Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (54 page)

In the airshaft, McNeil
used his walkie-talkie, which now worked
this close to the surface
and
I watched
appreciat
ively
as the
bucket
dropped toward us
. We rode it
upwards
with me
half expecting th
e
creature to follow.
On
ce we reached
the surface
, one of
McNeil’s men
called an ambulance
for Walmsley
. I urged
McNeil
to go to the hospital too, but he
steadfastly refused to leave until I did. I gave up arguing, l
ay back
on the ground
and rested
in the early afternoon sun
, suddenly aware of how tired I was
, partly due to my rapidly growing fever
.
Ten minutes later, an ambulance arrived. I watched the
attendants
load Walmsley’s almost comatose body into the back.
I tried McNeil one more time, this time
playing
on his loyalty.

“You need to go with Walmsley,” I suggested.

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“
They’ll screw around with him for too long trying to decide what’s wrong with him. You need to explain what happened
to him
, get him on antibiotics.”

He looked at W
almsley
and relented
. “I suppose I’d better.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“What about you. You look like death warmed over.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You take care of your friend.”

McNeil
reluctantly
followed
the EMT into the back of the ambulance.
He looked
back
at me
before climbing in
.

“You’re going back down there, aren’t you?”

“I have to.
Joria’s there
.
The creature’s still there.
”

“The air
down
will be
like breathing in an oven
pretty soon
.
Don’t dawdle
.
”

“
I won’t
.”

“
Kill it.
”

The ambulance driver took one look at me and tried to force me into the ambulance
as well
. I fought him off.

“Give me a massive dose of antibiotics and leave me alone.
I’ve been through this before.
The last doctor shot me full of
a
Lincosamide
.
”

He eyed me suspiciously, but seeing I was not
leaving
, he reluctantly
pulled out an ampoule
of
Lincomycin
and filled a syringe.
The needle stung as he sank it into my arm. When he was done, he picked up a couple of bottles of water from
a bin in the ambulance.

“You need to rehydrate yourself.”

I nodded
as he handed them to me, opened on
and downed half of
its
. The water
was warm but
felt good
going down my parched throat.

Simmons walked up
. I tossed him the second bottle. He took a long swig and stuck the bottle in his pocket.
“If we’re going back in, we had better
do it
before Section One gets here
.
They
’re bound to
find out what we’re up to
as soon as they receive the report of Walmsley’s fever. They watch out for that sort of thing.
”

I
watched the ambulance leave with Walmsley
and McNeil
, hoping
they both
made it
,
McNeil because I liked him and Walmsley because he was McNeil’s friend.
I
looked at
Simmons
and grinned.
“
Then t
hey’re going to be
awfully
pissed.”

I noticed Walmsley’s hunting knife tucked into
Simmons’
belt as he pulled
out his .357 and reloaded it. “What are we waiting on?”
he said.

30

Ella Ramirez
and
Steve
Capaldi
hid
behind a clump of trees and watched
Hardin
,
Dr.
Alvarez woman
and
a group of
men as they
remove
d
the steel grate
from an airshaft above the subway line
.
S
he recognized
the older, cigar smoking man
from previous interviews as Oliver McNeil,
manager of
the Metro Area Rapid Transit
. Capaldi’s camera was whirring softly as he filmed the group
from between two low-lying branches
.

News
that Hardin had
returned from his vacation and had
found
three more dead bodies in
his
condominium
had both horrified and pleased her. Either Hardin had failed to kill the creature or another one had taken its place. Either way, the story was
no longer
dead.
Their attempts to locate Hardin after
wards had failed.
It had been a stroke of providence that
while
driving from the monastery
after
filming some stock footage of the ruins
for her proposed special,
Hardin
passed them headed
toward
the monastery.
They turned around and followed, waiting across the road.
His visit was brief.
Following him back to a cheap motel near the airport, they
learned that
the mysterious Dr. Alvarez was
with him.
Her
face had graced the
airwaves and
stared out from the front pages of
newspapers for days, sought by the authorities as a ‘person of interest’.

“We have to follow them,” she said after the group disappeared into the shaft. “They’re up to something and I’m sure it has to do with the creature.” 

After reaching the opening,
Ella
stared down into the dizzy depths and swallowed hard. The thought of descending
made her hands clammy.

Capaldi smiled and waved his hand. “After you.”

She looked at Capaldi and smiled wanly.
“Okay.”

She was glad she had worn pants as she began
the long descent
down the ladder.
Halfway down, she stop
ped
to
rest. Her arms and shoulders ached and her hands
grew
numb from gripping the steel rungs
so tightly
.

“Hurry it up, Ella,” Capaldi chided. “I’m carrying
a video camera in one hand. How do you think I feel?”

She
silently cursed Capaldi,
steeled herself for the descent and continued. On
ce she reached
the bottom, she wished she had worn boots instead of
running
shoes as she crunched into piles of animal bones and some unidentifiable stuff.
At least she was off the ladder. They followed the shaft to the subway tunnel and
spotted
a walkway
alongside the tracks
.
T
rail
ing
Hardin
’s group
but stay
ing
far enough back to avoid detection
,
they
watch
ed
as
Hardin
entered a steel door.
She was puzzled when
McNeil and the others
closed
and barred
the door
behind him
.

“What are they doing?” she whispered.
“They’re sealing him in.”

“The door leads to the old subway tunnel that was abandoned about
half a century
ago because of cave-ins. I read an article
about it
in the
morgue once
. The creature must be in there.”
Capaldi laughed. “The dude’s got some
cajones
, eh? I knew jarheads like him Iraq.”

She
stared
in
awe
at
her cameraman
. “
You did research in the old
morgue
files?
I didn’t think you ever read anything but comic books.
”

“Well, I was dating Julie, the librarian at the time. I was killing time until she got off work.”

T
wo of the men continued down the tunnel along the walkway
, while
McNeil
, Alvarez
and the other two
men
headed back
towards them.

“Let’s hide,” she cautioned.
Capaldi led her to a small alcove
where the
shadows would hide them
.
T
he
group
passed by without
noticing
them in the darkness.

“
Should we follow Hardin?” Cap
aldi asked.

Ella
thought about wandering around in an old tunnel with the creature lurking somewhere and shuddered. “No.
I wonder what Dr. Alvarez is doing here?
Let’s follow
her.
”
At the edge of the
airshaft
tunnel
, they watched the
four
ascend the ladder
, and
then, to
Ramirez’s
horror,
began to
replace the grate
. Tears formed in her eyes as the bright spark of the
welder sealed them in.
She began to panic
,
wanting to
call out to them to stop
.
Capaldi placed his hand on her shoulder gently.

“
Don’t worry.
We can get out through the
other end
. It’s only a
few
miles down the line.”

She knew it was more like ten miles but
Capaldi’s
soothing voice calmed her.
“Thank you
,
”
she whispered.

“Let’s see what the other
two are
doing
,
”
he suggested.

They followed as the two
remaining men
closed and sealed
the remaining
door.
Their task completed
, the
two
h
urried
down the line to
ward
Bay Station
.
Ramirez collapsed on a concrete block.
She
usually jogged two miles every morning, at least when she wasn’t chasing down a lead on a story, but
this was
farther than she had ever walked in her life
and i
t had taken them two hours.
She was
exhausted,
sweaty and hungry. H
er dogged determination had gotten her some meaty stories in the past
but
she was
having doubts about the wisdom of pursuing Hardin
in his quest to kill the Midnight Monster
.
Then s
he recalled
the horror
stories of what other reporters had endured for the
ir
stor
ies and
knew she could stick it out.
She was in her prime and headed for the top. A little blood, sweat and tears
wouldn’t hurt her. They would just have to be careful.
Besides, she was not about to call it quits unless Capaldi did.