Like the people
inside weren't passengers.
Like they were a
meal.
================
================
The train
pulled into the subway
tunnel. Sound changed, the way it always did when the subway went into
the darkness of the underground tube. As though the world outside had
ceased to exist, or at the very least had lessened in reality, in force.
They were traveling out of the world above and into a shadow-plane, a place
that only joined the "real" at specified anchor points.
It was something
Jim did all the time. But though it was something he should have been
well-used to, he felt uneasy. Like today's trip was different.
The skull….
No. Not a
skull. Just lights. Just a skinny man under some seriously bad
lighting
.
Jim looked around
the car. Lawyer-lady was still texting. Olik the Russian scary guy
was still somehow managing to look both asleep and simultaneously ready to
pounce on the first person to bother him. The gangbanger was staring
intently at nothing, his gaze as hard and featureless as a piece of dark slate.
And Freddy the Perv
had ambled to the very back of the car, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of
his trench coat and a new lollipop in his mouth.
"Who was in
the picture?" said Adolfa.
It took a moment
for Jim to realize that the old lady was talking to him.
"Huh?" Then the words filtered through the fog that had seemed
to lay over everything since the argument earlier that morning. "Oh,
my girls." He looked to make sure that Freddy was out of earshot,
then sat next to Adolfa. The hard plastic of the subway chair was
cold. It felt like he was sitting on a piece of ice that instantly carved
right through the layers of his coat, his pants. He shivered.
Jim checked once
more to make sure that Freddy was far away, then pulled his journal out of his
pants pocket. He flipped it open to the center, where he had tucked the
picture, and held it out for Adolfa to see. "Carolyn," he said,
pointing at the blonde beauty. His finger moved a bit, pointing now at
the dark little girl in the blonde's arms. "And Maddison.
Maddie."
Adolfa nodded as
though she approved. "Lovely," she said.
Jim looked at the
picture a moment longer before closing the journal around the photo and
replacing both in his pocket. Part of him was aware how old-fashioned it
was to actually carry around a wallet-portrait in the first place: in a world
where everyone had their family pictures – family
pix
– on a phone or a
tablet, he must look a bit like a dinosaur. But those electronic photos
didn't have the same feel, the same
reality
that a wallet picture
had. "Yeah," he said as he patted the rectangle bulge that
carried the treasure. "Lovely." He smiled, but knew the
smile was more regretful than he wanted it to be.
"What is
it?" asked Adolfa.
Jim shook his
head. "Nothing much. Just a bit of a fight."
Adolfa leaned back
and smiled. She rubbed her legs, clearly still troubled by the aches she
had complained of earlier. "I know about fights. Don't let it
get old. New fights are okay, but if you let this fight get
old…." She wiped imaginary sweat off her forehead, as though she had
just done a job of tremendous difficulty. "Phew!"
"Noted."
They sat in silence
for a moment. Jim hated this part. He didn't mind friendly people, and
tried to be friendly himself. But he always felt awkward in the moments
after the initial burst of camaraderie. Was he supposed to keep
talking? Leave Adolfa alone? Did he start prattling, or just stay
silent? Sometimes he felt like everyone else had been given a social
instruction book but he'd somehow lost his. Like he was an alien in a
world of humans, or vice-versa.
He had just decided
to go ahead and leave the lady to her own devices – not the friendliest choice
in the world, perhaps, but often the safest – when the lights went out.
This was not in
itself unusual. Every New Yorker worth his or her salt had passed a
moment or two in darkness on the subway. Lights sometimes flickered and
flitted on and off like lightning bugs in a windstorm, as though someone had
his hand on a huge On/Off switch and was constantly playing with the subway
passengers; seeing what they would do if plunged into stroboscopic fits of
light and dark. You got used to it. You ignored it.
What made
this
moment
unusual was its duration and its momentum. Generally if the lights
glitched on a subway, it only lasted for a second, a blink of the eyes when
pitch darkness ruled. And if it was any longer than that the subway
almost always slowed.
Neither rule held
true in this situation. The lights stayed off far longer than a second or
two. Jim couldn't be sure
how
long, but long enough that his heart
started to beat hammer-blows against his ribcage, long enough that his breath
started to come quick and shallow.
"What's going
on?" said Freddy with his distinctive voice, that whine even higher now
that panic was setting in. "What's happening?"
The train lurched,
then the ever-present whine of the train's electric engine increased in
volume. It sounded –
felt
– like the train was speeding up.
"What's going
on?" Freddy again. The perv's voice, coming from the very back
of the train, sounded like the voice of a person about to crack, about to
plunge headfirst into a dark chasm of madness. Jim had a moment to wonder
how close to that chasm Freddy had been
before
stepping onto the subway,
if mere darkness could push him over that edge –
(
unless he knows
something we don't
)
– before light
speared through the car.
The light should
have been comforting, should have been pleasing. It should have reminded
Jim that he was okay, that he still had his girls to return to – fight or no
fight – and that all was essentially right with the world.
But it did none of
those things.
The light was cold
and blue, providing no warmth or comfort but only a strange sense of
other
ness,
as though the train had somehow been transported to an alternate dimension in
its entirety. It came from the cell phone of the surly Olik. The
big man was holding it above his head like a torch in a monster movie, moving
it about as though the cell phone's sterile blue light might banish not only
the darkness but the pervasive sense of strangeness that Jim could tell had
gripped all the subway car's occupants.
"What is
this?" said Olik. "What's going on?"
Beside Jim, Adolfa
crossed herself.
Jim looked at the
back of the car. Freddy was hunched against the rear bulkhead,
quivering. He was slumped low, almost disappearing into his trench coat
like some weird species of turtle that had evolved exclusively in cheap outlet
malls. He looked terrified beyond reason.
Jim swiveled his
head. Toward the front of the car, the gangbanger was looking back at the
rest of the occupants, glaring as though one of them must be at fault for what
was happening.
Only the beautiful
lawyer-looking woman appeared unperturbed. Or at least, Jim thought she
did at first; then he realized that the dark glint in her eyes wasn't just the
cold reflection of Olik's cell-light. It wasn't fierceness or
determination. It was terror, bound and caged like a feral beast held
captive behind thick acrylic at a zoo. But the beast was pounding at the
walls of its cage, beating at the boundaries of her eyes, struggling to be
free. He abruptly felt like the lawyer might be the most dangerous person
in the car. Which was ridiculous, he knew – he'd bet his life that Olik
or the gangbanger held that dubious honor – but he couldn't deny the sudden
sensation that the woman was someone not to be crossed under any circumstances.
Jim looked away
from her. As much to pull his gaze from the too-riveting sight of her
eyes and whatever mystery they held as to do an actual review of the subway car
and the near-darkness in which they found themselves.
He looked beyond
her. Beyond the lawyer. At the doors that led to the other
cars. At the occupants in the car beyond this one.
And he screamed.
================
================
Jim did
not expect Olik's reaction to
his scream. The gangbanger drew a knife, which wasn't surprising. The
lawyer didn't move at all, which
was
surprising – he would have thought
that she would have jumped at the very least, but the lawyer remained
perfectly, completely still.
Adolfa drew a bit
closer to him. Freddy yelped in tandem with Jim's scream. But
Olik….
Olik pulled out a
gun equipped with a silencer and squeezed off a pair of shots before Jim's
scream had a chance to finish bouncing off the metal and plastic interior of
the subway car. Nor were they panic-shots, randomly fired into the air or
the floor: Jim saw two very closely grouped bullet holes in the glass window of
the door dividing their car from the next.
"What the
hell
?"
That was the gangbanger, though Jim heard the sentiment echoed in his own mind.
They were all cast
into darkness again as Olik's cell phone – which he had held aloft even while
shooting – suddenly switched off. The older man flipped it back on less
than a second later. The blue-white light returned to the car, an
illumination that did little to drive away shadows. Rather, it seemed
only to point them out and highlight their existence. Jim was reminded of
something his mother had said to him once. "Shadows only exist near
to light," she had said.
And she had known
more than a little about darkness. She had been murdered.
He turned his mind
away from that. There was enough to think about right now without going
there.
"What the hell
do you think you're doing, man?" demanded the gangbanger. He
approached Olik, seemingly unaware of the gun that the huge man still held.
"You coulda killed me, man."
Olik ignored
him. He turned to Jim. "You saw it, yes?"
"I…."
Jim swallowed. His throat felt beyond dry. "I don't know what
I saw."
"What did you
see?" asked Adolfa. "What was it?" She was staring
at him earnestly. He felt a hand on his wrist, a hand that curled around
until it was holding onto his, and he drew strength from it. From her.
He shook his head,
but found his voice. "I couldn't see much. Not in the
dark. But it looked for a second like… like they were all dead."
"What?"
The gangbanger's face became a caricature of incredulity. "What the
hell you talkin', man?"
Freddy yelped again
as Olik's cell-light flicked off. Black.
Pitch black
.
Jim had heard those words before, but had never understood them. Pitch
black wasn't a dark room, it wasn't a movie theater before the show started, it
wasn't even the darkest places in a person's mind. Pitch black was a
speeding subway deep under the city, all the lights out, and only strangers for
company.
The blue-white
light came on again. Then it was joined by another light, this one even
brighter. Everyone looked over. It was the lawyer-type. She
was holding a keychain light, one of those LED lamps that seemed to have around
seven hundred bulbs on them and the same candle power as the Bat-signal.
Olik nodded in thanks and put his cell phone back in his pocket.
Everyone turned
back to Jim. The gangbanger jabbed his knife at him. Even in the
light of a single keychain lamp, Jim could see that the knife was wickedly
sharp, a six-inch blade with a razor edge that looked well-used and a handle
that appeared supremely comfortable in the man's grip. No show knife,
this was an instrument designed for – and accustomed to – the drawing of blood.
"What's this
you talkin' about?" said the guy. "What's this everyone's dead
shit?"
Jim shook his
head. Suddenly the knife had become a much larger problem. The
lawyer-type came to his defense. She pointed the LED lamp at the
gangbanger so he had to raise a hand to shield his eyes. "Easy,
buddy," she said. "You're scaring him."
"Put away that
light, bitch, or I'll do more than scare
you
."
She ignored him,
but swung the light back to a neutral position and asked, in calm and measured
tones, "What did you see?"
Jim felt everyone's
eyes on him. And suddenly didn't want to say what he had seen. Not
again. He looked at Olik, as though to share the responsibility of what
had happened, to dilute the reality of what
was
happening.
"You saw it,
too, didn't you?" he said.
Olik pursed his
thick lips. "I don't know what I see."
"But you shot
them, man," said the gangbanger. He jabbed at Olik with his knife,
the same gesture he had made at Jim. Apparently it was one of the primary
ways he expressed himself, as though whenever he ran into an emotion too big
for his mind to contain he stored part of it in that blade.
Olik, however, was
not Jim. The blade didn't frighten him at all. It didn't even anger
him. The older man's lip curled in irritation. "What is your
name, little boy?" he asked.
"Little…?"
The thug's eyes widened in disbelief at being addressed so patronizingly.
He took a step toward Olik, and his knife was already thrusting forward.
Then his movement – and that of his knife – utterly ceased as Olik's gun came
up. Pointed squarely at the gangbanger's face. And Jim could see
from the big man's expression that Olik would have no problem blowing the other
man's brains out of the back of his head.
"Name, little
boy." Olik cocked the gun.
The gangbanger's eyes
got darker. Jim could see the thug calculating his chances of getting
around the gun and gutting Olik. Apparently he decided discretion was the
better part of valor. "Name's Xavier Gabriel."
Olik's eyes
flickered. He chuckled. "I've heard of you, Mr. Gabriel."
"Then you know
not to get in my way."
"Perhaps not
in your hood." Olik smiled, then grew serious again. "But
we're not in your hood, are we?"
Then, as suddenly
as it had appeared, Olik's gun was gone. Jim didn't even see the man put
it away, the older man moved so fast. He was dimly aware that holstering
a silenced pistol must be even harder than putting away one without a sound
suppressor, and he wondered what exactly Olik did for a living. Whatever
it was, it seemed clear that Olik was a dangerous man. Still, with his
weapon put away Jim wondered if Xavier was going to go ahead and eviscerate the
older man now.
Apparently the rest
of the car was wondering the same thing. The lawyer-type took a discrete
step back, and Jim could see Freddy the Perv start shaking even harder.
Only Adolfa seemed unworried, massaging her legs as she sat as though the main
concern she had in all this was varicose veins and swollen ankles.
Xavier passed his
knife from hand to hand. He was staring at Olik. The older man
spread his arms wide, as though inviting the thug to attack.
"Come
on," said Olik. "I let you take your best shot. But then
you don't ever find out what Olik saw."
Xavier paused in
his one-knife juggling act, curiosity clearly struggling with a desire to kill
the man who had made him lose face. Curiosity finally won.
"What?"
he said. "What you see?"
Olik laid a finger
on the side of his nose. It was a quaint gesture, one that would have
brought to mind Santa Claus or a kindly older uncle about to share a special
secret, if it weren't for the expression on his face. Olik still looked
like a slab of granite, but there were now veins of fear running through the
rock of his expression.
"I saw the
dead. The dead have come for us."