12:50 p.m.
The creature that had once been Old Smith’s dog, Jake, fixed its rueful gaze on Michael Keene and John Creed. It growled at them, a sound wholly alien to the canine species, lower and gurgling with some kind of viscous liquid. The brown and white hair on its back stood on end, obscuring the patchy spots of fur, and its eyes seemed lit from within with a wan, yellow fire.
The two men remained rigid, their backs to the rear wall of Old Smith’s little room. The creature was blocking the only exit, and even though Michael had the remnants of an old tennis racket, he didn’t feel especially armed. A piece of wood and string against the powerful rippling muscles of this slavering beast seemed pretty ineffective.
The dog creature glanced at them both, then lunged at John. Michael swung at the creature’s side, shouting, “Don’t let it bite you!”
John tumbled over the mattress, grabbed the edge and held it before himself, a rotting shield. It provided a barrier between the reporter and the gnashing jaws of the mutated dog. He soon realized that this blockade wasn’t going to last very long. The creature was already clawing and chewing on the other side, spitting foam rubber stuffing in every direction. Still, he held it in front of himself, pushing back against the thing’s relentless assault.
Michael stepped forward and swung the broken tennis racket as hard as he could into the monster’s side. The wood snapped, sending a large piece of the racket and all the string hurtling into the corner, but leaving him with what amounted to a very sharp stick with a rubber grip.
John had backed all the way against the wall, moving sideways a bit to get a better angle on the mattress. The dog creature chewed at the stuffing and spat it out, raking large black talons across the material. John knew it wouldn’t be long before the mutant clawed or gnawed its way through the mattress and went for his throat.
“Some help here!” he shouted.
Michael looked at the pointed, splintered handle of the tennis racket and moved it so the taped end was grasped firmly in both hands. He raised it over his head, his grip tight on the rubber.
John watched in horror as a black nose emerged from the other side of the mattress where the dog-thing tore through the stuffing. The reporter held it out as far as his arms would reach to keep the thing away from his face for as long as possible. The creature snapped its jaws wide open, and John was treated to a spectacular view of the monster’s ragged rows of teeth in its black maw. As it opened its mouth wide, the material ripped on either side of it. When it closed its jaws, shoving its bushy head through the new hole, he saw a single yellow eye, rolling in its socket. The thing was completely wild, insane with the thought of John’s tender flesh only a few inches from its snapping teeth.
Michael moved over the creature. It didn’t sense him; it was too busy trying to devour the man on the other side of the foam rubber barrier. Michael straddled the beast’s waist and shoved downwards into the creature’s back, aiming for its heavy barrel chest. The sharp end of the tennis racket plunged through the beast’s hide, just to the right of its backbone. Blood splashed out of the wound, and Michael, still holding the racket, twisted it, enlarging the puncture hole. He hoped he was doing major damage to the thing’s internal organs.
The creature screeched in pain and backed up a few steps. The mattress went with it, jerking out of John’s hands. The monster’s head was trapped within the cavity it had chewed in the foam, and it shook its massive cranium, trying to dislodge the annoyance from around its neck.
Michael grabbed the end of the racket and pushed forward with all his might. The sharpened wooden stake inched forward, and he felt it press against something inside the creature, something important, something vital. Then, the resistance gave way, and the pointed end emerged from the hide of the beast’s chest. Blood spurted from the wound, and the thing slipped in its own fluids for a moment. It howled, and then fell to the floor, the large foam mattress still encircling its huge head like a Victorian ruff.
Michael backed away from the still beast until he felt the damp brick wall against his shoulders. He was breathing heavily, and his hands were shaking. He watched the monster for nearly a minute, waiting for it to spring back to life and attack again. The creature, however, remained still.
John rose up from where he’d been trapped against the opposite wall and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He kicked at the beast, and its body jiggled, but it didn’t awaken.
Michael was the first to speak. He said, “You may not believe me, but that was a little terrier just this morning. I saw it myself. It couldn’t have been more than a foot and a half long altogether.”
“Are there any more dogs down here?” John asked, peeking out the door of the little room. “I mean, maybe this isn’t the same dog.”
Michael shook his head. “No, this is Jake … was Jake. I’d know his markings anyplace.”
“What the hell did this? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was a Lycanthrope, only the canine version. Far as I know, the virus only affects humans. Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“The rats,” Michael answered. His breathing was starting to calm down, become normal. “Those huge rats we saw chasing that woman.”
“Those little bastards came out of the subway, probably right above our heads now.”
Michael looked at John, the whites of his eyes showing as they widened. “Where there’s one rat, there are a million,” he said. “The underground’s chock full of them.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We get the fuck out of the underground, right? Head for the surface?”
“It only makes sense. If these tunnels are breeding grounds for these mutant rats, then I don’t want to be anywhere close to the nest.”
Michael shivered.
“Are you all right to get us back up top?” John asked, laying a hand on the homeless man’s shoulder.
The small gesture consoled Michael, and it snapped him out of the horrible procession of images racing through his mind – giant rats swarming over him, devouring him, huge dogs and cats and bats.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get moving. For the first time in a long time, upside is looking pretty damn good.”
John clapped him on the shoulder again, and Michael took the lead, walking out of the little room. He moved slower as they crept down the tunnel, scanning his flashlight back and forth, trying to illuminate every nook and corner. If something was lurking in the dark spaces, he wanted to see it before it pounced.
“I wonder,” he whispered.
“What?” John whispered back.
“I wonder what happened to Old Smith,” Michael said before heading back toward the exit hole in the wall, which brought him face-to-face with a towering, hulking dark figure. It opened its jaws, and saliva dripped from them. Michael caught it in the beam of his penlight at the same moment the creature burst from its hidey-hole, bricks flying as it clobbered the wall with huge, talon-tipped fists. It gave a roar, and the eight-foot-tall monster was upon them.
Chapter 15
12:57 p.m.
Nicole watched the obliteration of the city’s bridges through the window of her hotel room. All of the bridges within her field of vision were nothing more than smoking ruins now, but she could still hear the destruction of other access routes to Manhattan Island. Every few minutes, another of the F-89 Scorpions would fly overhead, at speeds around six hundred miles per hour. She’d seen them firing at the Brooklyn Bridge with Falcon missiles, and there was nothing left except for a small macadam platform on each end. The planes seemed too small for so much firepower, but the military was taking no chances with this outbreak. She watched as another zoomed past, strafing the docks and piers by the river with 50-caliber bullets. A ferry started to list and sink, dozens of people clamoring to get back to shore as the boat tilted, taking on water. Fires had broken out all along the skyline, including a few in the downtown area, near Ground Zero and the financial district.
It was a terr
ifying, sobering sight.
And Sandy was out there someplace. If she was even still alive.
Behind her, Taylor Burns hung up his cell phone and joined her at the window. She didn’t turn, but she sensed him there, waiting for her to ask questions. Honestly, she didn’t know what to say.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he finally announced. “And I agree, it’s horrible, but it would be much, much worse if this new strain got loose all over America. If we can stop it on Manhattan, then we might have a chance.” She didn’t reply, kept gazing at the skyline, the flames erupting in small explosions when gas lines caught fire or automobile gas tanks went alight.
“They say the bridges are nearly all destroyed,” Burns continued. “Now they’re working on finding any other access out of the city. Boats, ferries, helicopters. They’re sending more planes to try and take out any news helicopters and hospital rescue copters that are parked on rooftops. I got a friend with Mount Sinai who’s gonna be pissed when they take out his bird.”
“And how many people are dying?” she asked. “How many people out there are being burned alive, shot while trying to escape? I did that in Cincinnati. I really don’t want to be a part of it again, especially…”
“Yeah, I know, especially with Sandy out there.”
“I’d say imagine your wife or kid out there, but … well …”
“I know,” he said with a grunt. “I’ve always been married to my job.”
“Well, other than the Army, she’s really all I have. Mom and Dad are gone. No other relatives to speak of. She’s pretty much everything to me. Knowing she’s out there while we’re isolating her on an island with every nightmare I’ve been fighting – it’s a little sickening to me.”
“Well, what do you propose we do? We’re on call right now. After they shut off any pathways the contagion can use to escape, we’ll have to take our positions and make certain none of the infected get off Manhattan. They’ve called in the rest of our team. They’ll be here in a matter of five or six hours.”
Nicole thumbed Sandy’s Blackberry number into her phone again. She looked up at General Burns, and she said, “I honestly don’t know. I hope to God that I can …”
The Blackberry stopped ringing suddenly, and Nicole heard her lover’s voice cry out her name.
Chapter 16
1:00 p.m.
Sandy was startled away from the windows when her Blackberry pulsed with her ringtone. She immediately put it to her ear and started talking. She didn’t know how long the signal would last, and, with everything else going on around her, she wasn’t taking any chances with losing a connection to the outside world. She knew she had to cram as much information as possible in the least number of seconds.
“Nicole, oh God, I’m trapped underground in the subway. Shut up, and listen to me. I got on at 42nd Street and headed back towards Brooklyn – the B Line. Orange, I think. You could follow it here. The train stopped after just a few minutes. You need to hurry. There’s some kind of killer rats all around the subway car right now. They’re everywhere.”
It was actually quite the understatement.
The two-foot rats had swarmed over the subway cars, targeting the people who had abandoned their shelter to stand on the tracks. The wave of rodents overran them as the screaming passengers tried to reach the safety of the cars they’d deserted only minutes earlier. There were thousands of the creatures, and they overwhelmed the humans, biting and scratching at the fleeing, panic-ridden people. Flesh was bitten, ripped, and shredded, and some rats sank their teeth into the terrified commuters and hung on to them, not letting go as the victims struggled to reach the cars they’d only just left.
None of them made it. As Sandy watched, a muscular young man tried to shake two rats off of his arms as another creature scooped long strands of intestines from his belly. A woman in a pink dress whirled in circles, stomping at the rodents, finally slamming into the side of the car where Sandy and her co-travelers watched in horror. She left a streak of blood across the window.
The rats seemed to be in a hurry, as if driven by a bloodlust and not hunger. Most of the horde took a bite or two out of the vulnerable people milling around on the tracks, then they hurried on their way down the tunnel. Many of them scurried into the open subway cars, attacking the people still hiding within. From her vantage point, Sandy saw a hand rise to the Plexiglas divider between her car and the one in front of hers. It slapped feebly at the divider, leaving a bloody, red handprint. In seconds, it sank under the weight of the hundreds of mutants invading that car.
Luckily, Sandy and the others in her coach had not pried the doors open to join the others on the tracks, and the rats bumped against the Plexiglas, making screeching noises, but unable to gain entrance. Some of them scratched at the doors, sensing the tender flesh inside the car but unable to find a way inside. They moved quickly, and, in the red, dim emergency lighting, all Sandy saw were teeth, flashes of fur, and scrabbling claws. Many of them climbed over the car, moving across the roof, their talons scraping as they searched for a way inside.
Alice sobbed into Beth’s shoulder, and the older woman hid the young girl’s eyes from the massacre outside the train. She could do nothing for the sounds, however. The screams, the tearing and chewing of skin and muscle, the desperate pleading and praying of the passengers being slaughtered.
Sandy spoke into her Blackberry, saying, “They’re everywhere around us, but they can’t get inside. At least, I don’t think they can, so we’re safe for the moment. Just do whatever you can, sweetheart. Get here or get someone else here to help us.”
She paused and listened as Nicole asked her about Lycanthropes.
“No,” she answered. “Why? Are the rats connected somehow? Oh no, do they carry the virus?”
The multitudes of rodents began to disappear down the tunnel, leaving behind a scene of carnage. A few rats lingered, gnawing on the fallen bodies of the people on the tracks. Most of them were dead. The bite of the huge rodents was quite wide, and each wound had a circumference of at least two inches – often several inches of important organs, tubing, and bone. The things had left several of the passengers crawling, bleeding, and dying. The living victims moaned outside the train. Some were unable to make a sound, but they tried to sit up, only to topple over. To Sandy, they looked dizzy, as if their sense of balance was affected. Some inched their way through the bodies lying in pools of their own blood. Some, sightless after their eyes were devoured from their sockets, moved in zombie-like jerks.
Sandy listened to Nicole’s voice, her heart hammering in her chest.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Carriers? The rats? No, most of them are dead, but I can see a dozen or so still moving. No, I won’t go out and help them. Don’t worry; just get here as soon as you can. I love you. How soon do you think you can…”
Her Blackberry went dead as the signal was disturbed.
Craig, the lawyer, looked at her beseechingly. “Is someone coming here for us? A rescue team or something? Who was that?”
The group huddled closer to her.
Sandy said, “That was my girlfriend.” Craig and Howard visibly flinched at the word, but nobody said anything, so she continued. “She’s part of the Lycanthrope Sniper Team, and she said she’s coming here for me.”
“What about the rest of us?” Alice asked, her head peeking from below Beth’s arm.
“She’s going to try and get us all out. She said the rats were carriers of a new mutant strain of the Lycanthrope Virus. The whole city up there is infected, and the explosions we heard and felt were the bridges being blown up by the military. They’re cutting Manhattan off from every direction. Lycanthropes can’t swim – we learned that in Cincinnati during the first outbreak. Their bodies are too top heavy.”
“If they’ve sealed us off from the rest of the country,” Sylvia asked, her voice quivering. “How do we get out?”
Sandy shrugged and shook her head. She answered, “I
don’t have a clue. That’s her specialty, but if I know Nicole, she’ll find a way. Or die trying.”
“So, what, we just stay put in here for now?” Howard asked, peering out the windows of the sealed car. Several of the rat bite victims were shivering as if in the throes of violent epileptic seizures.
“It’s the safest place, probably,” Sandy said. “But she said something else, something important.”
“What the hell now?” Howard asked, not taking his eyes from the palsied shaking of the dozen or so people still alive on the tracks.
One of them stopped vibrating and arched his back. It was a small man with dozens of two-inch wounds on his body. Blood was seeping from several bites, but when he raised his face, he looked as if he were grinning. His teeth gleamed in the red light.
“Too many damned teeth,” Howard said aloud, rubbing his smooth chin.
“Oh no, it’s starting already,” Sandy said, looking out at the wounded people. Most of them had stopped convulsing, and they were kneeling or crawling on all fours.
“What?” Sylvia asked. “What’s starting?”
“Nicole told me the news is saying the rats are carrying some new strain of the virus, that it’s transferred by bites or scratches. Blood-borne.”
“Are you telling us that all those people who weren’t killed out there are going to turn into freaking werewolves?” Craig asked.
Sandy nodded.
And she heard the first howl from down the tunnel.
Chapter 17
1:10 p.m.
“I’m going in after her,” Nicole said. “And there’s nothing you can say to stop me.”
“You’ll be AWOL when your country needs you the most,” Taylor Burns reminded her, sitting on the edge of her hotel bed. “You could get called on any time to take position and put your sniper skills to work. You know how important this is.”
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