by Hunter Shea
There was only one means of escape.
And we were in their way.
Chapter 17
The whoosh of the jellied fire spitting out of the flamethrower took me by surprise. It’s one thing to watch one in action on TV and movies. It’s terrifying when you’re in an enclosed space with an army of rats bearing down on you.
Even though we were well behind it, the heat was intense. Fiery death rained down on the advancing rats.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop them.
Or even slow them down.
“Everyone get the hell out now!” Colonel Benz ordered. We obeyed, the soldier with the flamethrower lagging behind, throwing up what seemed to me an impenetrable wall of flame.
Ratticus nearly knocked me over as he shoved me aside to get out. When he crashed into Benny, causing her to trip, I had to quickly decide between helping her up or making a grab for him so I could introduce my fist to his solar plexus.
Benny won.
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly as we ascended the stairs. Marvin moved on legs made of wood behind us. The soldiers formed a barrier between us and the rats.
“Come on, Marvin,” I said.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he wheezed.
Dear God, why did I insist he come? If something happened to him, I’d blame myself until the day I died.
I just hoped that day wasn’t today.
I heard the door to the lower track level burst open. Ratticus burned rubber, never looking back. We weren’t too far behind.
Troops were everywhere.
Ratticus was trying to wedge his way through them, unwilling to answer the questions that were being barked at him.
“They’re coming!” I shouted.
“Who?” a man clutching a rifle asked.
“The fucking rats!”
Benz and his men had made it out, spitting flames down the stairwell.
The colonel shouted orders to the men in the terminal. Most retreated to the upper level. Those with flamethrowers stayed. Everyone put on their masks.
Benny murmured, “Nononononono.”
Flaming rats cascaded through the door, running madly in every direction. Soldiers fired at their feet. One shot another in the leg by accident. The moment he fell, dozens of fiery rats swarmed over his body, igniting his uniform. His screams made my balls shrivel into acorns.
Behind the burning rats were hundreds—no, thousands—of unharmed rats.
Benny clutched my arm. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
Keeping Marvin between us, we practically lifted him off the floor and ran, the sounds of gunshots and belching fire at our backs. We passed lines of soldiers set up in defensive positions. A few of them looked as frightened as we felt.
“What are you made of, Marvin, lead?” Benny said.
Carrying the old man was like lifting a wheelbarrow full of cinder blocks.
“Stop insulting me and put me down,” he said.
“Not a chance,” I said.
We struggled to get him up the stairs to the main concourse. It was eerie to see it devoid of people in business suits, tourists snapping pictures on their phones, families milling about. Now, men and women in fatigues waited anxiously, all that stood between the rats and millions of innocent people outside the station.
“Stop. Stop,” Marvin said.
My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I was happy to set him down next to an ATM.
“I think my hip dislocated,” he said, wincing. He gripped his side, massaging the bone.
“I thought you had a hip replacement,” I said.
“That doesn’t make it’s indestructible,” he snapped. He went to take off his mask.
Benny slapped his hand away.
“We don’t know if any of that gas made it up here,” she said.
There was a lot of shouting, then the echoing sound of boots pounding the polished floors.
It sounded like the troops were abandoning their hold on the lower level. Which meant they…and the rats….would be here any second now.
“Help me get him on my back,” I said to Benny.
When she went to lift him, the old man planted his ass firmly on the ground.
“You go,” he said.
“Not without you,” Benny said.
“I’ll get a couple of the younger, stronger fellas to carry me out.”
The soldiers weren’t even looking at us. They were too busy wondering just what the hell was coming their way.
“I think they’re going to be a tad busy,” I said.
“They may not be Marines, but even the Army doesn’t leave men behind.”
I thought of the soldier who had been swamped by rats and set on fire. I didn’t think anyone had the presence of mind, or suicidal streak, to go back and recover his body.
Marvin swatted my leg. “You and Benny get going.”
We were about to debate his request when twenty troops came running around the corner.
One man had two rats on his shoulder, taking chunks out of his neck. He’d dropped his weapon and ran, flailing to get them off, to no avail.
Benny and I grabbed Marvin’s unwilling arms when a wall of flaming rats came barreling around the corner. The dancing reflection of the flames on the station’s walls was blinding. We dragged him along the floor, Marvin screaming in pain all the way.
It didn’t matter. We had to get out of Grand Central.
Automatic fire burped from the rifles of the soldiers stationed along the ramp to the Forty-second Street exit. Rats exploded like fireworks filled with blood. Several men were taken down by friendly fire, the rats skittering over their fallen bodies, setting them alight.
We hit the doors hard.
Metal gates had been placed around Grand Central, the cordon going as far as Fifth Avenue. Despite worries that there might be a terrorist situation going down in the country’s most famous rail station, countless people had gathered on the opposite side of the cordon.
“Are they outta their fucking minds?” I said.
Some soldiers saw us dragging Marvin and rushed over to take him from us. He cursed them out, telling them to watch his hip. They hustled him into a Humvee.
Ratticus was talking within a semicircle of officers. He looked desperate to find the nearest helicopter and fly to Boston, but they weren’t letting him go.
A ring of men with flamethrowers moved into position outside Grand Central’s doors.
“The flames…aren’t…stopping them,” Benny said, tearing off her mask.
“They will, sooner rather than later,” an officer said. “The rats aren’t made of asbestos.”
“You need to get everyone far away from here,” I said.
Just then, the doors burst open. Several soldiers came pouring out, rats clinging to their backs. Men swooped forward, grabbing the rats with gloved hands and stomping them with their boots.
More men piled out, all of them covered in rats, many of them on fire.
There were too many wounded, too many rats for the soldiers to handle.
I was sure things couldn’t get any worse.
Then they did.
Chapter 18
Every door exploded under the weight of the fleeing rats.
Wood, glass, steel, fire, and rats rained down on Forty-second Street. There was a collective gasp from the onlookers crammed into the side streets, then shouts of panic.
I heard someone yell, “Fire!”
At once, the ring of soldiers unleashed their flamethrowers.
The rats caught the full blast of the flames, screeching in so high a pitch, I thought for sure office windows would shatter. The fire only seemed to make them more manic. They scurried past the brave soldiers who stood their ground and headed for the
bystanders along Lexington, Park, and Madison Avenues.
Colonel Benz had the unfortunate timing of erupting from Grand Central just as the flamethrowers spat liquid death. I saw the look of shock on his face a second before it was burned to a cinder. My stomach clenched.
A rat with a flaming tail jumped on my thigh.
Benny kicked it, getting a good portion of my thigh in the process. The rat was swallowed up by the rampaging horde.
We had to run, but there was nowhere to go. In seconds, we were surrounded by rats.
“In here,” someone shouted.
I spotted Marvin, the door to the Humvee propped open.
The officers had disappeared, leaving Ratticus to fend for himself. As soon as the doctor spotted the Humvee, he made a beeline for it.
“Let’s go,” I said to Benny.
We were almost at the Humvee, screeching balls of fire on our heels, when Ratticus leaped in front of Benny to get in the Humvee. She flew off her feet, crashing to her side on top of several rats.
“Benny!”
I reached down to scoop her up.
Out of my periphery, I saw Marvin land a bone-crunching jab right on Ratticus’s jaw.
The doctor collapsed as if his legs were made of overcooked spaghetti.
“Get them off me!” Benny screamed.
I swatted rats away, the flames singeing my skin. One was dangerously close to her face, its entire body on fire. I punched it as hard as I could, sending up a shower of sparks and blackened fur.
Practically throwing Benny into the Humvee, I turned to see what had become of our last line of defense.
There was no longer a line of defense.
The men with the flamethrowers had been overwhelmed. All of them were on fire, twisting on the ground, rats desperate to bury their teeth into their soft flesh.
It was a hell even old Sister Veronica had never dreamed of.
I got in and slammed the door.
Rats jumped and slammed their bodies into the Humvee. The big truck jounced but held steady.
Benny was in the front seat, keying the ignition.
“Look,” Marvin said.
I was at a loss for words.
Aside from the rats charging from Grand Central, reinforcements were bursting from the nearby sewers. Of course there were more. Underneath our bustling city was an even busier, densely packed metropolis.
They ran into the fleeing crowd, climbing up legs, leaping onto backs, burrowing into open mouths.
The ones that were on fire set people alight who weren’t quick enough to brush them off. They, in turn, crashed into other people, setting them on fire. Once that person fell, the rats would cover them like a blanket.
It was like watching the world’s most horrid game of dominoes.
I used to wonder what would happen if rats learned to work in tandem, as opposed to dens of seven or so like-minded rodents. This was back when I was watching a lot of old sci-fi movies, the kind where regular animals get irradiated, grow into mammoth monsters and destroy everything in their path.
Mankind, I had decided, wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Get the fuck out of there!” Benny shouted, making me flinch.
“What?”
She pointed. My heart sank.
A half-dozen fiery rats climbed into a baby carriage. The mother was nowhere to be seen. Flames danced from the carriage like a Sunday barbecue.
Benny wept.
We’d tried to have a child of our own, several times. Each time Benny got pregnant, we lost them. We had to resign ourselves to enjoying our nieces and nephews. There was no way we were getting a dog and calling it our child.
That moment was the first time I was glad we’d failed.
“You think you can get us out of here?” Marvin said.
Benny sniffed back some tears and stomped on the accelerator. The Humvee jounced as it rolled over the never-ending tide of rats storming the streets.
She turned the Humvee around so we were facing west, toward Fifth Avenue and beyond.
The side streets were filled with the dead and the dying.
I was watching three men struggle to pull rats from their mouths, while other rats crawled over their prone bodies, when Benny slammed on the brakes. My face hit the hard back of the seat in front of me.
Something thumped on the hood of the truck.
It was Ratticus.
His face was a patchworks of gouges, flesh dangling, his lips a shredded mess.
He pounded on the windshield.
“Let me in!”
I wasn’t sure if he noticed the bevy of rats crawling all over his back.
I went to open the door.
“No!” Benny said. “Do not open that door.”
In fact, now that we had stopped, the rats were attacking the Humvee with abandon. I worried that they might tip us over. Once that happened, we were as good as dead.
Instead, Benny surged forward.
“What are you doing?” Ratticus wailed, clinging to the windshield wiper.
“You did this,” she sneered.
I leaned forward and touched her shoulder. “Benita, slow down.”
The corner of her mouth turned up slightly, and I knew what was coming.
She hit the brakes.
Ratticus flew from the hood, taking the windshield wiper with him. He landed in the street, skidding until he stopped right next to a sewer catch.
The rats squirming from the sewer found an easy victim.
I couldn’t hear him scream as we crashed through the barrier and sped down Forty-second.
Beyond the cordon, the police had been stationed on every corner, lights flashing, directing both foot and vehicular traffic as best they could.
Once we were beside Bryant Park, I rolled down the window and flagged a cop over. “They lost,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
He was young and obviously miffed at having to do traffic detail. “Call in and tell them the military couldn’t stop them. They’ll know. You have to find a way to get everyone to safety.”
He stared at me as if I’d escaped from the loony bin.
“Just move on,” he said, waving for Benny to keep on driving.
“Doesn’t it make you curious as to why three civilians are driving a military vehicle?” I said.
He was about to say something when a wall of screams washed over the busy intersection.
The rats were coming.
Chapter 19
We watched them stampede down Forty-second, sweeping over everyone on the steps of the New York Public Library. They then made their way into Bryant Park, scattering everyone who had been out to get some sun.
The cop went for his gun.
“Get in your car with as many people you can fit and get out of here,” I advised him.
He nodded, his eyes gone glassy. His face contorted. When he looked down, there was a rat chewing at his Achilles tendon. His gun slipped from his fingers and he went down.
“Fuck this,” Benny said.
The road was clogged with cars and now people running for their lives.
She hopped the curb, riding on the sidewalk up Fifth Avenue. People scattered.
I held on for dear life.
“Get back on the road,” I said.
“Not until I have a clear way to get out of here.”
“Your wife is crazy,” Marvin said. I could tell his hip was killing him. He’d gone deathly pale.
“Ex-wife,” I said.
“So she’s available?”
Gallows humor. For the first time ever, I’d lost mine.
When we passed Fifty-fifth street, I said, “You can slow down. And get back on the road.”
“Not a chance.”
I followed her quick glance. Every sewer was erupting with rats.
At least they weren’t on fire.
Police sirens tailed us, but I couldn’t be sure if they were chasing us or not. They did have bigger fish to fry.
Benny pulled back onto the road around Sixty-second Street, weaving between cars and buses. The rats may not have killed us, but a fiery crash was imminent.
By the time we turned left and made it to the West Side Highway, Benny finally relaxed. The highway was clogged with cars. I assumed a ton of people had fled the city at the first hint there was a terrorist attack at Grand Central.
Though far from enough.
“Well, now what? We’re in a stolen military vehicle and the city is being overrun,” I said, master of the obvious.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Benny said, her chest heaving. Tears silently spilled from the corners of her eyes.
“I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do,” Marvin said. “Maybe it’s time we let them have the city.”
“That can’t happen,” I said.
“It already did,” Marvin said.
I angled my way to the front passenger seat. Traffic was at a crawl. I leaned toward Benny. She melted in my arms and wept.
* * * *
We made it to her sister’s house in Yonkers. Just like on 9/11, the neighborhood was gathered outside, radios on, everyone listening to what was happening in the city. Benny’s sister ran to her when we emerged from the Humvee looking worse for wear.
To my surprise, she hugged me, too.
“Were you down there?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Is it as bad as they say?”
“Worse.”
“You want a drink?”
“I’ve gone past want to need.”
She ran into her house and came back with a bottle of expensive whiskey.
“Make mine a double,” Marvin said from within the Humvee.
We drank and answered everyone’s questions as best we could. Benny stayed glued to my hip the entire time.
I wasn’t planning on letting her go ever again.
* * * *
In the end, Marvin was right.
