by JE Gurley
Walmsley, an avid hunter smiled. “Of course. A pistol, too.” His prized .367 Mauser hung from his gun rack and his .357 Magnum was in the glove box, along with a box of ammunition.
McNeil made his decision. “Go get them. We’re going down to check on Hardin.” He looked at Joria. “I know you want to go. Hardin said you’re some kind of expert, so I guess I’ll need you, but it could be dangerous down there.” He didn’t know how to interpret her enigmatic smile. He spoke to the others. “I need someone to go with us. Any volunteers?” One man held up his hand. “You sure, Johnson?” he questioned.
Sid Johnson smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure. I work in an office all day. I need to see what it’s like down there.”
“Okay. You come with us. Gonzalez, Finch. You can wait here to keep watch and to operate the basket.”
McNeil stared into the depths of the shaft, head cocked to one side listening for any sign of life. He was worried about Hardin. He had read the newspaper accounts about the so-called vampire that had been killing the girls and only half believed them until he had spoken with Hardin. If such a creature existed and was haunting his tunnels, it was his responsibility to eliminate it. He should have insisted on accompanying Hardin in the beginning. Hardin seemed like a good man, but he was too close to the creature, determined to wage a one-man war against it and maybe that had cost him his life.
He had attempted to question Joria Alvarez about the creature and had been surprised to learn that she held a Doctorate in Cryptozoology. That was about all she had revealed. Her reticence to divulge anything concerned him.
Walmsley came back with the rifle strapped over his shoulder and a hunting knife hung from a scabbard on his belt. He handed the .357 and holster to McNeil.
“Here, you take this.”
McNeil took the offered pistol and buckled the holster around his waist. He felt like one of the old time sheriffs in the westerns he was fond of watching – Wyatt Earp, maybe.
“Open it up,” he called out to Gonzalez and Finch.
They lifted the heavy grate from the opening. McNeil, Walmsley, Johnson and Joria entered the open bucket and McNeil signaled Gonzalez, the crane operator, to lower them into the hole.
“Lock it behind us,” he called out to them.
Warm air swept around them as the open mesh bucket descended slowly into the shaft. No one spoke. He took a secret delight in seeing the look of distress on Joria’s face as she clung to the sides of the bucket. Familiar smells – grease, the metallic odor of hot metal from brakes, earth, rusty steel – reminded McNeil of his early years with the company; first as a laborer, then a subway motorman on the north-south run, eight trips daily, and finally four years of night school paid for by the company to become a mining engineer. He loved dirt. He loved the smell of it, the feel of it on his fingers. He could take a fistful of soil and tell you where in the tunnels it had come from just by the differences in texture.
The main airshaft was ten feet wide and just over one hundred and fifty feet deep. When they reached bottom and disembarked from the bucket. McNeil watched it disappear back up the shaft with trepidation. He couldn’t back out now. He waited until he heard the sound of the door in the massive steel grate as his men lowered and locked it before looking around. There was still a lot of dust in the air; another indication there had been a cave in. Dust motes twinkled in the beam of their flashlights. He tried the walkie-talkie again, hoping to reach Hardin.
“Detective Hardin, this is McNeil. Do you read? Over.” He waited a full minute, listening but heard nothing but static. He waved the others to follow him.
The main airshaft’s design allowed sufficient airflow in the two tunnels to keep the air, if not fresh, at least breathable. It was a distance of over ten miles between stations and hazardous amounts of carbon monoxide and other gases could accumulate in the dead space if not properly ventilated. The shaft was a six-foot square horizontal tunnel running from the vertical air vent to the main line, a distance of four hundred feet. Their booted steps echoed eerily down the concrete lined tunnel. When they reached the old subway tunnel, McNeil eyed the service door built into the floor of the tunnel. It had not been moved. Hardin had not made it that far. Beyond it, the massive ventilator fan whirred dutifully, drowning out any attempts at conversation, though no one seemed eager to talk. Perhaps like McNeil, they thinking about what they might encounter in the tunnel. The fan was set into the floor of the shaft, covered by heavy steel mesh bolted to the fan’s frame that could be removed for maintenance. A walkway crossing the gap provided access to a second identical fan above the main subway line.
Walmsley wiped the accumulated dirt off the trapdoor and lifted it, fighting the suction caused by the fan. He motioned for Johnson to hold the door while he descended the ladder first. McNeil watched Walmsley’s head disappear through the opening, and then helped Joria onto the ladder. He went last, closing the door behind him. He coughed as he entered the tunnel. Dust drifted in clouds, moving in eddies as the fan fought to remove it. There was a second odor too, a musty animal smell. He noticed that Joria seemed to recognize the odor.
“What is it?” he questioned.
She jerked her head to point down the tunnel. “The Chupacabra,” she replied.
Her voice betrayed her awe of the creature. McNeil decided he would keep a close eye on her.
With Walmsley leading the way with his rifle, the four of them marched down the tunnel. McNeil noted the nonfunctioning lights and made a mental note to get a crew down to replace them. His mind immediately weighed the cost of replacing them against bringing in portable lights when needed. His mother had raised him to be thrifty and it had carried over into his job. His actions to save money and curtail costs as a junior engineer had gotten him noticed by management and fueled the promotions that followed.
“I think the cave in occurred somewhere toward the east end of the tunnel,” Walmsley suggested, noting the movement of the dust.
McNeil nodded. He had known where the cave in had occurred by the smell of the dust. As they walked along, he could not fight the feeling someone (Or something, he corrected himself) was watching them. The space between his shoulder blades itched. He fought the impulse to scratch.
“Keep an eye out,” he warned.
He looked at his companions. Walmsley, a seasoned hunter, scanned the walls and ceilings as he went along. Johnson, an assistant station manager, less at home in the woods or a tunnel, looked frightened. His eyes were on the walls and ceiling too, but it was obvious his concern was the possibility of another cave-in. The light in Johnson’s hand trembled slightly. McNeil wondered if he should send Johnson and Joria Alvarez back topside, but that would mean backtracking and he felt a sense of urgency. He doubted Joria would agree to go anyway.
Walmsley’s light caught the edge of a hole in the wall and floor. It looked fresh. Shining a light inside, McNeil saw see the hole led to a narrow sinkhole. He and Walmsley traded meaningful glances. Could Hardin have disappeared down this rabbit hole?
“This whole area must be undermined by caverns and faults,” Johnson whined, his voice pitched higher than its usual grating tone. He looked longingly back the direction they had come. “Maybe we should go back?”
McNeil studied Johnson’s worried face. He knew Johnson was no coward but many people could not cope with confined spaces. He had seen it happen too often in rookie Sandhogs. “Not until we find Hardin. These tunnels have held for sixty years. They’ll hold a few hours longer.”
He could tell Johnson was unsatisfied with his decision by the way Johnson turned away and shuffled his feet. Cleary, Walmsley was another sort altogether. A born Sandhog, Walmsley had no fear of tunnels or tight places. Joria ignored the hole. Her attention was focused down the tunnel. She stared into the darkness with an eagerness that worried him. Sure, she was a beautiful woman, but he wondered what Hardin saw in her. He thought a detective should be a better judge of character.
“If you hold my feet, I’ll
shimmy down a ways and see what I can find,” Walmsley suggested.
McNeil considered Walmsley’s proposal and wished he had thought to bring rope. “No, that might be too risky. We’ll keep looking.” He pulled out the walkie-talkie. “I’ll try to reach him again.” He pressed the mic key. “McNeil to Hardin. Do you read me Hardin? Just key the mic if you can hear me.”
Except for a burst of static, the walkie-talkie remained disturbingly silent. “Damn walkie-talkie,” he cursed and shoved it angrily back in his pocket. He hoped it was just the walkie-talkie. He didn’t want to think about Hardin under a few tons of rock or trapped down that rabbit hole they had passed.
Walmsley suddenly lurched to a stop and waved for silence. McNeil listened but could hear nothing. He knew Walmsley’s ears were sharper than his fifty-six year old ears were. “What is it?” he whispered.
Walmsley glanced at him before returning his stony gaze down the tunnel. “Something’s coming.”
27
Entering the subway system through the Bay Station entrance at six a.m., Clad Simmons had encountered few passengers. It was still a bit early for the morning rush hour. He mingled with the few construction workers headed to their jobs and late shifters headed home scattered about the platform; then quietly slipped away, walking along the tracks down the tunnel until he reached the first of the metal doors McNeil had described. Before he went through the connecting tunnel, he checked his equipment – a powerful flashlight, a .357 Magnum with armor piercing rounds to replace his less powerful .45 and, just in case, one of the collapsible stun sticks. It was hardly an arsenal, but he felt confident.
The smell in the old tunnel was overpowering and the stale musty air oppressive. He walked as silently as his large frame would allow, watching for the creature. Twice, he started at sudden sounds, but saw nothing. He imagined the tunnel was rife with vermin and bats, both of which he detested. He knew he was at the dead end of the tunnel, abandoned when the work crews had encountered a cavern system and faults that made further digging impossible. He trudged down the tunnel until he reached the main ventilator shaft connecting both tunnel systems to the main airshaft to the surface. The massive fan blades moved many cubic feet of stale air per minute, making the air around it a little easier to breathe. He spotted the wooden ladder and trap door in the ceiling. It looked too small for the creature but it would provide him an emergency way out. He hoped there would be so such emergency.
He explored an abandoned room filled with rusty tools, a rotting wooden table and benches for meals, a few metal lockers and a dust-covered electrical panel with frayed wires and rat chewed wires. A red light indicated that at least one breaker was live, probably for the few remaining functional lights that dotted the tunnel. The room seemed a good place in which to wait. He concealed himself in an upright wooden tool chest about six feet high and four feet wide. It was tight, hot and confining, but strategic cracks in the door provided a good view out the door and into the tunnel. A few electric lights still functioned, allowing a limited view of the immediate vicinity. An upturned crate provided a seat. He figured the creature could smell him if it got close enough, but if that happened, he intended to put as many rounds into its head as he could. He hoped not even it could survive armor piercing rounds to the brain. He settled down to wait, something at which he excelled.
His job entailed a lot of waiting. The worst were the stakeouts watching houses demanding hours or even days of sitting in a car, sitting beside a window of a nearby house, or perching in a child’s tree house for two days, as he had once been forced to do. It took patience and perseverance.
Simmons had learned patience and perseverance in Iraq in 2002. His Ranger recon squad assigned to Fallujah to locate a suspected arms depot had encountered superior enemy fire. Simmons held his men in the highest regard, so it required no deep deliberation, no soul searching on his part to lead the enemy away from their position, allowing them the opportunity to escape with the information they had obtained. He had been wounded and captured. His captors tortured him daily, using picana electric prods on his arms, legs and testicles, dunking his head under water until his lungs burst and good old beatings with fists and wooden clubs. He held out his arms. Yes, his cell had been a closet just a little wider than his present hiding place, no room in which to lie down. He had waited crouched, naked, knees tucked under his chin between his beatings. He surveyed his tool shed hiding place and shuddered with ancient memories.
Each morning his captors had dragged him from his closet to his place of torture, a room on the second floor of an abandoned school overlooking the main street. Twice, he watched American troops prowling the city but he could not call out to them. For ten days, he endured his captor’s questions and the inevitable beatings that followed when he refused to answer. He concentrated on surviving. He knew his men were searching for him. He knew either his men or death would find him before he divulged vital information to his captors.
One morning his mute patience paid off. As they prepared to remove him from his chair, he feigned passing out, not difficult to do as they fed him only sporadically. As they loosened his bonds, he suddenly jerked upright and butted one torturer in the stomach with his head and raced for the open window, sailing through it chair and all. His landing broke a bone in his arm but it freed him from his chair. He ran. They fired at him, alerting nearby American troops who promptly came to his rescue. Patience was one of Clad Simmons strongest virtues.
A couple of hours later, he heard clanging as McNeil’s crew locked and secured the metal doors, sealing him and Hardin inside with the creature. Twenty minutes after that, he watched Hardin enter the room and look around. He held his breath as Hardin walked toward the toolbox but turned and left. He noticed the sawed off elephant gun Hardin carried and almost laughed aloud. The man was certainly innovative.
Simmons remained in his hiding place until he heard what was assuredly Hardin firing his elephant gun, followed by the low rumble of a cave-in that shook the walls and floors and threatened to topple his hiding place. He flung open the door and fell out on his hands and knees. To his amazement, the ceiling did not collapse, but clouds of dust drawn by the fans filled the tunnel. Unable to see more than a few inches, Simmons hugged the wall. He felt more than saw the creature sweep past him, swirling the dust in its wake. He froze, tried to become part of the wall. He waited several minutes but the creature did not attack. It had not seen or smelled him. He continued past the fans until he found a small alcove and crouched, waiting. He heard a few more shots, then silence. He hoped the creature had not gotten Hardin.
A little later, he heard voices back down the tunnel behind him. He assumed it was the engineer McNeil having seen the dust cloud and assuming the worst. He and his men were checking on Hardin, a praiseworthy goal, but they were making far too much noise. He heard a crackling noise and muted voices.
Damn! Were they using a walkie-talkie? The creature had excellent hearing and could see better than any of them, even in the dust. Christ! Now he could hear their boots scraping the dirt and crunching gravel. They were acting as if they were inspecting the tunnel, not hunting a monster. They were asking for trouble.
28
Walmsley raised his rifle and peered back down the tunnel. “Hardin?” he asked.
McNeil glanced at Joria’s look of anticipation and shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He pulled out the pistol Walmsley had given him.
It suddenly dawned on Johnson him that he had no weapon. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled.
“Quiet, fool,” Walmsley snapped. He jutted his chin down the tunnel. “The way out is back that way.”
Johnson went silent as he glared at Walmsley.
“Do you see anything?” McNeil asked.
“A shadow maybe, beyond the lights.” He suddenly dropped to one knee and raised his rifle. “I see it,” he whispered. “It’s coming.”
McNeil stared down the tunnel but his older eyes saw nothing. Then,
a glimpse of gray as the creature passed a light moving fast. He raised the .357, sighted down the tunnel and gently squeezed the trigger. Walmsley fired first, startling him. The creature swerved midair to avoid the bullet. Now, it was less than forty yards away. This time, he and Walmsley fired simultaneously. The thunder of the reports shook the ceiling and echoed down the tunnel. Neither shot touched the creature, but it did stop and retreated a short ways back down the tunnel and into the shadows.
“My God, it’s a monster!” Johnson cried out. His hands dug furiously into McNeil’s sleeves. McNeil shrugged them off. He knew he should never have brought the station manager along, but he had wanted to come. Now it was too late.
“Let go, Johnson!” McNeil shouted at him. “You’re spoiling my aim.”
Johnson took a couple of steps away from his two companions and stared at them. His eyes were wide with fright and he was almost blubbering as he yelled, “We’re going to die! We’ve got to get out of here.” He turned and in his confusion began running directly toward the creature.
“Stop, you fool!” Walmsley called to him, but Johnson ignored him. Walmsley turned to McNeil. “We’ve got to go after him.”
“Let him go,” Joria spat. “The Chupacabra will be busy drinking his blood, allowing us time to find Tack.”
McNeil glared at her callousness. He knew it was too late but owed it to Johnson to try. “You wait here,” he told Joria. He and Walmsley raced after Johnson but lost him in a patch of darkness in a bend of the tunnel. His scream came to them moments later, a high, piercing horrible sound filled with the pain, fear and anguish of a man who knew he was about to die. Moments later, they found Johnson’s mutilated body lying across the rails, his chest savaged, half his face missing and his torso twisted at an obscene angle.