================
================
Jim handed
over the gun.
It was part decision,
and part preordination, a strange sense of fate that gripped him in that
instant, as though no other choice were possible or permitted. He felt
like a puppet with strings kept tight, a thing of flesh but no will.
So Jim handed Olik
the gun, and the big man pushed it out the ever-shrinking crack of the doorway,
and pointed it. Jim saw what he was doing through the thick glass window,
and didn't have time to realize what the Georgian was doing before the man
pointed the gun and inhaled sharply.
Olik didn't point
his gun at the ghoul that was still eating its way up his hand. And it
made sense that he wouldn't: gunshots hadn't done much thus far. No,
instead Olik pointed his gun at the point where the thing was doing the
chewing. At the juncture between the monster's flesh and his own.
Olik took a breath,
and Jim had an instant to wonder at the other man's guts, at his insane
bravery. He wondered if he would be able to do what was coming if he had
been in the big man's place. If his survival instinct would be so strong.
Olik pulled the
trigger. There was a roar, and another of the man's high-pitched screams,
and then he fell into the subway car, free at last from the teeth of the ghoul.
Olik's left hand
was a mass of blood and flesh that looked like it had been run through a meat
grinder. Between the effects of his own bullet and the young ghoul's
teeth, there was little left of it: pretty much just a thumb, one finger.
The rest was just stringy bits of sinew and bone poking out of a ragged
purse of skin.
Jim took a step,
thinking he might help with the man's injury. Olik shook his head, teeth
gritted. He pointed at the door with his good hand. "Close
it!" he shouted.
Jim nodded, and
took the spot Olik had vacated.
As Olik had done, Jim
had to grab onto the door with both hands, one on each side. His left
hand tingled as it passed onto the side of the door where the ghouls fought and
screeched and lapped at Olik's blood. He could feel the air of them, the
fetid fumes coming off them in almost visible waves.
But none of the
zombie things seemed to notice him. Or rather, they noticed but didn't
care. Not while there was blood at the ready. And there was
plenty. Olik's blood seemed to be all over the inside of the door and the
flooring between the cars. The ghouls crawled over and around themselves
like human-shaped grubs, lapping at every drop of blood. Their
sore-crusted skin was within easy reach of Jim, their snapping teeth within
mere inches of his exposed hand.
"Come
on," said Xavier.
The door continued
to move. But slowly. Jim didn't know if it would finish closing
before the things finished licking up the last dregs of Olik's blood. And
when that happened… then what? Would they stand silently? Would they
remain calm and simply wait until blood flowed again?
Somehow he doubted
it.
As if in answer to
his unspoken question, some of the child-fiends – the ones that were farthest
from him, the ones who had no access to Olik's blood, or who had already lapped
up what blood they could reach – started to hiss and spit and bite at one
another. The horde started to roil, to become a teeming mass of violence.
The door was almost
closed.
The nearest ghouls
reached for him. With fingers, with
teeth.
Jim could almost
feel their jaws clamping on his hand.
"Pull,
dammit!" He didn't know who screamed, if it was him or Xavier or
Karen. It didn't matter.
A finger touched
his. A caress that was soft, so soft it was almost obscene, like the
touch of a lover come to call, the first tentative kiss of a long-absent
sweetheart. "Let me in," the touch said. "Let me in
and you will know…
delight
."
Jim screamed in
revulsion and fear and – worst of all – in a kind of long-buried
yearning. As though part of him hoped for death at the soft touch of the
creatures on the other side of the door.
He pulled.
The door inched toward the metal jamb.
And then suddenly
the door was closed enough that he was able to switch his grip so that both
hands were on the inside of the door. He didn't think he'd ever been more
grateful of anything in his life.
Dead gray fingers
started to reach around the door. Then hands, grasping, clutching.
Xavier and Karen
had also switched their holds, pushing with their full combined strength on the
door, forcing it shut. Now Xavier let go of the door with one hand long
enough to hack at the intruding hands and fingers with his knife. Some of
the hands withdrew. Some of the fingers he cut off, and they remained on
the inside of the car, crawling like sightless grubs, mindless worms that still
carried an impossible hunger within them.
The door
shut. Xavier pulled off his belt one-handed and used it to lash the door
to the nearest seat supports.
Jim didn't let
go. He knew he'd have to at some point, but he didn't trust that this was
over. It
couldn't
be over.
He looked through
the window.
The things were
there. Standing just beyond the glass. No longer fighting, no
longer attacking one another. They simply stood with their pus-ridden
bodies, their scarred skin and their dead eyes and lank hair.
And they stared.
Waiting.
Jim looked back at
Olik. Adolfa had moved up at some point and was now helping the big man
bind up what was left of his hand. It looked like she was using a ripped
piece of her skirt.
Xavier let go of
the door. Gingerly at first, clearly waiting to see if his belt would
hold the door shut, then stepping away with what looked almost like defiance.
"I think it's
gonna hold 'em," he said. Then he yelped as he stepped on one of the
still-squirming fingers he had cut off with his knife. He kicked it away,
disgust rippling across his face.
Jim heard
something. A sound he hadn't heard much of before this night, but one
that was so distinctive that he would never forget it.
A gun being cocked.
He turned and saw
Olik, holding his gun. Pointing it at Xavier.
"You told him
to kill me," said Olik. His bass tones were back. His face had
always been white, but rage and loss of blood had turned it to a shade that was
almost blinding, even in the near-darkness of the subway car.
Jim's stomach
crawled, because whether the door held or not, he realized anew that the
monsters in the car behind were not the only ones he had to worry about.
There were other monsters in the car right here with him.
He wondered if he
would ever live through this. If he would ever see his girls again.
And suddenly he was
possessed by a feeling so strong it was more like a premonition, a prophecy, a
sure knowledge. A conviction that the fight he had had with Carolyn and
Maddie would be the last he ever saw of them.
================
================
Jim had
watched both Olik and Xavier
move. Under normal circumstances, he thought Olik was the more dangerous
person. That suspicion was born out by the fact that Xavier had seemed –
for whatever reason – to defer to the big Georgian, and Jim suspected that
Xavier wasn't the type to defer to anyone he didn't fear.
But this was hardly
a normal circumstance. Olik was down, badly wounded and almost certainly
in shock. Jim didn't know if Xavier analyzed those variables.
Probably not. The gangster probably saw the weapon and simply
reacted. But regardless of whether the gangbanger's move was calculated
or instinctive, it was effective.
Xavier threw
himself to the side. Olik managed a pair of quick shots, but both went
wide. Another sign of the bigger man's incapacitation: the fact that he
missed, a far cry from the perfect groupings of shots he had been able to
squeeze off earlier.
Jim noticed this
only peripherally. Primarily he was involved in his own survival.
He dove for what cover there was, hunching down and throwing his hands over his
head in the classic "Please-God-save-me-I'm-screwed" position.
He saw Karen doing the same, then lost sight of most of what was happening
around them as he buried his face in his hands. Another shot cracked out,
and a bullet zinged off metal somewhere nearby. Then there was only the
sound of scuffles, the noise of close-quarters survival: heavy breathing,
thuds, grunts.
Jim looked up after
a moment, the need to know what was happening overcoming his animal desire to
hide. He saw Xavier on top of Olik, the gangster wrestling with both
hands to keep the bigger man from pointing his gun at him. Then Xavier
twisted and brought his elbow sharply around, cracking it into Olik's cheek.
The Georgian barely
seemed to notice the hit, but it did distract him long enough for Xavier to
hammer his knee down on Olik's mangled hand.
That
Olik
noticed. He screamed, and lost control of the gun. Xavier tore it
away from him. Hit the bigger man with it. Again, Olik seemed
barely to notice.
Xavier hit him
again. And again.
The third time,
Olik's body seemed to accept the fact that it was being pistol-whipped into submission.
The big man finally started to lose consciousness, his eyes rolling back in his
head. He kept struggling, but the fight oozed almost visibly out of him.
Jim wondered if he
should help. Wondered
who
he should help.
But then it was too
late. Xavier hit Olik one more time and the Georgian's eyes closed.
Xavier stood, fist
clenched around Olik's gun. He was breathing like an ox in heat, his
cheeks slick with perspiration. "What the
hell's wrong with you
?"
he screamed, and kicked Olik's unmoving form viciously in the side. Olik
moaned but didn't regain consciousness.
Xavier looked
around, and Jim shrank from the man's gaze. The gangbanger looked like he
had taken a bad drug trip, like the fight with the ghouls and then with Olik
had been the straw that broke the back of his sanity. He pointed the gun
at each of the remaining passengers in a hand that trembled enough for Jim to
fear the man might accidentally discharge the weapon, but not so much that he
thought Xavier might miss if he decided to shoot someone purposefully.
"What's wrong
with
all
of you?" he spat. "You," he said, pointing
at Adolfa. "You, what've you done to help, Gramma
-cita
?
Other than run away and be a pain in my ass?" He swiveled to point
the gun at Jim. "And you, you white-ass, sniveling
pussy
.
Only thing you been good for is to close that door there. Other than
that, you done nothing.
Nothing
!"
Then the gun turned
on Karen, who was still hunched in a corner. A glint that Jim didn't like
came into Xavier's eye. "And you. Stand up." Karen
didn't move. "Stand up!"
Karen did, but
seemed like she barely had the energy or balance for it. She was
whispering something under her breath. Jim couldn't make it out.
"I seen how
you been looking at me," said Xavier. "All high and mighty and
so much better than me. Well you ain't better than me!" He
licked his lips and added, "Not better than me." Those words
were quieter, but somehow they seemed more dangerous to Jim, like the hush that
seemed to come into the air before a vicious lightning strike.
Xavier's eyes
flicked over Jim's shoulder. Jim couldn't help himself. He
looked. He knew he shouldn't, knew he should keep his eyes firmly glued
on the gun and the deranged man holding it. But he glanced behind him.
The ghouls were
there. Watching. Standing clustered around the lashed-shut door to
the subway car. Their eyes seemed to glow in the hazy dim, illuminated by
the searing glow of the lights that passed by outside the car, the red and
white and yellow and green lights that would have seemed almost Christmasy in
other circumstances, but which now simply cast everything in macabre and sickly
tones.
The girls and the
few boys were not moving. Just watching. Watching.
Waiting
.
Jim was thrown back
to the moment he looked down on his mother. Seeing her body for the first
time after… after it happened. The blood. Wanting to touch her,
wondering if she was dead. Knowing she was. The sense of
expectation, the sense of dread. He wondered suddenly if his eyes had
looked like those of the things that now watched the strange drama in the
subway car.
Jim looked back at
Xavier. The gangster's eyes had lowered a bit. No longer looking at
the ghouls outside the car, but at the door. Or no, at….
"My
belt," said Xavier. A sly grin spread across his lips. The
grin made Jim feel like vomiting. It reminded him for some reason of
Freddy. But a version of Freddy grown large and strong and
dangerous. A predator who had graduated beyond ravaging helpless children.
Xavier's eyes moved
to Karen. "Bring me my belt," he said.
"What?"
She looked at the door. As if to remind her what the belt held back, the
door rattled slightly as the ghouls pressed against the lashed door.
"Are you insane?"
Xavier stepped
closer. He cocked the gun. "Bring me my belt,
bitch!" Karen didn't move. Xavier's grin grew wider, more
cunning. Jim's flesh felt like it was going to crawl right off his bones
as Xavier's free hand dropped to his jeans. He hitched at them.
"Then
you
come here."
Karen looked
shocked. Confused. Jim knew what was coming, and wondered if she
did. Wondered if she knew but refused to admit it.
"What?" she said again, her eyes wide and uncomprehending.
"Come help me
with my pants, bitch," said Xavier. "They're falling
down."
Karen looked at
Jim. He saw now that she understood; saw a request for aid in her
eyes. And he wanted to help her. He was a good guy. He prided
himself in that, it was something he had hung to his whole life.
But he also saw
Maddie. He saw Carolyn.
Was it better to
die a hero, or to return to his girls?
He didn't move.
"Get over
here, now!"
Karen stepped
forward with a sob. Her feet moved strangely, hitching forward as though
they were had been stuck in tar, like she had to jerk each one free before
taking a step. Xavier watched her approach with clear relish, his grin no
longer physically capable of widening, but somehow managing to grow more
intense. The lights outside began streaking by more rapidly, the
laser-like glints illuminating his sweaty face and the rapid flare of his
nostrils.
"You don't
have to –" began Adolfa.
"Shut
up," rasped Xavier. He didn't look at her. His eyes remained
glued to Karen, gleaming like those of a jackal. Jim wondered if this had
been the man's intent from the beginning, from the first moment he had laid
eyes on the woman. Jim knew about rapists, about sex crimes and the types
of people who committed them. And he suspected that Xavier was the type
called a sadistic rapist, a man who, once inflamed, might not stop until he
killed or at least maimed his victims.
Karen was almost
within reach of Xavier. Jim wondered again if he should do
something. Try something. And again he saw his girls. Saw
their faces in his mind.
He wasn't being
weak. He was being smart. He was trying to survive for them.
He almost believed
it. Almost believed the lie he was telling himself.
Xavier's hand shot
forward with the speed of a striking viper. He grabbed Karen by the arm
and pulled her closer, placing the muzzle of Olik's gun against her throat.
"Get on your
knees." Karen shook her head. She sobbed. "I won't
say it again."
Slowly, slowly,
Karen lowered herself. Xavier switched the gun so it was pointed at her
eye. She dropped her head, and now it was pointed at the top of her
skull. Which was no consolation, Jim thought, since any angle at this
range was an assured kill shot.
Jim caught Adolfa's
eye. She looked terrified. And like him, she looked totally
incapable of anything more than watching.
"Undo my
pants," said Xavier. He laughed. "Should be easy.
Belt's already off for you."
"Please,"
whispered Karen. Her voice was so low, so breathy, that Jim could barely
hear it. It was the dream of a prayer, the last gasp of hope.
"I saved your
life, bitch. With my belt, I saved your uptight, rich ass that's so much
better than mine. So now I figure you owe me."
"Please,"
she said again. Even more quietly.
Xavier's smile
disappeared. Rage flared across his face with the white-hot intensity of
a sunspot. His free hand snapped out in a vicious punch that hammered
Karen's already-bloody nose into a pulp, that knocked her senseless and
possibly killed her where she knelt.
Or at least, that's
what Jim figured
should
have happened.