The Tube Riders

by Chris Ward

  ‘Quick,’ Switch shouted. ‘We have to move now.’

  ‘What about him?’ Marta said.

  ‘Fuck him.’

  ‘We’ll catch you!’ Vincent shouted. ‘We’ll hunt you down –’

  Owen stepped forward and kicked Vincent in the face. The DCA agent slumped back against the ground. ‘Just shut up, man . . .’

  Switch grinned. ‘Nice footwork, little bro!’

  ‘Guys, this isn’t over!’

  Marta pointed. The Huntsman had won the fight. Dreggo’s bloody, mutilated body lay limply on the dusty tiles. The beast pulled something out of the ruins of her clothes and turned back towards them, clawed hands gripping a silver crossbow. Switch said, ‘Its mission!’

  The Huntsman’s blind head swung back and forth, nose twitching at the air. An awkward moment passed. Then it stopped still, frozen. Slowly, its lips curled back in a snarl.

  ‘I have an idea!’ Simon shouted. ‘Get across the tracks now!’

  Paul pushed Owen in front of him. Simon grabbed Jess’s hand and pulled her behind him, though at first the girl seemed to want to stand and fight.

  ‘What about him?’ Marta shouted to Switch, who was already across. She pointed at Vincent’s still body.

  ‘Forget him,’ Switch replied. ‘They’re not after him, and if it wants dessert, too bad.’

  Marta was the last to jump. As she crossed over the tracks and landed heavily on the other side, she heard a whirring sound behind her, and looked back to see the Huntsman loading the crossbow.

  ‘There’s a train coming,’ Simon shouted, pointing at the tunnel where the faint glow of headlights had come on amid the growing roar of an engine. ‘Come on, you bastard, jump!’ He picked up a loose tile and threw it at the Huntsman. The tile struck the creature in the chest, and it jerked in Simon’s direction, teeth bared, the crossbow lifting. Simon took another step forward.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouted again. ‘It’s fucking Pancake Day, you bastard!’

  ‘Watch out!’ Marta said. ‘Don’t make it jump too soon!’

  Jess and Switch had joined him in goading the Huntsman. It snarled again then bounded forward, the crossbow going off with a zipping sound as it leapt out over the tracks.

  Simon’s body jerked. He screamed and staggered a few steps, then dropped to his knees. The Huntsman, more agile than they had expected, landed easily on their side of the platform with the train still back in the tunnel. Its free hand swiped at Jess, claws raking the air, the other still holding the crossbow. Simon now lay on the ground, clutching at his shoulder. Paul, nearest, swung his clawboard at it, only to see the Huntsman swat it away. Switch darted forward with a serrated knife, but it was Owen, slipping behind the Huntsman and clubbing the back of its legs with Paul’s old clawboard which caused it to lose balance. As Switch’s knife flashed again, the Huntsman jerked backwards and fell out over the tracks, into the path of the train.

  For a second the train’s warning horn sounded low and hollow. Then the Huntsman was gone as the train thundered past.

  As the train rushed away, the others crowded around Simon. The crossbow bolt protruded from his right shoulder and his shirt was soaked with blood.

  ‘I’m okay, I’m fine,’ he whined, gritting his teeth.

  ‘Help him up,’ Marta said. ‘Can you still ride, Simon?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘We have to leave now.’

  ‘I know.’

  Marta glanced at the others. Paul’s face was ashen, while Switch was busy picking bits of cloth out of the teeth of his knife. Owen was reliving the strike which led to the Huntsman’s death, while Jess was stone-faced, staring at Simon as though he were already dead. Marta felt cold inside looking at Jess; the girl she’d met earlier was gone, perhaps forever. But then, she reflected, perhaps there was a part of all of them that was gone now.

  Behind them, across the track, Vincent had regained consciousness and was barking orders into a mobile phone. ‘They’re here. Quickly, free the rest of them!’

  Jess turned away from Simon and picked something up off the platform. Marta saw it was the Huntsman’s crossbow. Jess turned it over in her hands as though she were inspecting a piece of fruit. Then, with a brief shrug, she pulled a metal quarrel out of a pocket on the side, fed it into the crossbow’s mechanism and pressed a button. Marta heard a whirring sound and saw a metal spring drawing back. Jess looked up at the others, face blank. Without a word she turned and walked across to the trackside.

  Marta followed her. ‘Don’t kill him,’ she said, meaning Vincent. ‘That makes us no better than them.’

  ‘Do you think I care? I will kill him, but he has to wait his turn.’

  Marta followed Jess’s gaze down on to the tracks. What was left of the Huntsman lay there, across the rails. One arm was completely gone, and one leg from the knee down lay between the tracks about twenty feet in front of it. The other arm was mangled and half its torso hung open. Blood pumped out on to the tracks from a long chest wound. Marta was terrified to see wires and what looked like metal plating inside, alongside the tissues of a body that had once been human.

  And yet it was still alive, its head trying to rise, a low groan coming from its throat.

  ‘Good God, what does it take to kill those things?’

  Jess didn’t answer. Slowly, she lifted the crossbow. ‘For my mother and my father, for everyone else . . . die, you fucking . . . prick.’

  She pulled the trigger. The bolt slammed into the Huntsman’s face, just below the blinded eye. There was a popping sound followed by a crackle of electricity and then the monster was finally still.

  Jess pulled out another bolt. Behind them came the sound of another approaching train.

  ‘This is our ride,’ Switch said.

  ‘I don’t leave until he’s dead,’ Jess replied, waving the crossbow at Vincent, who was cursing and grunting in pain as he tried to pull a nail out of his leg.

  ‘We don’t have time!’ Switch shouted. ‘Stay with him and die together if you fucking like, girl, but we have to go now!’ As Switch spoke, four dark shadows poured down the station steps, rushing across the platform towards them. Marta’s jaw dropped; it was like facing Hell itself as the snapping, nightmarish horde came on, some moving like men, others bounding like dogs.

  ‘We’re gonna die unless we’re on that train!’ Paul shouted.

  Marta looked at Switch. The little man had his nail gun in one hand, but his face was pale, hopeless. Even he knew they had no chance against so many.

  ‘Remember what I told you,’ Paul said to Owen. ‘Don’t let me down, brother.’

  Owen, endlessly cheerful, nodded. ‘I’m a Tube Rider now,’ he said, hefting the clawboard Paul had given him.

  ‘Please don’t get hurt,’ Paul said.

  ‘Run, jump, hook,’ Owen recalled.

  ‘You got it, now go! I love you, kid.’

  Owen grimaced. ‘Man, shut up. Christ.’

  The train rushed in. Marta heard Jess screaming at Simon to ‘Run, one last time just run!’ and then she was running after Paul and Owen herself. In these moments, she reflected, it was everyone for him or herself; if someone fell they were on their own. No one could go back.

  Two of the Huntsmen had crossed in front of the train. As Marta caught, she saw them stumble as they tried to turn too quickly. In front of her, Paul and Owen were safely caught, Owen whooping his delight as his board hooked on to the metal rail. Just behind her, Switch caught the rail and she leaned forward to see beyond him to where Simon, his face contorted with pain, had just jumped. His board caught the edge then slipped safely inside the rail. He howled in pain as the train jerked his injured shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut, veins protruding from the backs of his hands as he struggled to hold on. Jess, at the back, caught the rail then quickly freed one hand and pulled the crossbow from her belt. As the nearest Huntsman leapt forward, its claws reaching, she aimed and fired. The bolt hit the Huntsman in the shoulder, enough to
knock it back into the one coming behind. Marta saw them tumble to the ground as the train carried them into the tunnel.

  ‘Hang on!’ she screamed as the cold wind and the dark enveloped them. She could only hope the others had enough strength left to listen.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Aftermath

  Vincent could think of no other plan than to play dead as the Huntsmen, freed on his command, rushed into the station. The Tube Riders were out of sight behind the moving train, and a moment later it was gone, taking them with it. Two Huntsmen were on his side of the tracks, two on the other. Vincent thought for a moment he was the next victim, but then, howling like a pack of rabid wolves, the Huntsmen leapt down on to the tracks and bounded away into the tunnel.

  As silence descended, Vincent climbed to his feet. Three nails had hit him in the thigh. One had fallen loose while the other two were imbedded deep and wouldn’t move. Every time he touched them bolts of pain lanced up his side.

  Still, moving slowly, he could walk. He found himself marveling at the resourcefulness of the Tube Riders; the skinny, odd-looking one in particular. He hoped to put a bullet in that one personally.

  A few feet away lay the body of the girl who had captured the blind Huntsman. Vincent hobbled over and looked down.

  It had mauled her bad enough that she would never need to worry about boyfriends again, he thought darkly, but underneath the blood he could see the slow rise and fall of her chest. A small moan when he nudged her with his foot confirmed that she still lived.

  I’m the one who got away. He knew what she meant, of course. There was no way a normal human could have survived such a mauling. And if what she claimed was true, Vincent thought, maybe she could be of some use to them.

  #

  Leland Clayton was pissed. Climbing from the car outside the abandoned Underground station, it was all he could do not to draw his gun and flick off the safety. Vincent had gone above his authority, ordering the Huntsmen called off in an attempt to ambush the Tube Riders. Clayton, whose idea it had been to stake out the station in case one or more might return, had expected to view their bodies only after the Huntsmen had finished. Just minutes ago, though, Vincent had called him and muttered some lame excuse that an ‘altered’ plan had failed, and that the Tube Riders had escaped, but not to worry because the Huntsmen were once again on their trail.

  Vincent, vying for commendation from the Governor, had gone behind Clayton’s back again. Maybe, Clayton reflected, this was one time too many.

  Inside the station, he found Vincent leaning against the wall, a couple of aides tending to a wound in the younger agent’s leg.

  ‘Okay, so what the fuck just happened here?’ Clayton’s fingers had gone to the gun again, and he purposefully pulled his hand away and stuck it in his trouser pocket.

  Vincent yelped in pain as one of the aides dabbed his leg with antiseptic. ‘I’m sorry, Clayton. It was my fault –’

  ‘You’re damn right it was. We’re under orders from the Governor himself to take those kids out. He ordered the Huntsmen, and you ordered them off. I know you want my job, Vincent, you damn fool, but surely you value your fucking life?’

  Vincent looked at the ground. ‘I’m sorry, I thought they might be more useful alive.’

  ‘Which is why you had them pinned down by two gunmen, both of whom are now dead?’

  ‘They were just to help . . . negotiations. I was fully expecting the fugitives to give themselves up.’

  ‘And instead you got taken out with what? A nail gun? You, a DCA agent, gets taken out by a kid with a fucking power tool?’ Clayton was too angry to laugh. ‘You’re a fucking disgrace, Vincent. I’d demote you to sorting fucking post if it wouldn’t embarrass me to explain why.’

  ‘I was taken by surprise. And that thing over there, she took out my men.’

  Clayton looked over his shoulder. ‘The dead girl? One: who the fuck is she, and two: please explain to me, Vincent, how did she manage to kill two agents?’

  Vincent raised a hand. His look had taken on a familiar smugness that Clayton always wanted to punch off his face. ‘Er, firstly, she’s not dead. And she took out my men by setting a Huntsman on them. A Huntsman she somehow managed to capture. Tell me, how the fuck did she do that?’

  Clayton rolled his eyes. ‘It gets better. Who is she?’

  Vincent smiled. ‘She’s the one that got away.’

  ‘God help you Vincent, if you smile at me again you’re going under the next fucking train –’

  ‘She’s half Huntsman.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go look at her. She’s been modified. And for some reason she was chasing them too. I thought she might be of some use.’

  Clayton narrowed his eyes. His anger still boiled but he was remembering something Dr. Karmski had said about an escapee. That, though, he would deal with in time. ‘So, Vincent, you’re telling me you managed to lose everyone we’re after in order to bring me someone who “might be of some use”? Jesus Christ. Get yourself to the hospital and get out of my fucking sight.’

  Clayton walked away from Vincent towards the bloody body on the ground. He saw Vincent was right; wires protruding from her forehead and the glimmer of metal beneath the skin where she’d be mauled told him she’d been modified all right. Clayton felt a funny tickle go down his neck. He knew the government’s so-called “researchers” just took kids off the streets for this. She might have been a perfectly normal girl, walking home from a café, cinema, whatever, when suddenly a bag was pulled over her head and the next thing she knew she was strapped to a chair in a room full of scientific equipment. Now she’d ended up like this, more metal in her than some of the hamburgers you could buy on the street these days. And he considered her one of the lucky ones. He didn’t know everything about what happened in those evil underground laboratories, but he knew that a vast number of mistakes were made before the “lucky” few ended up as Huntsmen.

  He felt like putting a foot on her neck and saving her from more pain, but his curiosity got the better of him. And like Vincent had said, maybe she would be of some use.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted back to one of his agents. ‘Get a couple of men over here with a stretcher. We need help for this one. Make sure you secure her arms though. She might be dangerous.’

  As the man ran off, Clayton walked to the edge of the track and stared down the tunnel in the direction Vincent said the Tube Riders had gone. The Huntsmen were out there somewhere, running hard, nearly inexhaustible. His professional mind hoped they ran the quarry down by morning, saving him a lot of trouble and hard work. The part of him that had once had morals, though, wished the Tube Riders luck.

  Bristol

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lost Boy

  Monday was looking like another quiet day for Carl Weston. The new school term was still a week away and with a little sly help from their housekeeper, Jeanette, his homework was all done and sitting in a folder back at the house. He’d been careful this time to have her write the answers on a piece of paper for him to copy up, rather than directly on to the work itself. A teacher had caught him out last time and he could still remember the sting of the cane. The back of his father’s hand had hurt a lot more, though.

  Down in the woods, among the ruins of the old town, he’d set up a shooting range where he regularly practiced with his air rifle and catapult. Most of the houses were gone now, the roads torn up, but in some places the skeleton walls of old terraces and shops still rose up over his head.

  Transplanted trees and undergrowth obscured most of the buildings. Many of the trees tilted at ridiculous angles because, his father said, when the government began a project to reseed the countryside some years before he was born, many of the newly transplanted trees were not supported properly and had since suffered from the effects of subsidence and wind battering. The natural trees were easy to spot because they rose straight, but as a young child Carl had loved playing among the exposed root systems of m
any of the capsized trees, prevented from total collapse by the helpful remains of an old shop or house. Brambles, bracken and ivy smothered everything now, but Carl regularly cleared away the entrances to some of the better root-caves to maintain a series of dens; his own little Hobbiton where he could while away his days in blissful idleness.

  Now, with the morning sun casting long shadows all around him, he crept through the silent ruins with his catapult held ready. As he approached a sycamore tree growing at a forty-five degree angle, he crouched low. With a sudden cry of attack he leaned forward and executed a karate roll, coming up into a squat and loosing the rock ammunition. It clanged off a rusted old construction sign Carl had jammed into a crack in a half collapsed wall.

  ‘Got ya!’ Carl shouted, holding the catapult aloft. The old sign, a half-corroded silhouette of a construction worker holding a hand up in a “stop” pose, didn’t reply.

  Carl stood up and leaned against the thick tree trunk. He listened for a moment, cocking his head, looking up into the foliage. Not far away came the sound of a bird’s call, followed by the flutter of wings. He was used to the birds, of course, but there was something else, a low rumbling, somewhere distant. He looked up at the sky, though he hadn’t seen a plane in ten years or more. Then he remembered.

  ‘Train!’

  With a big grin on his face, Carl dashed off through the trees, quick feet skillful over the treacherous ground from an entire childhood of playing in the forest. The train line was several hundred yards away, slightly upslope, cut along the side of a hill. Twisting sharply back and forth he raced through the trees, following a trail he’d cut along what had once been a main road but now looked like something out of a fairy story, chunks of concrete and the occasion flash of white line hidden by huge drapes of hanging brambles caught up in tree branches to create a natural tunnel.

  Scrambling over the remains of a bungalow, he reached the fence that cordoned off the tracks just moments before the huge train lumbered through. His fingers gripped the fence and he gasped with excitement. He was just in time to count the trucks as they rolled past. Fifteen, sixteen, he counted nineteen in total. Just two short of his record, but it had been a long one nonetheless. No wonder it was moving so slowly. All of the trucks were brown freight carriers. The cab had windows but he’d been too late to get a look inside at the driver. One of the older house servants had told him that the trains had once carried passengers, from one town to another. Carl would have found it difficult to believe – after all, everyone knew the cities had been closed up to keep the unsavory types locked away – had he not discovered an old station among the ruins, not far from here. It was confirmation enough that the trains had once stopped, and nowadays while playing in the forest he dreamed of a time when the world had been different, when life hadn’t all been farming, ginger ale at summer fetes, and algebra.