by James Somers
Hu wants none of it. He trained in Jujitsu for a couple of years, but there is no way to fight with someone and be sure not to get a mark on you. Disease doesn’t care if you are an amazing fighter, a rock star, a billionaire, or anything else. All it needs is a compatible host to infect. As far as he is concerned, distance is the only saving grace in a situation like this, and he wants more of it.
He depresses the latch and slides the door aside, practically leaping to the next. There is no one in this car, but he can see one or two passengers in the next ahead. He runs through to the door at the opposite end. Another car between him and Sharon can’t hurt. Maybe he can even warn the few that are ahead of him and get some help.
Again, he slides the doors aside, one after the other, running through. He is out of breath by now, as he comes into the car. One of the passengers, a young woman, stands up.
“Is something wrong? Are you all right?” she asks.
Hu shakes his head, panting. “We’ve got to get off of this train!” he shouts through ragged breaths.
“You can’t get off,” says the man sitting two benches away. “Not until the next station.”
“We can’t wait!” Hu shouts. “She’s infected!”
The two passengers look at him in bewilderment. They have no idea what he is talking about. However, infected is one of those words that sets off an alarm in modern society, and they both register this.
“Infected with what?” the woman asks, looking back the way Hu came from.
An empty car stands between them and the commotion taking place, so it is difficult to see if anything at all amiss is actually happening. Still, in a world where terrorists willingly fly jetliners into skyscrapers and set off sarin gas in subways, they know enough to take possible threats seriously. After all, it has become almost common to have people shot in schools and bombs set off in public places. The only way to be sure and stay safe is to take potential threats seriously.
“We could go to the driver,” the woman suggests.
“Get her to stop the train,” the man adds.
Hu shakes his head. He already knows what their procedure is: attempt to get the train to the next station. What if they don’t have that long? Sharon might still get away from the passengers and come after him. Or, even worse, the others might turn crazy like her.
He saw World War Z with Brad Pitt. Who hasn’t seen a zombie movie or two these days? He knows a viral pathogen that turns people into monsters might only require seconds to transform them from nice people to snarling, aggressive killers.
The more he lets those fears takeover in his mind, the more Hu realizes this speeding train is a death trap. He has to get out. The feeling becomes claustrophobic. He can’t breathe. What if this thing is airborne?
“We can’t wait!” he shouts. “They’ll come for us! The driver won’t stop the train. They’re not allowed to. It’s up to us.”
Now, the woman panics also. She hasn’t seen a monster, hasn’t seen anything at all except this terrified Asian man shouting about infected people at the other end of the train. Still, tears roll down her face. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to be a zombie.
“The door control!” Hu shouts, finding the lever that will depressurize the pneumatic controls on the side doors and allow them to open. It is as good as an old fashioned emergency stop cord on a steam train. The train’s safety system will automatically stop it rather than allow the door to be opened while in transit. Best of all, the driver can’t override it from where they are in the train’s cockpit.
Hu grabs the lever and puts all his strength into it. In the back of his mind, he knows there is a heavy fine attached to misuse of this emergency control. He doesn’t care anymore. They can fine him all they want. He isn’t going to die over the stupidity of some driver unwilling to stop long enough for them to run for their lives.
He wrenches the lever over and hears the pneumatic hiss as pressure on the doors release. Almost immediately, they feel the inertial shift as the train slows, the electric engine shutting down. They come to a stop quickly.
Alarm lights start to flash and the computer voice says something about the emergency. Hu no longer listens. “Help me with the door,” he says to the man.
They hear something bang behind them and turn back to the car where Hu came from. Sharon hits the door window, her face bruised and bloody. She looks at Hu, or at least that is his impression. She beats at the door, tugging on it, trying to get through to him.
“Pull them open,” Hu hisses, struggling with one side of the door as the man pulls the other side.
The woman starts to scream, watching as Sharon smashes her face into the safety glass. A great bloody knot rises on her forehead from the pounding, but she doesn’t seem to notice any pain. The glass cracks with the force of each new impact. It will either shatter, or buckle and pop free of the frame.
The doors finally give way. Hu and the other two passengers in the car with him leap through to the pebbly ground outside. Another set of tracks lie a few feet away, allowing trains to move in both directions.
“Be careful of the third rail,” the man says. “There’s enough juice running through that to cook us both.”
The tunnel itself is not entirely dark. Lights are spaced every one hundred feet along the wall and ceiling. However, these are not the bright shining lamps one might hope for in a situation like this. Their colored lenses leave them dull, providing only mild ambient luminosity. Still, it is better than nothing.
“We can follow these toward the next station,” Hu says triumphantly.
He knows it might seem like a foolish plan, but he still feels it is better to leave the zombies behind in the train while they go on foot. Distance is still the key to staying alive. It is only when they pass the next car ahead that Hu realizes his mistake.
The side doors on this car are also open. Yet, there are no passengers inside and no one ahead of them on the tracks. He turns back, looking at the train. All of the doors on all of the cars stand open. They all opened automatically, when Hu opened the first set.
A beam of light lands on Hu and the other two passengers where they stand. He turns to find the driver standing in the door of the first car, shining a flashlight at them. The woman is heavy set and doesn’t look happy.
“Are you the ones who stopped this train?” she bellows. It is an accusation not a question.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” the woman passenger says, speaking up next to Hu.
“What are you talking about?” the driver asks. “Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in for this?”
Hu speaks up. “They’re infected with a pathogen!” He says infected and pathogen on purpose. You don’t just blurt out the word zombie, if you want to be taken seriously.
The driver stops momentarily, stricken by the words.
“I’m a doctor, and I’m telling you those people back there are infected,” Hu says. “We’ve got to leave them and the train here and make it to the next station.”
The driver takes in Hu’s clothing, putting two and two together. A doctor. Of course, that makes sense. He must know what he is talking about.
Instantly, she climbs down from the train car and motions them forward. “Let’s go,” she says, looking terrified now. “It’s probably only a mile or two ahead. Just be careful of the third rail.”
Hu and the others nod, passing the driver. Hu turns back, wanting the woman to get ahead of them with her flashlight. Then he sees a single, slight figure standing at the edge of the car where Sharon was last seen. The woman is backlit by the train car’s fluorescent lighting.
Her arms and hands hang slightly flexed at her sides. Her hair is mussed and wild looking. It has to be Sharon. Then they hear her scream rise above the noise of the engine car. She leaps from the train, sprinting toward them along the opposite tracks.
“Run!” Hu shouts.
The others hear the scream and see the woman leap away to come after them.
They don’t need any further convincing. They turn and run.
Ahead of them, lights come down the tunnel. It is the driver who calls out to them then. “Train! Get on our side of the tracks!”
Hu and the others do so, passing the engine car. The headlights from the engine fill the immediate space in the tunnel. They fall into the whitewash of the headlights, running after their own shadows cast upon the tracks before them.
The train running in the opposite direction barrels down upon them from the tunnel ahead. However, they know it is held to its own tracks, and they are in little danger over here. Hu wonders.
He turns as the train passes them. The headlights illuminate the tunnel and the side of their train. Sharon still pursues them. Mindless to the approaching danger, she runs full on, even as the headlights wash over her. The train plows into Sharon. There is a terrible thump, and Hu hears bones breaking inside his head.
They stop running as the other train’s brakes squeal in anger. The driver brings the snaking beast to a stop, realizing they have hit something, perhaps even seeing the crazed woman right before battering her. No doubt they will open their train cars, feeling the need to investigate what has happened, why the other train is stopped on the tracks with its doors opened.
“We have to warn them,” the driver says.
“That will only waste time,” Hu argues. “We have to get away now!”
The driver heads back toward the other train with her flashlight sweeping the ground. She hasn’t seen Sharon’s face, hasn’t seen her attacking the other passengers, killing the police officer. Yet, the man and the woman with him saw her. They saw a crazed Sharon beating her bloody face into the safety glass, trying to get to them.
“I’ll go with her,” the man says unexpectedly, taking up after the driver.
“Are you crazy?” Hu asks.
“Somebody has to warn the others on that train,” the man says. “Besides, the woman was hit by the train. There’s no way she survived that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Hu warns.
The man shakes his head. “You go on, if you want to. I’m no coward.” He shoots Hu a disdainful look and then starts after the driver again.
Indignant, Hu shouts after him. “No, you’re a fool!”
The man doesn’t even bother turning around, but jogs to catch up to where the train has come to a stop. Passengers mill around inside the last few visible cars. There aren’t many, but they are standing, holding to the rails looking confused about the sudden stop.
“I’m not hanging around here,” Hu says. He turns and starts jogging up the track toward the next station. The woman passenger follows.
“Wait for me,” she says, matching his jog. “I can’t stay here. Not after seeing her face.”
Hu knows exactly what she means. He feels the same way. The best thing they can do now is make it to Westbourne Park Station and notify the authorities there. If fiction even comes close to the truth, they are going to need military intervention as soon as possible to stop this outbreak.
The jogging only lasts for about fifteen minutes. Hu isn’t in the best shape for a man his age. He doesn’t have a lot of time for exercise with all of his coursework.
When he slows and starts walking, the woman slows as well. He breathes hard, maybe harder than her. She is young and possibly in better shape.
“What’s your name?” he asks, continuing down the tunnel.
“Amy,” she says. “How about you?”
“Hu.”
“You.”
“No, my name is Hu,” he says. “Hu Takashi.”
“Oh.”
They walk a little while longer.
“Hu, I just wanted to say I’m very grateful to you for warning us. I can’t believe what happened back there. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Hu says.
They walk a little longer.
“How long have you been a doctor?” Amy asks.
“What?”
“A doctor,” she says. “You seem so young. I just wonder how long.”
“Oh, not that long,” Hu says, unwilling to get into that subject.
They walk on.
“How long do you think it’s been?” Amy asks. “I’m surprised we haven’t seen any more trains.”
Hu considers it. “The whole system is probably locked up. They monitor all of the trains by computer. They would know those two stopped.”
“So, they’ll be forced to come and investigate?”
“They would probably radio them first and try to find out what’s going on.”
“I guess that sounds reasonable,” Amy says. Then she points up ahead. “Look, there’s light.”
“It must be Westbourne Park,” Hu says.
They start running again, anxious to get out of the dark tunnel and into the light. He fumbles in his pocket and finds his cell phone. Fingering the power button, he makes the screen come on. The time is later than he anticipates.
“What time is it?” Amy asks, running beside him.
“Almost 11:30PM,” he says. “We were further away than I thought.”
“At least we’re here now,” Amy says as they come out of the tunnel into fluorescent lighting given off by the platform. A train waits on the other track, but it is neither loading nor unloading. The motor hums, but the headlamps are off.
“Look there!” they hear someone shout as they come toward the platform wall.
Hu notices a number of policemen congregated on the platform, as well as security guards who must work for the London Underground Transit Authority.
“What are you two doing down there on the tracks?” one of the officers says, shining a light down on them as others came up to the edge of the platform.
“We’re from one of the trains stopped in the tunnel,” Hu says.
A couple of policemen help haul them up onto the platform from the tracks.
“The trains in the tunnel between here and Paddington?” an officer asks.
“Yes,” Hu confirms.
“Do you know anything about the accident? The driver of one of the trains said a woman was struck down there. She also said a lot of them were attacked by one of the passengers.”
“We’re you one of them?” another officer asks.
“What?”
“There’s dried blood on your face and your shirt,” the officer says, pointing.
Hu panics momentarily, until he recalls how the man shoved him into the door. His nose bled a bit and stained his shirt. It is still a bit sore, now that he thinks about it.
“No,” he says quickly. “I’m not injured. I wasn’t bitten.”
“Bitten?” a policeman asks.
“Yes,” Hu says. “And it’s not really an accident. A woman is infected. She became violent and killed a policeman on the train.”
“Are you sure about this?” one of the officers asks.
“Of course, he’s sure,” Amy says. “Can’t you see this man is a doctor? Tell them, Hu.”
Hu only nods. He doesn’t want to lie to the police, but he does want them to take him seriously. If letting them think he is a doctor accomplishes that, then so be it.
“She’s a nurse at St. Mary’s where I work,” he explains. “I think she may have become infected by the boy who broke loose there yesterday and killed a security guard working our med surg floor.”
The police officers perk up at the mention of the hospital attack. They either heard about it, or were involved as first responders. They become all business, now that something about this mystery seems to fit with a known incident.
“All right,” one of the officers says. “We’re going to need statements from both of you. We’ll have an officer take you up top in a few minutes and give you a ride to the precinct.”
“You don’t understand,” Hu says. “You need to get the military involved. This is big.”
“We’ve got a team preparing to take this train down the tunnel,” the officer says.
“Everything is under control.”
“No, it’s not,” Hu insists.
“Sir,” the officer says, holding up a hand to Hu’s chest, “Don’t get excited. We’re professionals. We can handle this.”
He motions for another officer to come to his aid. A female officer walks over and leads Hu and Amy to a bench on the platform. “Let’s have you two take a seat for a bit, all right? We’ll get to you as soon as possible.”
As soon as possible turns out to be better than an hour later. A team of officers boards the train on the opposite platform. Hu hears enough to know all traffic on this line is halted, or diverted to other lines.
Bottled waters are given to Hu and Amy from one of the machines. Otherwise, the officers busy themselves with putting their team together and getting the equipment they might need for this kind of rescue onto the train. None of them appear to be taking the infection aspect seriously.
Then the bustle on the platform transforms. Amy shakes Hu by the arm. He opens his eyes, realizing he fell asleep on the bench listening to his MP3.
Amy stands to her feet. Hu looks up at her, and she begins to scream. Then his eyes turn to the tunnel ahead and the police officers. People flow out of the tunnel, attacking the officers on the opposite platform.
There are no Armed Response Officers here, no guns are fired. Only Bobbies with nightsticks were present to perform this simple rescue of two train cars and the reported accident. They are unprepared for what comes out of that tunnel.
Hu runs. Police officers are overwhelmed behind him. At least a dozen crazed individuals, like Sharon, swarm onto the platform. Hu loses sight of Amy. He doesn’t even care. He just has to get away.
Chaos erupts on the platform. Hu runs for the stairs leading up to the main level of Westbourne Park Station. A weight hits him from the side, knocking him to the pavement. Someone crouches on top of him.
Hu turns over, trying to get up. Sharon’s face is there. She screams with bloody eyes and teeth hanging cracked in her mouth. Her face is a massive bruise from the impact of the train. How did she survive?