Dark Metropolis

by Jaclyn Dolamore

  The driver stopped the car in front of the subway entrance, which was still perfectly intact, at least from the outside. “There you are.”

  Freddy paid up and they climbed out. The cab drove away, and Thea shivered, more from fear than cold. She hadn’t had time to really wonder what she was getting into. The woman with the chamber pot looked at them out her window. “Hello,” she called, but her tone said something more like, Who the hell are you?

  “Hello,” Freddy called back. “Do you own a flashlight?”

  “You going down there?” She pointed at the subway stop, as if there could be doubt. “It’s dangerous. Convicts hide down there sometimes.”

  “Terrific,” Thea muttered.

  “We’re looking for her father,” Freddy said. “We think he went down there and got lost.”

  It wasn’t exactly a lie, Thea supposed.

  “Why would he go down there?” the woman asked.

  “He’s a newspaper reporter,” Thea said. “He heard there was something going on underground.”

  This answer didn’t seem to surprise her. “I have a lantern. I’ll sell it to you.”

  Freddy offered her a few bills, twice what a lantern probably cost, and held them up so the woman could see. The woman nodded and turned back into her house. Freddy and Thea walked up to her window. A moment later she handed out a lantern and what might have been a curtain rod, or something like it, once upon a time.

  “You’ll want something to beat off the rats and the crazies,” she said, grinning. Thea could smell her rank breath and unwashed body from where she stood. “Good luck finding your father.”

  “Thanks,” Thea said. Her voice came out strangled.

  They walked to the subway entrance. Their footsteps seemed too loud. No, it wasn’t their footsteps that were too loud; it was this place that was too quiet, without voices or automobiles. Grass pushed between the cracks of the subway steps.

  It was even quieter underground. In the dim light, they could see that the station was still intact, eerie with the whispers of prewar life, details in stained glass and signs in fonts no one used now. The turnstiles with slots for tokens still stood—well, one, anyway. The other had been busted out. A chair remained in the empty ticket booth. It was warmer here, with air that smelled moist and earthy. “What are we doing, Freddy?” she asked. “Tell me what happened. You saw Nan?”

  “She was…dead. Again. After I revived her, I tried to take her with me, but she was too weak, so she told me to come here if I wanted to find the people underground.”

  “What will we do when we get down there?”

  “We have to try to get the workers out, like Father Gruneman wanted. And we can find your father.”

  I don’t want to find him.

  The horrid thought skirted past her mind.

  Of course she did. She did.

  But not here.

  Not this way.

  Her last memories of him were good ones. He was young and healthy, optimistic that the war would end quickly and life would be better for it. She remembered saying good-bye to him at the train station. She’d been crying, but he didn’t seem scared. He’d told her to take care of her mother, and her mother had laughed and said, “For goodness’ sake, Henry, she’s got her hands full taking care of her dolls.” He’d laughed, too, and said, “Take care of your dolls, then.”

  They were both so normal, that last time she ever saw him.

  “And then what?” she asked Freddy.

  He said nothing.

  A huge lump sat in Thea’s throat. She didn’t want to acknowledge it. “And then you will let them all go.”

  He shook his head. “I just keep wondering if—could it hurt to save one person?”

  “But if people found out my father or Nan was allowed to live when everyone else had to die, that would be terrible. I don’t want to lose them, but you have to make things right. And right doesn’t always mean happy.” Gently, she straightened out his lapels; they weren’t resting correctly. “And you can save my mother. Cure her bound-sickness.”

  He lowered his eyes. “Yes…”

  It was so dim and damp here in the tunnels that, even standing close to him, she felt the loneliness all around them. Everything down here was forgotten. She was still holding his lapels, and now she leaned against him and put her arms around him, unsure which seemed more important: feeling his arms fold around her in return, or letting him know that he wasn’t alone in what he had to do.

  She was so sad as she held him, knowing they couldn’t put off descending into the darkness much longer. But like the last tiny ember glowing in a dying fire, she realized one bright thing had come of all of this: she had met Freddy. She thought, when all was said and done, she might like for him to take her to the Hornbeam again, just the two of them, listening to music born from the forests where their bloodlines had sprung.

  It will happen, she told herself, and then she pulled back a bit. For a moment, his arms didn’t seem to want to let her go.

  She frowned. “So—how do we do this, anyway?”

  “Arabella had a man working on the inside,” Freddy said. “She sent him away when we got to her house and told him to get her people ready. So if we can find the revolutionaries when we start getting the workers out, I think they’ll help us. We just have to persuade the workers to follow us out. I think we should tell them we’re with the revolutionaries, too. We don’t want them to know who I really am. They might panic.”

  “So…we’re not going to tell the workers they’re going to die?”

  “I don’t see how we could.”

  Thea suddenly realized she would have to choose between lying to her father and telling him he was about to die. “Should I tell my father?”

  She would see him soon. She’d have to decide then. She didn’t know what state he’d be in. And would she be able to get him to the asylum, to see Mother? His death should cure her bound-sickness, but it would be much better if she could get well by seeing him one last time. He should be allowed to die in her arms.

  Thinking of that, she knew she would have to tell him.

  When they’d received word that her father was likely dead, she wished she had been able to say good-bye. But not like this. How would it help? He knew she loved him. She was going to see him, and she prayed he would still be like the father she remembered, but maybe he’d be broken from the years, and that would be her new memory, and she was afraid of that.

  She had to see him one last time. And he would want to see her. And so she would come.

  But it hurt. It was like a thousand tiny cuts on her heart.

  Freddy lit the lantern and led the way to the tracks. A train was parked on them, but the windows were coated in grime. “Do you know where to go from here?” she asked him.

  “Yes. I didn’t used to be able to feel the presence of the people I’ve revived, but now I can sense them ahead.”

  “So do you think it’s true, what Father Gruneman said, that you don’t have to touch them, or even see them, to release the magic?”

  “Yes. When he said that, I didn’t think it was possible. But since then I’ve been trying to use my magic in different ways. I’m more aware now.”

  They climbed down, and it seemed to take only moments for the tunnel to swallow them up. Grates some two stories up cast patterns of light and shadow at first, but as they continued deeper, the lantern became their only light.

  The track was on a gentle downgrade. The exit was no longer close enough to sprint to if something emerged from the darkness ahead. Eerie shadows wobbled on the gray walls beyond the lantern’s glow.

  A bit later, the track joined with a second. Now two tracks ran side by side, with puddles between them, so Thea walked carefully. She heard something skitter in the dark. Freddy trained the lantern on a scruffy brown rat just before it scur
ried back into the darkness.

  “I suppose we should be glad that’s the first one we’ve seen,” he said. “We haven’t had to fend them off with a curtain rod yet.”

  “It’s the darkness that’s so awful. There could be a thousand of them just out of sight somewhere.”

  But rats weren’t the worst of what they could encounter.

  They came to a door placed in the left wall. Freddy opened it, revealing a staircase descending another story—at least.

  “Oh, no,” Thea said. “Where on earth are we, anyway?”

  “The city has miles of underground rails and old tunnels, I’ve heard Uncle say.” Freddy started down the stairs. At least the steps were dry and clean, but as they neared the bottom, she caught a whiff of something like smoke and…food.

  “Do you smell that?” Freddy whispered.

  “Yes. Could we be getting close to the revived people?”

  “It’s not that.”

  A prickle ran down her spine. “Then what is it?”

  “Hopefully, not a convict.” He stepped off the stairs, into a narrow ridge hemmed in by solid wall on one side and crumbling wall on the other. “It seems to open up ahead.” He extended the lantern outward.

  It looked like a natural cavern ahead, or maybe part of the old catacombs. She didn’t see any bodies, but there were shadowed niches in the walls that she didn’t care to look at too closely.

  And the remains of a campfire.

  Freddy swept the lantern over obvious signs of habitation. A blanket was crumpled beside a cup and a bowl, a wooden box, and a pile of small animal bones picked clean of meat. Rat bones, maybe. A few empty liquor bottles lay on their sides.

  “Who’s there?” a deep voice barreled from the depths of shadow. A man sprang out from a niche in the wall, growling in his throat like an angry dog. Thea stumbled in the dim light, trying to get away as he launched himself at them. He was tall, with large hands, a matted dark beard, and steely, wild eyes.

  Freddy held the curtain rod like a weapon. “We just want to pass peacefully.”

  “It’s dangerous down here, boy,” the man said. “You need to get out and go right back where you came from, or I’ll eat you for dinner.”

  Thea remembered Father Gruneman’s gun and opened her purse, and the man’s attention snapped to her…

  And suddenly shot past her. At first, Thea didn’t see or hear a thing.

  Then, shuffling footsteps. They moved faster as they grew closer.

  “It’s him,” the man hissed. He suddenly shoved Freddy away, turned, and ran.

  Thea didn’t really want to know what would scare a man like that. She took out the weapon. It was cold and heavy in her trembling hands.

  “Where did you get that?” Freddy asked.

  “Father Gruneman.”

  “Put it away,” he said. “I know him.” He was looking into the darkness. Boots came into the circle of the lantern light, and then legs in tattered, bloody clothes, and then emaciated arms, the skin a withered brown, mottled, ending in filthy fingernails.

  Thea dropped her eyes before she could see the face. She didn’t want to see the face. Her heart stampeded through her chest.

  She heard a sniff, and then a whisper. “Living…flesh…”

  “It’s the first man I ever revived,” Freddy said, his voice coming out choked, as if someone had hands around his throat. “Our neighbor. The day before the Valkenraths took me away.”

  “You never knew what happened to him?” Thea asked. “How old were you?”

  “I was three. And no—I never knew.”

  “You,” the dead voice said. He was inching closer, and Thea knew she had to turn around and face it with Freddy.

  The fear—surely the fear was as bad as anything. Seeing something can’t hurt you. It won’t touch you. You won’t let it touch you.

  She turned.

  Her stomach roiled and yet—she was surprised to feel as much pity as terror. The dead thing lurching toward them in the shadows looked desperate.

  Could my father be…like this?

  “Mr. Schiffer…” Freddy said.

  The dead man breathed raggedly. “Mr. Schiffer…” it repeated. “So long since I have heard…my name.” He took a step closer. “It’s you…little Frederick Linden…all grown up…look like your mother…”

  Freddy clutched Thea’s arm. “Why are you here?” he shouted. “How did you, of all people, get down here?”

  The sunken eyes bulged a bit. Thea dropped her eyes to the ground again. “They took me,” he said. “Years and years of tests…potions and needles and trances and treatments to keep me alive. But I got free. I showed them, yes….Find yourself a new guinea pig. They have so many now.” He reached for Freddy with fingers that were hardly more than bones and nails. “Where were you, Freddy? You’re the one who called me back.”

  Slowly, slowly, Freddy let go of Thea. “I’m here now. I only ask one thing of you, Mr. Schiffer. Do you know the way to the underground?”

  “Yesss…”

  “Show us there. Please.”

  “I don’t want to eat the girl,” the man—she couldn’t think of him as Mr. Schiffer—said.

  “You won’t,” Freddy said very firmly.

  The man started to move, and Freddy followed. Thea ran prayers through her head because she didn’t know what to do anymore. She didn’t want to see her father like this. She didn’t want to follow the dead thing. She didn’t want him to even think of eating her. She was unnerved by how calm Freddy was.

  But she forced her feet forward, to stay with Freddy.

  The dead man led them deeper and deeper into the tunnels, and as they walked it seemed that all she heard was the painful shuffle of his boots and his ragged breath. Freddy never took his eyes off the man. Thea mostly kept her eyes on Freddy. The man led them down another set of stairs, and there Thea imagined she was in the very belly of the earth, far from the sun or the sky or any open space.

  A single light shone ahead. Thea had never known how comforting one weak lightbulb in the darkness could be.

  “Are we getting close?” Freddy asked.

  “Yesss…” The man stepped into the electric light, which was stronger than the glow of the lantern. “I want…flesh. I want to live again. Please help me.” He reached for the edge of Freddy’s jacket, and Freddy stepped back.

  “Mr. Schiffer, I have to let you go. You need to go on to the next world.”

  The dead man shook his head. One of the greasy tangles of his remaining hair fell into his eyes. “All these years of this, and all I get is death? You owe me something, boy. I deserve to go home.” His eyes slid to Thea. They seemed to strain in their sockets, trying to get a good look at her. “Just a good taste, how much better I’d feel…”

  Suddenly his hand snatched out and grabbed Thea’s arm. She would rather have a dozen rats crawl over her than one touch from him, his awful, withered flesh. She tried to pull away, tried to kick him—tried not to feel how his fingers gripped her. Freddy hit him across the chest with the curtain rod, and he screamed like a wounded animal, but he yanked on her harder.

  “Freddy!”

  Freddy grabbed Mr. Schiffer’s arm, and abruptly his hand went limp, falling away from her, his body crumpling to the ground.

  “Is he—?”

  Freddy was breathing hard. “He’s dead.”

  Freddy raked his hand through his hair as though trying to wipe away the feel of Mr. Schiffer’s skin. “He was a carpenter. He had a daughter—or maybe even two—I can’t remember anymore.” His expression hardened as he stared at the body. “The Valkenraths must have used him to figure out the serum.”

  “Poor man.” Thea never would have thought her heart could break over something she found so horrifying. She lowered her head and whispered a prayer for him. It was a lon
ely place to die.

  “If only I’d known he was here,” Freddy said.

  She squeezed his shoulder, and he started moving forward again.

  Knowing they were drawing close, they quickened their pace, and soon they reached another abandoned—but lit—subway station.

  “Ahead,” Freddy said. “I can sense them.”

  Upstairs, hallways branched left and right, with regularly spaced doors. Everything here was ordered and lifeless, drained of color and personality. Thea heard a few doors opening, and some low voices.

  “It sounds like they’re awake,” she said.

  “I wonder if the Valkenraths got here before us.” Freddy looked grim. He started creeping rather than walking. It was hard for Thea to keep her shoes from clicking on the floors.

  “…maybe I should see what’s going on,” a man was saying.

  “Do you think something’s happened with those two girls who were in the cage?” another man answered.

  “Why would I have heard a gunshot?”

  Thea glanced at Freddy, and he nodded and turned the corner, revealing himself to the men standing there. There were actually a good half dozen of them, although only two had been speaking, and they all looked stunned.

  “Who are you?” one of the men asked. “You look familiar.” He was the tallest among them, and perhaps the oldest as well, with a large bald spot. But all the men looked very similar: gray faces in gray clothes, tired faces that didn’t really look any different from those of the workers who poured off the trains in the morning to work in the city.

  “We’re revolutionaries,” Freddy said. “We’re going to lead you out of here.”

  “No way out,” one of the men said, so promptly that Thea sensed he’d said it a hundred times.

  “But then how did they get in?” a younger man asked, looking excited. “Where did you come from?”