“That’s pretty far out there, even for a journalist,” Nicole said, although the words all seemed chillingly kosher to her.
“I’m not saying the Army or the Pentagon is behind this. I’ve interviewed dozens of whack jobs out there over the past year or so – people who like being werewolves, people leading churches based upon being animals, people who think the bestial state is the way God intended us to be.”
“God wouldn’t do anything like that,” Beth said. “He’s a caring God. We’re his children.”
“You looked at the Middle East lately?” John asked. “Everyone, no matter how nutty, thinks God is on his side and against his enemies.”
“There is no God,” Michael said. “And if there is, then He’s a sick bastard.”
Howard said, “He’s there. We just can’t understand the man.”
“This isn’t the time for a theological discussion,” Sandy said.
“In any case,” John Creed continued, “I believe this could’ve been caused by one of those religious nut-burgers that thinks we should all go back to Eden, return to some animalistic, savage state of being. They believe God is supporting them, and they’ve been scheming something for some time. Wouldn’t surprise me if this New York debacle was what they were planning. They believe in their own—”
“God isn’t an animal,” Howard shot back, getting darker in the face. “He’s a caring father, our protector, and He’ll get us through this.”
“Doing a bang-up job so far, isn’t He?” John said. “How about all those poor souls up there on the streets? What did they do to piss the big man off?”
“I believe in God,” Alice said, her voice small and clear as a bell piercing through the darkness. Everyone turned toward her, and she lowered her eyes. “I think He’s watching over us, helping us, and putting things in our way so we can prove ourselves. He’s just someone who wants to be loved, and if you can do that, unflinchingly, I believe you’ll end up with Him. It could be a rough road getting there, and I have seen the roughest, let me tell you. Still, when it’s at its worst, like now, my belief in Him will get me through.”
“You okay, honey?” Beth asked, shocked at the girl’s little speech. It was the most she had said since they’d arrived in the city the night before.
Alice nodded, giving her a hug. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
“God is not an animal,” Howard mumbled.
“Listen,” Burns interrupted. “Believe whatever you wanna believe. I could give a crap. I believe in this.” He lifted the Colt. “And right now, that’s enough. Now, are we gonna keep flapping our jaws or are we gonna get the hell out of this dungeon?”
Nicole said, “I can give an ‘amen’ to that.”
“Me too,” Sandy added.
They turned to Michael, as if looking for guidance. He shrugged his narrow shoulders, said, “Okay. This way, then.”
Chapter 41
5:05 p.m.
They walked to the south, following the B subway line that led to Brooklyn. As they moved, Nicole noticed the emergency lights starting to dim into a futile, murky glow, barely illuminating a foot around them. The batteries must be wearing down, she thought. They still had enough light to dispel all the darkness with the flashlights obtained from the engineer’s car and the hardhats with miner lights on them, but the farther they went, the more the darkness and dampness seemed to creep up on them. Everything was dry at first in the tunnel, but soon Nicole felt the incessant sensation that the air was growing moist. When she reached out and touched one of the brick walls, her hand felt slightly wet, grimy instead of dusty. In the distance, she heard water dripping. Otherwise the tunnel was unnervingly quiet.
The group seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement about remaining silent as they traversed the tunnels. Nicole led, holding her Colt out in front of herself, fully loaded, her left arm supporting the weapon-heavy right hand. Sandy kept close behind her, followed by Michael, who whispered that they should stay on the track lines, and that this would lead them to the sewer system that served to sweep the shit out of New York. Beth and Alice walked side by side, awkwardly carrying their metal poles, their eyes darting around the cavern. Sometimes, Alice’s brass knuckles would clink against the pole. John was directly on their heels, and Taylor Burns walked at the rear of the group with Howard by his side. The two of them took turns walking backwards to make certain nothing would take the group by surprise from the rear.
They had been walking for almost five minutes when they passed a group of cell-like areas embedded in the brickwork of the tunnel, little rooms no more than five feet by four feet wide. Some contained tools, brooms, mops, and such for the janitors to maintain the tunnels, and others were empty.
Michael said, “These are handy in case trains come. You can hop inside as they go by.”
Burns nodded, but said, “Let’s keep a close eye on those. Who knows what’s hiding in the dark.”
As they moved past the little rooms, their flashlights slowly filled the black interiors with a sweeping illumination, first exposing one side, then the middle as they walked past, then the other, like a dark wave of living shadows slipping by. Sometimes the light exposed a startled rat, which usually darted away through a hole in the back of the room, but one huge rodent rushed toward the group as they stepped past it. Burns strode forward and kicked the beast to Howard, like a perfect soccer pass. The dancer then slammed the creature with his pole until it was little more than a bloody, smashed stain on the concrete.
Nicole was finding it difficult discerning distances, and she felt as if they’d traveled a mile or so before she asked Michael.
“Not that far,” he said. “Of course, miles and stuff don’t mean very much when you’re living on the zigzag.” In response to her questioning look, he said, “You don’t really follow the straight and narrow paths down here. Not when you’re homeless and looking for a warm place or just a space to lie down for a while. You have to avoid the guards and the cops and sanitation crews. Sometimes, you really want to avoid the other homeless people. Been some real crazies down here since the Reagan era when they cut off all that funding to the mental hospitals. Then again, I’d rather deal with a crazy person than one of those werewolf things. Now those are some scary nightmares.”
Nicole thought over the phrase – living on the zigzag, and she smiled, liking it. She figured herself for a zigzagger, someone who avoided bumping into other people. She had been very withdrawn as a child, and she’d become even more isolated as a teenage girl traveling from army base to army base, barely getting acquainted with a new batch of kids before moving on to the next base. When she’d realized she was a lesbian, she didn’t dare tell anyone, wrapping herself up in a cocoon of self-delusion and lies. That’s why the few interpersonal relationships she suffered were so important to her. Burns was a steady figure in her life for a couple of years now, almost a father figure, but also a kind of buddy. And Sandy was the light of her life. She literally became sunnier when they were together, smiling more, interacting with other people more often. Otherwise, she was a clam, shut tight and silent and patient, always living on the fringe. Behind those crosshairs, within the camouflage, she was still that lonely teenager, hoping she might get to stay in one place long enough to become close with someone.
Now she envisioned herself in this diverse group of people – people who were looking up to her as a hero, har har – and the thought scared the living daylights out of her. These people respected her, maybe even admired her, and she barely knew them. As she walked, she found herself in conversation often with Michael, who seemed like the kind of man who could be her friend, or at least a good drinking buddy.
And if she ever needed a good shot of Nob Creek, this was the time.
A shot of courage, a burst of warm liquid steadfastness.
That hotel room she’d left that afternoon (had it really only been that afternoon?) was calling her name. She had found it so stifling being alone there while S
andy went to the city, even when Burns visited her. It had been difficult for her to relax.
When exactly was the last time I let myself relax? she wondered. Been a long, long time.
The group moved with the slight curve of the tunnel, marching into the darkness. Nicole craned her neck to see around the bend of the gentle curve, but Michael continued walking, seemingly not cognizant of his surroundings and the dangers that could lurk there. They were approaching another set of small rooms to the right, three in a row, safe havens for the track workers.
Nicole checked the first one and found it empty except for a small table with a deck of cards scattered across the top. She motioned everyone forward while checking out the second empty room.
Suddenly, there was a deafening boom from above them, and dirt and tiles dropped from the ceiling of the tunnel. The earth shook around them, and Beth and Alice lost their footing, dropping to the ground.
“What the heck was that?” Sandy asked as the tremors ceased. “An earthquake?”
“Probably some kind of gas explosion,” Burns said. A curtain of silt fell behind him, shaken loose by the vibrations in the walls.
“How big could a gas explosion get?” John asked, fearing the answer.
“Well, if it’s in the wrong place, it could take down any building, explode fireballs. Let me tell you something, those buildings up there, those skyscrapers, they’re all in a row like freaking dominos. If one of them falls just right…”
“It’d take out city blocks,” Sandy said in awe.
There was another quake accompanied by an ear-piercing explosion. This time, larger chunks of the ceiling toppled, followed by dirt that started sifting through the holes in the concrete like sand in an hourglass, piling up on the tracks. A second boom traveled like a wave through the tunnel, and two more large sections of the ceiling crumbled into the corridor behind the group.
“We’d better get out of here,” Burns shouted over the din as another blast shook the ground. “The whole place is gonna fall down around us!”
Nicole motioned the group forward, starting to jog a bit ahead of them, watching now for falling hunks of concrete and metal. When she passed the third room on the right, a once-human Lycanthrope roared out of the entrance. The creature’s eyes were wild with terror at the disturbances around it, and it leaped at Michael. The homeless man ducked, falling into a ball, hands over his head as Nicole pointed her Colt at the beast and fired off two rounds before it slammed into her.
The creature, wild with fear, started clawing at her, digging into her bulletproof vest, striving to get to the tender flesh beneath the Kevlar. She struggled with it, trying to shove it off of her, or to at least get a good angle with the gun. She knew she couldn’t get scratched or bitten or she’d become one of those monsters herself within a few minutes, so she shoved with her elbows.
The thing snapped at her face, its jaws closing with the force of a bear trap. Its overlapping teeth banged together two inches from her nose. Thick, viscous saliva dripped from its creaking jaws onto her cheek, and she squirmed again, trying to get the monster far enough from her to get off a decent shot, or any shot at all.
There was a loud clanging sound, and the beast was suddenly rising up from her body. She glanced over and saw Howard slamming the Lycanthrope’s head with his metal pole as if he were in a batting cage. He’d hit the creature just below its lower jaw, slamming the thing’s mouth shut on its teeth and forcing its head high into the air. It still gripped her with its hind legs, but her hands were free, and she swung her right one, still holding the Colt, and shot a bullet through its mouth, opening up the back of its head in a spray of blood and brain tissue. With the force of the bullet, the beast was pushed farther away from her, and it released its hold on her waist, slumping to the side, dead.
Nicole shoved the heavy monster away from herself, watching as its hair started to wriggle back into its skin, exposing the human beneath. A huge chunk of concrete with iron rebar sticking out on the sides dropped into the face of the dead Lycanthrope just as its snout was crumpling back from canine to human form. It crushed the thing’s skull like a rotten cantaloupe, spraying gore on all sides.
Nicole stood, realized how much more of the ceiling was crumbling into the tunnel. Huge pieces of cement and iron were dropping all around them, a lethal rain of sharp angles and crushing weight. Dust from the broken concrete was filling the tunnel, and their flashlights barely pierced the swirling clouds of powder. Several of the group had started coughing.
“We need to get out of here,” Burns shouted. “Or we’re all gonna get crushed.”
“This way,” Michael said, pointing deeper into the tunnel.
A seven-foot section of concrete gave way and collapsed onto the tracks behind them with a sound like the end of the world. Long pipes fell through the hole, and water poured from one of the cracked ceramic ducts. Others were yellow plastic, and more than a few had flammable symbols on the side.
“Now,” Michael said, taking off in a jog away from the gaping hole.
The group charged after him, avoiding the tumbling sections of the cracking ceiling. A ten-inch piece of concrete dropped onto John’s shoulder, and he cried out, dropping his pole. It rolled off into the dust clouds, out of sight. Sandy helped him retrieve it, and he leaned into her as she shouldered him to a standing position. They fell back into step behind Michael. Burns slapped them on their backs, urging them on.
“Go!” he shouted. “Move it, move it, move it.”
Behind them, the gap in the ceiling where the pipes had dropped was broadening, falling in huge glacier-like pieces at the edges, sending long lightning-shaped fractures through the concrete and bringing down larger and larger sections of the ceiling and what looked like tarmac. More exposed pipes fell, some clanging to the ground. A muffled sound emerged from the widening hole.
“What the hell is that? Birds?” Sandy shouted at Howard as they hurried to stay in front of the splintering concrete.
“Sounds like an alarm or something.”
She coughed, spit out a mouthful of dust as they reached Michael, Nicole, Beth, and Alice. Nicole was shoving Alice through a gaping corrugated water pipe. Beth followed, then Michael.
The noise grew louder as a fifteen-foot piece of the ceiling behind them smashed to the tracks, covering everything. A strange, dust-diffused light emerged from the ceiling as the sound increased. With a crash, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, its headlights still switched to bright, dropped into the tunnel nose-first.
“Holy shit,” Sandy said. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the car toppling into the tunnel. It smashed into the floor and stood upright for a second before falling onto its back. The noise was its car alarm blaring at the indignity of its burial. After the car settled onto its back, more ceiling pieces falling onto its exposed underbelly, the alarm seemed to warp. It sounded like the death throes of some great animal.
Burns stepped in behind them, coughing and spitting.
With an ear-splitting growl of protest, a yellow taxi followed the Volkswagen through the broadening hole in the ceiling. It slammed into the first car as another cab dropped in too.
“Go now,” Burns urged, shoving Sandy ahead into the water pipe. Her foot fell in the thin stream of dark liquid that trickled down the center of the little corridor. “Those things up top are gonna figure out we’re down here if even one sees us or smells us. Then we’ll have them to contend with.”
Sandy hurried into the pipe. She had to bend over so as not to bump her head. Several yards away, she saw someone’s flashlight beam urging her forward. She headed toward the light, grunting as Howard bumped into her back.
“Shit, you smell that?” Howard asked.
She sniffed the air, and a chill went through her. “Gas?”
“Yes, ma’am. Must be one of those busted pipes. Probably pumping it down here so fast it’s filling up the tunnels.”
Sandy emerged from the pipe, and Michael helped her jump down to th
e wet floor. They were in some kind of sewer, a ten-foot-wide hallway made of concrete, supported by concrete pillars every ten feet or so. The walls were splotched with brown stains, and the floor was covered with a half-inch of filthy, stinking water. Sandy tried not to think about what they were sloshing through. The rest of the group followed her, leaping down into the sewer space with a sort of grace.
“We have to block out that gas,” Burns said. “If it keeps pumping in here like it is, it’ll fill the whole tunnel and put every one of us to sleep in a few minutes.”
“How do you block a four-foot-wide sewer pipe?” Nicole asked, searching the bare room for something to utilize.
“Nothing here,” Burns said, confirming her fears. “We’d better just move on, hope it gets blocked by the rubble pouring in from the streets above.”
John asked, “Well, Michael, now where do we go?”
Michael looked around the space, listened to the sound of the subway tunnel behind them collapsing into itself. He looked over at Nicole.
“You still have that GPS?”
“Yeah,” she answered, bringing the TomTom out of her pocket. “That way is south and that way is north.”
“We need southeast,” Michael said, chewing on a dirty cuticle. “Let’s follow this one south. We can cut back into the tunnel later.”
“As good an idea as any,” Burns said with a shrug.
They started down the tunnel, the smell of gas growing ever more pungent.
Chapter 42
6:00 p.m.
The farther they traveled down the sewer passageway, the more the sounds of destruction diminished behind them and, more importantly, the more the smell of natural gas grew fainter. Covered with dust, they almost looked like an aboriginal tribe searching for water in the desert. Michael led the way, seeming more comfortable in their grimy environment than any of the others. He remained alert, and John asked him how he was holding up.
Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) Page 22