Crustaceans

by Meikle, William

  But they were heading in the right direction. Fresh tracks showed in the clay-like ooze ahead of them, unmistakable signs of crab movement.

  From what she could see all the tracks led in the same downward direction. There was no indication that the beasts had ever came up this passage, and that in itself was puzzling Shona. She was so far lost in thought that she walked into the back of Lieutenant Wilkes who had stopped in front of her.

  A row of four team members stood looking at a large gaping hole in the side of the tunnel. It was six feet wide and led sharply downwards into deep blackness. Stark motioned Shona over.

  “This doesn’t look man-made to me,” he said. “It looks like it’s been dug.”

  After a glance Shona agreed. Pieces of brick lay strewn around the area, and a large mound of mud had been deposited to one side.

  “I told you they were burrowers,” she said. “Some of them… some of the smaller ones, went this way. But most of the ones I saw leaving the ferry were too big for this hole.”

  She saw several of the men look up at that remark, and smile, disbelieving.

  They didn’t see the beasts. I did.

  “But if they’re tunnelling, they could be anywhere,” she said to Stark. “You’re going to need more manpower, more search parties.”

  He looked grim.

  “I’ve had a hard enough time as it is getting this team together,” he said. “I need proof to take back.”

  “But the ferry…” Shona began.

  Wilkes butted it.

  “The ferry was totally burned out Miss,” he said. “All we have in the way of proof is a couple of bits of shell. The brass are hardly going to evacuate Manhattan on that evidence.”

  “Then they’re even more stupid than I thought,” Shona said indignantly.

  Wilkes laughed.

  “Now you’re getting the idea.”

  Stark brought Shona back to the situation at hand.

  “So, do we go down there?” he said, and pointed at the hole in the passageway.

  She shook her head.

  “No. We need to follow the main group. We need to know what they’re up to.”

  Before it’s too late.

  She didn’t say it, but she knew by the look on Stark’s face she didn’t have to.

  Stark led the men out again. Wilkes led Shona away from the hole.

  “Any theories Professor?” Wilkes asked, smiling.

  “Too many,” she replied. “That’s the problem. Until we find them, we won’t know what they’re up to.”

  Wilkes laughed again.

  “And when we do find them, we will know what they’re up to. But my bet is we’re not going to like it.”

  “And I’d say the odds are on your side on that one.”

  They caught up with the rest of the team and kept going down the passage.

  “Any idea where this goes?” she asked Wilkes.

  He shook his head.

  “No. But I know there are some that run for forty miles and more up into the hills. Either that, or we’ll come to a sewer or subway tunnel. Folks have been tunnelling and building down here for centuries now.”

  And now it’s not just people.

  Shona’s mood was getting increasingly bleak the further down they went. Wilkes had noticed and tried to lift the mood with a series of bawdy anecdotes about life in the forces, but she only had half an ear on it. Mostly she was listening for the noise she knew would come eventually, and she wasn’t surprised when she heard it.

  Click click clickity click.

  What did surprise her was where the noise came from. It came from behind them, back up the tunnel.

  “Stark!” she said.

  “I heard it,” he replied.

  He deployed the men in two ranks of four. They stood, guns at the ready, as the noise came closer. The clicking echoed and rang in the confined space, sounding like a manic drummer hitting a tin can.

  Oh my god. There are hundreds of them.

  They saw the eyes reflecting their head-lights first… many pairs of eyes, like fireflies on a summer’s night. Coming slowly, almost ghosting into view, the white claws were next to show, waving and swaying in a macabre dance.

  Shona’s first thought had been near the mark. There were maybe a hundred crabs packed tight in the enclosed space, some even clambering over the backs of the others.

  “Where the hell did these come from?” Wilkes asked.

  “Look at the size of them,” she said. “I think we’ve found what went down that hole back there.”

  The crabs were mostly between three and five feet across the back, with pincers the same length again. They came on remorselessly.

  Stark let them come until the noise was almost deafening. The crabs, seeing the team ahead of them, scurried faster.

  “Fire!” Stark shouted.

  Even with her ears protected somewhat by the headset the noise rang like being inside a great bell. Muzzle flashes lit up the tunnel in a bright strobe. The crabs danced in time. Pieces of shell, leg and pincer flew in the air as armour-piercing rounds tore into the massed crabs. They kept coming, even the wounded ones

  We’re not doing enough damage.

  “Fall back,” Stark shouted. “Wilkes. Use the M14.”

  Shona moved as quickly as she could, sliding backwards with the rest of the men. They kept firing as they retreated, the air full of noise and smoke and muzzle-flash.

  “Close your eyes,” Wilkes said.

  She turned towards him just as he pulled the tab on the incendiary.

  “Fire in the hold,” he called, and lobbed the grenade at the approaching crabs.

  Shona didn’t need to be told twice. She closed her eyes, but even through the lids the light flared, brighter than the noonday sun.

  The blast almost blew her off her feet. It got hot… very hot. She was forcibly pulled away and when she opened her eyes she found that Stark had her in a hug.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking suddenly embarrassed. She pecked him on the cheek and disentangled herself. She turned back to look up the tunnel. She had to squint; the light was still too bright after the previous gloom in the tunnel.

  All that was left of the crabs was a fused burning mess.

  Smoke slowly cleared. She expected to see more crabs pressing behind. Instead the dust cleared to reveal that the tunnel had collapsed. Tons of brick and rubble had buried any beasts that had escaped the blast.

  But it was no cause for celebration.

  Their way back out was completely blocked.

  28

  Somehow Porter had got lost. He’d followed the crab as well as he’d been able; sometimes by sight of the white flashes of the pincers, other times by the sound of the clickety-click. And once he found a new pile of scat, still steaming in the cold air of the tunnel.

  But for the past five minutes all he’d seen was tunnel, and all he’d heard was the distant rumble of trains.

  Has it gone to ground?

  The dark closed in further, with only every second or third light working. Porter slowed, then came to a halt.

  Fuck this for a lark.

  He leaned against the tunnel wall and lit up a smoke. He almost jumped out of his skin when someone spoke close to his ear.

  “Hey Jim, can you spare one of those gaspers?”

  There was a side tunnel to his left that he hadn’t noticed; barely wide enough for someone to pass through. The swaddled figures that came out of it seemed barely human.

  Mole-people.

  He’d heard the rumours; of people who lived completely out sight of everyone else, scouring the depths for what little they could find to survive on.

  Scavengers. Like the crabs.

  There were three of them; pale, wide-eyed and thin to the point of emaciation. They stared at his cigarette as if it was worth a fortune. The one who’d spoken moved forward, but stopped when he saw the gun.

  A laugh came from the decrepit bundle of clothes.

  “Your p
ea-shooter won’t stop them,” he said.

  Porter stopped in mid-puff.

  Them?

  “You’ve seen the crab then? Did it come this way in the last five minutes?”

  The figures were still staring at the smoke. Porter sighed and took out the packet. He held out three cigarettes.

  “The crab?” he asked. “Did it come this way this morning.”

  The one who spoke snatched the smokes from Porter’s hand and passed them around before answering.

  “Not today,” he said. “”Ain’t seen none for a week or so, but we’ve been keeping out of their way. Nasty buggers they are, all that clicking and snapping.”

  “And they ate Jennie. Ate her right up,” another said, surprising Porter by having a woman’s voice.

  Porter felt a new chill settle in his bones.

  “We are talking about crabs here, right?”

  All three nodded.

  “Huge bastards they are too. They started showing up last year in the lower tunnels. We don’t know how many there are down there now; nobody who’s gone to look has ever come back.”

  “How many have you seen?” Porter whispered.

  “Since last year? More than a hundred. Maybe two hundred. Some as big as cows.”

  “Bigger,” the female said. “It did this.”

  She struggled inside the layers of clothes and for a horrible second Porter thought she was going to disrobe completely. But when she brought out her arm, it was worse than he’d imagined. It had been taken off just above the elbow, and what was left was a suppurating stump, the flesh around it swollen, grey and sweating. She put it away.

  “I was lucky,” she said. “It was a little one. The one that ate Jennie only just got into the tunnel here.”

  Porter looked at the subway walls. At the point where they stood the tunnel was more than five metres wide.

  He turned back to the mole people, but they had already slipped away, back into the darkness. He stuck his head into the cramped side tunnel, but it was full dark in there, and it stank, of acrid body odour and stale shit. He backed away fast.

  Suddenly the idea of chasing around down here no longer appealed, and fifty thou’ didn’t seem nearly as enticing as it had previously.

  I need help. I can always come back.

  That’s how he rationalised it to himself, but the feeling he felt most as he headed back along the tunnels was a rising sense of panic.

  That feeling got stronger as he came to a junction he did not remember ever passing on the way in. Both tunnels ahead of him headed downwards; damp, dimly-lit caverns.

  Just the kind of place for crabs to be hiding.

  He looked back the way he had come, but from here it looked just like any other tunnel. There was no doubt about it now. He was completely lost.

  Clickety-click.

  It came from back in the direction of the mole people.

  But it was answered from the right hand tunnel ahead of him.

  Then again.

  And again, a cacophony of sound rising in waves from the cavern.

  Porter turned to his left and moved into the tunnel. The clickety-click behind him got louder. He started to move faster. Soon he was almost running.

  He ditched the heavy chain.

  I won’t need it.

  I’m not the hunter any more.

  I’m the hunted.

  29

  Shona watched three men work at the pile of rubble, trying to find a way back through. But even from twenty yards back she could see that the mass of stone that had fallen was too much for them to move.

  It looks like a job that will take days. And that’s time we don’t have.

  She walked over to Stark.

  “We need to go down further,” she said.

  “Why? We found the crabs. We should get back and bring a clear-up team down here.”

  She shook her head.

  “We found some crabs. But we haven’t found the big ones. And we need to know where they are hiding.”

  Stark looked back at the rubble and sighed.

  “There’s no way out that way anyway. We need to get to somewhere where we can get out a message. And right now the only way is down.”

  He called the men back from the rubble and after a brief check of all the team’s ear-pieces and headlights, he once more led them out.

  They moved slower now, more careful, aware of every sound, every movement around them. The further down they travelled the older and more decrepit the brickwork became. Thin grey tendrils wafted above them and everything felt damp and humid. Ooze sucked at their boots.

  No one spoke, but Shona sensed an air of tension, possibly even of desperation, that had not been there before.

  “GPS has gone offline sir,” she heard Wilkes say.

  That’s it. We’re off the grid, without a map.

  The tunnel kept its downward trajectory. Once the whole place shook and dust fell around them as something barrelled past, seemingly just beyond the wall.

  “Maybe we could break through?” Shona asked Stark as the vibration receded. “Sounds like the subway is just through there.”

  He shook his head.

  “If the crabs are contained in here, then it would be madness to give them another way out. Especially into a populated area. No. We keep going. This has to lead somewhere.”

  He was proved right five minutes later.

  They heard it before they reached it, a rumble, like distant thunder. It got much louder as the passageway opened out into a huge sewer hub. Six different tunnels fed into a canal that flowed off and away down a wide culvert across the chamber from them. The whole place was a marvel of brickwork, high vaulted archways and the roaring of water. Light came in from somewhere above, dancing in the shadows. A pathway led, via a series of iron steps and railings, all the way round the circle, a diameter of nearly twenty metres. From where she stood Shona saw a ladder about a third of the way round that led up towards where the light came in. She was about to step forward when Stark pulled her back.

  He put a finger to his lips and pointed across the chamber.

  At the mouth of the draining culvert two grey shapes sat, one closer than the other; a torrent of water flowing smoothly over their streamlined shape. She’d taken them for stone, possibly concrete reinforcements. But when she looked closer she could see the ghost-white claws, just below the surface, wafting to and fro in the current, sampling and tasting.

  My god. They’re ten feet across.

  At least.

  The team backed off, retreating up the tunnel.

  “You saw?” Stark asked her when they were twenty yards back.

  She nodded.

  “Will they attack?”

  Crabs are all different; some passive, some naturally aggressive. But everything she’d seen so far led to just one conclusion.

  “Yes. At the slightest provocation.”

  Stark pursed his lips.

  “Yet we have to get out of here. We need to try for that ladder.”

  Wilkes stepped forward. He had a grenade in his hand.

  “Shall we use the M-14 again sir?”

  Stark shook his head.

  “Too risky. We don’t want to bring half of Manhattan down on top of us. And if the blast went up, there’s no telling if we’d have civilian casualties above us. No. Stealth is our best option here. We’ll try to get round the chamber and up the ladder, and hope they pay us no mind.”

  Hope is generally not a good idea when faced with a force of nature.

  But Shona didn’t say it.

  Wilkes led the team out again. There were four men in front of her as they started to walk, slowly, around the perimeter of the cavern.

  Shona couldn’t take her eyes off the crabs. They seemed to be feeding. She didn’t let herself dwell too long on what they were feeding on. This was Manhattan. It could be anything. But whatever they were eating, at least it kept their attention away from the team.

  They shuffled arou
nd the narrow footpath, forced to move in single file. Wilkes was first to reach the small platform at the base of the iron ladder. He looked up, and Shona followed his gaze.

  Light came in from a hundred feet overhead, from what looked to be a large grate of some kind. For all she knew it could be one of the main roads, but no traffic noise would be discernible above the roar of the water around them. The team crowded around on the platform. There was just enough room for all of them.

  Wilkes put a hand on the ladder. The first rung fell to powder in his hand, little more than a pile of rust. He reached up higher. The next rung up was sturdier but still split in two with a load creak that had them all holding their breath. The crabs kept feeding.

  The Lieutenant reached up, almost on tip-toe. He put all his weight on the third rung. It held. He tugged, hard. Still it held. He holstered his weapon and hauled himself up, feet dangling just off the ground. Hand over hand he pulled himself up to the next rung, then three more after that. He turned back when his feet were almost level with Shona’s eyes and gave a thumbs-up. He scampered up further. Craning her neck Shona saw him pull himself into another tunnel some twelve feet up. He turned and waved.