“I’m not so sure I want to be aboveground right now,” John admitted. “From the sounds we’re hearing, those rumblings, there is some bad shit happening right above our heads. We’re deep enough that the noise should be dampened a lot, but those explosions and crashes and stuff – that’s just too scary. Whatever it is, it’s fucking loud.”
“End days,” John said, little more than a whisper.
“You’re not one of those are you?” John asked. “A believer like that?”
“Oh, I think God’s real, but I never supposed the end was near, like in those crazy cartoon signs. But, when we looked outside, and I see those creatures down here coming at us, hell, maybe there’s something to it all. God knows, I’ve been wrong about enough in my life that it’s cost me everything. This could be my redemption.”
“Get me out of here alive and you’re good with God?” John had to struggle not to laugh. “I didn’t think I’d rate that high on the Big Guy’s list.”
Michael looked at him, his eyes wide and red-rimmed. “Could be some sort of purpose.”
And in that moment, John realized what was going through Michael Keene’s mind. He was seeing this mission to get to safe ground as some sort of redemption for his past sins, atonement for the way he had treated his family, the way he’d chosen the drugs over his girlfriend and job, the way he had fallen from grace into a hell of a labyrinth of tunnels and filth-encrusted sewers. He figured that if he got John out of Manhattan alive, he could rise above the low place he had sunk to. He could start on a middle ground somewhere, make a new life for himself. He could shake off the sewer rat within and find the human being buried beneath all the grime and shit. He could aspire to something new…
…and it was all dependent upon John’s survival.
In a way, he was flattered. He also wondered if it was doing Michael any kind of good to have so much riding upon helping a single person. If he did die – and the way New York was falling to the beasts, it was a pretty good bet he would get killed before the day was done – John would be devastated. He would be lost again. No amount of hope could ever get him motivated enough to get back into the world again.
But what are we without hope? John wondered. If I didn’t think there was a chance at surviving this clusterfuck, would I even be trying? And if we make it, it’ll be the best story I’ve ever written in my life. Pulitzer prizes weren’t out of the question. If there were still prizes when they emerged into this crazed new world.
“Well, we can’t go any farther this way,” John said, waving at the brick wall with the graffiti. “Let’s backtrack a little and take the next turn we didn’t take.”
John moved next to him and put an arm around the homeless man’s shoulder. Michael smelled ripe, unwashed, but John presumed he smelled just as bad. The gesture felt false, like that of a bad actor in a crappy straight-to-DVD movie. He hoped it seemed genuine to Michael, but the poor guy was probably as cognizant of John’s pathetic attempt to cheer him up as John was.
“Can it be any worse than this?” John asked. “A dead end? If those things showed up now, we’d be cornered and eaten within seconds. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be eaten; it’s a thing I have. By the time we hear the pitter-patter of little rat feet, they’d be all over us. Let’s try somewhere else.”
Michael nodded. “All right.”
As they headed back up the tunnel, John prayed they weren’t marching straight into the path of the horde of rats. Then he realized what he was doing, and he was astonished.
He hadn’t actually prayed to God for anything in over twenty years.
He thought, Maybe there’s actually something to this whole redemption through salvation thing.
Or maybe I’m just more desperate than I’ve been in twenty years.
Michael rushed past him, and John was at his heels. The two of them moved until they came to a split in the passage.
“We came that way last time,” Michael said, pointing down a corridor. “Let’s try this one.”
He led John down the right-hand passageway. The reporter listened as they stepped through the ankle-deep water that trickled along the center of the path. All he could hear were their footsteps and the dripping of condensation from the brickwork. No rat noises, no claws scrabbling along the concrete.
As they traveled, however, the water grew deeper, and John found himself sloshing through six inches of brown muck. He tried not to think about what was making the water that color. Or the stink that permeated the air down here. He focused on Michael’s back and said another quick prayer while he tried to keep up with the man.
God, if you get me out of this, I’ll do anything to help Michael Keene get back on his feet again. I don’t care what it costs me, but if we make it out of here alive, I owe you big time. Just like I’ll owe him.
In the distance, he heard something roar, something huge, a primeval guttural sound like a creature from the Jurassic period. It made the water that had condensed on the ceiling shake loose, and for a moment it felt like it was raining in the sewer system. John reached out and leaned against a wall, feeling the rough texture of brick beneath his fingers. The roar ended, and Michael turned to look back at John, his eyes large and very white in the gloom.
“What the heck was that?” he asked, clearly shaken.
“Something big,” John answered. “And yet another reason for us to move faster.”
As they started walking again, John wondered what kind of odds they had on getting out alive. Whatever they were, they were stacked against them.
They turned a corner, and Michael lost his footing, falling face-first into a deep pool of water. He disappeared from sight, pulled under the brown liquid. John stopped in time, nearly plummeting into the murky pool after Michael. He knelt at the water’s edge, wondering how deep the puddle went. Obviously, it was over six feet, as the tall homeless man who had taken a dive was no longer visible.
John waited, called out Michael’s name a few times.
He didn’t emerge.
The water grew still.
Chapter 35
3:02 p.m.
Nicole and Taylor Burns headed toward Brooklyn, the subway tunnel very dark around them. The flashlights she had packed for them were fairly inadequate, casting a thin beam along the center of the place, looking like a cone of light in the dust swirls. She handed him a pair of night vision goggles equipped with Infrared illuminators, and they both wrapped them around their eyes. The resulting view was eerie, filled with a light-green glow, but at least it enabled them to see a bit more of the area. They moved side by side, their M-9 pistols fully loaded and held tightly in their hands. The brickwork was dry around them, but they could hear water dripping in the distance.
“How far did she say the train was?” Burns asked, keeping his eyes on a cubbyhole carved into the side of the subway tunnel. As they moved past, the shadows shifted a bit, filling with the uncanny jade light of the night vision.
“I don’t know if she did. We were cut off.”
“Think you can get her on her cell phone now?”
“Maybe,” Nicole said, stopping for a moment. Burns put his back to hers for a better view of the perimeter. Nicole fished her phone from her pocket and hit the speed dial.
“This place is freaking creepy,” Burns noted. “Worse, maybe, than when the trains are running and all the whackos are riding in them.”
Nicole listened to Sandy’s Blackberry ringing. It went to voice mail, and she hung up, tucking the cell into her vest.
“No luck,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”
“Before we do,” Burns said, and he leaned into the sharpshooter’s shoulder for a moment, “I just wanna say something. If, by chance, Sandy is not okay, if something’s happened to her…”
“Nothing’s happened to her.”
“Nicole, I’m talking here as your friend.”
“Then you would know I don’t want to hear this bullshit.”
“Okay, then I’ll tal
k as your commanding officer, which, despite everything we’ve been through, I still am.”
She sighed, quietly said, “Yes, sir.”
“You listening?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope,” he said, and he turned to face her for a moment, even though he knew exposing their rear was not a smart move. He continued, “If Sandy’s dead or changed into one of those things, you know what we’ll need to do. This island’s gone straight to hell in a Longaberger, and we’ll need to find a way off pretty damn quick if we wanna survive. Now maybe your girl’s okay, in which case we all run as fast as we can. But if she isn’t, if she’s not on that train or if only part of her is…”
“Jesus Christ…”
“Then, I need you fully with me. I can’t drag you out alone. This is really a four-man job, and we only have two. You can do the math.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be professional.”
“Oh, I have no worries about that. I just don’t want you to, well, be hurt too bad. I don’t wanna see you upset. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I’ll worry about you.”
She cocked her head at her commander and – she freely admitted – friend.
“After all we’ve been through,” she said. “You’re worried I’ll get all emotional at this juncture?”
“Losing a loved one’s bad enough, but losing one this way, hell, anyone would.”
“Not me,” she said, her mouth set in a grim, straight line. In the creepy green glow of the emergency subterranean lighting over the night vision glasses, she resembled an automaton, a robot programmed with purpose, not emotion.
And that scared Taylor Burns.
She set off again as they heard the roar of some unknown beast deep in the bowels of the tunnels. It reverberated along the walls, so they couldn’t get a very good sense of the direction of the sound, but it had definitely come from deeper within the subway system.
Burns knew they were probably heading right for it.
He gritted his teeth and tramped behind Nicole, who was already moving forward again. He could tell she was in soldier stealth mode, her emotions tied off like a balloon. He’d witnessed this transformation in her several times. Her footsteps were deliberate, moving with precision, her senses alert, her eyes sweeping back and forth in steady arcs ahead of them. Burns kept a watch on their rear. It wouldn’t do to have whatever made that roaring sound take them by surprise. As a matter of fact, he really didn’t want to meet up with the thing in the front, either. It had sounded enormous.
As they headed farther south in the tunnel, walking between the tracks, Burns hoped Nicole had received his message. She was so intent on finding and saving her girlfriend, she wasn’t even considering something going wrong. He dreaded what would happen if they found Sandy’s corpse. He didn’t know whether Nicole, in her one-shot one-kill state of mind, wouldn’t want to put that one shot right through her own skull.
Chapter 36
3:03 p.m.
In the subway car, Sandy watched the lions for another sign of alertness. After they’d awakened once, fifteen minutes ago, they had roared into the darkness a few times, scaring off whatever had disturbed their slumber. They had held their shaggy heads low, growling until the unseen threat had fled back into the tunnels. Satisfied, they had returned to their sleeping positions.
After a few more minutes, Sandy softly padded over to where Beth Chavez was holding her student, Alice, in her lap. She sat down next to the coach, and the girl stirred a bit in her sleep. Beth stroked the girl’s blond hair, murmuring something to her in Spanish. She gave Sandy a small sad smile when she joined them.
“How are you holding up?” Sandy asked in a soft whisper. They were still keeping their voices low in the hope that the mutated lions outside wouldn’t hear them.
Beth replied, “All right, I guess. I mean, I’m scared as all hell, but at least we’re safe for now.”
“You really act more like Beth’s mother than her coach. She’s lucky she’s got you.”
Across the aisle, Sylvia Levy let out a soft snore. The old lady had fallen asleep, despite her terror. Her mouth hung open, exposing three remaining teeth. Howard sat a few yards away, watching out one side window, keeping an eye on the sleepy lions. Craig looked out the other side, farther down the train car, muttering to himself under his breath. He cast angry glances back at Beth and Alice every few minutes, and Sandy was worried about his thought process. She prayed he wouldn’t go all crazy again.
Beth whispered, “I suppose I am. Poor girl comes from a really bad home. Dad ran off when she was a baby, and her mother drinks so much she doesn’t always come back at night. She somehow made it through her childhood with only a few scars and some good grades. I watch out for her, give her good meals, listen to her when she has problems. Boys, especially, you know? Volleyball was her way of escaping her ugly situation at home, and she’s damned good at it. She’s supposed to meet with college coaches later this week after visiting her grandma. That’s why I’m here.”
“That’s great,” Sandy said, grinning. Then her face fell when she saw the depressed look on Beth’s. “Oh, yeah. Might not be a lot of scholarships when all this plays out,” she said, motioning around the subway car.
“Hey, I’ll just be happy if we can escape this place at all,” Beth said. “We can worry about education if… well, we will have to see. You get anything on your Blackberry? Any news or anything?”
Sandy shook her head. “Can’t get any kind of signal since I lost it before.”
“You think the same stuff’s happening up top?”
“I don’t know,” Sandy admitted. “But if the subway’s any indication, then there’s a war going on in New York. Probably a lot worse than what we’re seeing down here, to tell the truth.”
“Those sounds?”
“Yeah, I think they were explosions. I don’t know what caused them, but I can only imagine what the city would be like with these creatures loose all over the place, killing people, changing people. And not just people, either,” she said, waving at the snoozing lions. “Those big suckers had to have escaped from the Central Park Zoo. And the rats we saw. What if the Lycanthrope Virus has mutated so all mammals are affected?”
“Well, that would explain the lions and rats.”
“But, I wish we knew. I hate being in the dark.”
Beth raised her arms at the fading emergency lighting. As the hours went by, they were dimming slightly.
Beth said, “Literally in the dark.”
Sandy nodded.
Alice started to stir, opening and closing her mouth with a slight smacking sound. She opened her eyes and blinked up at Beth a few times.
“Coach? I had the weirdest dream,” she said, her voice at a normal level.
Beth shushed her, clutching at her tightly.
Craig was next to them in a heartbeat, abandoning his lookout on the other side of the car. He grabbed his makeshift weapon, the long metal pole, and kept it by his side. Sandy watched him, waiting for him to change from overweight businessman to a life-threatening psychotic.
“Oh my God,” Alice whispered, covering her mouth with her hands. “It was all real?” Then, in a louder voice, “It was all real?”
“Yes,” Beth answered, nodding at the girl.
“Better keep her quiet,” Craig said, his voice low and full of violence.
“Oh my God,” Alice said, her voice growing shrill. Her eyes darted around the dark subway car, the whites exposing her growing panic.
Sandy thought, This is not good.
Putting herself between Craig and the coach and Alice, she leaned forward towards the girl. “Honey,” she explained. “There are two of those things out there. Big ones. We have to be very quiet or they’ll hear us.”
Howard glanced back at them from his post, observing the beasts in their sleep. He whispered, “Hey, guys.”
The group raised their gazes to him. Sylvia, leaning against one of the win
dows, rubbed her eyes and blinked at them, awakening from her nap. Alice started shaking, and Beth held her closer.
“I think they’re waking up,” the dancer said.
Almost as one, the group of survivors moved toward the windows next to Howard. Beth kept Alice down in a seat, positioning herself so the girl couldn’t see anything and suddenly freak out. She gave Sandy a signal that meant, “I’m fine. You go, and I’ll watch the kid.” Sandy nodded and joined the huddle of New Yorkers with their noses pressed against the windows.
The mutant lions were still stretched out, but their cone-shaped ears were twitching, rotating, like those big dishes that were supposed to pick up alien signals from space. The female raised her head, blinking the sleep from her eyes, and she sniffed the air so loudly they could hear it within the confines of the subway car. The male’s ears started moving now, and he opened a single golden orb that glowed from behind the straggly hair of his mane.
The people in the car ducked down so only their eyes and the tops of their heads could be seen through the windows.
The male creature yawned, exposing shark-like rows of jagged fangs, even longer and more terrifying than an ordinary lion’s would have been.
Something from the darkness of the tunnel leading east howled, a wolfish sound that would’ve been familiar on the prairie. It was followed by a sharp growl and several huff huff huffs, like the sound a bear makes when it’s intimidated. Then, the howling again, long and soulful.
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but what next?” Howard asked, looking to Sandy.
A trio of eight-foot-tall Lycanthropes barreled on all fours out of the tunnel, making straight for the two lions. They were human Lycans, with rounded chests and hair covering their entire bodies. One was brown, one was white, and one was covered with red fur.
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