The Tube Riders

by Chris Ward

  ‘Tube Rider . . .’ the Huntsman growled, and Jess wanted to scream at the nightmarish sound of its voice.

  The knife slashed again. Jess swayed away, the blade missing her by inches. She tried to swing the clawboard up towards its face, but it was heavy, and her strength was leaving her. As she looked back at the Huntsman, her eyes filled with tears.

  Then something moved in her peripheral vision, and there was another figure in front of her, crashing down on the Huntsman’s shoulders and knocking it briefly to its knees.

  ‘Simon . . . ?’

  Sweat drenched his face, blood drenched his shirt and his eyes seemed about to roll back into his head as he swung an arm around the Huntsman’s neck. ‘Run!’ he gasped, his voice slurred from the drugs or weakness, or maybe both. ‘I heard you scream –’

  The Huntsman, with Simon wrapped around its shoulders, stood up and slammed him back against the door, knocking the wind out of him. Jess bared her own teeth and rammed her clawboard into the Huntsman’s stomach, feeling an unnatural hardness there. The thing’s half metal, her mind shouted. There’s no way we can kill it.

  Simon’s clawboard was still strapped to his other hand, and he pulled it up and across the Huntsman’s neck. The Huntsman growled and twisted its head, but it couldn’t use its hand to pull the clawboard away or it would lose its grip. Jess tried to reach the knife on its belt, but it kicked her in the stomach, doubling her over. She looked up, wondering how much longer Simon could hold on.

  #

  ‘Jess, no!’

  Simon smashed the clawboard into the Huntsman’s face. Its nose burst, spraying him with blood. With his other hand he reached up and tore at the wires and metal plates that covered the creature’s scalp, trying to disable it. It bucked at him but continued to hold on, so he stretched forwards, his fingers reaching for the creature’s eyes.

  He heard Jess gasp as the Huntsman’s maw snapped at him, sharp teeth closing just out of reach. He grunted and thrust his fingers in through the soft tissue, squeezing as hard as he could, feeling the creature struggle as its eyeballs depressed and then popped like blisters, bathing his fingers in sticky fluid. Screaming now himself, he thrust his fingers deeper as the Huntsman thrashed, its free hand letting go of its hold, sending them both crashing back against the door. Simon hooked his clawboard behind the handrail to hold himself steady, even as his fingers pressed deeper towards the Huntsman’s brain. He felt it buck again, felt its arm slip behind it, pushing against his belly.

  ‘Die, you evil fucking bastard!’ he hollered at it, at the same time becoming aware of a new, acute pain somewhere in his midriff, a twisting coldness, and the sudden warmth of blood down over his stomach and thighs.

  The Huntsman gave a final, shrieking roar and sagged against him, an expulsion of dead air exiting its lungs for the last time. Simon let go of it and pushed it away. Its eyes closed, almost in relief, and it slipped down between the joint mechanisms and under the train.

  There was a bump, and then it was gone.

  Simon sagged back against the truck door, one hand still attached to the clawboard stuck behind the handrail, the other going to his stomach, feeling the warmth there, the handle of the knife that stuck out, so, so little of it. Somewhere he was aware of Jess screaming, but the sound was hazy, unclear. His vision blurred just as someone else dropped into view, someone he recognised from his bedside. A young boy. What was his name?

  What . . . what was his name?

  Simon’s head lolled back.

  #

  Jess watched as the Huntsman pressed its knife into Simon with its last dying move, and then fell away under the train. She saw Simon slump back, the front of his shirt slick with blood, both his own and that of the Huntsman. His eyes rolled, his breathing coming in small gasps.

  A figure appeared above her, squatting on the top of the freight truck. She cried out, pulling her clawboard up, before realizing with some surprise that it was Carl. Somehow he’d made it on to the train. He looked none the worse for his battles with the Huntsmen, but his eyes widened in shock as he saw the blood that covered Simon.

  ‘We have to stop the train,’ Jess said to him. ‘Go to the front, threaten the driver, something, I don’t know. Anything! We have to stop the train.’

  ‘Break the door open, you might be able to rest inside,’ Carl said.

  Jess nodded. Turning behind her, she rammed her clawboard against the door of the truck. It had a padlock, but didn’t look strong. Sure enough, after a couple more desperate slugs, the door popped open, swinging inward.

  There were some crates secured near the far side of the truck, but there was a little space left between them, and with Carl’s help Jess was able to haul Simon inside. He was barely conscious, and they propped him up with his back to a wooden crate. With the door shut, the peace inside the truck was harmony compared to the grinding, thudding cacophony that had surrounded them outside.

  Carl looked at Simon, then at Jess, his face grim. ‘I’ll go up to the cab,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if I can stop the train.’

  Jess nodded. ‘Be careful,’ she said, trying not to let her voice break up.

  Carl gave her a quick smile and went out, shutting the door behind him.

  In the relative calm of the freight truck, Jess mopped Simon’s forehead with a rag. His face was ashen, his lips white from blood loss.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ he said suddenly, his voice almost as she remembered from their first meeting, soft, peaceful, like a cool park in the middle of a busy city. She remembered his smile too, and he gave her one now, warm, easy. She felt her heart jump as it had done that first time, back in the street near Charing Cross where he’d stopped her and asked her for the time.

  ‘I know what?’

  ‘That I love you. That I love you more than anything.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘And that . . . it’s time for me to go now.’

  Jess’s breath caught in her throat and she almost choked. She hadn’t tried to stop the bleeding; she knew how bad his wound was, but still, hearing it in words made it suddenly so real. She wanted to cry but no tears would come. She just felt empty, hollow.

  ‘There are a million things I want to say to you, Jessica,’ Simon told her. ‘But there isn’t the time. Perhaps in another life, another time, we could have been together longer.’

  ‘Simon, shut up! Just shut fucking up!’ She wanted to shake him, make him take back what he was saying.

  ‘I just want you to know that I love you. You are my . . . my . . . light.’

  ‘Simon!’ Jess was hysterical. She’d found him, she’d brought him back. She’d saved him once, and he’d returned the favour, but at an incalculable cost. ‘I didn’t come so far just to lose you again!’

  ‘You’ll never lose me. I’ll always be in . . .’ He reached up a hand, his face scrunched up with pain, and touched her chest, just between her breasts. ‘. . . in . . . here.’

  ‘Simon, no . . .’

  One of his hands dropped into hers. His fingers squeezed momentarily tight, and she felt something hard there. ‘Don’t give up . . . on us . . .’

  For a moment she didn’t understand. Then she looked down and saw what he had pressed into her hand – the little camera memory card. For a second she hated the thing, wanted to throw it away, but she realised that if she did, his life, like those of her parents, would have been wasted. He was right. As much as it tore her up inside, he was right.

  Simon began to cough, doubling over. She patted his back, lifting him up straight, felt the weakness in his shoulders, the sagging of his body.

  ‘I love you, Simon!’ she gasped, as his eyes locked on to hers for one last time, narrowing slightly, then going suddenly wide, desperate, his shoulders and neck tensing, a whining sound escaping his mouth as his last breath left him.

  ‘Jessica –’ he gasped, and then went soft in her arms.

  ‘No!’

  Jess’s howl of anguish filled the s
mall space between the cargo crates, seeming to make them rattle. Around her she felt the braking of the train, the slow bumping as it ground towards a halt, but she didn’t notice anything at all, not even when, a few minutes later, the side door opened and Carl looked in to see her leaning back against the crates, Simon’s body held in her arms, his blood drenching her clothes.

  #

  Carl looked at her face, saw the pain there, the utter, complete grief in her beautiful face, and he wanted to cry too, not just for the young man whom he had known so briefly, but for the girl who had lost him. Carl, a dreamer, a lover of adventure stories, was facing a reality he had never known before. He saw in the dead hollows of her eyes that Jess’s life had moved another notch closer to darkness, and Carl could sense the sadness torturing her heart. As she closed her eyes and leaned closer to Simon’s body, part of Carl wished she would never open them again.

  Let life spare her too, he thought, tears springing to his own eyes.

  Chapter Forty

  Prison Break

  Marta couldn’t see anything. Below her she could feel the rumbling wheels of the bus, but hidden away in a thin compartment below the floor she had little way of knowing which direction they were going in. Beside her, she could hear Paul and Owen talking quietly in the dark. Owen had that familiar excitement about him, which Paul was trying to hush. Marta smiled. It was probably better for the kid to keep his spirits up. She had lost hers long ago.

  Switch was the other side of her. Feeling a need for conversation, she nudged him softly. ‘Tell me again what’s going to happen.’

  ‘Uncle and his men will create a diversion; draw the guards away from the perimeter gate. I’ll slip out and attach a small explosive device to the gate. When it blows, the bus can just drive through.’

  ‘I can’t believe it’ll work as easily as that.’

  ‘Me neither. But I trust Unc. He’s the best man I’ve ever known, and if I can’t trust him I can’t trust anyone.’

  They both heard the bus’s engine die and the rocking below them ceased. A moment later they heard a muffled explosion not far away.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I guess that’s our diversion.’

  Someone tapped on the floor. ‘Your turn!’ a muffled voice shouted.

  Marta felt Switch’s hand take hers and squeeze it lightly. ‘See you soon,’ he said.

  She heard him slide away, and a second later daylight bathed them as Switch pulled away a loose panel in the side of the bus and slid out. Marta squinted in the brightness. Switch gave her a weird spastic wink and replaced the panel.

  #

  Outside, Switch looked about him. The perimeter gate rose up in front of him, about thirty feet tall, built back into a concrete wall that stretched off in both directions, disappearing behind the roofs of the abandoned houses and buildings that rotted in the wall’s shadow. William had told him that few people lived near the wall; it was too much of a reminder of times passed. Now, the buildings were the haunts of drug addicts, whores and vagrants.

  Behind him, the bus, an old government one, had stopped at a bent, rusty bus-stop sign just short of the gate. The driver, an undercover UMF man, was engaged in a heated exchange with another man, also of the UMF, masquerading as a fare-dodging customer. Switch had about a minute to take care of his job and get back to the bus before their ruse drew attention.

  The gate itself looked unguarded. It was just a small one; most of the major traffic came in though a much larger gate on the north side of the city, William had said, but even so, Switch would have expected guards. Looking left, though, he saw the reason why; a burning car had drawn the attention of the gate’s sentries, who now stood round it like tramps around a trash-can fire.

  Switch didn’t waste any time. He headed straight for the gate, leaning low, limping slightly. He wore a dirty brown shawl and a headscarf, while his face was grimy and dirty. In his hand he carried a paper bag with the end of a whiskey bottle sticking out.

  When he reached the gate, still unnoticed, he put the bottle down as close to the centre as he could. Then he began limping away.

  ‘Oi, you!’

  Switch glanced up. A green uniformed guard jogged across towards him, waving an automatic rifle. ‘Get the hell away from there, you fucking turd!’

  Switch had one hand inside the robe, trying to pass off as an amputee. Out of sight, his fingers closed around a switch-blade. The other guards were over by the burning car, walking around it, trying to peer inside to see if there were casualties. With surprise on his side Switch felt quite sure he could take the guard out if the man caused him a problem.

  ‘Sorry guv’nur,’ Switch slurred. ‘Got lost eh.’ He cocked his face at the guard and gave a half-grin. William’s men had caked his face with fake blood, and his own twitching eye only made him more pitiful.

  The guard relaxed. ‘Come on. Just get the hell away from the gate. You know the law.’

  ‘Just tryin’ t’get ‘ome, guv.’

  ‘Well keep trying. Hey, wait!’ The man pointed. ‘You forgot your medicine, my friend.’

  ‘’E’s empty,’ Switch started to say, but it was too late. The man was already heading across towards the paper bag, nestled in between the two huge gates.

  Switch started to jog for the nearest buildings. Beneath his robe he let go of the knife and felt for the small plastic box that would detonate the crude bomb that was disguised as a bottle of whiskey.

  He reached the nearest building and ducked into a doorway. Turning around, he saw the guard reach the bag and pick it up.

  Switch closed his eyes. It was bad enough having to do it at all, but he didn’t want to watch the man die as well.

  He pressed the detonator button.

  A roar filled the air behind him. The sound of ripping, tearing steel and splintering wood mixed with the screams of men. Switch opened his eyes to chaos; a wall of smoke and concrete dust bloomed up between him and the gate, so at first he was unable to see if they’d broken through. At the same time, gunshots began to ring out from the cover of the buildings to his right, where a group of William’s men were staked out. Caught out in the open, several of the guards went down immediately, but a couple managed to take cover behind the burnt-out car and from there they began to return fire.

  Switch was behind them, though, and now he slipped back through the dust alongside the perimeter wall towards the gate. Ahead of him, he heard the engine rumble as the bus began to move.

  Gunfire came above him, guards on top of the wall trying to pin down William’s men. He grimaced. Their plan was moments from failure.

  The dust began to clear. To his dismay he saw that the gate still stood.

  ‘Shit, oh shit.’

  As he got near he found that the bomb had badly damaged it, great dents and cracks in its steel surface, with its hinges buckled and misshapen, but still it remained closed.

  He turned in the direction of the bus and began to run.

  The driver almost didn’t see him, and Switch heard the squeal of old brakes as the bus tried to stop. Jumping out of its way, he caught the rail to the side of the open front door and swung inside.

  ‘Gun it, man!’ he shouted at the driver, one of William’s men. ‘The gate’s still up!’

  ‘No way,’ the man grunted. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but those damn gates were built to last.’

  ‘It’s our only chance!’

  ‘Gonna tell the others?’

  ‘No. If we don’t make it there’s a chance they won’t be discovered.’

  ‘Fat chance of that.’

  Switch spun around. Marta stood behind him, while behind her Owen was helping Paul up out of a trapdoor in the bus floor.

  ‘Get back out of sight!’

  ‘We stand together,’ Marta said.

  The driver glanced over his shoulder. ‘Well damn well hang on to something, then.’

  The bus lurched forward. Gunfire cracked all around them, shattering several of t
he side windows. Switch ducked down behind the bus’s dashboard, while behind him the others dived down between the seats.

  ‘Here it comes!’ the driver shouted. Switch glanced up just long enough to see the perimeter wall rising up around them, the gate no more than a few feet ahead.

  ‘Yeah!’

  The bus hit the gates square on. Switch slammed into the dashboard as the front window imploded, ducking his head to avoid shards of flying glass. There was a momentary thud and then a rush of forward movement, and to his relief Switch realised they were through. He heard the gunfire receding behind them as the bus bumped downhill, at first on a road, and then swerving off, bumping across an open area of grassland. The wind rushed past his face and he frowned, looking over his shoulder to see the road disappearing back to their right.

  ‘Where the hell are you –’

  Switch knew immediately that his words were wasted. The driver, bloodied and lifeless, had slumped back in the seat, a large shard of glass protruding from a neck injury that pumped blood down over his fake bus driver’s uniform.

  ‘Marta, Paul! We have another problem!’

  Switch jumped up, trying to grab the wheel out of the driver’s dead hands, but it was too late. The dead man lurched forward, pulling the wheel sharply over to the left. The bus, still moving downhill, bumped again and overbalanced.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Switch was screaming at the others to hang on, even as he wrapped his arms around the wheel to brace himself. Behind him, he heard Marta screaming, Paul shouting at Owen, and Owen gasping as though this were yet another fairground ride.

  The bus crashed over on to its side, cushioned slightly by a stand of bushes that smashed in through the windows. There was a grinding noise as the engine continued to revolve for a few seconds, then the internal workings of the old bus shuddered and went still.

  Switch rubbed his head and pulled himself to his feet. He felt like he was standing horizontally, with the bus’s seats hanging in the air to his left. ‘Everyone all right?’ he asked, feeling a little dazed but otherwise okay.