by Adam Baker
He looked up. The needle of the floor indicator executing a smooth arc from 6 to SUB.
He coughed and retched. He snatched up his flashlight and struggled to his feet. He ran to the head of the platform stairwell and stumbled down the steps into darkness.
68
The Chief jerked back the elevator gate. He stepped into the ticket hall, pistol raised.
He signalled Advance.
Byrne.
Craven.
Bingham.
They emerged from the elevator, weapons raised, and fanned.
Donahue lay slumped at the back of the elevator, a scorched bullet hole at the centre of her forehead.
The Chief explored the darkness. The brilliant needle-beam of his laser sight swept left and right.
‘Give me some light.’
Bingham struck a flare and threw it down.
Compacted pillars and fractured archways. Silence and shadows. Debris and dereliction.
‘Keep it tight. Remember: we’re not alone down here.’
He crept through the sepulchral gloom. No sound but the rasp of his respirator and the crunch of boots kicking through broken bricks and nuggets of gypsum.
Craven swung his weapon upwards. The barrel light swept across deep fissures in the ceiling. He surveyed the structural damage, the cracked and crumbling concrete that told of the building’s imminent collapse.
‘Place is coming apart.’
The Chief walked deeper into the hall.
Charred panel ads. A cartoon sunset. ‘Camel Cigarettes – Pleasure Ahoy!’
The letters of the station sign beneath a smear of dried blood, matted hair and scraps of scalp:
Fe ck eet
‘Sir. Got a body.’ Craven knelt next to Tombes. He prodded the dead man’s jaw with the barrel of his rifle. ‘One of the firefighters. Looks pretty mauled.’
‘Infected?’
‘No.’
Bingham took a Geiger handset from her shoulder bag and took a reading.
‘We can take off our masks.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Tolerable background. But mask up if you go near the station entrance.’
The Chief pulled back his hood and peeled off his respirator.
‘Christ,’ muttered Bingham. ‘Dreadful stench.’ Her breath fogged frigid air. ‘Cooked meat. Can you smell it? This city is one giant crematorium.’
‘How long are we staying, sir?’ asked Byrne. ‘This was supposed to be a quick turn around.’
‘I want to be gone as much as you guys,’ said Jefferson. ‘But we’re not going to piss our pants and run like children.’
He kicked through scattered garbage. He bent and picked up a scorched scrap of fabric. Remains of a grey T-shirt.
RESCUE 4
FDNY
TUNNEL RATS
‘Torched the place. Looks like quite a fight.’
He checked his watch.
‘Search every room.’
The IRT office.
Assault entry. Craven kicked the remaining fragments of door aside, and braced to fire. Swift sweep, SAW set full auto. His barrel light washed over charred furniture.
He explored the room. Gramophone records splintered underfoot.
He lifted the corner of a foil blanket with his boot. A cadaver. The part-cremated remains of Wade, charred flesh fused with the remains of his red prison-issue.
Last look around.
‘Clear.’
Bingham crossed the ticket hall and stood at the head of the platform stairwell.
Steps sloped downwards into darkness.
She struck a flare. It burned fierce white.
She gripped her pistol and cautiously descended the stairs, flare held above her head. Dark water lapped the foot of the steps. She stood at the water’s edge and peered into the cavernous tunnel space.
A couple of infected bodies floating among garbage. They drifted face down, arms outstretched. Ruptured skin. Metallic growths projected from rotted flesh as if their mutated spinal columns had tried to tear free and go squirming in search of a new host.
Bingham shielded her eyes from the flare light and squinted at the floating cadavers. Heads split by axe blows. Spilled brain tissue.
Sicknote was five yards to her left. He crouched in the dinghy, floating tight against the tunnel wall. He knelt, fist jammed in his mouth, tried not to make a sound.
Bingham unhooked her radio.
‘The platform is completely flooded. The tunnel is almost submerged. There’s nobody down here.’
She turned and walked back up the stairs.
Sicknote watched white flare light recede as she climbed the stairwell back to the ticket hall. He relaxed, panted with relief, and let the boat drift clear of the wall.
The plant room.
Byrne stood in the doorway. He struck a flare and tossed it inside. It hit the floor. Fizz and smoke. He unslung his rifle and advanced into the room.
Crazy, shifting shadows.
Quick scan of scattered debris. Couple of used hypodermics. A discarded water bottle.
A small portable generator. Cables clamped to wall-mounted switch gear.
The generator was shut down. Byrne bent and put his hand to the compressor. Residual heat. Faint smell of hot metal. The machine had been running minutes before.
He yanked the starter cable. Nothing.
He checked the fuel level. Quarter tank.
He checked the fuse panel. A cavity. Something had been unscrewed and removed.
‘Shit,’ he muttered.
He got to his feet.
He peered down aisles of web-draped electro-conductive switch gear. He picked up the flare and tossed it further into the room. Tar-coated cables thick as drainpipe. Corroded ironwork.
He took a couple of steps forwards. He squinted into the darkness at the back of the room.
‘Hey. Anyone back there?’
Another couple of steps. He shouldered the rifle.
‘We just want to talk.’
He reached inside his NBC suit, took a penlight from his breast pocket and peered into shadow.
Crumpled boxes and scattered paper. He stepped forwards, ready to kick through the garbage pile, but was distracted by a grotesque shape at the foot of a nearby wall. Some kind of distended bio-form part-shrouded by a hypothermia blanket.
Byrne crouched and pulled the blanket aside. His barrel light lit a nightmare mess of bone and taut skin. Four legs fused to a distended thorax. Spines and tumourous eruptions. Limbs furred with metallic filaments. Foul meat stink.
‘Jesus Christ.’ He covered his mouth.
One of the limbs twitched as if it retained a last spark of life.
Byrne scrambled clear and got to his feet.
‘Jeez,’ he muttered as he backed towards the door. ‘Holy Mother Mary.’
Last glance around.
‘Clear.’
The street entrance. Jefferson pulled on his respirator and gloves. He tested the handcuff that held the gate closed.
He unsheathed his combat knife and slit the curtain with a swipe of the blade.
He shone his flashlight through the lattice grille into the alley. Steady snowfall had reduced the dumpsters and wrecked bike to a blurred outline.
Figures stumbled through the snow. Three prowlers crusted with snow. The creatures jerked and staggered as if nerve signals were starting to misfire, as if they were about to seize up mid-step and freeze to glass.
They slammed against the entrance lattice. Black eyes. Peeling flesh. Clothes white with frost.
An arm pushed through the bars. Chief let fingers claw an inch from his visor.
He drew his pistol and took aim.
Morning suit and carnation, like the guy had been best man at a wedding, weeks ago, when solemn vows turned to screams as infected burst into the chapel and bit chunks out of the guests.
‘Hey, pretty boy.’
The creature snatched at the thin beam of laser light. It hissed.
The Chief centred the brilliant red target dot on the back of its mouth.
Gunshot.
The back of the creature’s head blew out. It stood for a moment, mouth locked in a frozen yawn, then toppled backwards and sprawled in the snow. Smoke coiled from open jaws like cigarette fumes.
A second infected figure. He took aim.
‘How about you? Want some?’
Cashmere overcoat. Spectacles. The red dot hovered on the bridge of the creature’s nose. Gunshot. Skull-burst. Wire spectacles cut in two, lenses swinging from each ear. The creature sank to its knees, then fell sideways.
A last revenant. A guy in a black suit. Left arm missing, right arm jammed between the bars.
Lapel badge:
FUTURE MISSIONARY
The Church of
JESUS CHRIST
of Latter-day Saints
‘Hey, padre.’
The Chief let the laser sight centre on the creature’s forehead. The dot travelled down the revenant’s nose, chin, collar, and centred on its breastbone.
Gunshot.
The creature lay in the snow, smouldering entry wound, spine shattered by the .45 round. It blinked as flakes settled on its face.
The Chief leaned against the cage gate and contemplated the paralysed missionary. ‘Where’s your soul, padre? Flown to heaven, or is it still locked inside that hunk of meat, waiting for release?’
The creature looked back at him. It lifted its head.
‘Must be quite a line at the pearly gates right now. Hell of a queue. And when they’re done, when Saint Peter has ticked off the last few names, he’ll close those gates for good. Padlock and chain. Because no one else will be coming.’
He took aim at the missionary’s forehead. He began to squeeze the trigger.
‘There’s nothing, is there? That’s the truth of it. No Jesus. No angels. Nothing but the dark.’
‘Sir?’
Chief shut off the laser and turned around.
Byrne at the foot of the stairwell.
‘Sir. We got problems.’
The Chief descended the steps. His boots crackled on frozen blood. He holstered his pistol. He pulled off his respirator and gloves.
‘They’ve disabled the generator, sir,’ said Byrne. We’re trapped. We’ve got no way back to the roof.’
Jefferson hurried across the ticket hall to the elevator. He jabbed the Up button.
No response.
‘They took some kind of fuse, some kind of breaker,’ said Byrne.
‘Can you fix it?’
‘We don’t have the tools or the parts.’
‘Cunts,’ spat Jefferson. ‘Motherfucking cunts.’
‘They must have done it the moment we arrived,’ said Byrne. ‘Waited for the elevator to reach a standstill, then pulled the plug.’
‘Then they’re still close by. Find them. Bring them to me.’
‘Sir.’
‘About time we straightened a few things out.’
69
Lupe crouched in the conduit. She stuffed the generator fuse into her pocket.
She crawled through the narrow brick pipe. Knees and elbows rubbed raw. She paused and caught her breath. She wiped sweat from her face. She let her head sag and rest on brickwork rough as pumice.
She was sick. She was tired. Focus and fight suddenly overwhelmed by an enervating wave of self-pity.
What would Wade say if he were here, beside her in the tunnel? What hectoring drill-sergeant diatribe would he deliver if he found her ready to lay down and die?
‘Feel it,’ he would say. ‘That wave of infantile helplessness. Wallow. Let it happen. Allow yourself a moment of pure snivelling melancholy.
‘Then pick an enemy.
‘Hate someone. Nothing galvanises like anger. Pure rocket fuel. Stoke your rage. Despise the Chief. Loathe his rank, the star on his collar, the flag on his sleeve. The walking embodiment of every uniformed, buzz-cut, paramilitary, hide-behind-a-badge asshole that ever demanded you bend and cough.
‘Compose yourself. Get your shit together.
‘Now get up and kill him.’
Lupe lifted her head.
‘Come on.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘Move your ass, bitch.’
She gathered strength and continued to crawl.
Distant glow. Lattice light. A grille in the conduit floor.
She inched forwards, quiet as she could, and looked down.
She was in the crawlspace above the ticket hall. The Chief was directly beneath her. She looked down on the top of his head. Close enough to hear him clear his throat, close enough to see beads of sweat on his brow.
Chief checked his pistol mag, then holstered the weapon. He took a hip flask from his breast pocket. He threw his head back and swigged, and for an instant Lupe found herself looking directly at his face, his half-closed eyes.
He capped the flask and tucked it back in his pocket.
He cupped his gloved hands and shouted:
‘Hello? Hello? I know you can hear me.’
He listened to his voice echo and die.
‘You’re hiding. I don’t blame you. I shot Officer Donahue. That was a mistake. A terrible, idiotic mistake. I’m sorry. I didn’t want her to suffer. That’s the honest truth. I wanted to save her the pain and degradation of a slow death. It was stupid. I fouled up. What can I say?’
He waited for a reply.
‘I have to make decisions. That’s my job. I have responsibilities. The men look to me for leadership, protection. I have to make the calls.’
He uncapped his hip flask and took another swig.
‘You need help. You’ve absorbed a massive amount of radiation. More than I anticipated. I swear, I wouldn’t have dispatched a rescue team to this hellhole if I fully understood the danger. We have medical gear back at Avalanche Lake. Come with us. You could live.’
Long pause.
‘Come on. Talk to me. How do we straighten this out?’
The Chief waited for a reply that didn’t come.
He was joined by Byrne.
‘We have to get out of here, sir.’
‘Not without Ekks. Search the place.’
‘We did.’
‘Search it again. He’s here. You missed him. There can’t be many places to hide.’
Lupe looked up from the grille. A preternatural instinct. A sudden, skin-prickle conviction she was being watched from within the tunnel.
She looked beyond the grille, into the conduit darkness. A monstrous, malformed shape blocking the pipe. Galloway/Cloke. Broken, dying.
The hybrid had folded into a small alcove. Water pipes lagged with asbestos. Stopcocks furred with dust. It huddled in the narrow space, arms wrapped across its chest as if it were preparing to pupate, entering a period of deep hibernation that would last until some strange new life-stage cracked the husk of its old, human shell and squirmed free.
Lupe let her eyes adjust.
A monstrous, elephantine head. Fused skulls jostled for position behind Cloke’s face. Lips pulled to a wide gash, exposing double rows of teeth and two plump wet tongues.
Bulbous double eyeballs protruding from taut lids, black and featureless like the orbs of a shark.
‘Galloway,’ she whispered. ‘Can you hear me?’
The hybrid had been cut clean in half at the waist. Internal organs ripped from its thorax. Shuddering respirations. Circulatory system bled dry. Twin hearts slowly fluttering to a standstill. Nothing to pump. Ventricles clogged and clotted with stagnant blood.
Dead yet alive. Inert meat animated by impulses sent through the fibrous metallic tendrils which permeated every muscle and nerve. A hijacked corpse still induced to twitch and dance, like severed frog legs pinned to a dissection table and convulsed by electrical stimulation.
‘Hey,’ hissed Lupe. ‘Look at me.’
The grotesque head slowly turned. Black eyes glittered in the darkness.
‘Galloway. Are you still in there? Can you hear me?’
No reaction.
‘It’s Lupe. Remember me? Remember the cuffs? The chains?’ She reached in her pant pocket. She took out the empty matchbook. Juggs XXX Bar. She held it up. ‘Think back. Me and Wade. We took your smokes. We took your gun.’
The creature began to stir.
‘Yeah. That’s it. That’s right. You remember. Listen. I need one last favour. Do one last thing for me, then you can sleep for ever.’
70
A clatter from the IRT office.
Byrne and Bingham shouldered their rifles and trained them on the door.
Craven swung the SAW and braced his legs.
The Chief drew his Colt and took aim.
Lupe walked from the office, hands raised, red dot of the laser sight centred on her chest.
‘Might have known you would survive,’ said Chief. ‘Fucking roach.’ He cocked his pistol. ‘I’m going to count to three. Where’s Ekks?’
Lupe shrugged.
‘If you shoot me, you’ll never find him.’
‘Yeah, we will. One.’
‘You’ve been here half an hour. That’s twenty-eight minutes longer than you intended.’
‘It’s a small station. We’ll rip the place apart. Two.’
‘He’s all yours. Seriously. I don’t want the fuck. I just want to cover my ass.’ She gestured to the body slumped at the back of the freight elevator. ‘I don’t want to end up like Donnie.’
‘Lucretia Guadalupe Villaseñor. A puddle of piss. A piece of human excrement. An abortion that wouldn’t die.’
‘I wear it like armour.’
‘Ekks should have vivisected your ass. You. Wade. That poor psychotic bastard. Gutted you all like fish. What happened to Galloway? He was supposed to be tugging your leash.’
‘Gone.’
‘Guess you put a knife in his back.’
‘No.’
‘He was a good man.’
‘He was nothing.’
‘You know what? You are categorical proof there is no god. Billions of righteous dead, and scum like you still drawing breath. Breaks my heart. Truly does. Three.’
