by Adam Baker
‘Walk slow,’ advised Cloke. ‘Don’t splash.’
Nariko held the grab line for stability as they climbed into the boat. She crouched at the prow. She held a floodlight.
Cloke and Tombes sat behind, each with an oar. Tombes wore his battered leather fire hat with a brass RESCUE 4 insignia.
The boat sat low in the water. They pushed away from the platform and began to paddle. Slow, deliberate oar strokes.
Donahue stood at the platform steps, flare held high. She watched them depart.
‘Catch you later,’ shouted Tombes. His voice echoed in the cavernous space.
‘Watch your ass,’ replied Donahue.
The boat headed into the tunnel mouth.
Donahue tossed the flare into the water. It floated, spitting fire for a couple of seconds, then dimmed and died.
Galloway inspected the rusted Coke machine. He pounded the side of the cabinet and checked the return slot for nickels.
Lupe shifted position. She stretched. She rubbed her wrists, massaged cuff abrasions.
‘Sooner or later, you’ll cut me loose,’ she said. ‘How will that feel? When the chains are off and you have to look me in the eye? Whole different ball game.’
‘Think I’m scared? I’ve straightened out a few hard-asses in my time. I know how to deal with street trash like you.’
‘Bronx accent, right? Must have been tough. How many ex-cons lived in your neighbourhood? Bet you spent a lot of time looking over your shoulder, worrying some ex-jailbird with a grudge is going to spot you in a bar and turn his mind to payback. What did you tell people? Did you say you were a plumber or some shit? Did you chain the door each night? Keep a .38 under the pillow?’
‘None of your damned business.’
‘Corrections. Only law enforcement job you can get without an education. The police department turned you down, didn’t they? Thank you for your resume, but due to the high volume of applicants . . .’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Should have worked at the airport, man. Could have sat on your ass and watched a luggage scanner all day. Easy money.’
‘Think you can get under my skin? I get shit from you lowlives every working day. Scumbags shouting through the bars. Lifelong losers.’
‘Most COs just punch the clock. Do their shift, drive home, pop a cold one. But you love it. I can tell. You’re the type. Tuck your pants into your boots like you’re SWAT. Does it make up for being a short guy?’
‘You’re nothing but noise.’
‘Live for it, don’t you? Pulling on your pads and helmet for a cell extraction. Choke-holds. Beatings. Some juicy pain compliance. You’re nothing without your nightstick, nothing without your keys. The moment they unlock these cuffs, the moment you got no one to push around, you’ll cease to exist.’
Galloway stood over Lupe. He racked the slide of his Remington and jammed the snout against her temple. He twisted the barrel, tried to brand a ring-bruise into her flesh.
‘Keep pushing, bitch. Nobody here but us. Can’t seem to get that into your skull, can you? No cops, no CCTV. Easy equation: you, me, this twelve-gauge. The old law. Simplest thing in the world.’
A sudden, metallic rattle from the entrance gate. Heavy impacts. The groan of stressed metal.
Galloway lowered the shotgun and backed off. He ran across the ticket hall and stood at the foot of the street exit stairs.
‘What’s going on, man?’ shouted Lupe. ‘Are they in? Did they break in?’
Galloway watched hands scrabble at the opaque plastic sheet that curtained the lattice gate.
‘Uncuff me, man. Undo the cuffs. Come on. You can’t leave me chained to a fucking pillar.’
Fingers raked plastic. Blood smears and snagging nails.
‘Shit,’ murmured Galloway.
He ran to the platform stairwell.
‘Donahue.’ His voice echoed back at him. ‘Donahue. Where the hell are you?’
She ran up the steps to meet him.
‘I think we’re starting to draw a crowd.’
The station entrance. Galloway and Donahue in respirators.
‘Four or five of the bastards,’ said Donahue. ‘Guess the gate will hold, for now.’
She pulled back the curtain with a gloved hand.
Galloway took casual aim with his shotgun. He squinted down the barrel at a jawless priest pressed against the gate, reaching, snarling, air escaping a ruptured throat in a series of guttural pig-snorts.
‘Want me to thin them out? At this range I could take two with each shot.’
‘Gunfire would bring more down on us,’ said Donahue. ‘Might as well ring a dinner bell. These creatures are dumb as rocks, but if they hear noise associated with living, breathing humans they’ll crawl through the rubble from miles around.’
‘Always adults,’ said Galloway, contemplating the jostling revenants. ‘Never kids.’
‘I like to think parents took care of their children, as a mercy.’
Donahue rehung the curtain.
‘The chopper isn’t due for hours. Better play smart until then. We need to reinforce this entrance. I’ll look around, see what I can find.’
‘I need a piss,’ shouted Lupe.
‘Shut up.’
‘Seriously. I need a piss.’
‘So wet your pants,’ said Galloway.
‘You want me to urinate on the floor? We’re stuck down here for the rest of the day. You want to splash around in a puddle of piss?’
‘I honestly don’t give a damn.’
‘Yeah. I guess you don’t. Smelt yourself lately?’
Galloway shook his head. Weary, don’t-have-time-for-this-crap.
‘And what about you?’ asked Lupe. ‘We could be stuck here a while. What if you need a shit? Want to burn your dick off crouching over that radioactive cesspool? Find a bucket. That’s the least you can do.’
Galloway pushed open the plant room door. He hesitated to cross the threshold. Deep gloom. Nariko’s two-stroke generator supplied power to a fluttering ceiling bulb. Racks of dust-furred electrical apparatus threw grotesque shadows. Rows of porcelain insulators draped with webs. Asbestos-lagged steam pipes.
He crouched beside the generator and tapped the fuel gauge. A gallon tank. Juice to keep the station lights burning four hours, then a refill.
He switched on his flashlight and explored deep darkness at the back of the room. He found a fire bucket. He picked it up. A fist-sized rust hole in the base.
A rusted gum machine. Chiclets. Dentyne.
Stacked boxes. Cardboard turned to mulch. He lifted a box flap. Rusted tins of paint. Mildewed labels. Cans of Nu-Enamel for the radiators. Boxes of Navajo white and crimson red: the two-tone wall scheme of the office and stairwells.
Documentation piled in a heap. Curled, autumnal pages. IRT admin: staff rotas, payroll, customer complaints. If any of the team felt the need to defecate, they would have to squat over spread paper, wipe, and toss a shit-parcel into the tunnel water.
A can full of nails and screws. He shook it out. Gulf Auto Grease. Big as a cookie jar. Large enough for a piss pot.
Something caught his eye. He crouched. A bare footprint in the dust.
He looked around. He shone his flashlight into the corner of the room. Some kind of hobo camp. Scrunched paper, like the inhabitants bedded down under garbage.
He kicked the detritus aside. Beige MRE wrappers. Empty vacuum seal bags and a couple of plastic spoons. Remains of an army ration pack.
He examined the wrappers under light. Ready-to-eat spaghetti bolognese. Tongue smears: someone had eaten the meal, then ripped open the bag and licked the liner.
More sachets. They’d eaten sugar. They’d eaten coffee granules. They’d eaten pudding powder with a spoon.
An empty water bottle. He shook a drip into his palm.
He brushed aside papers heaped against the wall. Some kind of pattern etched into the brickwork. He crouched and trained his flashlight. A screaming face scratched i
nto the mortar with a nail.
He turned and shouted towards the plant room door.
‘Hey. Hey, Donahue. I don’t think we’re alone down here.’
‘Need a drink?’ asked Donahue.
Lupe nodded.
Donahue fetched water from a bag of bottles and energy bars. She tossed the bottle to Lupe. She caught it with cuffed hands, uncapped and swigged.
‘Personally, I’d let you go,’ said Donahue. ‘Doesn’t seem much percentage keeping you chained.’
Lupe held out her hands.
‘So do it.’
‘Not my call.’
The plant room door kicked open. Galloway stood in the doorway. His nose was broken. He drooled snot and blood. He had a shotgun barrel pressed to the back of his neck.
‘All right,’ shouted a husky voice from inside the plant room. ‘Nobody move.’
‘Wade?’ replied Lupe. ‘Damn, is that you?’
19
The flooded tunnel.
Ancient brickwork. Arched buttresses. Calcite leeched from mortar in petrified drips like candle wax.
Corroded brace girders. Load-bearing I-beams bowed under the weight of slow subsidence.
The boat headed north. Paddle strokes and laboured breathing.
‘Where does this lead?’ asked Tombes.
‘According to the map, this passageway connects with a modern MTA tunnel about three quarters of a mile north, somewhere close to Canal Street.’
‘Doesn’t look too stable.’
‘Nobody set foot down here for years. Nobody official.’
‘What’s above our heads?’
‘Broadway.’
‘The flood water is pretty deep in this section. Must be a downward gradient.’
Nariko sat at the prow. The surface of the water gleamed iridescent gasoline rainbows.
‘Something floating up ahead.’
A body.
‘Get closer. I want to take a look.’
The corpse was floating face down. Combat fatigues. Army boots.
Cloke prodded the carcass with an oar. He flipped the body. The corpse rolled and bobbed.
‘Christ,’ muttered Tombes. He covered his nose and mouth to mask the stink.
The corpse was shrivelled by long immersion in water.
Nariko focused the beam, and inspected the cadaver head to toe. Face mottled purple. Fat tongue furred with fine needles. The side of the soldier’s face was knotted with metallic sarcomas. Fine splinters protruded from his scalp and ears.
The chest and abdominal cavity were empty, intestines and internal organs stripped by rats. Rib cage held to the spine by shreds of cartilage.
‘Give me the oar.’
Nariko turned the corpse and examined the cadaver’s shoulder patch. Black horse head on a yellow shield.
‘101st Cav. This guy was part of the platoon guarding Ekks.’
She leaned close over the rotted corpse, squinted to read dog tags.
‘His name was Donovan. Sergeant Donavan.’
‘So the mission is a bust,’ said Tombes. ‘The team got wiped out.’
‘Maybe,’ said Cloke. ‘But we have to know for sure.’
Nariko drew the pistol from her belt, disengaged the safety and took aim.
‘The guy looks pretty dead,’ said Tombes.
‘I’ve seen these bastards fragged with grenades. Three of them. Spun twenty feet, legs gone, but they kept coming, hand over hand.’
She fired through the soldier’s eye socket. The gunshot echoed from the tunnel walls.
‘Bullet to the brain. Only way to be sure.’
She tucked the pistol back in her belt.
A clump of papers floating in the water. Nariko scooped wet pages with an oar and examined smeared ink.
‘What does it say?’ asked Cloke.
‘Nothing. Requisition forms.’
‘Show me.’
Nariko held out the oar. Cloke examined the mulched pages.
‘Army mindset. End of the world, and still filling out paperwork.’
‘Maybe it kept them sane,’ said Nariko.
They paddled deeper into the tunnel.
They passed an old IRT coach laid up on a siding. Water lapped the bodywork. Flakes of paint suggested the carriage might once have been Tuscan red.
Nariko trained her flashlight on the decaying hulk as they drifted past. Warped panels. Rusted girder frame. Side doors hung from their hinges.
‘Been here a long while.’
Faint gold letters:
INT OUGH APID TRANSI
The beam of the searchlight shafted through vacant windows. It lit the flooded carriage interior, projecting a shimmering ripple-glow across the ceiling.
Rotted leather hanger straps. Split and buckled coachwork. Rattan upholstery peeling from corroded spring-frame seats.
Relic of a gilded age.
They paddled past and continued down the tunnel.
‘How far have we travelled?’ asked Tombes.
‘About a quarter of a mile, at a guess,’ said Cloke.
‘Hello?’ shouted Nariko. Her voice echoed down the dark passageway and died slowly. ‘Hello? Anyone hear me? Anyone out there?’
No reply.
Tombes cleared his throat and cupped his hands.
‘Hey,’ he bellowed. ‘Hey. Anyone. Sound off.’
Silence.
‘The roof is getting low.’
‘Ten minute cut-off,’ said Nariko. ‘Ten minutes, then we turn back.’
‘We should keep going,’ said Cloke. ‘That soldier was guarding Ekks and his boys. Part of the team. His body drifted south on the current until he snagged on something beneath the water. Proves the rest of the Bellevue Team must still be up ahead.’
‘Probably dead.’
‘Doesn’t change a thing.’
She pointed to the G-Shock strapped round the wrist of her gauntlet.
‘Ten minutes. Then we’re done.’
They paddled further down the brick tunnel.
An arched passageway to their left. The entrance was blocked by prop-beams and planks. An old work notice nailed to the wood:
DANGER
DO NOT ENTER
UNSTABLE
KEEP OUT
Nariko trained her flashlight on the tunnel entrance. The beam shafted through crooked planks. Absolute darkness beyond.
‘You didn’t say anything about a junction,’ said Tombes. ‘You said it would be a straight run.’
‘It isn’t on the map,’ said Nariko. ‘It shouldn’t be here.’
‘There are bound to be uncharted passageways,’ said Cloke. ‘The city has been overbuilt so many times no one knows exactly what’s beneath the surface. Records were lost when City Hall burned to the ground in the nineteenth century.’ He looked around at crumbling brickwork. ‘There are hundreds of miles of subway tunnel, a warren of speakeasy cellars and opium hideouts, sewer channels dating back beyond the revolution. A vast subterranean realm. No wonder homeless guys took refuge down here. They could siphon water from the pipes, splice power cables. Create their own world.’
‘Place gives me the damned creeps,’ said Tombes. Involuntary shiver.
‘Ionised air,’ said Cloke. ‘Moving water. Prickles your skin like a static charge.’
They kept rowing. Nariko’s flashlight lit nothing but crumbling brickwork and rafts of floating garbage.
‘We must be approaching Canal,’ said Cloke. ‘Doesn’t make sense. Why would they travel this far north?’
‘Something up ahead,’ said Nariko. ‘Some kind of obstruction.’
The tunnel choked by a wall of debris. The flashlight lit tumbled cinder blocks, deformed girders, massive slabs of reinforced concrete bristling rebar. A BROADWAY street sign protruded from the rubble.
Nariko leaned from the boat. She lashed the tether to the Broadway sign.
She shone her flashlight over the jumbled blocks. Marble. Travertine. Polished granite.
‘Guess a bu
ilding collapsed. Compacted the tunnel.’
She leaned over the side of the boat and shone her flashlight into the depths. The beam shafted through black water.
‘Something yellow down there. Something big. A school bus? A Ryder?’
Tombes surveyed the rockfall.
‘We’ve got a few demo charges,’ he said. ‘Nowhere near enough to shift this masonry. Maybe we ought to head overground to Canal.’
Nariko shook her head.
‘Forget it. Heavy rads. Street fires. Buildings collapsing left and right. Down here, we have a chance. Up top, we’d get ripped apart.’
She unhooked the Motorola and fumbled with gloved fingers. She retuned and held up the handset until she got signal bars. Hiss of static. A faint, rhythmic tocking sound.
‘Hear that? Their radio is still live, still transmitting, beyond that wall of rubble.’
‘Doesn’t mean a whole lot,’ said Tombes. ‘Might be a dead man with his hand resting on Transmit.’
‘Hold on,’ said Nariko. She mimed hush. ‘Listen.’
A young man’s voice whispering through waves of static. She held the radio to her ear and strained to make out words.
‘. . . Help us. If anyone can hear this transmission, please, send help . . .’
She upped the volume and switched the speaker to vox. The ghost-voice echoed from the tunnel walls.
‘. . . Can anyone hear me? Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear my voice?. . .’
‘Jesus,’ murmured Cloke. ‘They made it. The Bellevue guys. Some of them are still alive.’
‘Who is this?’ asked Nariko, addressing the radio. ‘What’s your name?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Get a grip, kid. Come on. Get it together.’
‘Ivanek. Casper Ivanek.’
‘What’s the situation? Where are you?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Describe what you see.’
‘It’s dark. It’s cold.’
‘Is anyone with you? The Bellevue team? Is anyone else left alive?’
The voice faded to a whisper.
‘I’m alone. They were here, with me. But now they are gone.’
‘All right. Sit tight. This is Rescue Four. We’re coming for you, kid. We’re coming for you.’
20
Galloway stood in the plant room doorway, hands on his head, shotgun barrel jammed against the back of his neck. Blood dripped from his shattered nose.