After the End

by Bonnie Dee

  "Pepper spray on my key ring," Lila volunteered, then remembered, "which is in my backpack on the train."

  Just then a scream echoed through the tunnel from far behind them. Everyone stopped talking and froze. Lila glanced at Ari. His eyes reflected the fire glow and she saw fear in them before he flipped the lighter closed. "Shit!"

  She had no doubt Omar Everett had been discovered and attacked. Whatever was up there was now down here, and might have a clue there were more people.

  "Gimme the little girl. I'll carry her. We've got to move!" Ari's voice was harsh.

  No one argued. Lila seized the hand closest to hers--slender, fine-boned, she thought it might be Ann's—and grabbed the back of Ari's shirt again. Ronnie's leg was around his hip as he carried her. Her knee bumped against Lila's hand.

  The group moved forward fast now, marching in silence. And from far away Lila could swear she heard echoing footsteps coming after them.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Three

  The little girl was heavier than Ari had expected, but no more so than the packs they'd had to run with on the obstacle course at boot camp. He wished he'd put her on his back instead of holding her slung around his waist which was an awkward way to carry anything. He also wished to hell he had a weapon. Any weapon. A piece of pipe or a baseball bat would be great, but he'd be happier with an assault rifle. Of course, even an AK-47 wouldn't do much against a flesh-eating virus or nerve gas. He didn't know what had happened on that train, but agreed with the others it was something out of the ordinary.

  He listened hard, trying to hear beyond the stumbling feet and harsh breathing of the little group of travelers. The concrete tunnel echoed so it was difficult to tell what he heard, but he thought there were footsteps coming from behind them.

  The girl whimpered and gripped his shoulders, her little fingers digging in. She smelled like strawberry gum and sweat. Maybe he was supposed to give her some kind of encouragement or tell her not to worry, but he saved his breath for trotting faster.

  "Slow down." The voice sounded like Ann, that woman who'd wanted to stay behind. He wished she had if she was going to hobble the group. He ignored her plea and continued to stride quickly. His palm swept along the wall, keeping them on course and feeling for ladder rungs. He kept his gaze focused toward the ceiling, searching for a break in the blackness, a sign of light to indicate an opening from what felt like an endless coffin. Perhaps he'd been wrong to lead these people down here. Maybe they should've stayed on the track like everyone else and taken their chances that way. Now they were trapped in this tunnel below the tunnel. At least there seemed to be only one possible route. It'd be much worse if there was a maze of choices.

  At that moment, as if fate was amused by the idea, the wall vanished from beneath Ari's hand. They'd reached an opening. He turned on the lighter and saw they were at a crossroads. They could continue straight or angle left. Instinct told him to keep going forward, but self-doubt whispered he could be making a big mistake and leading everyone farther away from the station.

  He thought about how the train had pulled away from the platform and clicked down the track. Hadn't they veered right? The subway wasn't laid out in a perfect grid. There were twists and turns.

  "I think something's coming. We should get moving." Lila's voice behind him was low and tense.

  "There's another tunnel. I'm trying to decide which way to go," he whispered back.

  People were talking, asking about the hold up, calling out whatever came into their minds.

  "Shut up!" he snapped, wishing he could gag every one of them. "All of you shut the hell up." His heart pounded. He shifted the heavy kid in his arms. She tightened her legs around his waist and pressed her head against his chest. Jesus, this kid was depending on him to get them out of here. All of them were depending on him, and he didn't have a clue which way to go.

  Lila pressed her hand against his back, her palm warm and reassuring splayed across his spine. "Breathe," she said. "Slow your heart rate, clear your mind, and listen."

  Easier said than done, but he obeyed, closing his eyes, which ached from trying to search for any glimmer of light the entire time they'd been hiking through this limbo. He breathed in the dank, oxygen-deprived air and slowly released it. Breathed again and smelled the rotten scent of garbage. Garbage meant people. People meant an access to the tunnel. And wasn't that the faintest whiff of slightly less stale air on his left cheek?

  Ari opened his eyes and looked down the branching tunnel. He thought he could see a faint glow. At the same time, he heard footsteps, definite footsteps echoing from far away.

  "Move out," he said just loud enough so the group could hear him then plunged into the left hand passage, heading toward the gray light.

  The resounding footsteps from behind pattered faster and sounded louder. Whatever was on their trail was trotting now. Ari wrapped his arm around Ronnie and broke into a run, barely touching the wall now to keep his course straight. The dim light became clearer and he headed for it. He stopped when he reached a grate overhead, and the group piled into him. There were no ladder on the wall beneath the grate, no ladder to safety, only the faint light coming through slats half covered by a drift of something, probably litter.

  Ari cursed, "Goddamn it!" He peeled Ronnie off him and set her down then moved along the wall, feeling blindly for rungs. There had to be some exit nearby, perhaps a manhole cover he couldn't see because it fit so tightly. If the footsteps behind them weren't growing louder, he wouldn't be panicking, but as it was his heart pounded so hard his chest hurt. They had to find a way out, now.

  His knuckles rapped hard against iron. He seized hold of a metal bar and searched for the bottom rung with his foot. Locating it, he climbed quickly to the top of the ladder, reached above his head and felt rough concrete and cool metal. He traced his finger along the lip of a circle before pushing up against it. He held his breath, terrified the cover would be locked from above, but the heavy plate shifted. He grunted as he lifted and shoved it aside.

  There was no time to make sure the subway was clear. The danger coming from behind was more urgent. Ari climbed down a couple of rungs before dropping the rest of the way to the ground and landing in a crouch.

  "Go!" he ordered Derrick.

  Derrick clambered to the top and out the hole. Ari had been worried Ronnie would freak out about climbing the ladder, but she scurried up it like pirate climbing rigging into her brother's waiting arms. Ann then Deb went, followed by Mrs. Scheider, who climbed slowly but steadily. Joe went behind her to ensure she didn't slip and Hector followed him.

  At last only Ari and Lila remained.

  "Go ahead," he urged, glancing down the tunnel as he pushed her toward the ladder.

  There were moving shapes looming in the dark, coming closer, running fast but with an odd, reeling gait. Were they people or something else? Disbelief flooded through him at what his imagination dared to cobble together from years of watching horror movies. Ridiculous, impossible images of werewolves and monsters flashed through his mind coupled with thoughts of Freddy Krueger or Jason striding along with deadly intent.

  But these things weren't striding. They were fucking running, and Lila was only halfway up the ladder. The group of people—they were people—was briefly illuminated in speckled light and shadow cast by the grate. Ari saw their distorted faces for an instant before he stopped looking and started climbing as fast as he could.

  He quickly caught up to Lila as the first of the creatures reached the circle of light coming from the open manhole cover above. Ari glanced down and glimpsed pale skin, a red mouth and black eyes looking back at him. The thing was at the foot of the ladder, climbing up behind him.

  "Go, go, go!" he screamed at Lila. He kicked at his pursuer's head, his foot connecting with its face. The creature's head snapped back, but it kept climbing.

  Ari kicked again, connecting with its chest and this time he knocked it off the ladder into the darkness belo
w. But there was another coming right behind it. Ari pushed his hands against Lila's ass, boosting her up and out of the hole. He climbed the last few rungs and vaulted through himself, yelling, "Shut it!"

  Hector and Joe slid the cover into place and stood on it, their combined weight keeping the hole closed even as something pounded on the metal plate from below. Ari searched frantically for something with which to seal the exit. There was a bench bolted to the floor and a vending machine next to it. He yelled at Derrick to come help him move it. Ari's muscles strained as they wrestled the heavy machine a couple of inches across the floor.

  "Hurry," Hector yelled as the pounding from below continued.

  Lila and Deb came to lend their strength and the four of them pushed the vending machine across the floor to the manhole cover.

  "We'll tip it face down," Ari said. Joe and Hector took the weight as he and Derrick rocked the machine toward them. The two men stepped off the cover, letting go of the machine so it crashed to the ground. From beneath the machine, the pounding noise continued for a moment. Then there was silence.

  "Dios, what the hell is going on?" Hector voiced everyone's thoughts.

  "Whoever they are, there could be more. We should keep moving, but find someplace where we can catch our breath," Joe advised.

  Ari rubbed his wrenched shoulder and took a look around the empty platform. Only not so empty. Mingled with the usual trash on the ground were lumps of stuff scattered here and there. It was difficult to make out what they were in the glare of emergency lights that cast everything in sharp relief as if they were living in a black and white movie.

  He walked closer to take a look at a pile of shredded rags and red sludge, his stomach tensing as his eyes recognized what they saw before his brain could wrap itself around the concept. Body parts. That's what the lumps were. Limbs, bones and bits of entrails. It looked like a massacre had taken place with very little of the victims left behind.

  "My God," Lila's voice came from beside him. "What happened here?"

  Ari's gaze flicked to a corpse lying near the wall. He could swear its hand had moved. "I think that one's still alive."

  He jogged over and crouched beside the mangled body of a man in an overcoat way too hot for the day. Probably a homeless guy. They always seemed to wear layers of everything they owned, winter or summer. The stench of blood and excrement rose from the sprawled form. Ari held his breath, put a hand on the man's shoulder and gently rolled him over. You weren't supposed to move an injured person, but as bad as this guy looked, it hardly seemed to matter.

  The dead man appeared to have been ripped apart by some kind of carnivore. Bites of flesh were ripped from his face, throat and chest. One eyeball still attached to the brain by red tendrils lolled against his cheek. His legs sprawled at impossible angles, a shard of bone protruding through a hole in one of his trouser legs.

  The rest of the group had clustered around, except for Ann, who was keeping Ronnie away from the sight. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He didn't want to feel for the dead man's pulse, didn't want to touch him again. "Anybody here have any medical experience?"

  "I'm..." Joe Morgenstern gave a short, bitter laugh. "I'm a dermatologist."

  Ari looked back down at the dead man's ruined face. Macabre jokes about skin conditions fluttered in his mind like bits of litter caught in a whirlwind. "Could you take a look at him?"

  Morgenstern crouched and reached for the man's wrist.

  "No way that guy's alive," Derrick helpfully pointed out.

  "Why don't you go help Ann with your little sister," Lila snapped. "She's scared out of her wits. She needs you."

  Dr. Morgenstern laid the man's hand down and shook his head. "No pulse. He's dead."

  "Okay." Ari nodded and rose to his feet. "We've should keep moving, get above ground and find out what's happening."

  "A virus, I'm telling you. We've probably already been infected." Hector scratched obsessively at his arm.

  Joe stood. "Mr. Ramirez, I think we can discount an airborne pathogen or all of us would have been showing symptoms by now. You can relax."

  "Werewolves or vampires could rip up people like this." Derrick dared to say aloud what Ari never would have, even though the insane idea of monsters had been whispering in his brain.

  Mrs. Scheider shot Derrick a quelling glance. "Don't be ridiculous, young man. This is no time to be inventing nonsense."

  "I'm serious. You can't deny that." He pointed at the remains at their feet. "That's real, and no human being did it."

  "Come on. Let's go." Ari started to step away, but spared a last glance for Homeless Fred and at that moment the man's single closed eye snapped open. Ari leaped back.

  The corpse on the ground began to move, struggling to rise.

  "Jesus Christ!" and "Zombie!" Ari and Derrick shouted simultaneously.

  Ari seized Lila's hand--she always seemed to be right beside him—and began to run. The whole thing was like a bad drug trip, outrageous and endless. They would spend eternity running through tunnels chased by monsters.

  When they reached the stairs, he glanced back at the dead man, still trying to stand on what were probably broken legs. He wasn't making any headway and didn't seem to be much of a threat. Ari scanned the group to make sure everyone was accounted for. Dr. Joe carried Ronnie. Hector held hands with Mrs. Scheider, making sure the older woman kept up. Deb, Ann, Derrick and Lila, whose hand he gripped like a life preserver, were all together.

  Ari led them upstairs to the mezzanine level of the terminal where there were a few shops, restrooms, ticket booths and more carnage. Body parts littered the floor near the turnstiles and benches, but there weren't any animated corpses stumbling around. Whatever had gone through here had moved on. Maybe.

  The revenants—if that's what they were—that had chased them through the storm drainage tunnel would have to return to the last open manhole to get out. It would take at least twenty minutes for them to retrace their steps and another twenty to come down the subway tunnel. That should give the group a short time to recover before going up to street level to find God knew what kind of chaos. Before they faced it, they needed to rest and arm themselves.

  The power was out in the terminal too and emergency lights cast the area in a gloomy glow. Ari spotted a glass-fronted convenience store and headed toward it, sweeping his gaze from left to right. Nothing appeared to be moving. A glance behind told him the zombie from the lower level had not followed them up the stairs, but it might. He needed to find a weapon to kill the thing if it reared its ugly, eye-lolling head again.

  Ari held up a hand to bring the group to a halt while he checked out the shop. Inside, he found magazines, books, DVDs, candy, shelves and coolers full of beverages and snacks—and the unmoving remains of the clerk behind the counter.

  He beckoned the rest of the group into the store. "Why don't you pass out bottles of water," he suggested to Ann, who seemed the type who needed a task to perform to keep her focused. She nodded and went to the cooler for some Ice Springs.

  "Joe, you watch that door and Hector, the other. If you see anything move, I mean anything, let me know."

  "What are you gonna do?" Hector raised his bushy brows.

  "Look for weapons. There must be something around here." He sounded self-assured, as if he knew what he was doing, but Ari felt like he was poking his way through a mine field. Somehow he'd taken charge, but he had no business doing it. He was no leader.

  Lila and Deb picked up some of the scattered items from the floor to make space to sit, while Mrs. Scheider tried to make a call on her Blackberry. "Still not getting a signal," she announced.

  "Me either," Hector said. "No bars."

  Ann came from the cooler with arms full of bottled water and headed toward the checkout. Ari stopped her. "Uh, there's nobody to take your money. Why don't you go ahead and pass those out."

  "Oh, of course. Yes." Her blue eyes were wide and dilated. Didn't that mean a person was in shock
? Well, hell, they all were.

  He searched behind the counter, trying to ignore the bits of clerk stuck to everything. It wasn't like he expected to find a gun or bat, this wasn't the kind of convenience store like in his neighborhood, but there was nothing useful for self defense. However, there was a display of flashlights near the register. Ari stepped over a shred of polo shirt with a name tag attached—Maria—and hefted one in his hand. It didn't weigh much and wouldn't be useful as a club, but at least they'd have light if they needed it. He gathered all the flashlights from the display and passed them to the group sitting on the floor.

  After another scan of the silent station outside the shop, he continued searching for weapons. Maybe he could pelt the zombies with hard candy or whip CD cases at their heads like Ninja stars. He spun the display rack of sunglasses and decided the center spindle could be detached without too much difficulty. He flipped the rack upside down to dismember the pole from its base and top.

  He glanced at the group. Ann offered Ronnie a box of cookies and a stuffed unicorn. She stroked the girl's hair back and offered her a Kleenex to wipe her tear-streaked face. Meanwhile, Derrick was following Ari's lead, searching for something to use as a weapon.

  "We've got to find a phone that works and call 911," Joe said, "let them know about the accident and that there's something…strange going on."

  "A zombie attack." Derrick casually said the word that made Ari cringe at its absurdity. "You think they'll believe it?"

  "Maybe, if it's a widespread phenomenon." Lila picked a tote sack from a hook and began to fill it with snack foods.

  "Zombies. Don't be ridiculous." Joe continued to scan the empty station.

  "We all saw it," the teen argued. "You said that guy was dead, no pulse, and then he was getting up. Only thing I know that can do that is a zombie. You can call them revenants if it sounds better to you, but they're still the same thing. Animated dead people."

  "I must have missed his pulse or his heart temporarily stopped. People have close encounters sometimes," Joe said.