Night-Train

by Thomas F Monteleone

  “How does it work?” asked Provenza.

  Carter smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know … but perhaps we shall find out.”

  He held up another object from his bag. Lya thought that it resembled a small handsaw, only fashioned from some kind of rock. Carter held it by a crudely formed handle. “Now, this one is on loan to me from a friend at the Miskatonic University in Providence. No one knows its age, and efforts to carbon-date it have failed. But references in the Necronomicon describe an object very similar to this as the ‘key of Cthulhu,’ Cthulhu being the name of an ancient godlike being that supposedly invaded our dimensional world billions of years ago in an effort to claim it for himself and his dark minions. There was supposed to be a lost city, sunken and frozen into the arctic wastes, which was Cthulhu’s kingdom and from which this key was stolen long ago. The one who controls the key supposedly controls the entries and exits from our own point on the space-time continuum.”

  Provenza shook his head. “Excuse me, Dr. Carter, but do you actually believe all this stuff?”

  Carter smiled. “Detective, let me just say that we have long since passed the point where the luxury of belief would suffice. It is not important whether or not I, or any of us, believe anything. We have all seen things that defy the natural world. To operate in this new realm, we must step outside our natural world as well.” He began repacking his shoulder bag. “That is all I have to say, other than that we must begin.”

  They entered the underground by means of the sewer system network on 8th Street adjacent to one of New York University’s classroom buildings. The tunnel bore east toward Astor Place, intersecting both the Broadway and the Lexington Avenue subway lines. Not having a composite map, Dr. Carter was forced to pause every few minutes to check cross-references and verify their position. Still, they made good progress, and he found he needed to do this less and less often as he was fast becoming familiar with the schematics and the reality of the tunnels.

  The sewer line was not a main artery, and its five-foot ceiling made walking difficult for the three men. A dampness pervaded the air, seeping through Lya’s clothing and making her arms and legs feel clammy. The closeness of the walls and ceiling and the blank darkness into which they walked gave her a feeling of claustrophobia. With each step, she felt as if they were going deeper into the earth, and that the walls were just a little bit closer. The more she tried to keep these thoughts from her mind, the more they were magnified. If she didn’t get control of it soon, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to continue. Damn! Stop it! Don’t think about it!

  Just as it was becoming almost unbearable, Carter stopped the column as he neared an intersection. “Here is where we connect with a gangway beneath the rail lines. There is a stairway leading up to the tracks, and another to take us beneath them. I suggest that we follow the tracks southward for a bit.”

  Michael shrugged. “Whatever you want, Lane. Just keep a sharp eye ahead. Everybody ready? Let’s go.”

  Carter led the way up a cramped staircase, which strangely did not bother Lya as badly as the larger tunnel. Perhaps knowing that they would soon be in the relatively wide-open subway tunnel had somewhat allayed her fears. She hoped so.

  Reaching the top, Carter pushed open the metal-plated door and Lya could immediately smell the familiar scents of ozone and gear-box oil, the musty blend of odors from the subway lines. Carter paused and addressed the group. “We shall walk next to the wall on the side away from the third rail. If we hear an oncoming train, I trust that we all know enough to cram ourselves into the alcoves between the girders. Perfectly safe, as I understand it, but a bit harrowing the first few times, or so they tell me.”

  Lya noticed that the professor had taken out his star-stone, holding it in his left hand while he pierced the darkness with the beam of the torch held in his right hand. Provenza moved out into the tunnel, turning back to help her down to the roadbed and pointing out the third rail on the opposite wall. She looked back to Michael, who smiled wanly and then gestured her to go on. As they marched along, she tried to keep her gaze on the star-shaped crystal that Carter carried, expecting it to begin its telltale glowing at any instant, wondering what they would do when it did.

  “We are currently on the Broadway line,” said Carter in hushed tones. “We follow this south, bypassing the Astor Place and Bleecker Street stations, then we pick up a connecting gangway that intersects with the Sixth Avenue line at Houston Street.”

  Provenza tapped his shoulder. “We going to check out that empty platform I found? The one where I found the guy on the rocks?”

  “Yes, that is our first objective, unless we encounter something along the way that proves more interesting,” said Carter.

  They walked in silence for several minutes before Lya felt a subtle rumbling in the earth. The vibrations increased and there was the sound of a distant roar, growing ever louder.

  “Train coming,” said Michael. “Everybody off to the side!”

  Provenza shone his lamp over the wall, illuminating the small man-sized notches between the vertical support girders; he waited to fit himself into one until he was sure that Carter and Lya were secure. Once inside the small enclosure, Lya felt cut off from the rest of the group. Feeling the girders against her shoulders and elbows and staring into the darkness beyond, it was not difficult to feel a galloping fear ready to overtake her. It occurred to her that a coffin would feel very similar to the narrow confines of the alcove, and a shiver ran through her at the thought.

  The roar of the approaching Broadway express soon blotted out all sensation and random thinking. The girders began shaking violently and the decibel level in the tunnel was deafening. There was a blur of yellowish light from the passing windows of the cars as the train hurtled past them, a vortex of air sucking at her clothes and threatening to pull her body from the alcove. Lya screamed at the top of her lungs as the noise became almost unbearable, and she could not hear the sound of her own voice. The experience was more of a sensory shock than one of fright, but as the train passed into the pit of the tunnel, its sounds and fury gradually diminishing, she felt weak and drained.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Provenza, as he stepped back onto the roadbed. “Everybody okay?”

  Lane Carter appeared, smiling unevenly, nodding his head. Michael appeared at Lya’s side and helped her step down to the tracks. He kissed her quickly, squeezed her hand, then unslung his automatic rifle again.

  The column reformed and they walked down the tunnel for another city block or so before Carter stopped to examine the skeleton of a four-legged animal. He announced that it was a cat or a dog, and that it appeared to have been freshly reduced to its bones.

  “According to this,” said Carter, pointing to his map, “we should be about even with the Bleecker Street station, and the interconnecting tunnel should be coming up.”

  Lya was watching along the right-hand wall for any sign of a door or a hatchway, so she did not notice Carter’s initial reaction when the star-stone began glowing. He exclaimed and she looked up to see him holding the stone high so that everyone could see its eerie, greenish-yellow light, which pulsed within the facets of the quartz like a feeble heart beating.

  “Looks like we’re onto something,” said Carter. “Keep an eye out for the door to the tunnel.”

  They walked farther along the tracks, panning their lights back and forth along the sooty walls. After another twenty yards, Carter spotted it. The star-stone continued its feeble glowing.

  “All right, give me a hand here,” said Carter, nodding to Provenza. Together the two men worked the latch and the door swung inward.

  Lya felt a rumbling in the track-bed once again. “There’s another train coming! Hurry!”

  Carter ducked into the small tunnel, followed by Provenza. Michael came up behind Lya and ushered her quickly through. The sound of the onrushing subway train was increasing, closing in on their position. After she had jumped inside, she backed up and waited until M
ichael was safely through the opening. As he was closing the door, the train sped past and a gust of air pushed against his grip.

  Lane Carter was holding the star-stone close to his chest. The strange light cast odd shadows up across his face and illuminated the close walls of the interconnecting tunnel with a pale green glow.

  “This tube runs diagonally, according to the map, southwest to the Sixth Avenue line at Houston Street. There is then a maintenance-access tunnel running west toward the Broadway line. I suggest we follow that to see if the star-stone gains any intensity. We shall use the stone as a beacon-finder. Is everyone ready?”

  “Let’s go,” said Michael.

  Again the close confines of the tunnel began preying on Lya’s mind, but she pushed the anxieties away. She was safe with Michael; that was the only thing that counted. They walked for about another city block without incident, reaching the intersection with the Sixth Avenue line, where Carter announced that they would have to follow the tracks until they curved north, then enter another maintenance tunnel.

  Once during their passage along the Sixth Avenue tracks, they had to duck into the alcoves while a D Train roared past them with dark indifference. They found the entrance to the second maintenance tunnel, opened it and continued west for half a block before the star-stone changed intensity. With each step farther down the narrow tunnel, the green-yellow glow grew stronger, more powerful.

  Just as Carter began remarking upon it, saying how close they must be to a power source, Provenza noticed movement in the darkness beyond them.

  “Wait a minute! What’s that?” Pointing beyond them, he indicated a boiling mist, a luminescent fog that seemed to fill the passage beyond them. Lya recognized it instantly from the day they had discovered the missing train.

  “That’s it!” cried Carter. “It’s working again. We are very close to something. Let’s go!”

  “Hold it,” said Michael. “Check your weapons. Lya, take the safety off that shotgun, and walk with the barrel pointing down, but keep it ready.”

  Provenza nodded. “Okay, Professor. Careful now.” Carter held the star-stone ahead of him like a lamp, and moved toward the fog. Lya’s heart rate increased with each step, and she could feel her whole body reacting to the tension. It was insane to be walking headlong into the mist in such a confined area, but they had no choice. Ahead of her, Provenza disappeared into the cloud. Another step and she herself was enclosed in its chill.

  She found that she could still see the others once inside the mist, although not as clearly as before. The walls of the tunnel seemed to be widening, and the floor was gradually sloping downward.

  “We’ve found it!” said Carter, ahead of the others. “Come on!”

  Provenza moved forward through the mist and Lya and Michael followed. They were suddenly standing in what appeared to be a vast underground cavern. A high, vaulted ceiling of rock soared above them. The jagged, uneven walls of natural stone curved away; the large open area before them was illuminated by phosphorescent deposits in the rock.

  “Where is this place?” asked Lya, trying to swallow but having difficulty. Her voice almost cracked when she spoke.

  “This looks very familiar, Michael,” said Provenza. “It’s like the place where I found the guy, the guy who was hanging on the rock.”

  “Yes, I should think so,” said Lane Carter. “It is probably all connected.”

  “What is it, Lane?” asked Michael. “Where are we?”

  Carter looked about the cavern, as though trying to get his bearings. The quartz crystal was burning fiercely now, as brightly as Lya had seen it when they discovered the old train. “I’m not certain, Lieutenant,” he said in a low, dramatic voice. “We could still be under the bedrock of the city, but I doubt it. More likely we are in a timeless zone, an other-than-our-reality dimension. That is, a place that coexists with our own time and space. That mist we passed through is like a gate.”

  “Is this that nexus-point you were talking about?” Michael was looking about warily, staying close to Lya.

  “I don’t think so. This is one of the branches, one of the by-products of the nexus, so to speak—a place where the errant creature might have access to our world, yes, but certainly not the core place.”

  “Why not?” asked Provenza.

  Carter smiled, then shrugged. “It’s not busy enough.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Michael.

  “I would expect a central collecting point of the kind of cosmic force we are talking about to be surging with energy, teeming with life forms and frantic traffic,” said Carter as he looked about the cavern.

  What kind of night would this be? Where was Carter leading them? Lya wondered if she would ever see the warm, comfortable confines of her East Side apartment again, or if she would ever again feel Michael’s closeness as she drifted off to sleep.

  “This way,” Carter said, leading the small caravan deeper into the earth. They walked silently, cautiously scanning the crevices in the rocks, the shadows and smaller holes into darkness. Lya tried to keep her mind clear of everything except concentrating on their surroundings, watching and listening.

  They came upon a small cave-like entrance, which caused Carter to pause. He passed the star-stone close to the opening and the crystal pulsed with an even greater energy.

  “In here,” he said softly to everyone. Even his whispering echoed through the chamber. They stepped through the opening into a grotto. Its carved, vaulted ceilings were buttressed by plain columns of granite, and there was a reflecting pool in the center, over which a stone bridge had been constructed. At the end of the bridge was a construction like a temple, with an altar and statues resembling gargoyles flanking it like the lions outside the public library.

  “Incredible!” said Carter, stepping upon the bridge.

  As he stepped forward, something fell from the ceiling, plopping on his shoulder. It was a white, shapeless thing that reminded Lya of a jellyfish. Carter screamed, dropping his torchlight but holding the star-stone tightly to his chest. With one hand, he tried to pull the thing away from him, and Lya stood transfixed by a mixture of fascination and horror as she watched Provenza and Michael rush to Carter’s side.

  They grabbed at the thing, ripping it free. So tight was its grip that it tore pieces of the windbreaker and flannel shirt away from Carter. Michael threw it to the floor of the stone bridge, where it lay for an instant flapping about like a fish out of water. Provenza smashed it with the butt of his rifle and it made a sickeningly soft squishing sound as blood and a milky white fluid exploded from its soft tissues. Michael kicked it into the pool, where it floated, thrashing for an instant, before sinking into the murky depths.

  “You all right?” asked John, helping Carter to his feet.

  “Incredible,” Carter said. “That thing seemed to have a million tiny teeth! I could feel them working their way through my clothing into my skin!”

  At that point something made Lya look upward to the curved ceiling of the small grotto-temple. That’s when she screamed.

  The others looked sharply at her, then followed her pointing hand upward to see hundreds of the soft white shapeless creatures clinging to the ceiling like bats in their lair. Many of them were moving toward the point above their heads, where the first one had dropped down.

  “Get back!” cried Provenza. “Back there!” He pointed away from the bridge toward the entrance to the place.

  At the same moment, Michael handed Lya his rifle, took the shotgun from her, then aimed the weapon upward. He fired twice, the thunderous roar of the exploding shells reverberating through the enclosed area and stinging Lya’s eardrums. The blast of hot pellets peppered the swarm of white things, disintegrating some and lacing many of the others with a lethal spray. They fell from the ceiling like huge snowflakes, plopping into the still waters of the pool.

  Working rapidly, Michael ejected the spent shells, reloaded, and fired two more rounds into the survivors still clinging to the
ceiling. Again they fell in great numbers, and the few still alive scurried like large amoebas down the sides of the curved ceiling and squeezed into cracks and crevices in the rocks. In less than a minute they were all gone.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Michael, exchanging guns with Lya and motioning the others out of the place.

  “No!” said Carter. “We’ve got to go on, don’t you see? We can’t let this stop us!”

  “Lane, what are those things? That one almost killed you!” asked Michael.

  “Some kind of highly evolved creature,” Carter said, staring into the grotto pool. “Maybe large unicellular animals, highly adapted to feeding on anything, I don’t really know. The only thing I can tell you is that they are probably not of our world, but that means that we are on the right track. We must go on!”

  Provenza looked at his partner. “He’s right, Michael. We came down here to get to the bottom of this thing, didn’t we?”

  Michael rubbed his chin reflectively, shaking his head. “All right, but we’ve got to be more careful.”

  Lane Carter nodded and led the way across the bridge. They examined the altar area without incident, then went past it and found a tunnel leading into another section of the caverns. It was a wide, high-ceilinged passage with phosphorescent streaks in the walls. The sounds of their footfalls echoed ahead of them, and Lya kept thinking that if there was anything else down there waiting for them, it would have no trouble hearing their noisy approach.

  This thought proved to be right.

  Although Carter was at the head of the column, Provenza saw them first. Crouched in the jagged shadows of the tunnel were the indistinct forms of small beings in dark, robelike habits. As Provenza’s lamp beam passed over one of their faces, there was a brief flash of red from a pair of eyes.

  “Something’s out there!” he said in a harsh whisper.

  Lya looked in the direction of his lamp beam and saw them—small gnomelike creatures. “The Knights of Bernardus,” she whispered.