Terminus o-2

by Adam Baker

  Lupe sniffed. Blood trickled from her nose. She wiped her lip clean with the back of her hand.

  ‘You look sick,’ said Chief. ‘Real sick. Let me give you something for the pain.’ He locked his arm and prepared to fire.

  ‘Ekks had a notebook. All his research, all his data.’ Lupe gestured to the platform stairwell. ‘I’ve got backup. Marcus Means. Anything happens to me, the notebook goes in the water.’

  Bingham edged towards the platform steps.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ ordered Lupe.

  The Chief opened his mouth like he was about to speak but was silenced by a low, mournful moan that echoed through the ticket hall. Inhuman. Unutterably sad.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ muttered Craven.

  The soldiers glanced around, tried to locate the source of the noise.

  ‘Sounds close. Sounds like it’s in here, with us.’

  ‘Human?’ asked Byrne.

  ‘Can’t be,’ said Bingham. ‘Some kind of animal. A dying dog.’

  ‘You checked the rooms, right?’ said Chief, glancing round at his men. ‘Checked them thoroughly?’

  ‘It’s the tunnels,’ said Lupe. ‘They sing. We’ve been listening to it all night.’

  ‘Bullshit. That was a living thing.’

  ‘Sure as hell don’t want to meet it,’ muttered Craven.

  The Chief turned to Bingham. He gestured to Lupe.

  ‘Search her.’

  Bingham slung her rifle, approached Lupe and began to pat her down.

  She searched the pockets of Lupe’s bunker pants.

  ‘Got the fuse. We can fire up the elevator.’

  She checked Lupe’s turnout coat. She checked her collar, groped rolled sleeves.

  A knife tucked in an inside pocket. A rescue tool for cutting seatbelts. Bingham flicked open the blade, gave it a cursory inspection and threw the knife aside.

  ‘So what do you want to do with her?’

  Sudden cacophonous crash. The hall ceiling vent smashed out. The grille clattered to the floor. An arachnid thing unfolding from the darkness. Suppurating arms roped with metallic tendrils. Jet black eyes. A grossly distended face. Galloway/Cloke, close to death, but impelled to seek rejuvenating flesh.

  Craven shrieked as he was lifted clean off his feet, legs pedalling air. A high, animal scream of mortal terror.

  Bingham and Byrne ran across the ticket hall. They each grabbed a leg and tried to pull him free.

  Chief tried to get a clear shot.

  Lupe ran for the plant room.

  Craven punched and clawed at the hands wrapped round his neck. The creature began to haul him into the conduit. Fingernails tore flesh. He tried to swing the SAW upwards, but tangled the strap. He pawed his chest, grasping for his bayonet. He stabbed and slashed at the tumourous arms.

  He was lifted higher.

  ‘Kill me. Do it, Bingham. Kill me.’

  Face-to-face with the monstrous thing. A final scream. The creature tore out his throat and hurled his body aside.

  Byrne and Bingham shouldered their rifles and fired full auto. Deafening roar. The hall was lit by fluttering muzzle flare. Bullets sparked the metal vent frame. Tungsten rounds blew roof tiles to powder, blew craters in concrete.

  The Chief ejected a spent mag and slapped a fresh clip into his pistol. He racked the slide and pumped the trigger. Air full of whirling chips and stone dust.

  They jumped back as a large chunk of concrete detached from the fissured ceiling and hit the floor, shattered to powder.

  The Galloway/Cloke hybrid crouched among the rubble. It was wreathed in dust and gunsmoke. It looked around and hissed. It edged towards Byrne.

  Byrne backed away. He fumbled a fresh mag from a shoulder bag. He fed the clip into his assault rifle and punched it home with the heel of his palm. He cranked the charging handle. Jammed.

  ‘Fuck.’ He wrenched the slide, tried to clear the obstruction. ‘Fuck, fuck.’

  Chief took aim. Dry click. He ejected the spent clip, hurriedly checked nylon mag pouches looped to his belt.

  Bingham snatched Lupe’s cutting tool from the floor. She ran to Craven’s body, sliced through the SAW shoulder strap and hefted the weapon.

  The creature ran towards her, crossing the rubble-strewn floor in a smooth scuttle. It hissed.

  Bingham braced the SAW and fired from her hip. Muzzle-scream. Cascading brass. Belt feeding through the receiver at seven hundred rounds per minute. She fought to keep the bucking weapon steady.

  Chief and Byrne covered their ears. The hall filled with blue smoke.

  The hybrid was hurled across the ticket hall. It hit the wall and sank to the floor leaving a bloody smear. It danced and flailed as bullets tore it apart.

  The belt ran dry. Bingham threw down the spent weapon. Smoke poured from the barrel and receiver.

  ‘Give me another flare,’ shouted Chief.

  Bingham struck a flare and threw it on the floor.

  The Chief walked across the hall. The hybrid was a pulped mess. It was trying to drag itself towards the street entrance. Broken arms slapped the steps.

  He smacked a final clip into his pistol and emptied a single hollow point round into the back of the creature’s head.

  Chime of a cartridge case hitting the tiled floor.

  Abrupt silence.

  They stood wreathed in gun smoke and stone dust.

  ‘Should have brought grenades,’ murmured Byrne.

  Bingham crouched beside Craven. Throat ripped down to the bone. Steaming blood pooled on the floor. His face was locked in a rictus of terror. White, exsanguinated flesh. Sightless eyes.

  She put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll miss you, bro.’

  The Chief stood over the body. He trained his pistol. Red dot centred on Craven’s left eyeball.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Bingham. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Yeah. But sometimes they come back.’

  Gunshot.

  Bingham shielded her face from blood spray.

  ‘Bag him up,’ said Jefferson. ‘We’ll take him back. He deserves a burial.’

  ‘We’ve been here forty-five minutes, sir,’ said Byrne. He tapped his watch. ‘If we wait much longer, the chopper will ice up. We’ll be marooned in this fucking city.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Bingham. ‘We ought to go.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jefferson.

  Chief rolled Craven. He pulled a box magazine from the dead man’s backpack.

  ‘I’ve got a score to settle.’

  He picked up the SAW. He fed the belt into the receiver and locked the magazine in place.

  ‘Hey,’ he shouted. ‘You hear me, Lupe? Come on out. Let’s get this done.’

  71

  Lupe hurriedly rebuilt the plant room door. She grabbed a couple of panel sections and propped them in the frame. She wedged them in position with an iron battery rack.

  She could hear shouts and screams from the hall outside. Craven battling the hybrid as it tried to haul him into an overhead vent.

  She coughed. She doubled up, then fell to her knees. She puked water.

  ‘Jesus,’ she muttered. She wiped her mouth.

  She unzipped a trauma pack. Anti-nausea meds. She popped Zofran tablets from a foil strip and knocked them back.

  Bottle of Scopolamine. She loaded a hypodermic and injected into her forearm.

  Rush of wellbeing. She breathed easy.

  She slung the bag over her shoulder.

  A protracted roar of gunfire from the hallway. Assault rifles cycling full-auto.

  She hurried to the back of the room. She excavated Ekks. She pushed empty boxes aside and pawed through scattered paper.

  Her vision suddenly dimmed. White mist descending like a curtain.

  ‘Oh Christ.’

  She held her hand in front of her face. Fingers barely discernable through a cataract haze.

  ‘No. Not that.’

  She held the wall for support and waited for
her head to stop spinning.

  She turned the flashlight and shone it into her eyes. The glow of the two-hundred lumen LED barely visible, like distant headlamps glimpsed through fog.

  ‘Anything but that.’

  Prolonged machine gun roar. Someone expending a full belt of 5.56mm. Galloway cut down by the SWAT personnel he used to idolise.

  She rubbed her eyes. Her vision began to clear.

  ‘Thank God.’

  She blinked. She shook her head.

  ‘Come on. That’s it.’

  She kicked through mounds of garbage. She bent and picked up the bomb. Still intact. Two patties of ammonium nitrate mashed against a small green oxygen cylinder.

  She crouched beside Ekks. She lifted his arm and wedged the explosive beneath his hip. She lashed the bomb in place with duct tape, and checked the detonator was pushed firmly into the clay.

  Boot steps outside the door. Chief’s voice:

  ‘Come on out. Let’s get this done.’

  Lupe threw herself prone and covered her ears.

  Machine gun scream. The crooked panels blocking the doorway blasted to splinters. The room filled with gun smoke and whirling wood chips. High velocity rounds sparking ironwork and embedding in brick.

  Sudden silence.

  Lupe sat up. Dust sneeze.

  She pinched the time pencil with pliers, set the two-minute countdown running. Cupric chloride eating through the striker wire.

  ‘Say hi from me.’

  She ran, grabbed the lip of the conduit and hauled herself inside.

  A brilliant beam of a laser sight shafted through thick smoke. The Chief toppled the iron rack and entered the room. He checked aisles, checked corners.

  He aimed into the conduit. The laser danced over cracked brickwork. A moment of hesitation, like he wanted to climb into the tunnel and pursue Lupe.

  ‘That’s right, bitch,’ he shouted. ‘Crawl away. Die with the rats.’

  Bingham:

  ‘We’ve got Ekks, sir.’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here.’

  They lifted Ekks and carried him to the hall. They kicked rubble aside and set him down.

  The Chief crouched next to the stretcher.

  ‘Can you hear me? Doctor Ekks? You’re safe now. We have a helicopter on the roof. We’re going to fly you out of here. We have medical personnel on standby. We’ll flush your blood, begin the transfusion the moment we land. We’ll do everything in our power to save you.’

  Chief turned to Bingham and Byrne.

  ‘Mask up. Let’s get him up top. Transfer him to the litter and get that drip running.’

  Byrne pulled on his respirator and tightened the temple straps. He gripped the foot of the backboard, ready to lift.

  Bingham unhitched the respirator from her belt and raised it to her face. She paused. ‘Hold on.’

  She knelt beside Ekks. She studied the motionless face behind the visor.

  ‘Something’s not right.’

  She pulled back his hood and peeled away the respirator. White, immobile flesh. She lifted an eyelid.

  ‘He’s dead. Been dead a while.’

  ‘Bitch,’ spat Chief. He massaged his temples. ‘Utter piece of shit.’ He took the hip flask from his pocket and drained it dry.

  Bingham loosened the collar of the NBC suit. She exposed the tracheotomy wound. ‘They tried to keep him alive. Guess it didn’t work.’

  ‘Total waste of time,’ said Jefferson. ‘The whole trip. We’re done. Let’s go.’

  Bingham got to her feet.

  ‘She said something about a notebook.’

  ‘Pure bullshit,’ said the Chief. ‘Never existed. Come on. We’re out of here.’

  ‘What about the body?’

  ‘He’s no good to me dead.’

  Last glance at Ekks. Something beneath the dead man’s arm. Jefferson lifted the arm with the tip of his boot.

  ‘Oh Christ.’

  Patties of explosive lashed to the backboard with duct tape.

  Jefferson threw the empty flask aside and dropped to his knees.

  He tore at the explosive, tried to rip it free. He pawed the slabs of clay, tried to locate the detonator and twist it from the putty.

  ‘Motherfu—’

  72

  Lupe helped Sicknote climb the platform steps.

  Catastrophic blast damage. Smouldering rubble. The palatial elegance of Fenwick Street reduced to a soot-blackened grotto.

  ‘Sure you don’t want to come with me?’ asked Lupe. ‘I could use the company.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Think I might head to the roof. Take in the view.’

  Lupe pulled an assault rifle from beneath bricks. She checked it over. Broken stock. Cracked grip. She tested the slide. Functional.

  She heaved a chunk of rubble aside. Bingham, chest crushed, sightless eyes matted with grit. Lupe shook out Bingham’s shoulder pack. She pocketed a spare rifle magazine. She blew dust from the generator fuse.

  ‘Let’s crank up the power.’

  They headed for the plant room.

  Sicknote stood in the doorway. He leaned against the frame. He coughed and fought back vomit.

  ‘Getting bad, huh?’ said Lupe.

  ‘Yeah. How about you?’

  ‘Pretty rough.’

  She squatted beside the generator. She screwed the fuse back in place. She wrenched the starter cable and set the machine running.

  She put an arm round Sicknote’s shoulders and helped him cross the hall.

  Her foot hit something hollow, something metal. A crushed hip flask.

  The Chief lay beneath a girder. A barely recognisable mess of offal and NBC fabric.

  ‘Fucker.’

  Sicknote pointed to the street level stairwell.

  ‘Over there. Something moved.’

  Lupe climbed over bricks.

  Twisted limbs knotted with metallic tumours.

  Galloway.

  A blackened hand clenched at the sound of her approach. Weak, spastic movements.

  She kicked bricks aside. Cloke’s head split open by a bullet. Spilled brain tissue. Black eyes turned towards Lupe. Weak hiss.

  ‘What does it take to kill you bastards?’

  She picked up a heavy lump of concrete. She raised the jagged block over her head.

  ‘Cloke, if you’re still in there, I’m sorry. This is the best I can do.’

  She dropped the rock and pulped the creature’s head.

  She turned away.

  Sicknote was slumped against the ticket hall wall.

  ‘Hear that?’ he said. ‘Infected. Out in the alley. The gate is fucked. They’ll be heading down here in a minute or two. Don’t drag it out. Get going.’

  Lupe helped him to the freight elevator. He leaned against the back wall.

  They looked down at Donahue.

  ‘What a waste.’

  Lupe shone her flashlight upwards through the splintered roof of the elevator. The shaft. Sheer, concrete walls. Cable and counterweights.

  ‘Sure you want to do this?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ He took the notebook from his pocket. He gave it to Lupe. ‘Get this to someone who can make sense of it.’

  She tucked the notebook in her coat pocket.

  ‘Are you going to be okay up there?’

  Sicknote held up a cyanide capsule.

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  Lupe stepped out of the elevator and pulled the gate closed. Rust-shriek. Slam.

  ‘Take it easy, brother.’

  ‘See you around.’

  Lupe pressed Up. The elevator began its ascent. Rattle and grind. A last smile from Sicknote as he rode out of view.

  The brass clock hand of the floor indicator charted the elevator’s ascent.

  Lupe gripped the bars and watched the wooden platform rise up the shaft.

  Distant rumble. Ground tremor. The elevator swung in the shaft.

  Grind of stone on stone. Trickles of dust fro
m the hall roof. Lupe hurried to the platform steps. Last look back.

  Flame-seared rubble. Blood and splintered bone. An elegant transit hub, now an annex of hell.

  To All Trains

  Lupe ran down the platform stairs. Thunder crack. A chunk of masonry detached from the roof and smashed across the steps. Lupe danced round the rubble and continued her descent.

  She threw herself into the boat. She flicked open her knife, cut the tether and pushed clear.

  Gunshot retort. A fissure zagged across the tunnel roof, bringing down a curtain of stone dust.

  She grabbed the oar and began to paddle. The prow of the boat split plates of ice.

  She drifted closer to the blocked south tunnel entrance. She hefted the assault rifle. She switched on the barrel light and raised the weapon to her shoulder. Planks lit harsh white. She fired, rocked with the recoil, tried to keep a grip on the bucking weapon. Tungsten penetrator rounds punched holes, blew wood chips and splinters.

  Floor six.

  Sicknote hauled back the elevator gate. A last glance at Donahue. A vague conviction that she deserved better than to be dumped like garbage. He laid her on the elevator floor, arms folded across her chest.

  A thin gold chain coiled on the floor. A crucifix. Belonged to Tombes. She must have held it in a gloved hand as she rode the elevator to meet the Chief.

  He laid it on her chest.

  He crossed the hall and headed for the stairs.

  He gripped the balustrade and hauled himself up the steps.

  Dawn was breaking. He emerged into cold grey light.

  Lupe knelt in the boat and prized splintered planks aside.

  Another deep tremor sent ripples shivering across the surface of the water.

  She created an aperture wide enough to allow the boat to pass. Hurried oar strokes. She ducked beneath jagged wood as the dinghy entered the south tunnel.

  She struck a flare. It burned fierce red.

  Ancient brickwork. Crumbling mortar. The tunnel roof tight overhead.

  Ribbed tunnel buttress stretching ahead into darkness.

  She let the current carry her further from Fenwick Street.

  Sicknote’s voice:

  ‘Lupe, can you hear me?’

  She unhooked her radio.

  ‘Yeah, I can hear you.’

  ‘It’s beautiful, Lupe. Truly beautiful. The sun is rising. It’s topped the horizon. I can see the whole city. Christ, if only you could be here, Lupe. If only you could share this…’