Terminus

by Adam Baker

  Cloke folded the notepaper.

  ‘Donavan. Wasn’t he the soldier we found floating in the tunnel? That guy turned to rat food?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lupe. ‘Sorry bastard succumbed to infection.’

  ‘How old do you think he was?’

  ‘Young, at a guess. One of those blue-eyed, god-and-country types.’

  ‘Seems the lad walked into the dark rather than become a threat to his companions.’

  ‘Is that what you want to believe?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Cloke. ‘A good soldier. Took action rather than jeopardise the people around him. Some people do the right thing.’

  ‘You got kids?’ asked Lupe. ‘Family?’

  ‘No. You?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Times like these, it’s good to travel light.’

  Cloke stuffed the notepaper back in the bag.

  ‘There’s nothing in these letters. Nothing of use. A dozen goodbyes. It seems indecent to read this stuff. Prurient. Eavesdropping on their final hours. Ought to put a match to them all.’

  ‘Then you’re back where you started,’ said Lupe. ‘Ekks. You’ve got to get inside his head, find out what he knows.’

  49

  Donahue sat in the dark, back to the office wall. She closed her eyes and rested her head against cement. She blanked her mind and tried to sink into hibernation.

  She put herself on a wooded hillside. Dappled shade. A trickling stream. Silence and solitude. She lay in long grass and sipped from her canteen.

  She expanded the daydream, added detail and backstory.

  She had fled the ruins of civilisation and found safety in deep wilderness. She was camped in a forest, far from the horror. A dome tent draped in camouflage netting hidden among trees. Maybe, when noonday heat gave way to evening cool, she would fish from the stream. Lower a hook and line, snag a couple of trout.

  Dread crept over her. The hillside dissolved. Summer heat was replaced by bone-chilling cold. Sunlight turned to darkness. The smell of forest pine was supplanted by the stink of mildew and decay.

  Back in the IRT office.

  She stared into absolute black. Her optic nerves projected fleeting monster shapes.

  She couldn’t escape a skin-crawling, preternatural sense she was not alone. Something else in the room, inches away, hidden in darkness.

  She fumbled her watch and pressed for the face-light. She half expected to see a rotted visage leaning over her, arms outstretched.

  Nothing.

  She held her wrist and monitored her pulse. She breathed slow, tried to calm her jack-hammer heart.

  How much time had passed? It felt like an hour. She checked. Eight minutes.

  ‘Christ.’

  She stood. She stretched. Toe touches and back twists.

  She crouched and grunted through a dozen half-assed press-ups. She lay on her back and tried a couple of knee-to-elbow crunches. She gave up and lay on cold tiles, fighting a wave of fierce nausea. She suppressed a dust-sneeze.

  She heard a soft thump, then the rasp of fingernails dragged across wood.

  Something on the other side of the office door. The Dunkin’ Donuts guy.

  More scratching. The faint creak of body weight pressed against wood.

  Donahue got to her feet. She crept across the room, arms outstretched. She felt for the door. She stroked wood and found the peep hole. She put her eye to the lens.

  The rotted, skeletal thing staring back at her. Jet black eyes. Blood-matted hair. Skin like ripped parchment.

  Donuts sensed her presence. It leaned close to the door. Sniffed the lens, like it caught her scent.

  Donuts was suddenly pushed aside. A bald Hare Krishna, mouth smeared with blood, pushed his face to the peep hole.

  The infected creatures jostled for position in front of the door. They craned towards the lens, stared back at Donahue in fish-eye distortion.

  They leered. They hissed. They began to punch the wood.

  Donahue jumped back.

  Pounding fist strikes. Again. And again. A determined fusillade of blows. Oak split with a gunshot retort. Donahue heard the splintering rasp of fissures extending through wood grain.

  She backed away. The pounding increased as a third pair of hands joined the assault and began to batter the door.

  She unclipped her radio.

  ‘Tombes? Can you hear me, over?’ She shouted. No point masking her voice. ‘Pick up the damned radio.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Need some help over here.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Bastards want in. They mean business.’

  ‘Can you hold them off?’

  ‘Negative. I need help. Right now.’

  ‘Throw stuff against the door. Anything you got.’

  ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘We’re coming, Donnie.’

  50

  Lupe grabbed the radio.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I don’t know. Two. Maybe three. Hammering like crazy.’

  ‘Is the door secure?’

  ‘It’s started to bow. I can hear it crack each time they hit. It’s slowly giving way.’

  ‘How long can you hold out?’

  ‘This kind of sustained assault? Minutes. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.’

  ‘I’m going out there,’ said Tombes. ‘Rest of you stay here, okay? Close the door behind me.’

  ‘You’ll get killed.’

  ‘Maybe. But I’ll lead them a dance before I do.’

  ‘Fuck that shit,’ said Lupe. ‘They will tear you to pieces.’

  ‘I’m not going to sit on my ass and listen to Donnie get ripped apart.’

  ‘I’ll go with you. If we stand back-to-back maybe we can take a bunch of them down.’

  ‘There’s another option,’ said Cloke.

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  Cloke pointed to the jumbled notes in the data bag.

  ‘One of the Bellevue guys took Ekks hostage. Kept him prisoner in the IRT office. Barricaded the door. The officer in charge planned to use air handling conduits to get inside the room and shoot him dead.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘No idea. But that could be the best way to reach Donahue. Crawl through the walls.’

  ‘What about Galloway? He’s in there, somewhere.’

  ‘Some of these pipes run for miles. Should be able to avoid him, long as you don’t take any detours.’

  They pulled paint tins and boxes from the conduit mouth. Tombes tugged the grille until corroded screws sheared and mesh tore loose.

  He shone his flashlight into the dark aperture. Crumbling brickwork receded to shadow.

  ‘Worth a shot.’

  ‘Doesn’t look too stable,’ said Lupe. ‘That shit could cave any minute.’

  Tombes gripped the lip of the tunnel mouth and hauled himself inside. He twisted round. Lupe passed him a section of rusted pipe.

  ‘Watch yourself. Galloway is in there, somewhere.’

  He tucked the pipe into his waistband.

  ‘Catch you later.’

  Lupe rehung the grille and stacked boxes against the mesh.

  She took out her radio.

  ‘Donahue? Do you copy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look around. There’s a grille, right? Some kind of vent in the office wall.’

  ‘There’s something high up, blocked with wood.’

  ‘Can you reach it?’

  ‘I’m a bit frigging preoccupied right now.’

  ‘Tombes is on his way. We think he can reach you via the air tunnels. All you have to do is sit tight, okay?’

  ‘I’m not sure how much longer I can keep them out. The lock is screwed. The door bends every time they hit.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can use for a barricade?’

  ‘I’ve thrown every last thing against the door. I’m holding the damned thing shut. I got my back to the desk.’

  ‘We’ll buy you
time.’

  Lupe ran to the plant room door.

  ‘Cloke. Get over here. Make some noise.’

  Lupe began to punch and kick the door.

  ‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Hey, you fucks. In here. We’re in here. Come on. Fresh meat. Come and get it.’

  Cloke pummelled the door.

  ‘Hey,’ they shouted. ‘Hey, in here.’

  The door began to shake and rumble as bodies slammed into the wood from the other side.

  They stepped back. They listened to the cacophony.

  ‘Guess we drew a few of them off,’ said Lupe.

  ‘Sounds like a pretty big crowd,’ said Cloke. ‘More of the bastards heading down the steps each minute. We should have hit them sooner. A lot sooner.’

  ‘We’re smart. They’re dumb. We’re fast. They’re slow. The trick is to keep moving. If you freeze, if you hesitate for a second, they’ll converge on your ass, and then you’re fucked. Go in hard. Be a whirlwind. Duck and weave.’

  ‘What have we got for weapons?’

  ‘Not much. A couple of sections of pipe. Plenty of stuff in the equipment pile out there in the ticket hall. Rescue gear. Axes, hammers, crowbars. But we have to battle our way through a crowd to reach them. Twenty yards of tough fighting.’

  ‘Got any matches?’ asked Cloke.

  Lupe dug in her pocket. Galloway’s matchbook. Three strikes left.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  Cloke led her to the back of the room. Stacked boxes. He tore away rotted cardboard. Rusted paint tins.

  ‘Should have thought of this a lot earlier.’

  He hefted a tin, wiped grime from the Nu-Enamel label.

  ‘This sludge is oil-based. Thinned with turpentine. It’ll burn like phosphorus.’

  They stacked tins by the plant room door. Cloke pried lids with his belt buckle. He recoiled from the fierce chemical stink.

  Lupe shrugged off her coat and pulled her prison smock over her head. White bra. Big tattoo across her back:

  Dios

  Patria

  Libertad

  She bit the sleeve of her prison smock between clenched teeth and tore strips. She pinned each strip beneath a lid to form a wick.

  ‘All right. Let’s napalm the bastards.’

  Tombes crawled through the narrow pipe. His flashlight lit the brick-lined conduit ahead. Panting breath, and the scuff of boots, reverberated in the confined space.

  He was spooked by darkness, and the sinister wind-whisper of the passageways.

  A sudden conviction he was not alone. Something else in the tunnel system. He paused, twisted round and shone the flashlight behind him. Nothing. The brick pipe receded to deep darkness.

  He turned back, and hit his head on the low brick roof. He winced and checked his scalp for blood.

  Lupe’s voice:

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Stinks like someone crawled in here and died.’

  ‘They probably did.’

  ‘I found Galloway’s boot. He’s around here, somewhere.’

  ‘Watch yourself.’

  ‘There’s a junction. I’m heading right.’

  ‘How far have you got?’

  ‘Hard to tell.’

  ‘We got paint tins. We’ll try to set the fuckers on fire, create a distraction.’

  ‘Hold on. I can see light up ahead.’

  Tombes shut off his flashlight and tucked it into his waistband. He crawled forwards. A dust-furred grille in the floor of the conduit. The slats projected lattice light on the tunnel roof.

  He took the radio from his pocket and reduced the volume.

  ‘I’m above the ticket hall. I’m looking down. Can’t see too well. I count seven infected. Probably more outside my field of vision. They look pretty far gone. Slow. Messed up. I reckon we could take them, if we move fast.’

  The pounding stopped. Donahue remained braced against the desk barricade for a full minute, then slowly relaxed.

  She wiped sweat from her face. She shook out exhausted limbs.

  She shone the watch and inspected the door. The wood surrounding the hinges had started to rip and splinter.

  A faint crackle from her radio.

  Lupe’s voice:

  ‘Donahue? You there?’

  Donahue crouched in the corner and whispered into the Motorola.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.’

  ‘How you doing?’

  ‘The door took a battering. The hinges are tearing loose. Surprised it hasn’t caved.’

  ‘Are they still trying to get inside?’

  ‘They seemed to have laid off, for now.’

  ‘We made a ruckus. A bunch of them are outside the plant room, trying to break in. Our door is solid. It should hold.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Can you see the vent?’

  ‘Like I said, there’s a couple of chunks of wood screwed high on one of the walls.’

  ‘Can you shift them?’

  ‘Hold on.’

  A couple of short lengths of wood secured by heavy screws. Donahue reached up, gripped the planks and pulled. She grunted and strained. She lifted her feet off the floor and hung by her arms, tried to wrench the slats from the wall using her full body weight.

  ‘They’re screwed directly into the brickwork. Can’t shift the damn things. I guess they could be blocking a vent. Hard to tell.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Tombes will kick them free from inside once he reaches the office.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Look, you have to do me a favour. I know it’s asking a lot. But I need you to draw these bastards away from the plant room door. We’ve got paint bombs, Molotov cocktails. We can burn those fuckers to a crisp, but we need them to back away from the door so we can get into the hall and hit them. Can you do that? Can you create a distraction?’

  ‘You got to time it right. If I make a racket, they’ll head my way. The door won’t hold out much longer. The moment I start to holler, I’m committed. You’ve got to get into the hall and take them down. Any delay, and I’m screwed.’

  ‘We’re set. The moment you ring the bell, we’ll head into the hall and fry those fuckers.’

  ‘Let’s do it before I change my mind.’

  Donahue set the gramophone on the floor. She picked a random 78, threaded it onto the spindle and set it running. She dropped the needle arm. Pop and crackle.

  She braced against the desk.

  ‘Hey,’ shouted Donahue. His voice rang loud and metallic in the confined office space. ‘Hey. Come on, you bastards. Food’s up. Come get me, motherfuckers.’

  Benny Goodman. ‘King Porter Stomp’. Jazz filled the room. Fists pounded the door.

  ‘Listen,’ said Cloke.

  Impacts against the plant room door diminished to silence. Faint music.

  They gripped the battery rack and hauled it aside. They did it slow, tried to minimise stone-scrape and grit-pop as they dragged the heavy frame across concrete.

  ‘Let’s do this.’

  Lupe gave Cloke two paint tins.

  ‘Sure it’ll burn?’

  ‘Oh yeah. This shit is old school. Flammable as hell. Don’t breathe the fumes. They’ll strip the lining from your lungs.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You throw. I’ll back you up. And, hey. Make them count, all right?’

  Cloke held out the tins. Lupe struck a match and lit the wicks. Red cotton smouldered and flared.

  She tossed the match and snatched up the section of pipe.

  ‘On three.’ She pulled back the deadbolts. ‘One, two, three.’

  She pulled open the door.

  A rotted, infected guy standing directly in front of her. Suit and tie. A ridge of spines across his head like a Mohawk. He grunted and looked up, a grotesque parody of surprise.

  ‘Hi there.’

  Lupe caved his forehead with a vicious swing of the pipe. He tottered like a drunk and fell.

  They ran into the hall.


  A dozen shambling, infected things turned their way.

  ‘Oh fuck.’

  Cloke threw the first tin. It hit a garlanded Hare Krishna on the chest. Crimson paint splashed across satin robes and caught alight. Fabric shrivelled and burned with a blue flame, turning the man to a pillar of fire.

  A woman in a pus-streaked waitress uniform. Her name tag said DOROTHY. She limped forwards, arms outstretched. Lupe caved her head with a side-swing of the pipe.

  ‘Over there.’

  Four rotted creatures battered the IRT door, trying to get inside.

  ‘Burn them.’

  Cloke hurled the second tin. It hit the wall above the door. Vapour ignited like a napalm flame-burst, and the four were engulfed in fire.

  Lupe and Cloke shielded their faces. They recoiled from searing heat.

  A guy ran at Lupe. He was enveloped in flame. She kicked him to the ground. He struggled to his feet. She kicked him again. He sank to his knees, pitched face forwards and lay motionless as he burned.

  Lupe ducked back in the plant room and grabbed more tins. She hurled them. Crimson paint dashed against the pillars, ceiling and floor. The paint ignited like gasoline. Fire washed across the hall. Blazing creatures stumbled and flailed. Clothing and hair shrivelling in the flames.

  A burning figure staggered towards Cloke, arms outstretched. It waded across the ticket hall, waist-deep in flame, then collapsed as cooked muscle ceased to respond to nerve transmissions.

  Cloke and Lupe ran for the plant room, slammed the door and slapped deadbolts back in position.

  Shuddering impacts.

  They backed away. Black smoke curled from the crack at the foot of the door. They covered their mouths to mask the stench of burning flesh.

  Donahue struggled to keep the office door closed. Shoulder to the desk, feet braced against the back wall.

  Her radio lay on the floor, out of reach. She could see the LED wink brilliant emerald in the darkness. A faint voice, part-drowned by jazz:

  ‘Donnie, can you hear me? Donnie, do you copy, over?’

  ‘Hey,’ yelled Donahue, trying to be heard beyond the door. ‘Lupe. Anyone. Need some fucking help here.’

  The door began to give way. Too dark to see damage, but she could hear oak splinter and split.