by Adam Baker
40
Tombes jammed his shoulder against the plant room door and struggled to hold it closed. Shuddering impacts. He braced his legs, strained against the blows. He was still wearing dive gear, still dripping tunnel water. Helmet and tanks dumped on the floor.
His feet lost purchase. Overboots skidded on concrete. The door was slowly pushed ajar.
A guy in bloodied pinstripe began to squirm through the gap.
Cloke threw himself against the door. Tombes kicked at the pinstripe creature, forcing it back into the hall.
Door slam. Sound of scrabbling fingers.
‘How many do you reckon?’ panted Cloke. ‘I counted five.’
‘We got to prop this thing.’
Lupe strained to push a heavy iron battery rack towards the door. Metal shriek.
Sicknote watched her work.
‘Help me, you dick,’ shouted Lupe.
Sicknote put his shoulder against the iron rack and helped shunt it against the door.
They stood back. Pounding fists. Scratching nails. The door shook.
‘Guess it will hold,’ said Cloke.
He unclipped his weight belt and began to strip out of his drysuit.
Tombes wiped sweat with the back of a gloved hand.
‘This is fucked. We can’t stay here.’
‘You want to head out there, into the hall?’ asked Lupe. ‘You’d get ripped to pieces in seconds.’
‘Sooner or later we’ll have to make a break for it. Each hour we wait, more of those bastards gather outside the door. We should hit them now, before the odds get any worse.’
‘Any of you guys got a watch?’ asked Lupe.
Cloke checked his G-Shock.
‘Eleven hours until the chopper arrives.’
‘Hey,’ said Tombes, looking around. ‘Where’s Donahue? Anyone seen Donnie?’ Dawning horror. ‘Christ. She must still be out there.’
Lupe tossed Tombes a radio.
‘Donahue, do you copy, over?’
No reply.
‘Come in, Donnie. Do you copy, over?’
No reply.
‘Talk to me, Donnie.’
Dead channel hiss.
‘What happened?’ asked Tombes. ‘Did anyone see what happened?’
No one spoke. No one met his gaze.
‘Come on. Think. Did anyone see her go down?’
Lupe shook her head.
‘Too much going on.’
‘I was with you,’ said Cloke. ‘I was dealing with Ekks.’
Tombes took a tentative step towards the door.
‘I should go out there,’ he said, uncertain, like he wanted someone to talk him out of it. ‘I’ve got to help her.’
The door shook from a fusillade of blows.
‘Forget it,’ said Cloke. ‘She’s gone.’
‘I have to be sure.’
‘I can’t let you go out there, man,’ said Lupe.
‘Who the fuck asked you?’
‘Think it through. There’s a bunch of those bastards massing in the hall. The door has to stay closed.’
The hammering ceased. Sudden silence.
Cloke slowly approached the door.
‘What do you think they are doing out there?’
‘Sniffing around, trying to find another way inside,’ said Tombes. ‘Not much mystery to these roaches.’
‘Maybe we should check our pockets,’ said Lupe. ‘Make an inventory.’
They crouched in a circle and emptied their pockets.
A lock-knife. A bandana. A half bottle of water and a couple of energy bars.
‘Wish we had more water,’ said Lupe.
‘Just got to sit tight,’ said Cloke.
‘Screw that. We have to reach the radio. If we don’t check in, they’ll recall the chopper.’
‘We’ll figure something out.’
‘And we can’t sit on the roof waiting to get picked up. We’d soak up a shitload of rads. We need to speak to the pilot. We’ve got to know when he’s ready for touchdown.’
‘One thing at a time,’ said Tombes. ‘Better rest a while. Give ourselves space to think.’
Cloke and Tombes stripped out of their suits. They shivered in T-shirts and shorts. Sweat turning to chills. They slapped themselves, rubbed their arms and jumped to get warm. They huddled together with their backs to the wall, and pulled scrap paper over their feet and legs to trap body heat.
Tombes pulled Cloke’s weight belt from a nearby pile of dive equipment. He unclipped the Geiger counter. He held the unit in front of his chest. Fierce crackle. He held it beside Cloke. Heavy hiss.
‘Guess we were in the water a while,’ said Tombes quietly. ‘How long before we get sick?’
‘The first symptoms will hit pretty soon.’
‘What are our chances?’
Cloke shrugged.
‘We live or we die. It’s out of our hands.’
‘What about those iodide pills?’ asked Tombes.
‘In the hall, with all the other meds.’
‘This is going to get bad, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Tombes shut off the handset and got to his feet.
‘I’m going to check on Ekks.’
Ekks lay at the back of the room. He was still zipped in an NBC suit and strapped to the backboard.
Tombes knelt beside Ekks. He released straps. He flicked open a knife and slit the suit. He pulled the rubberised nylon aside.
‘How is he?’ asked Cloke.
Tombes lifted an eyelid, checked for dilation. He laid a couple of fingers on the man’s carotid.
‘Stable, I guess. Good pulse. Good respiration. Wish we could reach the medical gear. The guy could do with more saline. And we have to get some nutrients inside him. Blood sugar must be through the floor.’
Tombes laid scrap paper over Ekks, built up a blanket page by page.
‘Should trap a little heat.’
Cloke gestured towards the door.
‘Those trauma bags you’ve got out there. You folks came pretty well equipped, right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Tombes. ‘We respond to pretty much any 911.’
‘Have you got some kind of adrenaline shot? Something that can shock him awake?’
‘We might have some epinephrine. We keep it for junkies. Once in a while, an unusually pure batch of heroin hits the streets and we get a bunch of OD calls. Always the same. Shitty apartment. Needles on the floor. Sorry-ass kid lying in a pool of piss, respiratory system sedated to a standstill, slowly turning blue. We give them a bump, a little dose of epi, to kick-start their lungs.’
‘Could we give Ekks a shot?’
‘No. He’s pretty frail. Probably kill him stone dead.’
‘But there’s a chance it could work?’
‘Way too risky.’
‘He’s got no life to lose. He’s dying of acute radiation poisoning. Survival isn’t an issue. But could we jolt him back to conscious, yeah? Prep him with painkillers and anti-nausea meds, then zap him awake with a shot to the heart. He’d be lucid for a while, right? Long enough to talk. Long enough to tell us what he knows.’
‘Forget it. Do no harm. That’s the oath. My job is to keep people alive.’
‘Nariko said you did a couple of years in the marines.’
‘I was a kid. I never left the damn base.’
‘But what would a soldier do in this situation?’
‘You’re asking the wrong guy. I’ve never raised a hand to anyone, not in a schoolyard, not in a bar.’
‘These are unusual circumstances. We have to think beyond the old rules.’
‘What’s right is right.’
‘All you got to do is load the hypodermic and give it to me. I’ll do the rest. Whatever happens, it will be my responsibility.’
‘Yeah. Well, the bags are out in the hall. They might as well be on the moon.’
Lupe sat, back to a wall, eyes closed.
Cloke sat beside her.
‘You look str
ung out,’ he said.
‘I’m in better shape than you.’
‘Nausea? Headache?’
‘Forget it. I’m fine.’
‘Sorry about Wade.’
‘I barely knew the guy,’ said Lupe.
‘But he saved your life, yeah? Drew off a bunch of infected. Took a lot of courage. Nasty way to die, but he did it for you. He didn’t strike me as the heroic type. I guess sometimes people surprise you.’
‘He was a rat.’
‘Rat?’
‘We met at Bellevue. Adjacent cells. Each morning he got led to the shower. Racket used to wake me up. Jangling keys, slamming doors. His escort would march right past my cell. Did you see those tattoos on his arms? All that white power shit?’
‘I guess. I didn’t pay much attention.’
‘First time I saw him, he had a big-ass swastika on his right forearm. It looked fresh. Blacker than black. Couldn’t have been more than a few months old. I saw him again a few days later. The swastika was pale grey, like it had been there a decade. A while after that, it faded almost to nothing. You don’t have to be a genius to figure it out. He was getting his tattoos lasered off. A session every couple of days. That’s why they had him at Bellevue. Witness protection. He wasn’t nuts. He wasn’t sick. He turned rat. Maybe his biker buddies had a meth lab somewhere. Maybe the Texas angels were running stuff across the border. He traded his hombres to the FBI, set them up for some kind of RICO charge. His get-out-of-jail-free. They transferred him to Bellevue on some bullshit pretext. Psych evaluation, blood tests, anything. Quickest way to get him out of the prison population. Snitches get stitches, right? Couldn’t let some Aryan Brother shank his ass then get paraded round the yard on shoulders like a righteous hero. The feds needed a temporary safe house, somewhere to park Wade while they formalised the whole thing with the DA and got him into the witness programme. The Marshals Service arranged the removal of distinguishing tattoos. Bet they were setting him up with a fresh ID, a car, an apartment. A new town, a whole new life.’
‘Jeez.’
‘They offered me the same deal,’ said Lupe. She reflexively touched the tattoo tears etched on her cheek. ‘Sat me in an interview room white as heaven. Laid out the whole thing. I could have walked. Picked a new name. Said they would burn me clean with lasers and let me start over somewhere new. They pushed an amnesty document across the table. It was from the DA’s office. Big stamp, big signature. I tore it in strips and ate it.’
‘Can’t say I ever understood that code-of-silence stuff.’
‘The first time they put me in a cell with Wade, I spat in his face. He could never look me in the eye, even when he had his sight.’
‘He saved your life, though.’
‘Maybe he was trying to redeem himself. Cancel the shame.’
‘You would be dead, if not for him. Leave it at that.’
An unearthly moan echoed from the air handling system. Long, mournful, unutterably sad.
Lupe and Cloke stood and tentatively approached the grille high on the back wall.
‘Santa Muerte,’ murmured Lupe. She crossed herself. ‘What the hell was that?’
41
Galloway crouched in the crumbling brick conduit. He hunched to stop the crown of his head raking mortar.
A faint glimmer of light. If he retraced his steps, if he followed a bend in the pipe, he would find himself back in the plant room.
He pulled bandages from his stump. The wound bristled with spines. Needle-barbs protruding from muscle and bone marrow. Veins and arteries horribly distended.
He didn’t want to die alone. He wanted the comfort of people and voices.
Sudden fury.
Rage flaring like a struck match. Clenched teeth, left hand balled into a fist. Tired of being an outsider. Treated with contempt by soldiers back at Ridgeway who saw a correctional officer as some kind of sleazy, low-rent mall cop. Ostracised by a rescue squad that seemed to hold a sneaking admiration for his gang-girl prisoner.
He composed speeches in his head. Things he should have said:
‘I got no reason to feel ashamed. I got a flag on my arm, same as you. I swore an oath and did my job. I punched the clock each day and put myself among the meanest, most vicious motherfuckers to ever walk the earth. I did it so you guys could sleep safe in your beds. Fuck yourselves, okay? Army. Fire department. Acting all superior. You can all go to hell.’
Faint noise from the plant room. Distant voices echoed down the conduit.
Lupe:
‘Close the damned door. Quick. Close it. Get it shut. Here, use this.’
Cloke:
‘Put him down there.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘Just.’
Tombes:
‘Where’s Donahue? Did anyone see Donahue? Christ, she must still be out there.’
Galloway touched his face. Needles protruded from his cheek.
He wanted to be back among Lupe, Donahue and Sicknote, even if they despised him, even if they wanted him dead.
He wept metal tears.
42
Donahue ran to the IRT office and slammed the door. Fists pounded the wooden panels.
Heart-hammering panic. She gripped the handle. Her boots squeaked and slid across floor tiles as she struggled to keep it closed. Brief glimpse of hunched skeletal thing wearing a Dunkin’ Donuts cap. It gripped the doorframe. It leered.
She threw her shoulder against the door and slammed it closed. Bone crunch. Blood spurt. Severed fingers pattered to the floor.
She slapped deadbolts in position.
Heavy impacts. She grabbed a wooden chair and held it above her head ready to strike.
Gun-crack pop. Sudden darkness. A brief moment of what-the-fuck, then a wave of frustration and anger as she realised she had smashed the single bare bulb that lit the room.
She set down the chair.
She unbuckled her watch. A yellow G-Shock. She used the weak face-light to examine the door. The bolts and hinges looked like they would hold.
She caught her breath. She backed away from the door. Glass crunch. The floor dusted with bulb fragments.
She pulled a bandana from her pocket and wiped sweat from her forehead. A dark stain on the bandana. She touched her face. Blood on her fingertips. She hurriedly explored her scalp and neck, passed the watch-light over her arms and legs looking for bite marks.
Plenty of spray. She had kicked a couple of infected creatures to the ground in the ticket hall, stamped on snarling faces until their skulls shattered and pulped.
No wounds.
She mopped blood from her pant legs and boots.
She walked to the back of the office and slid to the floor. She listened to fists pound the door. The fusillade of blows slowly diminished to silence.
She waited.
She unhooked her radio and whispered into the handset.
‘Lupe, do you copy, over?’
No reply.
‘Lupe. Anyone. Can you hear me?’
Tombes:
‘Donnie. Holy shit, girl. Are you all right?’
She turned the volume way down. She crouched over the radio, cupped her hand over the mouth-grille and whispered:
‘Just.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in the station office. I’ve locked the door. Not sure how long it will hold if they make a concerted effort to get inside.’
‘We’ll figure something out. Just stay put. Stay out of trouble.’
‘Are you guys okay?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, we’re good. We’re safe. We’re in the plant room.’
‘This is so messed up.’
‘We’ll be fine. Just got to keep our heads and think our way out of this mess.’
‘Don’t leave me in here, man. You’ve got to get me out.’
‘We aren’t going anywhere without you. You got my word. Is there anything else in there with you? Anything else you can throw against the door?’
‘Not
much.’
‘Are they still trying to get in?’
‘They were pounding at the door for a while. They’ve quit. For now.’
‘Can you hear them?’
‘I can sure as shit smell them. Hold on. I’m going to check.’
‘Don’t make a sound, for God’s sake. Do it quiet as you can.’
Donahue got to her feet and quietly crossed the room.
A peep hole in the door. She wormed dust and grime from the lens with her finger and put her eye to the hole.
She stifled an involuntary gasp. A ghastly, skeletal face, close-up in fish-eye distortion. Dunkin’ Donuts.
Something in its mouth. It chewed with a ruminative roll of the jaw. A human ear.
It leaned close like it was sniffing the lens.
Donahue kept absolutely still. She slowed her breathing. No sound but the pounding blood-rush of her pulse.
The creature couldn’t see her. A one-way spy hole. A bead of black glass. But it pressed against the office door like it could smell the intoxicating scent of fresh meat.
Donahue slowly backed away from the door. Crackle of bulb glass underfoot. She froze. No reaction from the creature outside in the hall. She kept walking.
She crouched in the corner and whispered into the Motorola.
‘I can see one of them in the ticket hall. Maybe I could take him.’
‘You’ve got a weapon?’
‘I lost my axe. Buried it in some guy’s head. Pretty sure I could do some damage with a chair leg. Drive it into his eye.’
‘These bastards are dumb, but they’re patient. They’ll wait us out, be ready to pounce the moment we show our faces. They’ll wait a week, a month, a year. They’ll never quit.’
‘Then we’re screwed.’
‘Leave it to me, okay? I’ll figure a way out of this mess. Get on the radio. Talk to Ridgeway. Tell them to send the damned chopper. Don’t take any shit from those guys. Get a firm ETA.’
‘I’m on it.’
Donahue hefted the transmitter and laid it on the floor. She sat cross-legged. She fumbled headphones in the darkness and positioned them on her head.
She flicked on. The power light glowed brilliant green.
She passed the watch-light over the transmitter panel. She tapped needle-dials, checked battery levels, volume and frequency.
