“Ooh. Looks like we gots a complication wit this here extraction,” he told his patient over the man’s screams. Corrina and Cole were almost past him when he turned and pointed the bloody pliers at them. “Where d’ya think youse two ‘r goin’, huh?” His accent was flagrantly New Yorker. At the best of times a New York accent was an overture to the obnoxious, but this man’s accent practically screamed I’m proud to be rude and crude.
“We’s just lookin’ to use da back door,” Corrina told him, using his exact accent right back at him. “Fitty cent? Whatdya say?”
He looked at Cole and then past him at the police officers, who were now coming down the stairs by the dozen. “This here exit is for Morlocks only. Five dolla, meh-be.”
The “meh-be” suggested there was wiggle room for negotiation, however Cole didn’t have time. He reached for his money, turning slightly so the barber couldn’t see how much he had. “Five for the passage and another five to keep your mouth shut.”
The barber left a red smear on Cole’s hand as he took the cash. “Youse gonna need a guide or ya gonna run inta da Black Water Boys, anna youse don’ want that. They’s some hatin’ trogs. ‘Nother five dolla get youse back across da river. Yeah?”
Or it gets us led straight into an ambush, Cole thought to himself. His other choice was to wander through the bowels of Queens until he was eaten up and shit out. “Yeah,” he told the red-handed barber. “Let’s do it, quick.”
Grinning, the man ducked around the corner of his stall and grabbed a gangly teen. His old black jeans were too small for him, showing off his dirty ankles; his rubber sneakers were four sizes too big, making him look like a duck with black feet; his bushy hair had been cut to hide his face as much as possible. It came down to just below his brow, while the edges of his eyebrows were swallowed by the mop. He even had odd rudimentary braids sprouting from either side of his head and tied just below his lower lip, making it seem as though he were some sort of animal staring out from the mass.
His eyes were those of a fourteen-year-old, the slag on his hands and the tip of his nose made him seem fifty. Overall, he gave the impression that he had just crawled out from beneath a rock and that he’d like to crawl back under again as soon as possible.
The barber presented him and then held out the red hand again. When Cole dropped the five dollars into it, the barber stared at it with love as he pushed the boy forward. “This here is Graylin Reilly. Get ‘em back to rich-ville, Graylin. Go on.”
Graylin’s eyes popped wide at the money, then narrowed as he took in Cole in his long trench coat. What little of his face could be seen warped into a sneer when he saw the police moving through the crowd. “Fuckin’ taxmen,” he muttered. “Through here,” he told them and pulled back a sheet to show the “back room.” The barber and his family apparently lived in the station. The ten by ten square was draped with rope from which clothes no better than Graylin’s rags hung. Below the drying laundry was a mattress covered with stiff, vile sheets and a pile of blankets that crawled with lice and bedbugs. To the side was a stack of water-stained boxes, a tilting stack of chipped and dirty dishes, and a little black mound from which smoke drifted.
The boy went to the mattress and lifted one end, showing a ragged, narrow hole in the concrete. “I’ll go first. It’s gonna be tight for you,” he said to Cole. “Just keep going and it’ll be alright.”
Cole was afraid the tunnel was going to be little more than the barber’s toilet, a shit-filled hole that ran down to some shit-filled cavern. Instead it turned out to be part of the pre-apocalypse water drainage system. The pipe was still filthy and it was more than just tight. Cole felt like a cork at times and had to twist and squirm in certain spots in the crude tunnel. Luckily, it ran only sixty feet before they crawled out into a larger passage. This one was so pitch black that nothing whatsoever could be seen even an inch away.
Graylin could be heard softly scraping at the wall. There was a metallic squeaking sound and then, a second later, they were blinded by what seemed like the light of a dozen suns. The source was only a single bulb that Graylin carried around in a padded box. With its light they could see dim figures lounging up and down the tunnel, waiting for the taxmen to leave.
Using a cloth, Graylin unscrewed the bulb. “Before we go,” he said, his voice pitched low, “don’t ask questions and don’t talk. Outsiders are okay spendin’ their money in the stations, but we don’t like ‘em down here. It’s trespassing. So, zip the lip, got it?”
Cole grunted for both of them.
“Good. Now keep close.” He moved down the tunnel, keeping as far to the left as he could. As he walked, he flicked an old lighter. It was out of butane, but it still struck a spark. Usually, there were answering sparks that let him know where others were. Sometimes there was an orange glow of a cigarette and once they were warned by a growly voice, “Youse bettah not fuckin’ touch me.”
The squatters didn’t last and after a hundred yards or so there were no more answering flicks. Once more Graylin dug out his light bulb and felt for a socket. As he did, Cole whispered to Corrina, “So you have been to Queens. Why’d you tell me you haven’t?”
“I ain’t never been here, honest. But slags are people, too and they do what people do when the taxmen show up. Those that gots money hide it and those that are in trouble with the law hide themselves. I just followed the sketchiest of them.”
“Watch who youse callin’ a slag,” Graylin muttered, his accent thickening up. “And asides, I told youse to shuddup.”
As much as Cole didn’t like being told to shut up, it was a sound policy. They remained silent as Graylin maneuvered them through the labyrinth. Sometimes their guide would stop and listen at various tunnels and other times he would suddenly double back racing away without a word and expecting them to keep up. There were twists and turns, alcoves, and metal doors. Cole had been lost from the get go and was beginning to get angry when Graylin pushed him over the top, saying, “We’re going to need twenty-five cents each to go on. The Black Water Boys have come outta their holes. They musta heard about youse two, mehbe.”
If they really knew about me, they’d want more than seventy-five cents, Cole thought. He brought out the change and handed it over.
Graylin felt the coins in the pitch black and knew it was exact. “Remember, no talkin’ at all,” he warned again.
Once more they set off, the darkness like a blanket around them. The air was hot and there was an acrid ferric tang that told them someone was spinning up some mule. Cole’s head began to thump from the stench while at the same time, Corrina’s heart began to race, and her mouth began to salivate. After a quarter of a mile they left the mule scent behind. What replaced it made all three want to go back.
The stench of troglodyte was unmistakable. The smell held all the charm of a rotting corpse that had been dunked in an overflowing outhouse on the hottest August day.
Corrina zipped up her jacket and pulled it up over her nose and still she made retching noises with every other breath. Dizzy, she kept falling into Cole. He prayed silently that she wouldn’t throw-up because he was sure that if she did, he would as well.
“No,” Graylin told them. “You’re doin’ it wrong.” He took a deep breath and held it. Releasing the air, he explained, “You gotta, you know, embrace it. You won’t smell it after a while. It’s the only way.”
Cole tried and broke out in a pale sweat. Corrina tried also and dry-heaved against the wall. She panted as she slowly sank to her knees. “I…think…I’m gonna…” She had been about to say pass out, only she passed out before she could. Cole caught her and lifted her easily into his arms.
“Go on,” he told Graylin. “I’ll carry her.” Although she was light, he felt weak from the stench, which only grew worse the further they went. He was gulping down the hideous air by the time Graylin stopped suddenly. The boy flicked his lighter and an even dozen flicked back in response.
“I just lookin’ to get to the rive
r. You chargin’ the usual?”
A snuffling mouth breather moved closer. Even with Cole’s night eyes straining to their max, he could only see the being as a vague humped outline. “Depends, don’t it. Who you gots witchu? Smells like a vamp. You gots a vamp witchu?”
“Naw, it’s just a guy and his daughter. They’s nobodies.”
The snuffler was very close now, adding the heady aroma of concentrated urine to Cole’s suffering. “A daughter? Really? Hmm, let’s have a look at her.”
A flashlight was suddenly flicked on, blinding Cole. He knew he was caught in a dangerous situation, but didn’t know how bad until he was able to blink back against the light. Then he saw the unmistakable shape of a scattergun barrel pointed at him. It was an old single shot breechloader, pitted with corrosion and flaking rust inside the bore. It was a terrible weapon and yet, with Corrina in his arms, Cole knew he would never be able to get to the Forino in its holster or Eddie’s trim little .32 Crown in his pocket.
The creature holding the scattergun was no longer human. It stood, stoop-shouldered and huddled under filthy layers of linen and strips of cloth. What parts of its flesh that could be seen were grey and sloughing off in moldy curls. Its hair was lank and greasy and when it fell out, hunks of its scalp fell as well. It no longer had much of a face; its ears were gone and its nose was little more than a pair of wet red holes in its face.
It was a trog, which meant that so much slag had built up in its system that it had triggered an auto-immune response that resembled the most hellish form of leprosy imaginable.
And yet it still had a sex drive. It was also hungry, and to many trogs, meat was meat, human or otherwise.
“We got da crossing money,” Graylin said, holding out the change.
“Fuck yer pennies, kid,” another of them barked. “This ain’t a nobody. What do da taxmen want with nobodies? Yeah, we got a runner sayin’ to expect a man and a girl. There a ten-dollar reward for the man, an’ we can keep da girl.”
Graylin looked back at Cole and shrugged, his bushy hair going back and forth. “This ain’t them.” It was a brave try, but the trogs weren’t buying it. Another of them stuck an Eagle knockoff in his face and forced him back. A third advanced empty-handed on Cole and reached into his jacket and pulled out the Forino. With only three fingers left on his right hand, he had trouble brandishing it, but when he did, four or five other trogs rushed in.
One went for his pockets, a second swung a punch at his face, while the rest tried to pull Corrina from his arms. She was awake by then and fighting mad. Although barely eighty pounds, she could kick like a mule and squirm like a snake. All for nothing. There were too many of them and she was thrust against the wall of the narrow tunnel with her arms pinned to her sides.
Cole found himself on his knees, both of his guns gone and the trog’s scattergun pointed into his chest.
“Any last words, vamp?” the trog asked around a smile that held only six teeth. They protruded up at odd angles through swollen and bleeding gums.
“Other than go fuck yourself? Yeah. Just don’t shoot me in the face. I’d hate to go out as ugly as you.”
Chapter 7
Trogs were generally insane, some more than others. The tumors in their brains could grow to the size of golf balls. They made them hateful, crazy creatures that society was right to put out of their misery when they came on them. It also made them slow, stupid and predictable.
Of course, the trog would blow Cole’s face off even if it meant leaving him basically unrecognizable. Not that Cole planned on getting shot by this one. Other than not dying on his knees, he had no plan whatsoever. He just knew that a head could move much faster than a torso. And so could a hand.
As the bore of the gun swept up, so did Cole’s hand. It was nothing to twist his head to the side just as he pushed the gun up and away. The explosion from the gun deafened him and the red fire that roared past his face partially blinded him. A huge red blob filled his vision and the only thing that didn’t send him into a panic was the idea that the gunshot had also blinded those around him.
The light seared into the eyes of the tunnel dwellers and every one of them turned away, the remains of their faces squinched up.
Only Cole and the trog with the scattergun knew what had happened—and Cole was faster, much faster. He was off his knees in a flash and driving his bulk into the trog who was sliding his free hand up into the shambles of cloth draped across him, searching for another shell. Cole ran him into the Trog carrying the Eagle knockoff, sending them both into the wall.
Cole went for the Eagle, but just then the flashlight was dropped, and the light flickered on and off like a strobe. His hands found an arm and frantically he traced the limb down to an empty hand. Then something clubbed him on the side of the head. The blow wasn’t hard enough to shake him and he swung a near invisible fist at an invisible opponent, connecting with something soft and disgusting.
There was a shout, a scream and a gunshot. The gun that had gone off was all too familiar; someone was shooting at him with his own gun! The Forino went off twice more in quick succession. The air hissed a foot from his right ear, then a moment later, a scream ripped the darkness to his left.
“Stop shooting!” the trog with the empty scattergun screamed. The weak light from the flashlight showed him as a dim outline. Cole aimed a looping punch at his misshapen head. The punch landed flush and dropped him to the sticky floor of the tunnel. Immediately two other trogs dove for the dropped scattergun. Cole let them fight for it. He had to get to the trog that had his Forino. Getting the gun back was his only chance. Not including the scattergun, he guessed that there were at least three guns aimed in his general direction: his Forino, the .32 Crown and the Eagle knockoff.
His chances of living through the next few seconds, even if he managed to get the Forino away from the trog, were utter crap. But that didn’t stop him. Instinct drove him and he threw himself into the middle of the trogs. There was a flash of silver and he went for it. Both hands found a wrist and shoved the arm away just as the Forino went off again. The bullet missed Cole’s leg by an inch and went into the shin of a trog next to him. There was a howl of pain and then something heavy came down on the back of his legs just as the trog with the Forino was pushed from behind.
Everything was helter skelter. The light kept blinking on and off and people were screaming all around him as Cole went into a slow fall, in a tangle of arms and legs around him. A meaty fist struck him on the temple, and another pounded him on the side of the neck. Someone yanked his right arm back and now he only had one hand keeping the Forino from being pointed at his face.
Not that it mattered. The Eagle knockoff seemed to materialize from out of the gloom. Its dull grey might have looked ethereal, but it was hard and real as it ground into the side of Cole’s head.
“Don’t shoot!” one of the trogs cried. “Lemme get outta da way first.” Now Cole fought to keep the trogs close. It was a wasted effort and in seconds, Cole was left on the wet tunnel floor as a trog with rotted fingers tried to pull the heavy, rusted trigger of the big gun. Cole had just decided he would make a last-ditch effort to roll to his right before the gun fired when there was a snapping gunshot that didn’t fit with anyone’s notion of how the Eagle knockoff would sound.
It was a higher crackling sort of gunshot and it went off four times, one shot after another. The first shot killed the trog with the big handgun, the next two were fired into the crowd standing around Cole. Where the fourth shot went Cole had no idea. The silver gleam of his Forino caught his eyes. He lunged for the gun as everyone around him began yelling and going in different directions.
The trog attached to the Forino held on as tightly as he could, but despite the man’s size, he was sickly and weak. With a savage twist of his wrist, Cole had the gun free. By the time he had fumbled it around, the trog was lurching madly away, rushing down the tunnel with the rest of them. The trogs had left the flashlight behind. Its light pushed
feebly at the gloom and showed one dead trog and two others lying in dark pools.
Graylin was in a cringe against one wall, while Corrina stood in the center of the tunnel, looking stunned. “Fuuuck,” the little girl said, gazing down at the sprawled-out bodies. It was only then that he realized she was holding the subcompact Crown.
“You did all that shooting?” he asked. “Impressive. Hey, maybe take your finger off the trigger and switch it to safe.”
She turned the gun over and squinted at the letters. “Which one says safe?”
“It starts with an S,” Cole told her as he reached down for the fallen Eagle knock off. “S for safe. How’d you manage to get the gun? Did someone drop it?”
Corrina grinned. “I swiped it from you back at the station. Pretty slick, huh? When the cops came you were so freaked you didn’t even feel it when I snatched it out of your pocket.”
“Great, you’re a whore and a pickpocket. Well, hand it over.”
She pulled the gun close to her body. “I ain’t a whore. I was a ‘honey’ and I ain’t worked in…” She had done a little “side work” but couldn’t remember if he knew or not, so she went with, “I haven’t worked in a good long while. And you should let me hold onto this. I just saved your life with it. And I saved you up in the station when the taxmen came.”
“We wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t rescued you from Eddie and his goons,” he shot back.
“And I was only kidnapped cuz of you,” she replied. “And that’s why I need a gun. A lot of crap happens around you, Cole. I gotta protect myself and you half the time.”
Cole couldn’t argue with the truth. “It’s why I don’t want you getting into the bounty hunting biz. This is about all you can expect from that life. Son of a bitch! One of those fucks took my stash. I had two hundred doll…unless you took it?”
Dead Eye Hunt (Book 2): Into The Rad Lands Page 6