Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles)

by S. M. Stelmack

  “A Nazi? Because I’m blonde?”

  “Later.”

  A couple of children smiled up at Jack, and he crouched to be eye level with them, shaking several small hands and introducing himself. Their clear favorite, though, was the giant Reggie. From the moment he cracked his wide golden smile, they thronged around him, bombarding him with questions.

  “You come to talk to Shamba?”

  “Where you from?”

  “You bring us presents?”

  Prezzies. That was it. Gifts had cemented a bond with Mrs. Moore, and it might help ease the hostility here. She was easing her pack off when her chance was lost. Hoisting the girl with braids onto his shoulders, Neil led them to the largest of the cinderblock huts, its front bragging not one, but two lanterns. The kids gathered about them, their dark eyes shining with excitement, and about the village, people approached, wary looks on their gray faces.

  “Shamba. We’ve got visitors,” Neil called. “Reggie from the Burbs, and Jack Cole.”

  The thick blanket that served as a door lifted away, and an elderly man appeared. Though the years had stooped his shoulders, he was still tall. Like Neil, Shamba was dressed in rags, except over them were displayed a host of necklaces, medals and talismans, and even in his long grey hair were strung beads and ornaments. The entire works clinked together in soft cacophony as he hobbled out of his home, using an old crowbar as a cane. His deeply wrinkled face looked at them, his eyes gentle and benign, an instant balm to Lindsay’s shredded nerves.

  The old man studied his visitors, then gave a broad, toothless grin. “Welcome back to Agharta. You must be tired and hungry if you came all the way from Grand Central.”

  Reggie smiled. “You got that right, Shamba. We’d be real grateful if you would let us camp here for the night.”

  “Our home is your home,” the old man replied, before turning to Jack.

  Jack inclined his head respectfully. “Shamba.”

  “Hello, Jack. It’s good to see you again.”

  “Thank you."

  “I see you’ve gotten yourself a woman,” Shamba continued, not so much as glancing in Lindsay’s direction.

  “I’m a topsider now, Shamba. So is she.” There was a stiffness to the words Lindsay didn’t understand. Where else would Jack live?

  “I see. You know you’re always welcome here, Jack, and I’m sure Gali will be very happy to see you, too.”

  Jack gave a tight smile, and let the elder lead them to the nearest fire. The smell of a barbecue sent Lindsay’s mouth salivating. Then she saw what was on the spit. A pair of huge rats, each easily the size of a large cat.

  There were vinyl cushions scattered about the fire. Jack tossed one out of the circle, and gestured with his head for her to sit. Like a good little dog, she obeyed as he cozied up to the fire, blocking both the heat and a view.

  All the villagers were young and dressed in the same tatty fashion as Neil and Shamba, and to her surprise, almost all of them were women. She smiled at a few, receiving sneers and glares in return. She kept her eyes down and tucked her hair down the back of her jacket. She never thought that she’d regret being blonde, but right here and now she knew for a fact that brunettes would have more fun.

  Shamba got the conversational ball rolling. “So, what brings you down to us?”

  “We’re on our way to Seneca,” Reggie answered.

  “Very dangerous place. Why are you going there?”

  “We’re looking for the Tecos.”

  Lindsay started as someone prodded her on the shoulder, and looking up saw that Neil was offering her a plate of daintily sliced… Lindsay darted a look at the spits and groaned inwardly to see that they were now empty. She accepted it as graciously as she could, though he didn’t seem particularly impressed by her manners. He chin-pointed to Jack.

  Happily Lindsay leaned forward and set the steaming plate beside him, hoping that her turn would be overlooked.

  “We’re looking to get their help with something,” Reggie said. “They owe a favor to Najib.”

  Shamba raised his bushy eyebrows. “Must be serious to call in such a debt.”

  Jack picked up the plate and passed it to Reggie. “It is.”

  Neil handed Lindsay another full plate, and she followed the ritual of setting it beside Jack. He took it without a backward glance. Another appeared, with only two thin slices on it. She glanced up at Neil uncertainly, and he chin-pointed at her. She forced out a smile of thanks, before realizing he’d already turned away. Jack was chewing on the meat as contentedly as if it were the Colonel’s chicken. Well, the Sumptown oatmeal had proved delicious. She brought the plate up close to her mouth, and gave a nibble. It was…edible. Edible like boiled tree bark.

  “Where you get these?” Reggie asked, his mouth full. “They’re good.”

  “We started farming them,” Shamba answered proudly. “Pigeons and guinea pigs too, though we still depend on Dyer Pass for the food staples. Their runners bring us that and medicine, and in return we give them medical care, and….”

  The elderly leader trailed off as a woman arrived at the fire. She was as young as the others living in Agharta, but held herself in a manner that bespoke of strength and pride. Across her chest was a bandolier of wicked-looking knives, and at her side was holstered a tarnished though clearly operable pistol.

  “Hello, Gali,” Jack greeted her, his voice level.

  The woman switched her dark gaze from Jack to Lindsay, and though her face betrayed only mild disdain, Lindsay could see the woman’s eyes flash with fury.

  “Hello, Jack,” she replied, equally coolly.

  Shamba cleared his throat. “I was telling our guests about our trade with Dyer Pass. Why don’t you join us, Gali?”

  The woman sat down across the fire from Jack, and instantly a heaping plate of rat appeared for her. Gali waved it away like a queen.

  “You’re looking well, Jack. Much better than when I first saw you.”

  “For which you’ll always have my thanks."

  Gali’s hand came to rest on the butt of her largest knife. “Funny way of showing it. I guess you got over Tasha, huh?”

  Lindsay watched Jack’s back stiffen. “I think we ought to change the subject.”

  “Awful good rat,” Reggie spoke up. “Yessir, that’s tasty.”

  Aside from Gali, who looked ready to toss Lindsay into the chasm, and Jack, who seemed studiously neutral, everybody else around the fire looked decidedly uncomfortable, and Lindsay was no exception. Unlike Sumptown, the people of this community hadn’t warmed to her in the slightest, and the looks Gali was casting her way could have burned stone. She should have kept her head down. Instead, she squarely returned the woman’s gaze.

  Back off. He’s with me.

  But what had happened between Jack and Gali? And who the hell was Tasha?

  Jack tracked the five men by the green glow of their night-vision goggles, their flashlight beams cutting the darkness of the abandoned train station. Their kind was well known under the streets—thrill killers that came deep underground in search of victims to rape, torture, and kill.

  They imagined themselves the top predators of the underground. They were about to learn that was not the case. Unwittingly they’d just crossed the border into Mole territory.

  Beside him, Jack heard the faint hiss of a leaking steam pipe, and felt the hard curve of a Mole’s claw on his shoulder. Like its shadow, he followed the thing behind a heap of rubble and unsheathed the heavy and razor-sharp butcher knife he’d been given.

  The gang moved closer, their footfalls echoing on the wet concrete floor, then the sound of dripping water began around them. They remained oblivious as dark forms slid along the catwalks above them, well out of their narrow vision, and even as a rumbling subway sound began to vibrate through the rank air, they didn’t realize the peril they were in. Only when a small package fell from the catwalks did they turn their heads.

  There was a loud crack as the bu
ndle exploded, the force of it harmless, but the brilliance of the burst blinded their low-light goggles—and then the Moles struck.

  Like spiders they dropped from above, landing on the intruders with grappling claws and biting fangs, wrenching guns from hands and goggles from faces. Two of the psychos got shots off, firing blindly against the suddenly animate darkness. More Moles were flooding in from all sides, and among them was Jack.

  One of the gangers managed to break free of the pack and was wrestling for his gun when he saw Jack coming. Cursing he let go of the firearm and attacked with a wicked Bowie knife from his belt.

  Jack ducked and swung his blade, slicing the man’s belly open in a single clean stroke. Clutching his gut, the ganger tried to slash back, but Jack’s knife arced downwards, cleaving off his opponent’s hand. Blood jetted from the stump as the screaming man stumbled back against the wall. Jack turned away as the younger Moles swarmed the man, tearing at the spilled innards, a hot spray of blood splattering his naked body.

  He was almost one of them now. One of the monsters that guarded the darkest pits of New York. The stuff of nightmares, insanity, and unspeakable urban legend. His body had darkened to a granite gray, his frame grown so lean and wiry that his every muscle rippled under his skin, his eyes faint rings of flashing gold encircling bottomless pools of black. Outwardly he was a part of the pack, another cunning animal as inhuman as the one he’d finished butchering. Everything had been erased from his mind save her, a precious seed buried in the blackness of his psyche, a time capsule containing everything he’d been and loved.

  They’d brought him along on this hunt as a final test to confirm they’d successfully torn down every remnant of who he’d once been. His only hope to reclaim himself now depended on convincing them that they’d succeeded. To make them believe his old self was well and truly dead, and that they could trust him to do anything without question.

  The four remaining men were being stripped now, their gear and equipment torn from them to uncover pale, quivering flesh. Cables were knotted around their wrists, and howling in panic they were hauled upwards till all of them hung in a row, feet dangling. Then the youngest, a long-haired punk covered in obscene tattoos, had his ankles lashed together with wire so he couldn’t kick.

  This was it, Jack realized. God help these men. God help him.

  He approached the young man silently, bloodied knife in his hand.

  “Please…” the man gibbered, twisting against his bonds, pissing himself in fear. “Oh fuck, please don’t kill me…please…please…please…”

  Jack grasped his arm, steadying him. Kill? No, he’d do much worse than that.

  He began to shave away skin, deafening himself to the shrieks of pure agony and terror, ignoring the blood that ran in torrents down his arms. This was the only way back to Tasha, and he didn’t stop cutting until all four of them were done.

  * * *

  With Gali there, the conversation around the fire grew tense and sporadic, and no sooner had Jack and Reggie finished their tunnel cuisine than Shamba suggested they go and stow their gear. Neil guided them to a pair of cinderblock guesthouses, and Jack nudged Lindsay inside one of them while Reggie reiterated their thanks for the accommodation.

  The hut was completely bare, with the exception of three thick candles, a large fur rug and a small wall-hanging that read 'There’s no place like hole.'

  “There certainly isn’t,” Lindsay muttered, dropping her pack in the corner and resting her gun against it. She looked down at the rug. It was stitched together from rat pelts. “There’s something you won’t see at Macy’s.”

  Jack fished a lighter out of his bag, lighting the candles before pulling closed the curtain door. “Trust me, there’re much worse places to be.”

  “What the hell is with these people?” she whispered. “They’ve been treating me like a leper since we arrived, and that Gali keeps looking at me like I’m her worst enemy.”

  Jack was his usual chatty self. “Don’t worry about it. We’re here to sleep and then we’ll leave.”

  “Look, I’ve kept my mouth shut and played by your rules. Now that we’re tucked out of sight, why can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  Jack hunkered down in the corner beside the candles. “A long time ago Shamba was a doctor—a very successful surgeon, actually. How he wound up below ground is complicated. Suffice to say, when he got here he began to explore the tunnels, and as time passed, they became a bit of an obsession with him.”

  “Like it is with you?”

  “You want me to tell you about this place or not?”

  Lindsay took a small package of crackers from her pack, then dropped them back. It’d make the ideal gift for one of the kiddies. “Okay, okay. Please continue.”

  “Shamba came to believe that part of the underground is the remnants of an ancient civilization called Agharta—hence the name of this community. His theory is that tens of thousands of years ago the Aghartans got into a war with another civilization called Lemuria, and that the two annihilated each other. A tiny portion of the Aghartan population survived, and he believes that those survivors developed a subterranean culture that still exists today.”

  “You mean the Moles?”

  “Exactly. Supposedly they’ve honeycombed the earth with a network of tunnels, some stretching across the oceans. He thinks that UFOs are really Aghartan craft, that the world is hollow, and a load of other bullshit.”

  “So does everyone here believe this big underground story?”

  “More or less.” He set his piercing eyes on her. “Whatever you might think of Shamba, he’s a gentleman, and he’s taken a lot of young women under his wing over the years. He’s kept them and their children safe, and they look up to him as a kind of father figure.”

  Jack seemed to think she felt scorned these people. And maybe once he’d been right. “I can see that,” she said quietly. “Only I don’t know why they’d think I’m a Nazi.”

  “Shamba read some book about how a German Antarctic expedition discovered an entrance to the inner world back in the 1930’s, and that they made contact with the Aghartans. According to another source the Nazis kept the entrance a secret, and when the Second World War ended a bunch of their top scientists and military brass fled there.”

  “They think that because I’ve got blonde hair I’m some sort of cave Nazi?” Lindsay almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of the notion.

  “They think fascist spies are operating in the underground, so they’re suspicious of anyone with Aryan features.”

  Okay, she might not feel scorn anymore but…. “In conclusion, they’re completely bat-shit crazy.”

  Jack shrugged. “When it comes to UFOs and Nazi conspiracies I’d say you’re right. There might be a grain of truth to the Agharta story. About the global subterranean culture. I told you about the tunnel markings and how many cities they’re under. It means something, what I don’t know.”

  “Okay, so what about Gali? What’s her problem?”

  “Lindsay, we’re leaving in a few hours. Does it really matter?”

  “Given all the number of sharp things she carries around I’d like to know how upset she is with me and why. Wouldn’t you?”

  He pressed his lips so hard together they almost disappeared and when he spoke, he kept his eyes on the candles. “Agharta survives as a community by being a kind of underground hospital. They treat tunnel folk who get injured or sick, and they help deliver babies born down here, which is why they have so many young mothers and kids. Shamba’s taught everyone here the basics of medicine, and most are as skilled as your average paramedic. When I escaped from the Moles, it was Gali who found me and nursed me back to health.”

  “And…” Lindsay prompted.

  If possible, his attention on the candles became even more focused. “And I guess she got a bit of a crush on me.”

  “A bit of a crush? She looked ready to crush me. I take it you two played ‘doctor’ before you left?
”

  He looked up now, his eyes glowing like that of a nocturnal animal. “Don’t be coarse, Lindsay. The fact of the matter is that I owe my life to her, and I’m not about to be rude to her because you think she’s competition.”

  Lindsay sputtered, unnerved that Jack had hit home. “Competition? What, for your affections? Give me a break. We left that Cole’s woman routine at the door.”

  “Fuck. Forget it.” He got to his feet and made for the entrance.

  Was he actually walking out on her after all the shit she’d taken from him and the good people of Agharta? “Who’s Tasha?” It burst from her like an insult, a deliberate goad.

  “None of your goddamn business.”

  “Was she the somebody you wanted to talk about in The Gallery?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “Least of my faults, Linds. You had your chance to turn back, you didn’t, so fuck talking to you about anything. You’re finding out yourself how wrong it is for you to be here.”

  “Wrong because I got a thing with heights? Because my hair’s the wrong color? Because I don’t like rat?”

  “Yes! How many clues do you need? Do you need to be fucking skinned alive first?”

  He broke off, pressed the heels of his hands into his temples, as if wracked by a sudden migraine. He fumbled with the curtain and left.

  Lindsay stared at the curtain which was still trembling under the force of his departure.

  “Jesus, Jack. Jesus.” What had those Moles done to him?

  She wanted to follow but she didn’t think that was wise. She twisted open a bottle of water and chugged it down like an alcoholic with beer. Ten minutes later, she was no closer to knowing what to do and her bladder was ready to burst. Great. She’d no idea when Jack would be back, or where the latrines were. She unwound a yard of toilet paper from a roll in her pack, stuffed it into pocket and, remembering, she took a couple packs of crackers before heading out.

  She could make out Jack sitting with Shamba by a fire. No way was she going to try to get his attention, especially given the nature of her request. He would throttle her then and there, with Gali looking gleefully on.