================
================
The door
slid open, and Jim was
surprised when Olik didn't step out. Then he realized the big Georgian
was waiting for Jim to precede him. At first he thought the man was
trying to get him to risk his neck in case something was waiting out in the
space between cars, and almost stood his ground. Then he moved
forward. Partly that was because he realized that they were as likely to
be killed where they stood as anywhere. And partly it was because he
didn't think Olik was treating him as a guinea pig in this instance. No,
he felt almost like the other man was saying, "It was your idea to get out
here, so let's see what you do."
Any hopes that Jim might
have had of stopping the train from the outside were dashed when he stepped
onto the platform between cars. Unlike the space between the previous
cars, there was no covering to shield the platform from the tunnel. Here,
the platform that hung like a suspension bridge between the car they were on
and the next one was open to the tunnel, open to the world outside the train...
whatever world that might be. Jim could feel the air whipping past, could
hear the unblocked echo of the train's passing on the tunnel walls.
But within seconds
he knew there was no hope of getting to the third rail or the subway's motor or
any contact points between them. It was just as dark out here as it had
been in the car, and any attempt to fiddle with the mechanisms underneath or
outside the subway car would equate to passive-aggressive suicide
attempts. He would fall, he would be sucked under the train, he would be
mangled by the wheels, he would be maimed by passing machinery. The
possibilities were endless, and the only thing they all had in common was that
they all ended badly for him.
"I can't see
shit out here," said Jim. It was more a declaration of frustration
than an informational statement, just something to say in order to let the
others know that he couldn't do anything, and the anger he felt welling up
about that fact.
Adolfa
tsk-tsk
ed
quietly from the car behind him. Grandmothers everywhere would prefer
that cursing be kept at a minimum, apparently. Even when faced with
horrible, impossible death, please keep a civil tongue.
Jim hated her in
that moment. He was a grown man. He had been dressing himself for
years. He had even seen an R-rated movie or two. He could curse if
he felt like it. For a second he thought about turning around and calmly
saying each curse word he knew. Not yelling it, just sort of listing them
off. To see how she would react.
Instead he felt his
way out onto the platform. There were guardrails on the outsides of the
platform, presumably to keep people from pitching off the narrow shelf and into
dark oblivion – wouldn't want anyone to fall and miss their chance to be
dissolved or impregnated with a miniature version of themselves or otherwise
horribly dispatched. In spite of the irony of the guardrails, though, Jim
put a hand on each as he edged into the nothing that separated the cars.
What if it
is
nothing? he thought. What if there's nothing past the platform?
A horrible image
entered his mind, a vision of himself putting a foot down in the darkness, only
there was nothing there to put it on. The platform ended, there was no
connecting car. Nothing before or behind this car, it was just a
singularity in the void that the universe had become. And Jim fell off
the platform, not to be crushed under the car's wheels, but simply to fall
forever, falling and falling and falling and falling. He saw himself
screaming until he could scream no more, losing himself in a madness that was
truly all-encompassing, because the universe would have cast itself away, and
all that would be
left
was madness.
He put his feet
down more carefully after that.
After only a few
more steps his toe nudged something hard. The door to the next car.
He let go of one of the guardrails. His entire body clenched when he did
it, as though he was letting go of one of one of his few remaining tethers to
reality.
"You okay,
Doctor Jim?"
Jim almost jumped
right off the platform. "Fine," he snapped. "Shut
up."
Silence from
behind. He felt forward. Found the car with his blindly groping
hand. He miscalculated the distance slightly and his fingers bashed the
steel door, crumpling against it. He barked in pain.
"You –"
began Adolfa.
"Shhh,"
hissed Olik. "Doctor Jim said no to bother him."
"I don't
care." Adolfa sounded petulantly resolute. Jim could imagine her
stamping her tiny foot as she stood up to the giant man. "He could
be hurt."
Jim decided to
forestall the argument. "I'm okay," he shouted.
"You
see?" said Olik. "The doctor is fine, yes?"
It would have been
a comical interplay in any other situation. Even now, Jim felt the urge
to smile. He didn't let himself do it, though. He felt like that
would be wrong somehow. This was not a place to smile. This was a
serious place.
His hand found a
strip of metal. A crash bar. He hesitated for a moment when he
found it. Was this kind of latch normal on a subway car? He
couldn't remember. He was a long-time subway commuter, the kind of guy
who knew how to get anywhere in New York with the right subway token, ticket,
or card. But he couldn't remember if this was how subway cars felt, if
this was the kind of latch they had on their doors.
Maybe Olik's right,
he thought. Maybe we're all nuts.
But that was
another dead end. If he was insane, sitting in a padded cell and drooling
his way to the next meal time or making
papier mâché
art using blunt
scissors, then there was nothing he could do. There was no escape, no way
out of this.
And he had to get
out of this. He had always gotten out of every bad situation. Every
time. Even when his mother had –
(
been murdered
hacked to pieces blood everywhere all over the walls all over her sheets all
over her eyes her open eyeballs and pooling on her open eyes so much blood
)
– even with what
had happened with her, even then he had found a way to rise above it. To
turn difficulty into triumph and the promise of a better tomorrow.
Jim pushed the
crash bar. He didn't really expect it to depress, and even if it did he
didn't expect the door to the next car to open.
But the crash bar
did
depress. The door
did
open.
"The next
car's open," he called back. Immediately he heard movement behind:
Olik and Adolfa must have been eager to get out of the car, out of the moving
headstone.
He stepped forward.
================
================
It was
just as dark in the new car as
it had been in the old. But Jim still felt better here. They were
moving forward. That was progress, wasn't it? Sooner or later they
would have to get to the front of the subway train, and then they could...
... what?
Jim thought about
the driver he had seen earlier, the man with the too-gaunt face, beckoning him
forward. Did he expect they would be able to just chat with that
cadaverous looking fellow, simply ask the guy to pull over and let them off
somewhere uptown?
Jim doubted it
would be that simple. But that didn't mean he was going to stop moving
forward.
Of course, the
driver could want you to do just that
.
The thought was
hardly welcome. What if they were being herded somehow? Led like
calves down a chute where a butcher would be waiting with a bolt stunner, ready
to pound their brains with a piston that would turn their gray matter into
jelly.
Something touched
Jim's back. His skin felt for a moment as though it was trying to crawl
off his bones, or as though it had suddenly shrunk several sizes.
"Is that you,
Doctor Jim?" Olik's voice managed to both boom and whisper at the
same time, and Jim's skin returned to something approaching normalcy as he
realized it was the big man's hand on his back.
"Yeah.
Is Adolfa with you?"
"Right here,
mi
hijo
."
Jim pressed slowly
forward, Olik's hand a constant pressure on his back. "What does
mi
hijo
mean, anyway?" he whispered. He was talking to talk, trying
to fill the void with something warm, something real.
"It means 'my
son.'"
That was
nice. Not nice enough to offset the distinctly
un
niceness of
walking through the darkness like this, but nice nonetheless.
He pushed forward
an inch at a time, hands outstretched and waving before him. He fully
expected to come into contact with something grotesque at any moment. To
touch scales or horns or talons or something worse for which humanity had no
name. But there was nothing. Just air.
The walk seemed to
last forever. Jim felt like he was trekking across a dark galaxy, a
distance measured not in feet or even miles but in light-years.
"Olik,"
he said. He had to speak. The silence and darkness were
overwhelming him. Driving him crazy. He was starting to see
flashes, but they weren't real. Just jelly-blobs of light that existed
only in his mind. They looked like blood. Like bloody sheets.
Eye sockets pooling with red.
"Yes, Doctor
Jim."
"What happened
to that ship? The
Oura…
."
"The
Ourang
Medan
? It was Dutch ship. American ships were sent message from
ship, message that said 'Come aboard. All officers and captain
dead.' And then another message: 'I die.' They came aboard and
found all men dead. And then…."
Silence.
"Then?" said Adolfa. Jim took another step into darkness.
How far did this car extend? He was sure it should have ended; sure they
should have reached the front by now. It felt like like he'd been walking
for years.
"The Americans
leave. They ran. Some say is because there was a fire and they had
to get out. But I think is because they knew if they stayed, they would
be caught, too. So they left. They ran, and blew up the
Ourang
Medan
before its spirits could capture them as well. Before they
could be trapped by madness, and death could come for them."
The hand on Jim's
back trembled. Jim stopped moving forward. "You okay,
Olik?" he said.
"Fine."
Jim shook his head
in the darkness. "Bull."
"Just
tired. Hand hurting a bit."
"Sit
down."
"Would rather
keep moving."
"And I'd
rather not have to carry you the rest of the way."
"You will
never carry me. I guarantee that." The pride was easy to hear
in Olik's voice. Even so, Jim heard the big man sit down on
something. Jim sat, too, and was surprised to find that the seats were
different again. Neither the new seats that had been in the last car, nor
the older seats in the one before. No, these felt plush. Regal.
"Comfy,"
said Adolfa.
"Yeah."
Jim closed his eyes. He would not have thought it possible, but he felt
suddenly sleepy. He wanted to curl up for a nap.
Then sleep fled as
something flashed. A light. Not outside the car, either. This
was a light within the metal box that he had come to despise so very
much. A snapping, flaring brightness as the lights in the subway car all
went on at once.
They extinguished
almost as fast as they came. Just an instant. A single moment in
what had come to seem like an eternity of darkness. But it was enough.
Their current
subway car was old. Even older than the one they had just left. It
looked like maybe one of the first subway cars to have been built, all leather
and wood and glass and subtly rough edges that bespoke hand-tooling.
There were benches covered in thick padding, and every few feet the benches
broke and a pair of Victorian-style four-legged chairs sat bolted to the
floor. It almost looked like an old-fashioned Pullman carriage.
The flashing lights
came from kerosene lamps bolted above every third window. They flickered
with living flame, though they had all come on at the same exact moment, and
had all turned off at the same time as well.
Jim also noted
that, in the hours – it had seemed like
days
– that they had been
inching forward – they had only managed to move up the car about ten feet.
The lights went out
with an audible snap.
"What
now?" said Olik. The big man sounded weary. Jim wondered how
much longer he would last. And what would happen if he lost so much blood
that he could no longer walk.
The darkness had
seemed profound before. This time, with the memory of light burning
behind his eyes, Jim found it oppressive. It had a physical weight,
pressing down on him like water in the ocean depths. He felt like he
might be crushed by it.
I can't do
this. I can't do this.
You have to do
it. Get to the girls. Get to your girls.
He felt the outline
of the small book in his pocket. Pictured the smaller photo folded within
it.
Don't give up.
I won't. I
promise
.
The lights flared
into brightness again.
Beside him, Adolfa
screamed. Jim didn't blame her. He would have done the same, but
his voice had been stolen, completely and utterly, by what he saw all around
him.
He had promised
himself only a moment ago – less – that he would not give up. And now he
wondered if he would be able to keep that promise. The darkness, so heavy,
so crushing and devastating only an instant before, now seemed to beckon to him
like a memory of happiness with an old friend.
He wished the
darkness would return. Because then he wouldn't have to see what was all
around him. All around
them
.
"We're going
to die," whispered Olik.
Jim nodded.
The big man was right.
They were
all
going to die.