached down and lifted Dean up who dropped the lighted flare as he climbed the side of the train. “Shit, lost the light.” On top of the train, they looked out over to the other side which was bathed in darkness. “I'll drop back down and get the flare. It’s too damn dark down there.” As soon as he sat with his legs dangling to drop down, the flare on the ground went out. “Whup, never mind. Do you have any more?”
“No, there were only two in that box. Wait, wait, shhh...” Keith looked out into the darkness below and could hear the soft churning sound from before a little louder now. “People are down there. I can hear them.”
“What? I don't hear any… oh yeah, I think people are moving around. They’re hurt.” Dean stood on top of the train. “Hey, whoever can hear me, my name is Dean and I'm with another survivor. We are going to make our way to the street and get help immediately, so just hang on a little bit longer. Everything is going to be okay.” He paused and waited for someone to respond. He turned to Keith in the darkness, “Okay buddy, I'm going to let myself down and I'll help you down too. Let's just make sure to keep talking to each other so we know where we are. Damn, it's dark.”
Keith heard a soft grunt from Dean as he landed on the damp ground. “Okay, just sit on the roof of the train and put down your foot, and I'll help guide you down.” Keith did as instructed, could feel Dean’s hand wrap around his shoe, and supported his weight as he let himself down from the train.
“Hey, you know what? I've got one of those little flashlights on my key chain. Man, I never use it, I can't believe it!” Keith could hear Dean rummaging in his pockets for his keys and at the same time could hear footsteps just ahead. Dean pressed the button on the LED flashlight on his keys and a bright sphere of crystal blue light filled up around them. They could finally see the people that were making noise, none of which was survivors of the crash but hosts of the infected that had leached down into the subway tunnels. A legion of non-living yet mobile men and woman all looked over at the light and began to stumble over one another towards them. He realized that they had become trapped in a pit full of infectious wolves eagerly moving towards the bright blue light. Several yards from them, he finally saw the source of the crash: a gigantic mound of human bodies intermingled with subway cars and wires. The train had collided with crowd of the infected, which had completely clogged the tunnel. All he could see was a wall of metal and flesh.
Dean dropped the LED light, masking the impending crowd in darkness while he shuffled around the ground for the light. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's them, all the sick people, down here? No, no, buddy, we got to get back on top of the train. Come on, come on, where's that light!”
Keith dug his shoulder blades into the side of the train, his lungs beating with his heart and his sweat stinging his eyes.
“The light! Help me find it!” Dean was grunting on his knees, feeling the dirt of the train tracks in search of the light. Silently and slowly, Keith turned to climb the top of the train but couldn't get a good foothold and kept slipping his dress shoes on the aluminum siding.
“Wait, wait, I got it here.”
Keith looked down and saw the last moments of Dean's life. Through intermittent bursts of the blue light that Dean had managed to turn on from the flashlight, he could see three of the dead walkers fall down on his back and two more immediately after. “Ahh, shit, they're on me, buddy, they're on me…” His voice became muffled under the bodies piling up on him. “He... help...” He let out a cry of frustration as more bodies weighed down onto his back and into his lungs. Keith could hear the shallow crackling of breath seeping from his throat as he tried to breathe from beneath the weight.
It's too fast, Keith thought, too fast for me to do anything, too fast and it's over. He then realized that not even one of them had even touched him. It's all the damn noise and light, he thought. He's just reeling them in with all his noise. With this new revelation, Keith slowly backed up along the train and slid out sideways of the direction that the dead were moving in. He stepped quietly and softly, feeling with his feet through the debris until he touched the tunnel wall. Suddenly, a halting cry came from Dean, he had managed to free himself long enough to fill the tunnel with one final plea for rescue, not only from Keith, but whatever redemptive powers that may or may not have existed for Dean.
Keith winced in pain and shame. He hated himself for slowly creeping away and saving hims
elf while teeth and nails were dismantling Dean. Loathing himself for living while Dean was dying, he crept out down the wall, holding his body steady against the brick, stepping over metal and bodies that he could now see from the small yellow lights of the tunnel wall. Then a jolt went through his body when a hand missing two fingers reached out and lightly touched his shirt. He froze and stared at the face of a once young man wearing headphones over his head with the cord dangling in the air. The man's bottom jaw was missing but his tongue still dangled from the bottom of his skull, swinging back and forth with the jerking movements of his head. Keith looked right at him and did not move a single joint of his body, waiting and hoping for anything. Then he felt a slight release of tension in his stomach when he saw the kid shuffle away from him, towards the commotion that Dean had created.
Motionless, he perched for several minutes as he could sense the shallow shuffling of the sick moving near him, and then he crept inch by inch down the length of the wall. Only moving with precise small steps, he could begin to see a pattern in their behavior. When his legs moved too swiftly over each other, a slight swooshing sound from his pants would make several of them stop and shuffle towards him, and then he would freeze motionless as they receded back.
No fast movements, he thought, just one baby step after another and I might walk out of here. He wondered how many of them had been crammed into the subway tunnel to cause such a massive derailment of the train. How many, a couple hundred? Maybe thousands lined the tunnel up and down. Fortunately, he was able to shuffle along the lining of the wall with few obstacles. He could hear the sounds of breathing and gurgling fading behind him and could tell he had made it past the bulk of the crowd that had been distracted by the late Dean. At his feet, he could see nondescript body parts and tissue mixed with metal shards and bolts that had exploded on impact, strewn across the floor and ceiling of the tunnel wrapped in the dust and filth of the tunnel air.
