They call us Moles, he thought. And they’re right. We’re nothing but a bunch of squinting, half-blind animals that live under the earth in our own little dark world.
At one time, being called a Mole Man would have hurt him to the quick, a derogatory spear in his side. Nowadays, he identified more with the little creature burrowing through the soil than to his so-called human counterparts. At least the animal was honest with itself. The mole knew its place.
Michael needed a drink. He hoped the newspaper reporter he was traveling to meet would be amenable to buying one for him at a local dive. Maybe he would even consent to buying a couple.
Emerging from the sewer into the subway tunnel under Manhattan, Michael hoped that he didn’t look too scruffy. Living underground wasn’t conciliatory to maintaining a clean-cut appearance. He was dirty, grimy, and he knew he smelled terrible, even if he could no longer personally detect his body odor. He was probably quite a sight. And quite a smell. Still, he ruffled his fingers through his longish brown hair, trying to plaster it down. He checked his thin arms for dirt. There were a few spots, so he knew he’d have to stop at one of the bathrooms in the McDonald’s before meeting the reporter.
A far cry from happier days, right, Michael? Remember those hot showers? The crisp new suits? Remember living in a real apartment? Remember shampoo?
He shook his head, leaned against the brick wall, felt the distant rumblings of one of the trains grinding its way uptown. The vibrations were always present; a muted growling beneath the city’s day-to-day roar. Some days, they were stronger than others. He never understood why.
Michael shook the memories from his mind – the sturdy oak desk in his corner office, the women in the bars, the never-ending party. Well, the party had definitely ended, and now he was dealing with the hangover. And this was a real e-ticket morning after.
He figured he would tell the reporter all about the way his life had been ruined, how a few bad decisions had brought down the empire of his life. Through no fault of his own, the company had folded. The money was gone, and, as everyone liked to tell him, there was a recession on. He had lost the SoHo apartment, the women, the ability to stay clean. He sold what he could, including plasma, but soon he was living on the street, merely another in a long line of panhandlers, his sweaty palm held out, his eyes beseeching anyone who walked by for their change. Then, the booze caught up with him. He didn’t drink a lot when he had the money to purchase the top-shelf liquor. Now that he was homeless, the quality of the drink plummeted, and he found himself craving it more and more. There was no such word as “enough.” One night, after a quart of rotgut had laid him low, he awoke in a dark hole. A woman, Stella was her name, had brought him down to the place she stayed in the tunnels under the subways. She informed him that if he’d remained in the park where she had found him, he would have frozen to the bench, to be discovered stiff and dead in the morning. He’d protested a bit, but it was warm in the rancid little room, and he’d slept there, huddling with Stella for warmth. He’d long lost any concept of sexuality. Now, there was warmth and there was survival. The tunnels – by way of a woman named Stella – had saved him, and he remained there to this day, ever in its debt.
Only there were the sounds he’d been hearing lately, the scratching, the clawing, the yowling that sounded almost like a wolf trapped beneath the city. He’d heard of the Lycans; he still read the newspaper on a daily basis, finding them crammed into garbage cans or recycling bins. He supposed the noises were being made by the monsters, that they were hiding out in the sewers, just as he had. And who was he to evict them from the tunnels? He was just another kind of animal with a different kind of scratching.
Something moved in the darkness from farther down the line. Instantly alert, Michael Keene held his breath, pressed his back against the solidity of the wall.
His eyes had half adjusted to the emergency lights that lined the subway tracks, bathing the area in a faint, ghostly blue. He squinted, trying to discover the cause of the sounds, even though he wasn’t certain he really wanted to know. In the bowels of the tunnels, pretty terrible things sometimes occurred. Middle-class kids with too much time on their hands liked to find “bums” and set them on fire. Sometimes, people went down to the subway to commit suicide, lying on the tracks until a train sliced them neatly in half. He had once even seen a baby’s corpse, blue and red, half devoured by rats.
But whatever was making this noise was larger than your typical subway rat, and that was saying something. Typical specimens could grow to the size of large housecats, bloated, fat, and slow with all the garbage they found to eat.
No, he thought. This was something else, something shuffling in the darkness, looking for its next meal. This was something malevolent.
He thought he saw the red gleam of two narrowed eyes peering at him from the blackness, and he knew this thing – whatever it was – was watching him. An icicle hand traced slalom paths down his spine.
He waved his hands, hoping to scare the thing away. “Shoo!” he cried. “Get out of here.”
The eyes came closer. They were low, near to the ground, but as the shape emerged into the glow of one of the emergency lights, he saw a halo surrounding an old, bewhiskered man and his raggedy little dog. The old man’s face cinched into a toothless smile, and the dog wagged its tail as it recognized Michael.
He let out the breath he had been holding, then said, “Oh, it’s you, Jones. You and Jake.”
Jones cackled until he coughed up phlegm, which he spit on the railings. His dog Jake, a mutt of uncertain breeding, rushed up to Michael. He leaned down to give the filthy animal a pat on its quivering head.
“Who’d you think it was?” Jones asked. “One of them rat things?”
“Maybe,” Michael admitted. “Although, I haven’t actually seen one of them yet, only heard the tales.”
“Consider yourself lucky then. Them things are mean as hell. One tried to drag poor Jake away from me. Still got the bite marks on his leg.”
Michael peered down at the dog and saw the half-inch patches where the mongrel had lost its fur. The bites were big and red and there was some swelling. They looked infected, but they didn’t seem to be bothering Jake in any manner. The little mutt wagged its tail at all the attention it was receiving.
“You going up top?” Jones asked.
“Yeah. I have an interview with a reporter about my fall from grace into the seventh circle of hell – the New York tunnel system.”
“You gonna tell him all about us?”
“Not all about you, but some. I want the people up there to know that there are people down here, people who need help.”
“They gonna flush us out,” the old man snorted. “They tried a couple of times, sending cops and such down here. They never found us all, but they always get some of us.”
“That’s not why I am doing this interview.”
“But that’s what’ll happen ’cause of it.”
“Well,” Michael said, running a hand through his thick hair, “I’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t. This reporter’s supposed to be good. His boss told me he’s serious and dedicated, that he wants to help change the world for the better. Maybe he can help some of us get out of the tunnels.”
The old man shook his head, and his dog whined, scratching at his pant leg. He said, “Nobody’s that kind. And a lot of the moles – me included – don’t really wanna get back up there. The real world’s a nasty place. Scary. I never used to be scared, but least we got us some protection down here. It’s safe.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Jones,” Michael said. “But we both know better. There isn’t a safe place left on this planet. Least, not for people like us.”
“Amen, brother. But you’re preachin’ to the choir here. Go on topside and tell the reporter about your life in the dark, the scruffs you call your friends down here. Then you can come back to us, and we’ll welcome you into the blessed fold like we always do. God knows, we’
ll take just about anybody.”
“I’m going to be late,” Michael said, reflexively looking at his wrist where he’d once worn a gold Rolex. Nothing there now but some grime and a few hairs.
The old man made a derogatory noise, turned, and started fading back into the darkness of the subway tunnel, walking to the other side of the partition through a wide hole. The dog followed closely on his heels, its toenails clicking on the floor. In moments, Michael lost sight of him, although he could still hear Jake’s toenails. The dog probably needed them trimmed, but that would never get done on the mole-man’s budget. Shaking his head, he turned and hurried to the ladder that led to the subway platform.
Chapter 5
11:40 a.m.
Matt Schwartz was already sick of watching the baby, and his wife had left the apartment only a half hour ago. The damn kid always wanted something. What had at first seemed like a miracle, a beautiful baby girl, had slowly morphed into a bottomless pit that shrieked like a pterodactyl every time it wanted something. And it always wanted something – more formula, a diaper change, her toy doggie she threw across the room during tantrums.
Matt’s wife took it all better than he did, and he chalked this up to the fact that she was female and women at least gave the appearance of loving their spawn. For Matt, the absolute adoration of his daughter (which his wife had named Patchouli, for Chrissake) had deserted him the moment her shit started stinking. He wasn’t certain which week it was, but all of a sudden her bowel movements could singe the unibrow off his Italian mother-in-law. And, brother, that was a lot of eyebrow.
Now, he was trying to watch a rerun of The Jerry Springer Show, concentrating hard so he could tell what curse words they were bleeping out, and she started in again with the high-pitched shrieking. He turned up the audio, but that horrible noise seemed to shove a knife into the back of his head and twist the blade back and forth. He winced, groaned. She must have sensed his displeasure, because she started screaming full blast.
“Shut up!” he screamed; this only triggered her into higher pitched, shrill wails. “Aw, for God’s sake…”
Shoving himself out of the armchair, he turned his back on the arm-flailing screeching mistress and the butt-ugly drag queen on TV and headed for the baby’s room. The apartment was small, so it only took a few steps until he opened Patchouli’s door and peeked inside.
Then, he screamed in harmony with the baby.
Patchouli was caught in the jaws of a rat that had to measure at least three feet long. Its eyes burned red, and its fur was greasy and black. Its tail slapped back and forth, as if it were an angry feline, and its head was deformed. Long protuberances grew over its eyes, like a Neanderthal’s brow. Its teeth were sharp and jagged, like a shark’s, row after row of them…
…crunching down on his daughter, whose bellowing suddenly stopped, and he briefly wondered who’d changed the station. The baby’s form lay limp as the creature closed its jaws tighter around her body. Bones cracked and snapped.
In the shadows of the baby’s room, other figures slinked back and forth. They were also too large, too misshapen to be rats. He figured they were the enormous rodents he’d read about in the newspaper. They were supposed to be all the way downtown near Ground Zero.
Matt turned around to run to the phone and call – who? Police? Firefighters? The dog catcher? Three more of the creatures rushed out of the corners of the room.
Matt Schwartz only made it halfway across the efficiency before one of them bit through his Achilles tendon and he plummeted to the floor where the other two were waiting.
* * *
Gwen Drew was tired. Eight hours at the office followed by three hours at the strip club, trying to avoid the savages who came to see her when she moonlighted as Cherry Jubilee. Shaking your thang in five-inch fuck me pumps really blew out your ankles. It was enough to wear out any girl until she was as threadbare as the carpet in her third-story walk-up.
She slung her heavy purse on the kitchen table, listening as it slid to the floor in a jangle of keys and makeup and mace. Locking the door behind her, she stripped off her clothes. It wasn’t sexy, like when she masked herself as Cherry, but she was soon naked and running a hot bath for herself. Her cat, Tina, made an indignant appearance. She gave her a pat on the head and the cat padded into the other room to do cat things. Gwen sprinkled the steaming water with scented bubble bath and inhaled fake lilacs. After a few minutes, she shut off the tap and slid into the water with a sigh of contentment.
She closed her eyes, let her sore feet and back relax with the near-scalding water. Her nearly paid-for-breasts bobbed on the surface like pink islands. The apartment was quiet as a tomb, and she relished the silence. After three hours of blaring hair rock, silence truly was golden. She trailed her fingers through the bubbles and hummed an old Foreigner song.
Something moved in the other room, and she was instantly alert. Being ogled by a multitude of creeps every night while you danced in your scanties made you cautious. She wasn’t even certain she’d heard anything. She just knew there had been motion. She’d sensed it.
“Tina,” she called. “That you in there, you stupid animal?”
The cat gave a low growl, followed by a shriek. Gwen stood up in the tub, sudsy water streaming down her tanned body. Glancing around the room, she searched for a weapon. She grabbed the toilet plunger. It wouldn’t do too much damage, but if she connected right, it could bust a skull. She cursed herself for leaving her mace in her purse on the table.
“Tina? Kitty?”
The tabby crawled into the room, and Gwen immediately saw there was something wrong with her leg. She was dragging it across the white tile, leaving a crimson smear on the floor. She was heading toward the tub where Gwen cowered, clutching at her plunger.
The cat stopped halfway across the room, shuddering. She had left a long, bloody trail, and Gwen stepped out of the water and tiptoed to her pet. As she lowered herself to one knee, she saw Tina had been bitten by something. A large chunk of flesh was missing from her hip, where it met the left back leg. The cat looked up at Gwen, pleading with its mistress to stop the pain.
“Oh no, Tina, what happened?” Gwen asked reaching for the cat. She put her hand atop the feline’s head to reassure her.
Only, something was moving beneath the skin, like millions of insects crawling under the fur. Then, the bone structure of the cat’s skull shifted and rearranged itself under her fingers. She snatched her hand back to her naked chest.
Tina looked at her with glowing yellow eyes, and when she opened her mouth to scream, the cat’s jaws extended and new rows of fangs erupted from her gums. Her snout pushed outwards, and her forehead grew lumpy with bony extensions.
Tina grew larger. Much larger.
And Gwen started screaming as her pet, now transformed into something bestial and monstrous, sank its teeth into her leg…
…infecting her mistress before Gwen bashed the creature’s brains in with the wooden handle of the plunger.
* * *
Tracey Bagwell didn’t feel well.
She’d come home to her apartment overlooking Central Park after a shopping trip, arms laden with bags almost too heavy for her fifty-five-year-old muscles. She kept herself in shape, speed walking at the gym and evening runs on the elliptical machine, but today’s shopping excursion had been immensely satisfying. She knew she had to get the newly acquired items in the closet before her husband arrived home. He’d been scolding her lately for her expenditures, but she knew a bargain when she spotted it, and she’d spotted more than a few that day.
Tracey unloaded her new clothes, taking a moment to admire each new purchase. Her walk-in closet was dark and shadowy. She hadn’t seen the rat until it had darted from a hiding place and had nipped her on the ankle. Then, it was gone in a flash of its pale, fleshy tail. She dropped to her hands and knees, searching for the little beast, finding only a rather large hole in the wall.
And hadn’t the rat been rather
large itself? It had seemed so, but it had moved so fast she wasn’t certain of what she saw.
When she stood up, brushing off her knees, she suddenly felt dizzy. A wave of nausea overtook her, and she rushed for her well-lit bathroom. Her stomach heaved as she emptied it of the salad she’d eaten for brunch. She flushed the toilet, closed the lid, and crossed her legs to examine the wound on her ankle.
It was red and swollen, even though she’d only been bitten a few minutes ago. Furrowing her brow, she stared at the bite. Measuring about an inch across, it looked too large to be from a rat. The redness was disturbing, too. It looked infected, but surely there hadn’t been time for the wound to become... infected.
A second wave of nausea almost brought her to her knees, and she cried out in pain.
This was not right. Every part of her started to ache, and she could feel her legs swelling like balloons. She hurried toward the phone in the living room, but she fell on her side before she reached it. A sound came from her throat, something between a scream and a primitive howl.
Long, sharp teeth sprouted from her bleeding gums, shoving aside her perfect dental work. With the crackle of snapping bones, her lower jaw elongated into a snout, making room for the new fangs. Before her fingernails had finished turning into long, black talons, Tracey Bagwell discarded the last vestiges of her humanity.
Her sickness was gone, replaced by a terrible hunger.
Chapter 6
11:50 a.m.
Sandy Martin felt cold when she left the site where the World Trade Center had once stood. Now a huge area of heavy construction in the middle of Manhattan, it had once been the place where her brother had worked. He had died that terrible day, another victim of the Al-Qaeda terrorists, but she had never been able to bring herself to visit the spot. Even just after he’d been reported among the dead, she hadn’t traveled to New York. She’d found it hard enough to simply watch the events unfold on television … again and again and again. For all these past years, she had not been able to pay her respects at the 9/11 site. Her girlfriend, Nicole, told her repeatedly that she should see it for herself, that this would give her some sense of closure.
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