Archive for November, 2005
« Previous EntriesNext Entries »
Twenty-eight
November 28
Bill couldn’t believe his eyes. She — the girl — Sarah — had peeled herself off the ground. And — and! — attacked a cop! At least it had all ended quickly. A bullet to the head seemed to do the trick. Not that Mike had stopped there. He seemed to be as much of a bulldog as he looked. He had shot the girl in the head again. Point blank range; just stuck the gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger. Thankfully no one else had been watching.
The group at the bench was all gathered around it, those not sitting on it turned to face those who were. Eagle was turned against Bill’s shoulder, crying quietly. It was strangely touching to see so much emotion come from someone that was expected to be so hard and cold.
The two officers climbed out of the subway tunnel. The bitten one, Mike, was bleeding pretty well from his neck, even with one hand clamped over the wound. He was holding his pistol in his other hand, which was bloody, too. He didn’t say anything as he passed Bill and the group at the bench. The other cop, Gumbowsky, stopped to talk to Bill in quiet tones.
“Hey, uh, you saw what happened, I guess. I’m gonna take him to the hospital, of course. You, uh, can you all stay here until we can get back? From the reports I’ve heard, this’ll be believed, but I’d rather have some witnesses. Unless…. No, no, I can’t have you come with us. You have your friends here anyway, and it’d be really against regulations. So, stay here, OK?” He was obviously very nervous and shook up.
Bill nodded. “We’ll stay here. Unless… something else… comes along.”
The cop paled even further. Just for a second, though. He recovered quickly, swallowed, and said, “Yeah, yeah, I understand. If we — I — can’t come back soon, I’ll send someone else. Thanks, Billy.” He reached out and Bill took his hand. The two shook and then the cop turned and jogged out of the subway station. The group around the bench tried to flag him down, but he ignored them. Bill walked over to them, Eagle in tow.
Maureen and George were still sitting on the bench, the other three standing around them. Eagle sat down on the bench, his head in his hands. Bill didn’t pity his position at all. It was hard to lose a friend, a lover. His own wife had died over a decade ago, but he still missed her every night. His thoughts were interrupted by the businessman.
“So where’re the fuckin’ cops going?” He hadn’t said much else, but his face was already starting to turn red. Apparently the cops ignoring him on top of the gunshots and no the lack of power was setting him off the deep end. “Why’d they just run out? And what the hell were the gunshots about? I don’t like all of this… this… silence. I want to know what the hell is going on!” His face was completely red now, his nostrils flaring on every other word.
The two businesswomen were right beside him, nodding along. Bill started to feel his military training rising up in him. The day was going crazy enough as it was without some self-important bean counter demanding to know what was going on. He pulled himself up to his full height, not easily done lately. He pulled in a deep breath and then poked a finger out at Mr. Businessman.
“The cops left ’cause one of ‘em was hurt, or maybe you didn’t see the blood. They’re asking us to stay here until one or both of ‘em get back. I said we’d do it, so you might as well get comfortable.”
“Hurt? What’d he do, shoot himself? Why the fuck do we have to wait here?”
Bill really wished he could just hit the man, but that wouldn’t solve anything. “If you want to know what hurt him, go look on the rails. As for staying here, we’re staying ’cause I said we are.”
The businessman puffed his chest up and shouted “Fine!” at Bill and the rest of the group, then the turned and stomped his way over to the yellow-striped line. His stomping slowed and became a lot more timid as he approached the edge. He stood there for a second, looking down at the gore below, then turned and started coughing and hacking against the wall. Some yellow phlegm-y vomit came up and he braced himself against the wall with both hands. A few more coughs and he muttered “Fuck” after noticing that he’d gotten some bile on his tie. He stripped it off and threw it onto the ground.
Bill turned to look at the other members of the group. “I take it none of you want to see what’s down there?” Everyone shook their heads or muttered “No”. Bill nodded, then looked at Maureen and George. “I’m sure you two know what’s down there already.” Both of them nodded their heads. “Yeah. So I guess everyone just needs to sit down somewhere and just wait, I guess. It shouldn’t be too long before someone gets back here. It’s just that the cops want some witnesses for the report. The incident report, or whatever.” He shrugged and everyone nodded. They all went and found a place to sit, the two businesswomen sat on the steps and Bill pulled a trashcan over and turned it upside-down to sit on.
After a few minutes of sitting in silence, one of the two businesswoman looked up and asked, “So, what’s REALLY going on?”
Bill sighed and decided to dive in. “Well, it looks like… no, it IS that the dead are coming back to life.” He knew it sounded stupid and silly and panicky, but he couldn’t help it. The woman just stared at him. She didn’t belive him, he could read it in her eyes. “I know it sounds… impossible,” he said, “but it’s what’s going on. We saw it happen at the library that we were in this morning. A little girl got hit by a car and then…. She came back. She came back to life and attacked someone else.” Bill had been staring at his hands during the telling, and now he looked up at the woman who had asked.
The businesswoman’s mouth was hanging open now. She was staring at Bill and George and Maureen. “And then what?” She was deathly quiet now but the echoes of the subway platform carried her voice to him. He looked down at his hands again and then continued.
“The woman she attacked — a paramedic that had come to help her — she died. And then she came back, too. It seems to spread through bites. That’s all I really know about it.” He kept looking at his hands but could hear the woman stand up and walk over to him. She squatted down in front of him and pushed his head up so he was looking into her eyes.
“But where does it start?”
He searched his mind, hoping, praying for any sort of answer to her question. All he knew was that it started with the little girl. He had no idea where she had gotten it. Or why. For all he knew, everyone had it. Whatever it was. He swallowed hard and looked her square in the eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Twenty-seven
November 27
Gumbowsky slowly closed the service hatch door. He stood and looked around at everyone. The five people huddled around the bench were starting to part a little and the three men by the subway tunnel had loosened their grips on each other. He came and joined the male trio, looking down at the girl on the tracks. Mike turned and said, “Well, we need to get her out of there.” Gumbowsky nodded. They had a plastic tarp in the car that’d probably work for wrapping her up. He wasn’t sure if they’d be able to get her off the tracks, though. Electricity burned fat and fat stuck.
Billy and the punk kid were just sitting on the ground, their feet hanging over the edge. The punk kid was crying quietly and Billy had put an arm around his shoulder. Gumbowsky wondered if the two had any sort of ties to each other, but guessed not. Billy hadn’t mentioned anything like this in his story about the library. He turned around and started toward the stairs.
“Wha — what happened?” The man in the business suit. Gumbowsky looked over at him and shook head head.
“Just stay where you are. You don’t want to see.” He took the stairs two at a time. A quick jog to the back of the car fetched him the bright blue plastic tarp and a shovel. The shovel was metal but the track was turned off right now so it should be OK. He sighed and hefted the spade over his shoulder, tucked the tarp under his arm. He took the steps two at a time going down, too. He could see that the bench group knew what had happened when they saw his tools. They would have found out soon enough anyway, he guessed. Especially when they saw the two cops carrying her out of here.
Mike was getting ready to get down on to the floor of the platform. He had rolled up the sleeves of his uniform. Bill and the punk kid had moved closer to the bench group but were still very seperate from them. It was the knowing. That was what kept them apart from the rest. Gumbowsky had seen it happen a dozen times or more. The knowing made you different, put you apart from the group. The knowing and the unknowing seemed to have a hard time coming back together. He sat the tarp and shovel down near Mike and sat down on the end of platform himself. He unzipped the light wind breaker he had been wearing and sat it on the floor behind him. A quick roll of the sleeves and he was as ready as his partner. They dropped to the bottom of the tube together and turned to fetch their implements.
A sucking, popping sound came from behind them. A boot from wet mud or…. No, that was the best way to explain it. But it had a ripping edge to it, too. Gumbowsky was trying to place it the whole time he was turning around. Finally it hit him. Peeling burnt bacon off of a pan.
Sarah was picking herself up off the recently-electrified rails of the subway. Chunks of flesh and hair were sticking to the metal rails, some clothing going with them. A long strip of her t-shirt was ripped off, showing her bra and chest. Two patches were torn out of her pants legs where it had laid across the bars. He noticed, almost humorously, that she had lost a shoe. It laid, untied, a foot or two away. She ripped and pushed and popped her way to her feet and turned to look at the two officers.
Gumbowsky had turned around first, Mike followed a second later. They both took a step or two back, the shock and revulsion moving them more than fear. The girl shambled a few steps, her legs not working well now that parts of kneecaps were missing. She kept her balance well, though, shambling a few more steps. The cops both stepped back again, Gumbowsky tried to move closer to the wall. Mike pulled his gun out and pointed it at the girl. “Stop, right there!”
She didn’t listen. Gumbowsky wasn’t even sure she COULD listen. He had decided he didn’t care. He just wanted to get up and out of this pit and deal with it when he wasn’t within arm’s reach of a walking dead girl. “Stop!” Mike yelled again, the gun trembling slightly in his hand. She shuffled closer in defiance. She was close enough for them both to see her face in the dim light. One eye was rolled back in its socket, the other staring off to the left. A large round piece was missing from her bottom lip, obviously bitten off. Gumbowsky shivered unconciously and grabbed the top of the wall.
“Come on, Mike. Let’s get out of here.” He pulled himself up slowly, thinking of all the times he’d skipped going to gym. That changed right now. No more cheeseburgers and fries and milkshakes and late night pizza and donuts. God help him, no more. He rolled onto the platform and turned to help Mike.
The girl had reached him. Or nearly so. She was a few inches away from the end of his gun. He opened his mouth to yell at her again but she grabbed his hands. A shot fired and the bullet ricocheted down into the subway tunnel, pinging off of metal and tile and concrete until it was lost in darkness and silence. Mike grunted and pulled his hands away, falling backward but catching his balance before he lost his feet. He aimed a shot dead center in her chest and fired, the bullet punching through already-missing flesh and cloth. She stumbled backward.
Mike fired again, catching her in the stomach. At this close of range, the bullet punched a large hole through her abdomen. A fat length of intestine slid out both sides of her. She took a step toward the cop. Mike screamed a wordless yell as she fell open-mouthed onto him. A second scream followed a few moments later as she brought her teeth together into his neck. Gumbowsky couldn’t bring any words to his tongue as he watched his partner being eaten by a re-animated punk girl.
Mike still had control of himself, though. Gumbowsky watched him bring the gun up and set it on the side of her head. He pulled the trigger in the space between bites and she dropped off of him like a swatted fly. “Fuck!” he yelled, stretching the word out for a few seconds. “Fuck fuck fuck.” He had dropped his gun and had his hand clamped over the wound in his neck. Gumbowsky dropped back down into the pit.
The three businesspeople were startled by the cop, but quickly recovered. They nodded their heads and mumbled “okay”. The officer led them over to where Bill and the others were sitting so they’d all be together and easy to interview. Bill noticed that Eagle and Sarah had quieted down. Either things had gotten a lot more serious or they had moved on down the tube. He thought about mentioning them, but decided he didn’t really care after all.
“OK, so first things first. Has anyone here seen anything… odd… today?” The cop was obviously nervous when he said the word “odd”. Another word had almost wanted to form on his lips, but he had held himself back. Probably didn’t want to look like some paranoid eccentric jumping to conclusions that movie monsters were running around the city. “Anything that just shouldn’t have been doing what it was doing?”
“Well, it’s kind of odd that the power’s out everywhere and the trains aren’t running.” That was the quieter woman from the stairs, a hispanic woman in her early thirties or so. She was pretty in a black and white movie secretary sort of way. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she was wearing a cream-colored suit dress. She looked irritated at the subways more than anything else.
“OK, OK, yeah, that’s definitely odd. We still haven’t found what’s caused the power outtages, but they’re all over the city. Some two hundred square blocks are without power and plenty more with major brown outs and other problems. The trains in this area are de — down because of the power, obviously. We’ve shut down the others so there aren’t any accidents and to conserve the power going to the still-functioning parts of town.” He glanced over at the pit that the trains ran through. “That middle rail should still be hot, though. That has it’s own power supply but all it can do it move the train. Nobody wants to get stuck in the dark….
“Has anyone else seen anything other than the trains? Or the power outtages?” He looked concerned but reserved, like he didn’t want to be the one to tell the bad news. Bill leaned forward and read the name tag. Apparently this was Officer Gumbowsky. Bill raised his hand. “Yes?” the officer asked him.
“We saw something. In the library,” Bill volunteered.
“Yes? What was it?”
“I don’t know that I want to tell everyone. It was — it might cause a panic or something.” Bill almost felt silly, thinking of telling about the little dead girl that had turned the whole day on its head. The cop nodded and held out an arm.
“I’ll tell you what, you come up here and talk to me and my partner, he’s in the squad car. If it’s something that these people need to worry about, we’ll come back down and tell ‘em. If it’s not, then no big deal. Alright? That work?” Gumbowsky had a kind smile and Bill nodded while he stood up. Together they walked up the stairs and into the dim, but bright compared to the subway platform, day.
A squad car was parked near the entrance to the tunnel, actually parked on the sidewalk. Another officer was in the car. Gumbowsky was a man of medium build, gaining a little weight around the middle. He still looked fit, but his partner, who was leaning against the cruiser, put him to shame. This cop — Bill couldn’t see his name tag — was all muscle. His blue shirt was tight across a well-built chest and the sleeves seemed on the edge of bursting from muscles on his arms. His neck and head joined into one pillar of flesh. He definitely deserved the cop nickname “Bull”. Gumbowsky waved at him when they emerged from the darkness below, motioning for him to just stay there and they’d come over.
“Hey, Mike. This guy says he saw something strange at the library back up the street. He thought it might alarm the other people, so I brought him up here to talk to us privately.” Gumbowsky turned to look at Bill, a much warmer face than his partner. “Go on, buddy, let’s hear it.”
Bill looked back and forth between Gumbowsky and his partner, Mike. He had to trust somebody, and a cop was as good as God in this case. He took a deep breath, “Alright. Here goes.”
Both cops seemed bored when told about Seth and Elijah bringing the girl in. A hit and almost-run was interesting, but not odd or strange. Definitely not panic-inducing. They already knew about the power going out, but looked a little surprised at the news that the police headquarters was almost unreachable. “We’ve been gettin’ sent all over the place,” Gumbowsky said quietly. “All day long, ’specially since the power went out.” The news that 911 had disappeared was met with a nod. “Yeah. Their power and phone lines both went out.”
Bill straightened up and cleared his throat before he brought up what had happened when the ambulance had arrived. Gumbowsky’s eyes seemd to get wider when the little “woke up”, but Mike’s stayed the same. Bill could hardly believe the descriptions that were coming out of his mouth, but it was what had happened, goddamn it, and it had to be told. He told them about Seth and Elijah and the paramedic Jones killing the little girl again. And about the female paramedic — Mary, he thought Jones had called her — coming back and them having to put her down again. “And then we left, a little while later, once we had our wits again.” He looked at the sidewalk in front of the cop car. He shrugged. “And that’s what happened. Is that strange enough, officers?”
Gumbowsky just stood in silence for awhile, then said “Wow” under his breath. Mike still hadn’t moved. Gumbowsky looked over at him and nudged him. “What do you think?”
Mike, his last name “Jamison” according to the little brass nametag, looked up at Gumbowsky and quietly said “I think we should go check it out. These people will be alright on their own s’long as no new dead people start chasin’ ‘em.” He half-smiled at the “dead people”. Bill had a feeling Officer Jamison didn’t beleive his story. Oh well, he hadn’t really expected them to. Gumbowsky nodded.
“Alright. We’re gonna go check it out, then. Mr…,” he looked at Bill.
“Just call me Billy.”
“OK, Billy, we’re gonna go check out the library. You can go back down there and tell them for us. We’ll come back here when we’re finished. It won’t be long, I’m sure.” Mike had already turned and gotten into the driver’s side of the car.
“Actually,” Bill said, “no, can you come tell them yourselves? I think they’d take it better. I mean, if I go back in there and tell them the police rushed off after I’d told my story, I’m gonna have a lot of explaining to do. And I’d rather not.”
Gumbowsky nodded. “Sure.” He waved to Mike. “Come on, Mike. Let’s go tell these people they have nothin’ to worry about.” Mike grunted and climbed back out of the car. The three of them descended the two flights of stairs into the subway. Everyone turned to look and Bill noticed that Eagle was back on the platform. No sign of Sarah, though. Again, he decided he didn’t really care.
Gumbowsky noticed the new guy, he kind of jerked and nodded when he saw him, but didn’t say anything to him. “OK, people, we just got a call on the radio that we have to go check out. We’ll come back this way, or send another car, when we can. You all can either wait here or start walking home. This part of town seems really deserted, but I know there are plenty of taxis and busses running a few blocks away. Go toward the docks, that’ll get you to the still-working areas the fastest.” He nodded again and turned to leave, Officer Jamison right behind him.
Eagle turned and yelled, “Sarah. C’mere!” again. Those seemed to be his strongest words. Bill saw Sarah emerge from the darkness, buttoning her plaid pants. He could barely make out her shoes and noticed that at least one of them was untied. The pink laces were flapping about when she hop-walked in her still-not-quite-up pants. “C’mon!” Eagle yelled again, his voice echoing hollowly around the landing. Sarah nodded at him and hopped forward again, then disappeared from view. She screamed.
The emergency lights flickered for a second, then flickered again. Eagle rushed forward to the edge, Gumbowsky and Jamison right behind him. Bill ran forward, too, unconciously.
Sarah had tripped on the far rail and falling flat across the other two. Her body was spasming and twitching. “Sarah!” Eagle yelled. He started to climb down into the pit but Mike grabbed him and held him. He was still fighting, almost gaining the upper hand, so Bill grabbed him from the other side.
“Turn that shit off!” Mike yelled at Gumbowsky. He pulled a hand away from Eagle to point to a service hatch on the side of the platform. Gumbowsky nodded and rushed over to it, pulling his keys from their snap on his belt. The rest of the group were huddled together around the bench in the middle of the platform. The emergency lights were still flickering, cycling between bright and off every few half-seconds or so. It gave a slow strobe effect to the whole platform.
Gumbowsky finally found the key and popped the door open. He looked confused, staring at all of the switches and dials. Finally he stuck a hand in and pulled one switch down. The light stopped spasming and so did Sarah’s body. The light glowed as calmly as ever. Sarah lay still, slightly smoking. “Sarah!” Eagle yelled again, pain and frustration in his voice. Bill could see tears sliding down his face. Even a world-hardened punk kid would cry for his girlfriend. Eagle stopped fighting the two men who were holding him and sat quietly. Mike wiped his face and looked over at his partner.
Twenty-five
November 23
They hadn’t been sitting long when the two teenagers decided they were bored and wanted something to liven up their days. Bill hadn’t paid them much attention when he had first come down, but now looked at them more closely since there wasn’t much else to look at. They were probably older than he had thought, they were at least eighteen, maybe in their early twenties. The guy was tall once he stood up, probably reaching six feet. His hair was dark and seemed pasted down to his skull and forehead, a long point of hair hanging down between his eyes. He wore a leather coat and dirty green pants that hung down over his black leather combat boots.
The girl that was with him, girlfriend maybe, was quite a bit shorter. She was probably only five-foot-three or four. Her hair was short and spiky, dyed a flourescent pink that looked almost orange in the emergency lights. She would have been cute if she didn’t have giant holes in both ears and a stud through each eyebrow. Bill just didn’t understand people wanting to put these holes in their bodies. He had a tattoo from when he was in the Navy, but that was different. He had earned that, by God. And it didn’t make him look like a deformed freak.
They both stood up and started walking around the platform. The guy went and studied the map that Bill had been looking at earlier. He had a large eagle stitched out on the back of his jacket in bright thread, reds and yellows and greens. The colors weren’t realistic at all, but the overall eagle was pretty good, Bill had to admit. He had always liked eagles himself; that was what his tattoo was of, even. It spread across his chest, or had. Gravity and old age had taken their toll and, although it was still visibly an eagle, it didn’t seem to have the same power and impact it had had when he got it some thirty years ago.
Eagle did about the same as Bill. He stood and looked at it all, taking it in, appreciating what it could have done. Then decided it was pointless to keep looking at a broken map and turned to find something better to do. He turned and walked over to the slashed yellow line and peered down the tunnel. Blackness filled both ends of the tube, so he jumped down onto the floor of the tunnel, kicking gravel and trash around.
The girl, Bill already thought of her as Eagle’s girlfriend, wandered over towards the businesswomen. “Hey, I like your purse,” she said to one of them. They smiled politely at her, then took their stuff and moved away, closer to the middle of the platform. Closer to other people and the emergency lights. The girl shrugged and sat down on the edge of the platform, kicking her feet. Billy could hear her tennis shoes, which had laces the color of her hair, bouncing off the concrete. The sound echoed in the strangely quiet, strangely empty place.
Eagle wandered further up the train tube, soon disappearing into the darkness. Bill could hear him walking through the gravel and trash, the sounds doubling and re-doubling as they echoed back to the platform. Soon he called “Hey, Sarah!” from the darkness.
The pink-haired girl, Sarah apparently, looked up and yelled back, “Yeah?” She had stopped kicking her feet and was playing with the small pins on her jacket now. She dropped down to the tunnel floor and called “Yeah?” again.
“C’mere, babe,” he called, quieter now. “C’mon over here.” Bill couldn’t see any of Eagle, but Sarah’s head showed above the tunnel. She smiled and walked over to where Eagle was waiting. She reached out a hand when she reached the beginning of the darkness and he pulled her in quickly. Her giggles echoed out of the darkness. Soon smacking sounds and soft moans began to filter out of the echoes and everyone still on the platform seemed nervous and embarrassed.
The business man moved back toward the stairs, peering up at the small amount of sky you could see from the bottom. “Still overcast. Looks like the sun might come out before too long. The rain’s stopped. Guess we could all walk to wherever we need to be.” He turned back to the group to see how his suggestion would be taken.
The two women looked at him and shrugged. They walked over to where he was standing and looked out for themselves. The three of them talked a bit in low, quiet tones. “I think we’re going to walk to another station,” the businesswoman who had come down first said to no one in particular. “If you three want to come with us — you know, to feel safer or whatever — we don’t mind. Gotta be better than staying down here with…” she pointed at the dark hole in the wall where Eagle and Sarah had disappeared to make out.
“Actually, I’d rather you all stay down here for a minute, at least until I can talk to you,” a strange voice said, making the three business people at the stairs jump and turn around. A police office in the ever-recognizable blue uniform had come down the stairs while they were turned around talking to Bill, Maureen and George. “It won’t take long, I promise.”
Twenty-four
November 21
The elderly trio had left the library while it was still raining. Maureen and George huddled together under an umbrella, William had his own. No one ever called him William, though. Not even Maureen and George, whom he’d known for ages. They all called him Billy and he liked it. A nickname made a man feel younger than his years. The excitement today seemed to be cancelling out that particular fountain of youth, though.
They walked down the sidewalk silently, no one really feeling like talking after what they had seen. They were travelling in the opposite direction of the hospital, moving toward the closest subway station to try and get back home as quick as they could. Billy kept repeating a prayer for the subways to still be working silently in his head with every step. The power was out but maybe the trains had their own set up or something. Something that would mean they could get out of this quickly.
By the time they reached the station, a good half mile away, they were all damp despite the umbrellas. Domes over your head didn’t do much good in a blowing rain that came at you sideways. The stairs down into the ground looked dark, but silent looks through the group showed they all wanted to go down and see what the situation really was.
The cloud-filtered sunlight illuminated the first several steps of the wide concrete staircase, but beyond that was lost in shadow. They went down as bravely as they could, letting their eyes adjust to the gloom. A few other people were standing around on the landing, still only halfway down to the level of the trains. They were all shielding their eyes from the light, trying to peer just a few more feet into the darkness.
“I — I think I heard a train pull in,” one man in a business suit said. “I wonder why it’s so dark in there?”
A woman in a pin-striped business suit looked over at him and tiredly said, “Where have you been? The power’s been out for an hour or so now. My whole office left thirty minutes ago. I don’t know if the subways are runnin’ or not, but I’m not about to stand here too much longer.” She started down into the blackness. Another woman standing on the landing looked worridly after her, then followed. That left Billy and his friends, and the business man.
“Well,” said the man, “I’m not going in there, train or no.” He turned to climb the steps leading back out.
“I thought you said you heard a train?” Maureen called to him.
“Yeah, I said I THOUGHT I had heard a train. It could have just been my mind playing with me. Or maybe it was one of those…. I’m just not going down in there in the dark. I’ll find a taxi and take it home.” He turned and stormed up the stairs, full of fake bravado and slightly flustered.
“I hope he makes it home,” Maureen said quietly. “I — I hope we all make it home.” She looked at the two men travelling with her. “Well, what do you fellas think we outta do?” She looked on the verge of sitting down and crying right where she was.
George just turned and looked back into the darkness. He stepped down another stair or two and just stood there, shoulders slightly slumped. Billy wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand, he really wanted to see what was going on down on the platform. On the other… he didn’t want to run into any more re-animated… creatures. Two was enough for any man. More than enough. He shrugged at Maureen.
“Maureen, I honestly have no idea. I really want to see what’s going on down there,” he pointed into the darkness below them, “but I don’t want to take a chance that we’ll find more than trains and commuters. George?” George turned to look at them. “What do you think, George?”
George stood there for a few seconds, mulling things over by his facial expression. “I think we should go down,” he said, quietly. He nodded at the two of them, then turned and started down the stairs. Maureen and Billy had to hurry after him. He disappeared into thick darkness quickly, but soon emerged as a silhoutte, backlit by the orange-yellow emergency lights. The platform wasn’t crowded. The three of them made seven or eight total on the cement landing. The two women from the stairs stood near the black and yellow striped line, talking quietly to each other. Another business man stood propped against one wall, briefcase and overcoat folded under his arm. Two younger kids, probably sixteen or seventeen, were squatting on the opposite wall from the businessman, tossing pebbles around.
No one said anything when the trio emerged from the dark. The businessman looked up from staring at his shoes and the floor. His dark eyes took them all in in one look, then he went back to the ground. The kids in the corner didn’t even look up. The businesswomen ignored them, too, except for a small cursory glance from the first woman down.
No train was waiting. The map in the corner that normally showed where each train was with a small LED strip wasn’t working. Only the emergency argon lights glowed, barely illuminating the platform. The three people on the farthest edges, the businessman and the two teenagers, were partially in the shadows, halfway obscured by the short gradient from light to dark. Billy walked over to the map to look closer; Maureen sat down on the benches in the middle of the room and George joined her, standing by her instead of sitting.
The map was in remarkable condition for being stored underground where anyone could get to it. The subways in this city were free for use, so there wasn’t any ticket booth or anyone to monitor activities. Janitors and maintenance personnel regularly came through, so they could have kept tabs on everything, and cops were usually present in each of the loading areas. Still, vandals seemed to have a way to destroy anything they wanted. Just look at highway overpasses and water towers.
The map showed all the tracks that the subway trains ran through the city. Each group of lines had a color coordinated with it. They were in the downtown section of the city, so they were on the yellow line. The lines were painted on the map, but there was also a line of LEDs inset into each one with a matching color that showed were trains were waiting and travelling. It was a great way to see how long of a wait it was until the next train pulled into the station and Bill had never seen another map like it in any of his travels.
Now, though, the map was just a map. No LEDs were lit, no LEDs travelled between stations. The dim orange light of the station made it hard to read the map. After staring at it for a few minutes without really seeing it, he turned around to see what the other two were doing.
Maureen was still sitting and George had joined her. Bill walked over to them and sat down on Maureen’s other side. “Well, guys, any new ideas?”
Maureen looked at him, still close to tears, and shook her head. George looked at him thoughtfully and said, slowly, “I don’t think they’re running, Billy. Looks like they’re all froze up somewhere along the line. What do you think we should do? Should we go look for a taxi cab?” George wasn’t slow, even if he halfway seemed like it. He just preferred to take his time deciding what to say, and he spoke slow to make sure he said it the way he wanted to say it. It was a habit that was somewhat hard to get used to, but faded into normalcy after knowing him for a few years.
“Well, I think you’re right, George. The map’s out. I know that don’t mean much, since it’s electric, too. Just seems like they could power the map if they could keep the trains moving. I dunno what to do, though. I don’t know if I trust any cabs after what happened….” He trailed off, not wanting to push Maureen over the edge. “Anyway, I guess we could try walking. Or we could wait here for a train. These people seem set on doing that,” he motioned around the room at the other five people.
Maureen and George both just looked at him, Maureen even closer to tears than she had been. Seeing the little girl had been hard on her. She and George had lost a child, a girl, to an auto accident many years ago and Bill knew they still thought about her often. Today just wasn’t the day to go to the library.
“Yeah, let’s stay here for awhile,” George said. “I’d rather wait and see what happens. I got a feeling about the train. I think it’ll be the right choice.” He nodded at Bill and Bill nodded back. They’d wait.
Jeb’s arms were burning and his hand hurt from swinging the statue. The man finally looked truly dead, though. Good riddance to him, too. The dead were supposed to just lay there, not start movin’ around again. He was glad it had gone as quickly as it had. He didn’t know if he could have held out much longer. He walked back through the rows of books toward the spiral staircase.
“Ginny? I’m comin’ up the stairs. Everything’s alright now.” He called while he was still walking down the aisle. “Ginny?” He stopped and listened for a reply. Nothing. Oh well, she was probably hiding up on the third floor and couldn’t hear him. Or was afraid to call out or something. He’d see when he got up there.
He reached the bottom rung of the staircase and started up, keeping one hand on the railing and looking up through the hole. These staircases always messed with his head. He would have taken the grand staircase at the back, but he wanted to get up to Ginny as quick as he could. He’d deal with a little bit of vertigo.
Halfway up the staircase, he heard a gasp from above. Ginny sucked in air, then let it out in a long scream. “Ginny! What?” His voice was full of panic for his friend. “What?!” She just screamed again, this one trailing off into a whimper. He looked back down the staircase.
Bob was at the bottom, coming up. He had crawled up a few stairs, using his size to help prop him between the railings. His face was pointed straight up at Jeb and he was pulling himself with his arms more than pushing with his feet. Spit and blood was still dripping out of his mouth. He opened his mouth to let out another of his gurgling growls and Jeb could see that all of his front teeth were missing, knocked out by the flagpole. His nose was broken, too, the blood trickling from it adding to the blood pouring from his mouth. Jeb half-screamed himself, taking another couple of steps up the staircase.
Jeb reached the second floor and scrambled out of the staircase hole. He saw Ginny sitting over by the railing looking out over the library. Her hands were to her mouth and she was staring wide-eyed at Jeb. He could hear her almost hyperventilating. “Ginny, it’ll be OK. I’ll — ” He wasn’t sure WHAT he’d do.
He looked back down the spiral ramp and saw that Bob was about halfway up now, making good speed on his supernaturally strong arms. His head was bent back painfully, staring up at the hole. And Jeb’s face. He tried to smile, but his lips didn’t seem to want to obey. Another gurgle came from his throat and little bubbles appeared in the spit that was pooling on his tongue.
Jeb felt frozen to the spot. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He’d brain the damn thing twice already. Three times, counting the second whack with the flagpole. It should be choking to death on its own teeth with a smashed in skull. Another growl jarred Jeb from his trance. It came from much too close. He looked down the hole again, squinting against the darkness, and saw that Bob had only a few steps left to climb. Jeb swung his feet over the hole and put them down on the first stair.
Ginny half-gasped half-screamed behind him, but he kept himself from turning and looking. He couldn’t be distracted right now. He had to keep his mind on killing this damn… thing. He stepped down to the second step, still not sure what he was going to do. He knew the time had come to decide when he felt an ice-cold hand clamp onto his shin.
“Fuck!” The word jumped out of him before he could stop it. He felt fingernails trying to find flesh through his dungarees. He kicked with his free foot and felt the sole of his shoe connect with skull. Bob gurgled as he was pushed backward by the kick. His hand didn’t let go of Jeb’s leg. Jeb kicked again and felt his foot slide on the blood-slick skull.
Bob’s fingers began to loosen on his leg, the fingers losing their strength. Jeb was holding himself on the first step with his hands, bracing himself for the kicks. The third kick knocked Bob down a few stairs, his hand finally slipping off. He caught Jeb’s foot, though, and pulled Jeb down a few steps. Jeb let out another curse and pulled back his free foot for a fourth kick. He let it go with all the might he had left in his body.
Bob’s face seemed to split down the middle, blood gushing out from everywhere. His head went back and back and finally pulled his body over. Suddenly one hundred and eighty degrees from where he had been, he failed his arms wildly trying to catch onto anything. He fell back onto the metal stairs, his skull clanging off of one of them. He bounced and slid down to the bottom where he landed with a thud, his neck bent at an odd angle. Jeb didn’t move from his new seat four or five steps below where he had been. Slowly, Bob’s body succumbed to gravity and slid sideways until it was laying on the ground with his head, which was now twisted most of the way around. With a final snap, his body and head both lay flat on the ground. His eyes were open and completely rolled back into his head. Jeb breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Jesus,” he said under his breath. He tried to stand up but found his knees too wobbly to support his weight. He turned and crawled up the stairs, all to aware of how eerie it was to immitate the recently doubly deceased Bob. He cleared the second floor and collapsed on the ground. He couldn’t breathe.