Awakened

by James S. Murray

  “What if the terrorists attack here?”

  “Then we fight back.” He smiled grimly. “You all know that New Yorkers don’t lie down to let someone stomp on our faces. Now, let’s get to the train.”

  Cafferty returned to the train, followed by a procession of roughly fifty people. He had lost count of the exact numbers in the Pavilion but figured they needed to squeeze around one hundred souls inside the car, like sardines in a tin.

  Like the 6 Train during rush hour, he thought. I have to work on that next . . .

  He almost burst out laughing. Here he was, facing a catastrophe, and he was already thinking about what his next project should be.

  This methane must really be getting to me.

  He looked around. Guests, MTA workers, the press, and police filed into the train. The ones by the doors and newly armored windows grabbed hammers, wrenches, pipes—anything that could be used as a weapon.

  Cafferty waved over the five Secret Service agents in front of the blast door, but they maintained their positions guarding the command center. He didn’t expect them to leave their post anyway, but they were no less susceptible to the methane than anyone else, so he figured he’d ask. He scanned the Pavilion for any strays before calling in the cops from the tunnel entrances. It would leave them exposed, but if those officers passed out from the methane, it wouldn’t matter if they were still guarding the tunnels—the attackers could just step over them.

  God, this plan has to work.

  Having rescue teams arrive to a train full of corpses didn’t bear thinking about. The sight of the blood-spattered front car was bad enough.

  “Do you know of anyone missing?” North shouted from the far end of the train.

  Nobody responded.

  Three gunshots split the air, coming from the Jersey tunnel, and Cafferty’s heart leaped into his throat as he braced for the inevitable.

  By the grace of God, the methane didn’t ignite.

  But it meant someone was out there and willing to risk shooting. And that there was something worth shooting at. All of which meant they didn’t care if the methane exploded. Cafferty wondered if that was because they wanted it to ignite or because they thought whatever they were shooting at was a bigger risk than a tunnel full of explosive gas . . .

  People pressed toward the door to look toward the Jersey tunnel, while others pushed to get deeper into the car. The last thing they needed was a stampede on a crowded subway car.

  Mustering all his strength, Cafferty shouted, “Everyone stay on the train!”

  The cops worked to keep people inside, urging them with a professionalism that gave Cafferty a sense of pride. The best damn police force in the world, he thought.

  That is, until a police officer sprinted out of the mouth of the tunnel, barreling through his line of colleagues, screaming, pistol drawn, face bloodied and full of pure terror. He scrambled onto the platform and aimed back toward the tunnel entrance.

  “Hold your fire!” Cafferty bellowed. “You’ll kill us all!” Even as he said it, though, he could see the officer’s finger edging toward the trigger. And while the previous shots hadn’t set off an explosion, the risk was too great . . .

  But Cafferty was also too far away to stop him.

  Luckily North was at the other end of the car, and the big man sprung from the train and dove on top of the officer like a linebacker, ripping the gun from his hand before it discharged. Other officers rushed to help.

  “Get the fuck off me,” the cop said, struggling to break free of North’s grip. “We’ve gotta get outta here. They’re in the tunnel and heading our way!”

  “Who is?” North asked.

  “There’s hundreds of them.” He coughed. Blood spouted out of his mouth and speckled his face. “We’re dead. We’re all dead.”

  North let go of him and raised his bloodstained hands in front of his face. He leaned back down and ripped open the cop’s shirt.

  Three diagonal gashes had torn open his chest and stomach, and every heartbeat sent more and more blood pumping from his torso.

  “Who did this?” North asked. “What are they armed with?”

  The cop’s eyes closed and his head flopped to the side.

  “What happened?” North asked desperately. He shook the cop’s shoulders. “Tell me!”

  “They followed me back,” he whispered. His limbs went limp and his body relaxed in death.

  Cafferty put his finger and thumb in his mouth and whistled. The cops at the mouth of the Jersey tunnel glanced over their shoulders. “Fall back, now! Into the car.”

  That was all the impetus they needed. They started making their way back as quickly as possible when one officer was seemingly sucked into the darkness at lightning speed.

  His cry rang through the tunnel.

  In the blink of an eye, another cop disappeared, yanked into the pitch black by an unknown force.

  Cafferty’s eyes widened. “What the fuck?”

  The remaining seven cops didn’t even look back—they sprinted for the train. One stumbled and fell flat on her face. Before she had a chance to drag herself back up, a long black arm reached out of the tunnel and clasped her ankle.

  She grabbed a rail tie, looked toward the train, and screamed.

  The arm must have been incredibly strong, and in a second it had ripped her free. She clawed at the ground but couldn’t stop being dragged away.

  Cafferty stood frozen, watching as three cops vanished in a heartbeat. What the hell is going on?

  What the hell was that . . . thing?

  As he tried to parse everything, he didn’t even notice his head of security charging toward him.

  North wrapped his arms around Cafferty and strong-armed him inside the car. But Tom had to see, so he shook free enough to lean out the open door, praying the rest of the cops made it to the train where everyone could make their final stand.

  One boarded.

  Then another.

  Three. Four. Five.

  A single cop remained outside, overweight, and he puffed his cheeks as he bounded along the track.

  “Come on, man—run!”

  The officer tried. But it didn’t matter, because a jet-black creature burst out of the tunnel with lightning speed, and it was clear the man had no chance.

  Yet as horrible as that was, all Cafferty could think was: A creature.

  He took a sharp intake of breath.

  The creature raced forward on two muscly legs and its shriek echoed around the Pavilion.

  A mix of shouts and screams filled the car.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “God!”

  “It can’t be . . .”

  “Jesus Christ . . .”

  “Run,” Cafferty shouted to the cop. “Fucking run!”

  “Please run,” he whispered to himself.

  The creature hunched down, leaped forward, and pounced on the cop within five yards of the train doors. The cop collapsed to the ground. The creature’s claws shredded his trousers and gouged his calves as it seemingly climbed up the officer’s body.

  Flesh and fabric tore off the cop’s torso.

  Lucien Flament, the French journalist, shoved past Cafferty and thrust between the open doors with a claw hammer raised over his head. He aimed a kick at the creature’s gut, knocking it back.

  The cop scrambled on all fours inside the train and collapsed on his back, wincing and taking rapid shallow breaths. A few passengers moved to help with his wounds.

  The creature’s movement had slowed, and it rose on its legs to a height of seven feet, shrieking once more. It was a chilling sound, and its open mouth revealed three rows of razor-sharp teeth, a horrific sight. It had sleek scaly black skin, a bulbous head, a thin tail with jagged spikes running along it, and four muscly arms, each with three talon-like fingers.

  Flament swung the sharp end of the hammer down and smashed it into the creature’s skull. Dark brown blood dripped from the two steel prongs.

&nbs
p; The creature lurched to the side and let out a piercing howl.

  Cafferty staggered back and hit the throng of people inside the car. “Get back!”

  He turned around again to see the Frenchman swing the hammer downward once more, going in for the kill. A split second before it reached its target, though, the creature leaped back into the darkness of the subway tunnel, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.

  The train fell silent.

  So did the Pavilion, apart from the footsteps of police officers racing from the other entrances and boarding the car. Everyone focused on the pitch-black tunnel, waiting for another living nightmare to appear.

  Cafferty balled his trembling hands into fists, utterly staggered at what he had just witnessed.

  Flament simply pushed his glasses up his nose, straightened his sweater, and stepped back inside the car.

  A cacophony of high-pitched shrieks emanated from the darkness of the tunnel.

  Everyone tensed.

  Cafferty recalled the dying man’s words. There’s hundreds of them. He had never subscribed to conspiracy theories or the far-fetched stories about monsters, but he couldn’t deny what he just saw. It hardly seemed believable. They were under attack from a new kind of evil, unknown to the world. Until today.

  This wasn’t terrorism. It was pure terror.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Munoz froze in horror as he watched the command center’s live video feed of the Pavilion. Three police officers were dragged into the darkness, and a black creature surged out of the tunnel and attacked another cop. He broke out of his state and shouted, “We’re under attack!”

  “What?” Reynolds sprung from his chair, followed by Samuels, and they rushed to Munoz’s side. “Show me.”

  On the video feed, nothing moved in the Pavilion. Cafferty and his group had packed themselves inside the rear car and were in the process of blocking the final set of doors with steel plates. Blood soaked the tracks behind the train.

  “What am I looking at?” Reynolds asked.

  “There was . . . this thing . . . it just attacked the police, dragged them back into the tunnel. It happened so fast.”

  “Roll back the tape,” Reynolds commanded.

  The rest of Munoz’s team crowded his chair. He gripped a small joystick on the console with his trembling hand and twisted it to the left, reversing the feed.

  Frame 01:32:07:10. North wrestling with a cop.

  He nudged it forward.

  Frame 01:32:07:20. A cop’s legs disappearing into the tunnel.

  He tapped the joystick again.

  Frame 01:32:07:32. The creature in midair, arms outstretched, lunging toward a cop on the platform.

  It all happened lightning fast.

  Somebody behind Munoz screamed. Others muttered in disbelief.

  “My God,” Reynolds said. “Go back to live.”

  Munoz fast-forwarded back to real time.

  Cafferty’s team had covered the final set of train doors, and the rear train looked like a custom-built silver torpedo. Something, or some things, moved at the mouth of the tunnel. It was impossible to see with any clarity because of the resolution and the smoky atmosphere. Arms reaching out of the darkness and retreating. Not just two.

  Hundreds of arms.

  Reynolds moved closer to the screen and scrutinized the image. “I thought it wasn’t true . . . This can’t be . . .”

  “It can’t be what, Mr. President?” Anna asked in a shaky voice.

  “Enough,” Samuels said. “It’s no longer safe for you here, sir. We’re heading for the sub, right now.”

  “Mr. President,” Munoz said, “do you know something?”

  Reynolds’ eyes darted between the team and the video feed.

  “Mr. President,” Anna said with increasing fury.

  A row of the Pavilion’s overhead lights next to the tunnel exploded.

  All eyes went back to the screen.

  The next row shattered.

  And the next.

  The grid of lights cut out in sequence, sending a dark staccato wave rolling across the Pavilion and plunging it into blackness. Only the deep blue beams of the IMAX projector and the timestamp remained visible on the screen.

  “Mr. President,” Samuels said, “we need to leave. Now.”

  A thunderous crash shook the walls of the command center. The screams of the Secret Service members guarding the outside of the blast door echoed through the speakers.

  “What the hell is that?” one of the command center operators asked.

  Another crash hit the blast door.

  The MTA team recoiled toward the back office.

  Samuels grabbed Reynolds’ arm and dragged him in the same direction.

  Munoz crouched behind his chair. It didn’t take a genius to work out that the creatures were attacking the door with weapons . . . or mind-blowing strength. He feared for the people barricaded in the train, though held out no hope for the Secret Service guys and could only pray their deaths were quick.

  “What the hell?” one of his team members shouted.

  A moment of silence followed the rhetorical question.

  Then another shuddering crash rocked the command center.

  The hinges on the blast door—built to withstand just about all known conventional strikes—groaned.

  A calendar dropped off the wall, pens rolled off workstations and bounced on the tiled floor, and a chair toppled over.

  “Holy shit,” Anna said. “What are these things, Mr. President?”

  Another wince-inducing crash buckled the door, but it held.

  “How long until the sub arrives?” Reynolds asked, his voice trembling.

  “Fourteen minutes,” Samuels said.

  “How many passengers can it hold?” Anna asked.

  “A maximum of twelve,” Munoz replied.

  “We’ll all go.”

  Samuels drew his pistol. “Mr. President, it’s you, me, and the one closing the hatch behind us. Nobody else. The door will hold. We cannot risk your life any further.”

  “Are you insane?” Anna said. “You can’t leave us here.”

  “Nobody is coming with us,” Samuels snapped. “The safety of the president of the United States is at stake and we follow clear protocols. I’ll do this as fast as I can and send the sub straight back.”

  “Are you fucking mad?” Anna replied. “Mr. President, you can’t leave us here.”

  Another crash rattled the walls and something inside the blast door cracked, but again it held. Samuels stood unflinching, uncompromising. Munoz knew nothing was getting past him or changing his mind.

  “Mr. President!” Anna repeated.

  “Mr. Munoz,” Reynolds said, trying to compose himself, “you’ll come with us, seal the door once I’m safely on the sub, and head back for your colleagues. I don’t like this as much as you, but if we act fast, we’ll all get out of here. Now, grab the gun from under the fire blanket. We don’t know if those things have infiltrated the emergency passage.”

  “I don’t want him armed,” Samuels said. “He’s a former gang member, sir.”

  Munoz stood glued to the spot, stunned at the revelation. All eyes focused on him and he couldn’t find any words to counter or explain the truth. “How did . . . ?” he said.

  “Secret Service plans for every eventuality and carried out a deep-dive background check on everyone in the command center,” Samuels replied coldly. “You cannot hide your past, Mr. Munoz.”

  Munoz shot daggers at the Secret Service agent. He hated being judged for mistakes he’d spent his life making amends for. And seeing as they were all in shit, now seemed like an irrelevant time to rake up his past.

  “We need to move,” Samuels said. “I don’t want him armed.”

  “Gather around,” Munoz said to his team. “Quickly.” Once they were all close, he whispered, “This’ll only take a few minutes. Once the president is safe and I’m back, we’ll all head for the docking station. Use my laptop
to get in touch with Cafferty. My password’s HanS0l0. Capital S and H, zeroes for the o’s.”

  “Let’s go!” Samuels said.

  “Mr. Munoz,” Reynolds said, “I know you probably don’t trust me, but I’m putting my trust in you.” The president walked over to the dead agent, crouched next to the fire blanket, lifted it, and visibly shuddered at the sight of the agent’s pale skin and lifeless eyes. He reached a hand underneath and patted around, grimacing, and eventually located the blood-soaked weapon. Reynolds returned with the gun and approached Munoz.

  “Mr. President, I strongly disagree with—” Samuels said.

  “Enough,” the president said.

  Reynolds handed the gun to Munoz. For the first time in years, Munoz wrapped his fingers around a pistol grip, something he had promised himself he wouldn’t do again. It felt familiar, though, like riding a bike, and he stared at the weapon, wondering if he still had the same cojones after all this time.

  Guess I’ll find out.

  Munoz led Reynolds and Samuels down a short corridor to the circular electromagnetic hatch. He keyed in the code on the digital pad and the steel locking bolts snapped open.

  “Be careful where you point that,” Samuels said, peering down at Munoz’s gun. “Only fire on my command.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  “Actually, that’s exactly what I need to be. And to be very clear, if you point the gun anywhere near the president or me, you’re a dead man.”

  The hatch opened with a mechanical grind, revealing a brightly lit concrete corridor that climbed out of view.

  Samuels ducked through and extended his gun forward.

  Reynolds followed.

  Munoz glanced back at his team, gave a reassuring nod, and stepped inside the emergency passage. He keyed in the code on the opposite side.