The Ghouls

by Fred Crawley

  Nathan tried to tell himself that they weren’t really dead people but the ability to delude himself was gone. He couldn’t see anything but the stark, horrible truth now. He was wading through a pile of corpses while the creatures that had put them there finished killing the man who had betrayed him. When they were done with Garrett, they would come after him and Audrey.

  The loss of Garrett hurt him more than he wanted to admit. Even amongst the evidence of the ghouls’ murderous activities, it stung like an open wound. He had trusted Garrett, but it had all been a trick. He wondered how long it had been planned for. He wondered at which point since meeting Garrett that his fate been sealed. Had Garrett led the creatures to the warehouse? Had he sacrificed all of those people? It seemed impossible to believe that he would have let Courtney die but the evidence suggested that was exactly what had happened.

  At the top of the stairs the screaming suddenly stopped and he knew that Garrett was dead. He had brought them there for nothing and gotten exactly what he deserved.

  Nathan led Audrey around a corner beneath the bridge. There were more bodies, bodies as far as the eye could see, but he hoped there was somewhere that they could hide from the ghouls while he figured out what they were going to do next.

  Beside the lift, there was a door to a glass panelled waiting room. Next to that was the end of the platform. Nathan kicked open the grey door. There was no light on in the little room, but that didn’t matter. He pushed Audrey ahead of him and followed her inside, pulling the door closed behind them. He groped for a light switch but couldn’t find one.

  “They’re real?” Audrey said. “You weren’t making it up.”

  Nathan grunted and nodded, of course they were real, hadn’t he been trying to explain that to her? But he didn’t have time to go into it now. Now he had to try and figure out what they were supposed to do. What he was supposed to do, because the burden of getting them both out of this was now solely his.

  “We don’t have long,” Nathan said.

  “What are we going to do?” Audrey said.

  Nathan shook his head, more for himself than for her. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Running seemed like the only option but where would they go? It had seemed like a good idea when Garrett had suggested they come to the station, that they could get on a train and go north and start all over again, but that had been nothing but a trick.

  It seemed to Nathan that there was nowhere they could go that the ghouls wouldn’t find them. They would be hunted across the country, never sure if it was safe to go out at night, never sure if the people who they met and befriended were going to become the next victims.

  “We have to go,” Audrey said. She reached for his arm and Nathan felt her clumsily trying to take hold of him. She made it sound so easy, but she’d only known the ghouls existed for an hour, possibly less than that, she didn’t know what they were capable of, she didn’t know what lengths they would go to to get them.

  “We can’t go,” Nathan said.

  “Don’t mess around,” Audrey said. She had a firm grip on his arm now and was insistently pulling him towards the door. “We need to get out of here before they find us.”

  “They’ll always find us,” Nathan said darkly. He was shaking his head and nodding at the same time. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to do it. He knew that there was only one way that they would ever be free of the ghouls.

  “You can stay here if you want to,” Nathan said.

  “On my own?”

  Nathan waited a moment for her to make a decision, but he wouldn’t wait forever. The longer that he stayed in the little room, the greater the chance that he would lose his nerve, or that the ghouls would find him and he would lose the element of surprise.

  “What are you going to do?” Audrey said.

  Nathan reached into his pocket and felt the knife, where it always was. “I’m not going to spend my whole life running,” he said. “I’m not waiting for them to come and kill me.”

  He took out the knife. He remembered the feeling of it piercing his flesh, the pain and the way it crippled his movements.

  “There’s one of them that can speak English,” he said. “She’s here somewhere.”

  “What are you going to do?” Audrey said.

  “I’m going to find her.”

  “And then what?”

  Nathan didn’t answer for a moment. “I’ll work that out when I find her. Are you coming or staying here?”

  He felt her grip on his arm tighten and he knew her answer before she said it. “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  CHAPTER 38

  NATHAN PULLED THE DOOR OPEN. THE LIGHT WAS blinding after the darkness of the storage cupboard. Audrey was clinging to his left arm and the knife, bright and shiny, was in his right hand.

  “Where did you get that?” Audrey said, nodding towards the knife and speaking as if his sanity might once again be in doubt.

  He didn’t answer.

  The dead bodies didn’t have quite the same power to shock him a second time but he felt Audrey become tense beside him and grip his arm a little tighter. They made slow progress back towards the stairs and he was sure that every step was being watched by the ghouls.

  “Where are you going to look for her?” Audrey said.

  Nathan shook his head. He didn’t want to return to the dreadful subway, but a part of him felt it was inevitable. On the bright side, most of the bodies seemed to have been brought to the surface.

  There was a long way to go before they reached the point of being able to decide where they went. It might never become a possibility, but he was surprisingly okay with that.

  Nathan stopped at the bottom of the escalator. It had been switched off.

  “What is it?” Audrey said.

  Nathan took his arm away from her and put a finger to his lips. She scowled at him, but she didn’t ask again.

  He’d seen something move on the platform but when he looked around now, he couldn’t see it anywhere. It might try and jump at them when their backs were turned on the escalator and he tried to work out whether that made it a greater or lesser danger than the ones who were probably waiting at the top of jump them.

  Nathan stepped onto the escalator and experienced a moment of disorientation when he didn’t go anywhere. Then he started to climb and Audrey followed. If anything attacked them from below it would have to fight upwards so it seemed less risky to have Audrey there. Even so, he walked up sideways so that he could see both up and down.

  Their footsteps clanked on the broken escalator and seemed to make too much noise. Not that he had any expectation of being able to approach his target with stealth. The ghouls were the experts at that, it seemed like the only thing Nathan had on his side was dumb luck. He squeezed the knife handle again.

  Halfway up the escalator he decided that there was no longer any danger from below. He turned forwards and braced himself for whatever was waiting for them at the top.

  A single ghoul stood in the middle of the bridge. It looked young but wore the expression of vicious anger that Nathan had come to associate with its kind.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Nathan said. He kept his voice quiet and as calm as he could manage. It wasn’t a lie. If he could get out of the situation without more killing, then he would gladly do so, but the chance appeared remote. The ghouls seemed built for killing.

  The creature looked from him to the knife and back again. It repeated the movement. It seemed to be working out what he meant for itself.

  “I just want to speak to the old woman,” Nathan said.

  The ghoul rubbed its dirty face. It looked somewhere between human and ape. Nathan told himself that there was a chance it understood what he was saying, that he might not have to fight.

  The ghoul in front of them turned and ran away. Nathan watched it go along the bridge towards the carpark. He felt the tension drain out of him like a poison.

  Audrey screamed.

 
He spun around and saw the hairy arms of the second ghoul he had ever met around her neck. The creature was bigger than her and twice as wide. Its muscles looked like they belonged to a horse.

  Nathan fumbled the knife, but he didn’t run away.

  “Let go of her,” he said.

  The ghoul smiled and revealed two rows of crooked yellow teeth. It held her more tightly and cut off another cry for help.

  Nathan knew that it was time to act, but he found the decision to take a life difficult. Even though the creature wasn’t human, it clearly had a level of intelligence close to human. Nathan had never even killed a fish.

  But it was the creature or Audrey and that meant that there was really no decision to make. They might both die in his attempt to save her but at least that way she had a chance. If the ghoul took her then, she would end up dumped on a pile of bodies and forgotten about. With so many people dead she probably wouldn’t even get her picture in the newspaper.

  Nathan gripped the knife tightly and threw himself at the creature. He was clumsy but determined. The ghoul turned and attempted to use her as a shield. It was more luck than skill that prevented Nathan from stabbing her by mistake.

  He turned on the spot and managed to get behind the ghoul. There was no time to think about the consequences of what he was doing. He plunged the knife into the creatures exposed back and felt the pain of it in his leg.

  The ghoul let out a cry of pain and anger. Audrey screamed.

  Nathan turned in time to see her stumbling away as the ghoul fell forwards onto its knees. It reached around to try and pull out the knife that was still imbedded in its back.

  Nathan got to the knife first. He yanked it out with more difficulty than he had imagined, the creature’s oily blood was not much of a lubricant. It was still alive, and angry now, so he stabbed it again and this time he didn’t let go of the knife but pulled it out and prepared to stab it again.

  The ghoul rolled over before he had a chance. Its arms reached up to grab hold of Nathan, but it seemed incapable of getting off the floor. Its teeth were bared in a snarl, its eyes wide with pain and anger.

  “Stab it again,” Audrey screamed. She was panting.

  Nathan tried, but he couldn’t get close enough without the risk of being grabbed himself. He knew that the creature was strong enough to break his neck but if he left it to bleed it might come after them.

  A noise like finger nails down a blackboard made him turn away. At the other end of the bridge, he saw the female who he had seen with it that first night. She was dressed in a blue tracksuit with pink stripes. She started running towards them with her mouth was open as she continued to scream.

  Nathan stood back. “We have to go,” he said. He grabbed Audrey’s arm and turned her away. He pulled her after him and they ran as quickly as they could.

  CHAPTER 39

  AUDREY SHOOK HIS HAND AWAY FROM HER ARM but continued to follow him across the bridge. The policeman who had tried to catch them lay on his face in a pool of blood. Nathan felt a moment of hope that the police who had been at the front of the station would also be dead, and then a moment of disgust at himself for wishing any more people hurt.

  He climbed over the turnstile and helped Audrey do the same. She didn’t ask him where they were going again.

  The female ghoul in the powder blue tracksuit was bent over the male screaming her sorrow to the world. Even amongst all the dead Nathan felt sorry for her because he had so recently felt the same. He was glad that he hadn’t needed to kill her but, in a way, he wondered if it wouldn’t have been kinder to do so.

  There were no more ghouls on the bridge. The bright sunlight came through the gaps between giant advertising boards and filled the dusty air. There were no more dead bodies and no more living ones, other than their own. As they walked on it felt as if they were the only ones in the world.

  They slowed down as they approached the set of stairs at the other end of the bridge. They stopped. There were no more excuses to hide behind, the conclusion of the terrible journey was in sight and Nathan could see where he had to go.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” he said to Audrey.

  She was shaking. The black makeup that she had managed to put on one eye was smudged by her tears. She took his other hand. “You’re not leaving me here,” she said.

  “You don’t...” She didn’t know the risk she would be taking. She didn’t understand how small the chance was that they would escape with their lives. A day ago she hadn’t even known the ghouls existed, she didn’t understand how terrible they were. “It’s too dangerous.”

  She squeezed his hands. He could still feel her shaking. “I know,” she said. “But I’m coming anyway.”

  The knowledge that he had spent weeks imagining that she was trying to help him trickled into his consciousness. What if he was imagining her desire to help now? Surely it would be easier to delude himself about the subtle gestures and expressions. Maybe he was missing the subtext and she was really telling him that she was terrified and that the only thing she wanted to do was run away and hide.

  “Nathan it’s okay,” she said. For a moment, she sounded like Gwen. “I’m coming with you whether you like it or not.”

  Nathan nodded and tried to smile, but he had a feeling it came out stiff and awkward. “Thank you,” he said.

  She let go of one hand but kept hold of the other. Together they walked down the broken escalators and out of the station.

  The police officers who had been waiting for him were gone, but there was no sign of their bodies. Nathan hoped that wouldn’t mean they were down in the subway.

  They climbed over the turn stiles and walked out. The sun was warm and friendly and he tried not to think that it might be the last time he ever saw it. That they might go down into the subway and never return. He had a knife, but Audrey had nothing. They didn’t even have a plan.

  A bus was parked in the middle of the road, but there was no driver or passengers. There weren’t any people around at all. In the distance, he could hear music but sound carried a long way when there was nothing to stop it.

  “Where is everyone?” Audrey said.

  Nathan shook his head. He felt as if he was walking through an apocalypse. He had no idea what the time was, but there should have been people around. There were always people around.

  He led Audrey to the subway entrance and considered giving her another chance to back out. A part of him hoped that she would, that maybe they could stop and think about this and maybe come up with another plan. Maybe she would try to convince him that it was suicide to go down there and maybe he would let her. She could tell him that it wasn’t too late to run away and that even a life spent in hiding was better than no life at all.

  “Is this it?” Audrey said.

  Nathan nodded.

  She didn’t give him the chance to ask if she was sure and she didn’t try to convince him that they shouldn’t go down there. Audrey kept hold of his hand and he led her down into the dark depths of the abandoned subway station.

  CHAPTER 40

  THEY PASSED THE POSTERS FOR FILMS THAT HAD been released forty years ago. The ground was covered in dirt and compacted down by the millions of steps that had beaten it that way. Still holding hands Nathan and Audrey entered the tunnel and climbed down the stairs.

  He could hear them down there and see the flickering light of their fires making the shadows dance. The warmth that they produced flooded into the tunnel and smelled like meat. Nathan knew what sort of meat it was and he wished that he didn’t have to smell it. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to become a part of it.

  Their voices were muttered grunts and growls that he didn’t understand. They were quiet, but he knew that they hunted at night and guessed that most of them were probably asleep. That was good, he told himself. That would work to their advantage although it seemed unlikely that they would sleep through the sort of chaos his appearance was likely to cause.

  At the bottom th
ey stopped and he turned to Audrey: one final, wordless, question, her last chance to turn away and pretend that none of this had happened. Maybe the ghouls wouldn’t come after her if he was dead.

  Audrey nodded, her meaning perfectly clear.

  Nathan nodded back at her. He couldn’t spend all day giving her the chance to leave. She was with him now and she had made the decision herself. They turned to the door and walked into the ghouls’ layer.

  The air was thick with smoke, but only one fire seemed to be burning. Trying to hide seemed pointless. The ghouls were much better adapted to seeing in the dim half-light. If Nathan and Audrey attempted to hide, he thought, they were more likely to get themselves trapped somewhere that they couldn’t escape from than be able to approach the creatures undetected.

  Their one concession to stealth was that they didn’t speak. Nathan led her by the hand across the abandoned platform, his eyes open wide for any sign of movement or attack, but none came.

  When they reached the fire without being stopped, he began to wonder whether he had been mistaken. The last time he had been down there he had seen dozens of them. He wouldn’t have been able to make it five metres out in the open without being attacked. But where could they have all gone?

  “Where are they?” Audrey said, her voice barely audible and the crackling of the fire hid it from anything that might be listening.

  “I don’t understand,” Nathan said. “There were loads of them last time.”

  It was a trap after all, he thought.

  Nathan became aware of a low pitched growling sound. It seemed to come from the far away edge of the chamber and move around them in a circle. He followed the path of the sound but whatever was making it was too far away for him to see.

  Audrey moved to stand closer to him. Her body didn’t seem to give off any warmth. She had no means of defending herself which meant she was his responsibility.

  The growling noise continued. It echoed and multiplied in the huge room. Nathan knew that it might already be too late.