Melt

by JJ Pike

  The entrance to the Number 7 train had those steel concertina doors at the bottom of the steps. She needed to double back, maybe enter the subway system over at Penn Station. There was no way they could lock up all the entrances to the A, C, and E lines.

  She jogged east. She was able to slip down the stairs unnoticed. The lights were on. That meant they’d only blown a small portion of the grid when the building went down. Good. Things were looking good. MELT hadn’t eaten its way through the electrics down here.

  She slid towards the turnstile, praying that all the subway workers had been sent home. It would be just her luck to have some busybody turning her away. She took her jacket off her head and fished around in the pockets, looking for her wallet and subway card. She laughed. Her world was collapsing but she still planned to pay her entrance fee.

  Her wallet was nowhere to be found. Well, she’d tried. The cameras would catch her vaulting the turnstile and heading towards the platform. Alice Everlee was a petty criminal now. She corrected herself: she was possibly party to mass murder. These were not things to joke about. She ripped her skirt up the seam by her left leg, so she’d have more maneuverability, tied her jacket back on her head, and was over the barrier and jogging towards the platform in no time.

  Again, she was struck by the utter ridiculousness of the quiet. New York was never like this: overhead lights flickering to the sound of her feet padding down an empty tunnel. Depending on the time of day, this commute was either “total body slam, not sure how I’m still breathing” or “don’t mind getting mildly crushed, it’s all part of New York life.” And here she was, cruising towards answers, no one in her way.

  She needed to move fast. She jogged down an empty corridor, then the steps, then onto the abandoned platform. She looked down the tracks. If the lights were still on, was the third rail still alive? All she needed to do was not touch it. Behind her, a noise. She turned in time to see a middle-aged man jogging towards her. As if that wasn’t alarming enough, he was buck naked. Alice raised her hands to her head and patted her pockets, willing a weapon she knew she didn’t have to be there. All she had was a headlamp Jerry had given her. That was no use. She was going to have to defend herself with her own fists if he came at her.

  The man leapt onto the tracks on the other side of the platform, saluted her, and kept on running into the blackness of the southbound tunnel.

  Alice sighed. There were underground cities. She’d read about them: a warren of plastic sheeting populated by mole-people who’d opted out and rarely saw the light of day. Perhaps this was his midnight run? Who knew? What mattered was she was safe. He’d gone in the other direction. She pocketed her light and eased her way onto the tracks.

  She didn’t dare jog in the dimly lit tunnel. She wasn’t that brave or that foolhardy. She strode from wooden beam to wooden beam thinking about what she needed to do once she reached the underbelly of K&P. She hadn’t been privy to the construction so she had no clue how they had secured the basement. It couldn’t have been easy. Gravity was against them. They would have had to have some way to blast concrete clear across the entire lower section of their building. Or had they gone old school, like a plasterer, and slathered it over the ceiling? Either way, they had to have had some pretty awesome engineers on hand to get that done so quickly.

  Cervantes face bobbed up in her memory. “Teamsters,” he had said. “We’re bringing in the Teamsters.” His laugh made her blood run cold a second time. Heaven forbid they had simply poured concrete on top of the problem. That would have been an exercise in futility.

  She started up a little jog. She’d gotten the rhythm of the place now. She could make two beams in one stride. As long as she slowed when she got to the intersection where Amtrak and Number 7 lines separated and took the branching lines carefully, she’d be fine.

  “Tell me they weren’t idiots,” she muttered. “Tell me they understood what Baxter meant when she talked about the ‘infection.’ Tell me Cervantes had believed her when she said this was like a sub-burn in the forest, that MELT could be in the flooring but entirely invisible to the naked eye. Please, please, please, let them have gone under and up, rather than over and down.”

  About a quarter mile ahead, a train stood on the tracks. Had they simply parked it in the station? That was a drag. Still, she could walk through it and be on the tracks on the other side in no time. Not a problem. Only a few more blocks to go.

  Something ran across her foot. She did her best not to scream because anyone who didn’t expect rats in a New York tunnel was an idiot, but she squeaked all the same. “Protein,” she said. “Think of them as protein rather than plague carriers.”

  It was an old misconception anyway, she told herself, that rats brought the plague to the New World. A paper in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences had presented compelling evidence that it was human ectoparasites—fleas and lice—that had caused the lightning-fast spread of the plague. Take that, humans; you gave the rats a bad rap, but you’re the ones to blame. Take a bath every month, whether you think you need it or not.

  Pretending she was riffing with her kids did wonders for Alice’s mood and speed. She was at the back door of the train, yanking on the door, planning her next move before she knew it.

  Then there was a face at the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Midge and Sean were all over Jo’s dog, oohing and aahing and petting him. At least that would keep them occupied for a while.

  Paul and Petra were on the couch, Aggie balanced on the arm rest. They’d wanted a dog for so long Bill was shocked that they weren’t over with Midge, loving on Reggie. Perhaps it was too painful for them after all those years of wanting something and not getting it? Then again, perhaps it was the fact that he’d crashed through the door and grabbed his go-vest and his favorite rifle?

  Jo hung back, trying not to crowd them. They were all waiting on him. But should he tell them? Did “the truth” extend to this? He and Alice had never talked about this scenario.

  “There’s been an accident,” he said.

  Aggie gave one of her patented “you ain’t foolin’ us, Dad” snorts. “An accident?”

  Bill nodded, slowly. “Maybe.” He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his face in a vain effort to clear his mind. “The thing is, I don’t know what’s going on. Your mother called and put us on high alert.”

  “Mutant Pineapple, we know,” said Petra.

  “All she told me was that we were to get rid of the plastic.”

  Petra rolled her hands over and over, her gesture for “move it along, we know all this.”

  “Jo showed me news footage of K&P—well, I think it was K&P, it could have been another building nearby—anyway, a building near where Mom works that has collapsed.”

  “Let’s get going,” said Paul.

  Bill shot a look towards the kitchen. Midge was so young. He’d promised—not just to himself, but to Alice—that he would protect her. What did that promise mean if he up and left?

  Bill sighed. The choice—to stay with his kids or go rescue his wife—was unbearable, but he had to do it. He had to go. “Jo’s going to stay with you.”

  The kids smiled politely. They didn’t know Jo well enough to be excited. She was just some weird lady who lived on the farm next door.

  He and Alice had joked about making Jo one of their guardians, but he’d never honestly believed it would happen. “Please show her the ropes.”

  Jo smiled. “I know my way around your property, mister.”

  They all looked at her. What did that mean? She was a loner. She’d been on their property maybe twice in six years.

  “Jim commandeered me,” she said, “when he broke his hip. I’ve been keeping your lettuce alive for the last few weeks.”

  Bill nodded, grateful. Thank yous would have to come later. He was at the door, go-vest on, rifle in hand, shoes on, hat jammed down on his head in record time. “I won’t be gone long. There’s no traffic a
t this hour of the day. I can be there and back…” he looked at his watch. There was no telling whether there would be roadblocks or lane closures or restrictions on who could go in and out of the city. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I’m coming,” said Paul.

  He needed a wing man. There were a zillion scenarios he could imagine that would require two of them. He nodded.

  “Petra, I want you to continue stripping all plastic from the place. We need to get any pipes, any wiring, anything that has any kind of plastic in it or on it out of this cabin. Start at the center of the house and work your way out. You can pull beams from the wall. Just get it done.”

  Petra stood to attention. “Are you serious? Strip the wiring from the walls?”

  “I’m serious.”

  Petra and Aggie looked the walls over. “That means we’re going to be without electricity.”

  “It does.”

  Aggie nodded slowly. He could see the logic wheels turning. “Why not close this house down and build an extension on the barn?”

  “Sorry?” said Bill.

  “She is a certifiable genius,” said Paul

  Petra clapped her on the back. “One day, sis. One day they are going to find out just how smart you are and then you’ll be one of those richy-rich people on the Upper East Side and we’ll never see you.”

  Aggie laughed, the blush creeping up her face. “We have enough material. Tell us what kind of building you want and we’ll get started. We can just leave this place be. That way, when this all blows over, we have some place to come back to.”

  “With hot water on demand and lights after 6 p.m.” said Petra.

  Why hadn’t he thought of that? Build something new rather than tear down something old? It was brilliant. And they would do a good job. He’d have some serious caulking to do when he came back, but they would bust their butts trying to build something viable if they thought it would be useful to the family.

  “Do we have a go?” said Aggie.

  Bill smiled.

  “Go for what?” said Midge.

  Aggie grabbed her sister and swung her around by her arms. “We’re going to have an adventure, Midge. We’re going to build a real-life fort.”

  “Margaret,” she said, “call me Margaret.”

  “We’re going to build a fort, Margaret. Do you want in?”

  Margaret smiled. “I can build forts.”

  “I know,” said Aggie, “that’s why I want you to be my construction consultant.”

  Bill pulled his cap down over his eyes. He didn’t want the kids to see him cry. He was doing the right thing, going to find Alice, but missing this was a biggie. “Be sure to make some videos for me,” he said.

  “Sean’s good at that,” said Petra.

  Really? She said his name? Perhaps she had forgiven him for being a doof on Day One. Good. Harmony was good. And he couldn’t very well tell Sean to go back to the city now. There was no way of telling when it would be safe.

  “Right, I’m off.” Bill jogged towards the car, Paul right behind him. “Stay safe, work hard, and remember to brush your teeth.”

  It was ludicrous to have that be the last thing he said to his kids when he was heading into a disaster. He rolled down the window. “I love you.”

  Petra had her arm around Aggie, who was holding Midge’s hand. He corrected himself, Margaret’s hand. Sean stood to one side and Jo to the other, but they were smiling and waving too. Bill took a mental snapshot, put the car in gear, and took off to find his wife.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Are you with the MTA?” The guy was in her face and clearly not happy. No one was ever happy with the Metropolitan Transit Authority. That was a given. But she had nothing to do with the subway authorities, nor the fact that, give or take, fifty-plus New Yorkers were sitting on a train in a tunnel in the middle of the night. They hadn’t stopped at the station, they’d stopped short, so these folks had no way to evacuate. Not unless they were willing to risk death.

  “We need to know what’s going on,” he said.

  Alice shrugged. “I’m not with the MTA.”

  The guy threw his hands up. “When are they going to send someone?”

  “They aren’t,” said Alice. “There’s been…” she paused. She didn’t want them to lose it and run out onto the tracks without first forming a plan. She hadn’t tested the third rail, but with the lights on there was a real possibility that it was live. She couldn’t be responsible for those people fleeing into the dark because of what she told them, only to be electrocuted. “There’s been an accident.”

  “An accident? You don’t say…” He had that New York attitude that the rest of the country complained about. He was sarcastic and demanding and wanted answers yesterday.

  Alice nodded, edging her way past him. She was so close. Nothing could be allowed to slow her down. “There was an accident, a building collapse. The Fire Department is on the scene. As I see it, you’ve got two options: sit here and wait for someone to remember that you’re down here or walk the tracks until you hit a station, then get the hell out of here.”

  A man with a Pit Bull under his arm stepped into her path, daring her to pass. New York did not allow dogs on the subway unless they fit into a bag. New Yorkers responded by getting bags large enough to carry a 50 or 60-pound dog. Not everyone was as “inventive” as this guy, but enough people brought their dogs on the subway that Alice had to be on alert. Dogs weren’t her thing. She dodged around the latest challenger, being careful not to touch his “Staffie.”

  A woman, possibly in her 30s, a baby in a sling across her chest, lunged at her. “They told us to wait.” She patted the baby’s bottom through the sling. The child was mercifully silent. “And the rules are, you wait until someone from the MTA comes to help. There’s even a poster.”

  “I know,” said Alice. “Good luck.” She pressed forward, pushing through the people. They were looking to her for answers. She had none. No, that wasn’t right. She had some. She stopped and turned to face the crowd. “You have done a good job staying here, waiting for help. But now you know that no one else is coming…at least not in the foreseeable future…I recommend you carefully disembark and walk back to the 34th Street entrance and find your way home.”

  “What about the third rail?” The guy threw it down like a challenge. Like there was anything she could do about that. “It’s live.”

  Alice nodded. “Don’t touch it.” She turned again and walked on.

  “That’s it?” he shouted.

  Alice shrugged, opened the door to the next carriage, stepped across the gap, and moved on. She could hear them bickering amongst themselves. Some would stay, some would go, but that was not her primary objective here. Her goal was to inspect the underside of her former office building.

  The woman with the baby was suddenly by her side. “I’m coming with you. I don’t like Jeff.”

  “Who’s Jeff?” said Alice. Wrong question. It didn’t matter who Jeff was. “You can’t come with me. Where I’m going is dangerous. You need to take your baby and get out of here.”

  The woman’s eyes grew round. “Dangerous?”

  “More than you could imagine,” said Alice as she tugged on the door handle.

  “What really happened up there?”

  Alice didn’t answer. The door was stuck. She tugged again.

  “My name is Barbara, by the way, but my friends call me Barb.”

  Alice yanked and yanked, jiggling the handle up and down, but it didn’t give way. The dang thing was locked.

  “So…what happened up there?”

  “Exactly what I said.” Alice tugged on the handle one more time but there was no way it was going to budge. She’d always been able to walk from one end of the train to the other. “What gives with this being locked?”

  “The conductor moved us all to the end of the train,” said Barb. “He said he would return, but that was hours and hours ago. He locked the doors behind him a
nd never came back for us.”

  Alice swore under her breath. She was going to have to double back and walk another line. She closed her eyes and visualized the subway map. There was a way. Not as direct as this one, but there was a way.

  “I can help you,” said Barb.

  Alice took a deep breath. “I know you want to help, but the best thing you can do is get you and your baby to safety.”

  “Oh,” said Barb, unraveling the sling. “It’s not a baby. I just do that so I can get a seat.” She had a doll, a baby-sized doll wrapped in a sling tied to her front. Alice didn’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. “I know, I know. It’s cheating. But you can barely get a civil word out of anyone these days, and I was just tired of being invisible and nothing, so I invented a baby.”