by Alan, TS
“No. South,” he gasped. “Go… Go now.”
“Thank you, Deano.”
I put the pistol to his head. I pulled the trigger.
The sound of gunfire drove them into a frenzy. There were more than the dozen David had reported. By the time he had returned, they had broken through the large metal gates that barred the entrances to the stairwells. More of them had joined the others and were tearing away at the less than secure gates that closed off the turnstiles from the platform. We had to go back the way we came, past the trash refuse room, past the 32nd Street turnstiles to the end of the platform. I grabbed the carbine and as we ran south down the platform, they broke through. I hoped the blue tabbed key with the funny teeth worked.
More of them pulled at the barred gates at the 32nd Street and Park Avenue South exit as we approached. They had not broken through to the platform level yet, but they too were in a heightened rage. The 33rd Street pack was nearing as I placed the key into the tumbler. It worked! At least two dozen were near the exit, which was a mere sixty feet away. I heard the creaking of metal bending. The others were breaking through. It was a matter of moments before both groups would overwhelm us. I swung the Colt carbine around and fired. Loud spats pulsed from the muzzle, and abruptly stopped. I had expended what had remained in the magazine. The others had broken through and joined the horde. They were twenty feet from me. I purposely kicked the door closed on my comrades as I reached for the grenade launch trigger, which was just forward of the thirty-round magazine. I pointed it toward their feet, hoping the ensuing explosion would yield a sufficient blast radius, taking out the front of the pack, slowing them down enough for me to make a hasty exit onto the subway tracks.
The grenade exploded with tremendous force, throwing me off my feet and nearly off the platform. I was stunned; my equilibrium was off balance and my vision blurred. I couldn’t get up. I felt hands grabbing at me, dragging me. I kicked and swatted at them trying to fend them off, but there were too many. I heard voices. It was David and Marisol.
IX
Dr. 07752
I was still dazed but with the help of David we made our escape. We ran for at least four hundred feet, which meant that we would be clear of the 33rd Street Station. I kept looking back, expecting them to have broken through the door, driven by their singular conviction of devouring us. As I looked along the corridor I could see nothing, and Max made no indication there was any thing following either. I stopped. I was out of breath and perspiring profusely. The sickness was fueling my fever and draining my body. I drank nearly two twenty-ounce bottles of water before my thirst was quenched. I was running out of time. I told the group they shouldn’t have risked their lives for a guy whose fate had already been sealed, but the group—except for Joe—disagreed with my decision. They weren’t ready to let me go at that moment.
We continued down the tunnel after everyone had rested for a few moments, catching our breaths and drinking water for revitalization. The tunnel was poorly lit. A few forty-watt incandescent bulbs hung from old electrical wire, seemingly at random segments along the passageway ceiling. Most appeared to be burned out and blackened with soot and filth. The tunnel was damp and musty with old pipes, caked with years of grime, running horizontally midway up the wall to our left. The passage was much smaller than those we had used before. The tunnel was about six feet wide and eight feet tall and was narrower and lower than the others. A small drainage gutter ran along the wall to our right.
We hadn’t gone more than two hundred yards down the narrow passage when Max became alarmed. I knew the difference between an undead warning and an intruder warning by listening to Max’s vocalizations and reading his body language. This was an intruder alert and it was ahead of us.
“Wait,” I said, and held my arm out to signal for everyone to stop. “What is it, boy?”
Max growled but it he did not bare his teeth, which told me what was ahead was not a zombie.
“There’s something up ahead,” I said to the others. “Don’t move.”
I commanded Max to move up as we approached an artery. His reaction continued to indicate that it was someone, not something, and a possible threat.
Someone was hiding around a corner in a darkened access shaft. He was silent as we approached. Nonetheless, Max not only heard his breathing but also smelled him.
“Identify yourself, or I’ll send my dog in,” I warned.” There was no response. “Gib laut,” I ordered, which was Dutch for speak. Still there was no response. I knelt down next to Max and held his collar.
“Last chance!” There was just silence. “Aanvallen!” I let Max go.
He tore around the corner, and I quickly followed. A shrill of agony came from the darkness as something metallic hit the ground and slid. Max growled wildly as he held steadfast to the man’s pant leg, tugging and pulling at the man who was on the ground.
“Ruhig! Komm. Plaats,” I commanded. Max went silent and sat at my side. I held my pistol up as the man tried to crawl to a small metal attaché case.
“Move and I’ll shoot,” I calmly told him.
“I want my case. It is mine!” he said in defiance.
The rest of the group approached.
“Who is he?” David asked.
I replied, “About to find out. Stand up and come out!”
“My case. I want my case,” he demanded.
“Get over here and shut up.” I pointed the pistol at him. “Your choice.”
Apprehensively he stood up and moved into the main, low-lit tunnel.
He was a man in his fifties, clean shaven with a touch of grey in his well-groomed and parted black hair. He had a bruise below one eye and was dressed in a soiled five-button white lab-coat over his white shirt, tie, black trousers and suit jacket. The lab-coat was dirty, wet and grimy with paw prints from Max pushing him to the ground. There was something else spattered on him, and it appeared to be blood.
“Who’re you?” I wanted to know.
“Richard France.”
“What’s up with the lab-coat, doc?”
“I am not a doctor, just a lab technician. What about my case?”
I was suspicious of him. None of the lab technicians I knew wore expensive dress clothes. He didn’t appear to be a threat, so I put the pistol away.
“A lab tech, eh? Where’s your lab?”
“My case?” he responded, ignoring my question.
“Someone grab the doc’s case. What’s important about it?”
“Nothing. Just personal items.”
Joe handed me the brushed aluminum case. “Fancy for a lab tech. Lunch box?” I asked sarcastically as I tossed the case up and down in my hands.
He grabbed it from me and clutched it in both arms, pressing it against his chest. I could see his perfectly manicured nails with a coat of clear polish slightly glinting under my flashlight.
“You know, doc. You don’t add up. All the techs I know wear scrubs, not an expensive suit and a manicure. And that case—”
“Perhaps you need to upgrade your work environment,” he pompously said. The case is mine, I can assure you,” he continued, trying to convince me.
“I just find it odd, you don’t have any believable answers. Or answers at all.”
“I assure you that I am who I say I am, and this property is mine. So I will be leaving now.”
I pushed him against the tunnel wall. “Not so fast, doc. I think thou doth protest too much. How’s that, DD?”
“Actually it’s, ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’. Act III, Scene II; The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” David replied.
“God, how do you remember all that?”
David shrugged.
I turned to the doctor. “You need to tell me who you really are.”
He responded defiantly. “Who are you that I need to report to?”
“I’m the guy with the bad attitude—and the dog! You’d think a person with nothing to hide would be a little more cooperat
ive. But you seem to be evasive and fidgety.”
“Maybe he’s telling the truth,” Joe said.
“Shut up, Joe,” Julie said. “Not everyone is as stupid as you.”
“Very nice, Julie,” I complimented. “Who else besides the blathering idiot thinks Dick here is lying? Raise your hands.” Everyone did. “What about you, Max. Is Dick a liar?”
Max growled deeply.
“See, Dick. Unanimous. You’re a liar. Gimme the case,” I said as I gestured for him to hand it over.
“No.” He clutched the case tighter.
“C’mon. Give it up.”
“Go to hell. It is mine!”
“Max, ballen hoden!”
Max clamped down hard on his crotch. I grabbed the metal attaché case from his hands as he cringed in pain. “Here,” I tossed the case to David, “check it out. Like that trick, doc? I’d be very still, unless you want to become a eunuch… Vasthouden, Max. Vasthouden.”
Max growled and kept his grip on the doctor’s privates.
“No. Please. Be careful with the case. It is—”
“Now let’s see who you really are,” I said. “Gute hund,” I told Max as I stroked him.
I patted him down and found a wallet in his left back pocket. I opened it and checked his identity. “Says here you live in Navesink, New Jersey. David, aren’t you from Jersey?”
“Navesink. That’s Monmouth County. I couldn’t afford a shack in that neighborhood.”
“Well, doc, something you wanna tell us?”
He said nothing.
I checked the rest of his pockets. “Well, well, well. What do I have here? An I.D. card. Oh, looks like… looks like he lied, Joe. Says here that Dick is Doctor Richard France, Director of Microbiology and Virology, Research and Development, USABEIDCM, number GCC-010. Terrible photo, too. USABEIDCM,” I addressed the doctor again. “Very Project SHAD, doc. Hey, DD. What’s in the case?”
“Not sure. I got some syringes and four vials of a clear liquid marked Fusion Inhibitor?”
David showed me the contents.
I picked up one of the vials and I read the labeling aloud. “Xeroxtin Fusion Inhibitor.”
“Fusion Inhibitor?” David inquired.
“It’s an antiretroviral.” I turned back to the doctor. “You see this, doc?” I stretched out my left arm and showed him the bloody bandage. I pulled it back to reveal the bite wound. The doctor’s face grew pale, not from guilt but from fear. “Tell me you didn’t cause this! Tell me this is just a bite and I’m not going to turn into Bub?”
I heard Marisol comment, “Bub?” David explained to her.
“You did this! Didn’t you!?” I exclaimed with frustration and anger in my voice, waving my arm in front of his face. I ordered Max off and I grabbed the doctor by the throat. “What the fuck did you do? Huh?! What did you create?” I clamped down on his throat harder, digging into his larynx, cutting off his airway.
The doctor gasped, “That is not possible.”
David and Joe tried to pull my hand off his throat. Max growled loudly.
“J.D., J.D. If ya kill him we won’t know anything. J.D., let him go. Let him go!” David insisted, as he was able to release my grip.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled, though not directing it at anyone. My next expletive was directed at the doctor. “You fucking idiot!”
“J.D. What are you talking about? What did he do?” David asked.
“Don’t you get it?” I asked. “He’s the one. He created the virus!”
“Not this zombie shit again,” Joe said.
I looked Joe straight in the eyes and said, “Fuck you, douche nozzle.”
“Zombies, the undead. Who gives a shit? Do you hear this?” Joe proclaimed. “He’s nuts and you all believe him. This isn’t a movie! This is some kind of… pandemic… Like Avian flu.”
“Avian flu?!” David exclaimed in disbelief at Joe’s utter lack in his ability to grasp the situation.
Max let out a low growl. The doctor was trying to steal away while we were arguing. I turned to him.
“Hey, fuckwit, going somewhere?” I asked, and commanded Max, “Fass!”
Max tore down the tunnel and leapt at the doctor, knocking him to the ground. Max did what I had ordered: to bite. He viciously tore into the doctor’s leg. The doctor let out a howl of excruciating pain.
“Jesus!” David shouted, as Max pulled on the doctor’s leg. “Call him off before he tears a leg off.”
“Max! Aus. Aus!” I commanded, and he let go of the doctor. “Sitz, Max… Pass Auf.” Max sat and kept his keen eyes on Doctor France. “Gute Hund,” I praised his obedient behavior. “Gute Hund.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Joe screamed at me, before I had finished praising my dog. Joe moved toward the doctor, acting noble.
“Joe. Get away from him,” I warned.
“Or what?” he retorted, being brazen.
I pulled out my pistol and aimed it at him. “Don’t test me.” But he did anyway.
He said, “Do it, or shut the fuck up!”
I was tempted to give him a throat strike. The thought of watching him fall to his knees gasping for air would have given me a modicum of pleasure. I glowered at him while I pondered the thought and tucked the pistol back into my pants and pushed passed him, purposely thumping into him as I approached the doctor.
“I think your canis lupus familiaris has severed a fibular artery,” the doctor cried out, holding his hand over his wound, attempting to stanch the flow of blood. “For God sake. Someone help me,” he continued. “I am going to bleed to death if someone does not help me!”
“Doctor, heal thy self,” I said, calmly.
“J.D., you can’t let him bleed to death,” David said.
“I can’t?”
“No, man. It’s not right. Don’t you have a Hippocratic Oath to uphold?”
“EMT Pledge. But fuck it. Let him bleed!”
“If it is his virus, we need answers. If he dies, it may cause the death of us all. Do you want that?” David looked at me, desperation in his eyes.
“Oh, for shit sake. Fine,” I reluctantly acquiesced. “Here.” I handed David the pistol. “I’m going to need both hands.”
I took off my backpack and examined his leg. It was worse than I had expected but not as bad as the doctor had tried to make out that it was. Max punctured the skin and tore some of the flesh away. In a deadpan tone I told him, “You’re right. Severed the artery. No point wasting good bandages.”
France didn’t appreciate the dry remark. “Your idiotic attempt at humor at my expense is unwelcome,” he replied with disdain in his tone. “Now help me before I bleed to death. I feel faint.”
“Okay, doc. I’ll bandage your boo-boo. But if you don’t tell us everything, I’ll let Max have a real go at you. Understood?”
He didn’t respond. I squeezed his wound. He let out a scream.
“Does that get your attention?”
“Yes, yes! I understand.”
“Then start talking. What are you involved in?”
“It’s true,” France said with arrogance in his raspy tone, still gasping from the pain.
“Ah, here it comes. The arrogance, the self-importance, the omnipotence.” I said.
“Tell your dog to get away from me and I will tell you.”
I ordered Max back a few feet. He sat and stared at the doctor, intent on guarding him from escaping or doing me any harm.
“It is a microbial pathogen that kills in twelve to eighteen hours, then reanimates you.”
“What?” Joe exclaimed.
“Your friend is right. It is the living dead!” admitted the doctor, grimacing in pain.
“You’re nuts, too,” Joe said, pointing his finger at the doctor. “You’re all fucking nuts. Movies aren’t reality. Made up shit isn’t real!”
“You have a very highly developed sense of denial, Joe,” I told him.
“You’re all out of your minds. Whatever it is,
it’s making all of you delusional. And I am done with all of you. I’ll find my own way out.” He started down the tunnel. “I’ll get out at Grand Central. The hell with you all.”
“You do not want to go that way!” the doctor warned.
Joe left disregarding the doctor’s advice. No one tried to stop him.
“Why not, doc? What’s down the tunnel?”
“My lab. The virus.”
“Your lab?” David asked. “Down here?”
“No. Not in the tunnels. In Grand Central.”
“Grand Central,” I scoffed. “Where in Grand Central? The Oyster Bar? I asked in a patronizing tone. The—”
The doctor rebuked my condescending remark. “Oyster Bar. Do not patronize me. You think I am insane? There is a lab under Grand Central. I know. I have worked there for many years.”
“Bullshit!” David exclaimed, rejecting the doctor’s claim. “The only things down there are more steam tunnels. There’s no secret laboratory,” David said again.
“This wouldn’t be related to M42, would it?” I asked.
“Smart boy, you are. Except it is actually below it.”
“M42?” Julie asked.
“Room M42,” I replied. “It’s the deepest and the biggest most secret basement in the city. During World War II there were shoot-to-kill orders if any non-authorized person showed up.”
“Why?” Marisol asked.
“Why? I’ll tell you why. Because it was where the power came from for the trains moving troops during World War II. Furthermore, it’s still in use today. It’s the power plant for all rail traffic in the terminal.”
The doctor added, “Yes, but that is nothing compared to the level under it. It is where the Manhattan Project started.”
“Hold it. I know that’s wrong. The Manhattan Project was originally headquartered in an office of the old Federal Building,” David emphatically said.
“Do not believe everything you read, college boy. That was a front, a government decoy. Unfortunately, Hitler found out the truth. Why do you think two Nazi saboteurs were arrested in Grand Central in 1942?”
“But how do you know about it if it’s a secret?” Julie asked me, needing to how I acquired the classified information.