================
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"What's
going
on?
What the
hell's
going on?" Xavier spat the words like bullets,
as though convinced that if he spoke with enough vehemence or vitriol then the
words themselves might force whoever was doing all this to reveal themselves
and release their captive passengers.
Adolfa had a grip
on Jim's arm again, and her other hand was clutching her blouse above her
bosom. He wondered if she was having a heart attack; wondered what he
would do if she
was
having a heart attack. It wasn't like he could
perform CPR and wait for the paramedics to show up.
Freddy had stopped
screaming. He was wheezing in the back of the car, looking at the
blood-black stumps where his fingers had been, tears of pain and disbelief
pouring down his cheeks. Olik stepped close to the wounded man, his pale
face cocked to one side in a way Jim thought looked almost like absent
curiosity. Which was insane. The Georgian should have been scared
out of his mind, shouldn't he? Because whatever had just happened was
enough to scare
anyone
out of his or her mind – anyone who had a mind to
begin with, at least.
Unless
he's
the one doing it
.
The thought came
quite surprisingly, but there was a certain kind of appeal to it. Jim
glanced at the huge man, who now had his head tilted to the other side, as though
to get a different view of the suffering man in the back of the subway car.
Certainly Olik was
the only one who had seemed to take everything that came in stride. Had
seemed unfazed throughout… whatever was happening.
He was the one
who shot the window
.
Jim looked at the
window in the door at the front of the car. Though the side windows had
become transparent again, allowing the lights outside to be seen, the window at
the front of the car was still black as pitch, as paint. Dark as the blackest
part of space. He wondered if they
did
manage to force the door
open, if they would get into the next subway car, or if it would just open into
a void, into a blank nothing where existence had no meaning.
Focus,
Jim. Concentrate on the problem
.
He looked back at
Olik. The Georgian hadn't moved. And apparently Jim wasn't the only
one who had noticed the big man's imperturbability. Because at that
moment Xavier moved forward, his now-you-see-it-now-you-don't knife visible
once more.
"You did this,
man," said the gangbanger.
Olik half-turned,
as though whatever might be happening was less interesting than the fantastic
view of Freddy the Miraculous Melting Man. "What?" he said.
"You heard
me," snarled Xavier. "Hey, man,
look at me when I talk to
you
."
Jim, still seated
beside Adolfa, pulled his feet out of the way as Xavier walked past. So
did the
latina
, though she was small enough he suspected she could have
stretched out full-length in the center aisle and not posed any kind of
stumbling danger. But he understood the impulse: the look on the thug's
face was more than just dangerous. There was murder there, pure and
simple. He glanced down the car at Karen. The lawyer had picked up
her satchel and was holding it tightly in her blood-stained hands, like a
security blanket that might protect her from the nightmare that all of them had
found themselves contained within.
Olik turned to look
at Xavier. Not quickly, not in a panic, not even with any particular
excitement that Jim could see. But there was still a noticeable increase
in the tension in the car.
Please, God, let
me get through this. Let me get back to Carolyn and Maddie
.
"Okay,
friend. I'm looking at you," said Olik. His voice – normally
booming and authoritative, was quiet. And that scared Jim, too.
"You doing
this, man?" said Xavier. He kept advancing on Olik. "You
doing this shit? Because this shit is scaring me, it's scaring…" and
he motioned at everyone else with his knife, "… alla them." Now
he pointed the knife at Olik. "But it ain't scaring you."
Olik seemed almost
amused. "Oh, it scare me plenty," he said, some of the boom
returning to his accented tones. Then his features hardened again.
"Everything here scare Olik plenty."
"Really?"
Xavier clearly wasn't convinced. "'Cause you seem real calm,
man. And you know things, right? You know about her," he said,
gesturing at Karen. "You know who I am. But who are you?
What are you doing here?"
Olik sighed.
"I am just Olik."
"Last
name." Xavier was close enough now that he could have reached out
and touched the bigger man with his knife.
Olik sighed
again. "I am Olik Vardanisdze."
The tip of Xavier's
knife faltered. Not much. But visibly. Jim looked at
Adolfa. He cocked an eyebrow as if to say, do you understand any of
this? She shook her head, a quick back-and-forth that was barely more
than a shiver. But enough. She was in the dark, too.
"Vardani…."
Xavier's knife dropped a bit more.
"Yes,"
said Olik. "And I wouldn't do this." He gestured around
the car. "There is no percentage in it."
Then both men spun
to face Freddy as the wounded man yipped and twisted around. What was
left of his mangled hands whipped around like black and red windmill arms.
"What
now?" whispered Adolfa. Jim couldn't think of an answer. He
just patted her hand.
Freddy yipped
again. Spun again. He sounded for all the world like a dog being
pinched by merciless children.
A third yelp, and
this time Freddy added a short shout: "Stop it!"
Xavier and Olik
looked at each other. Olik cocked an eyebrow as if to say, "You
see? I'm not touching him." Then both backed away from Freddy
as if in unspoken agreement to get away from whatever danger zone had enveloped
the unlucky passenger.
Jim almost didn't
understand what they were worried about. He couldn't comprehend what
would be worse than what he had seen already happening to Freddy.
Surely the worst is
over, he thought. Things just
can't
get worse.
But as soon as he
thought that he remembered his mother, chiding him for saying something like
that when young. "Don't say things can't get any worse," she
said. "Don't ever say that. It's like a dare to God."
And she had been
right. Look what had happened to
her
, after all.
Freddy spun around
like a dog chasing its tail. His trench coat flared. "Stop
it," he said. He looked pleadingly at the other passengers.
"They're touching me," he said. "Make them stop touching
me." His voice, always annoyingly whiny, was now so wheezy it was almost
a mockery of human speech. "They're
touching me, make them stop
!"
Jim looked at
Adolfa again. He wondered if his eyes looked as terrified as hers
did. Probably.
Then Freddy stopped
spinning. He screamed and stood up straight, rigid. At first Jim
couldn't see any reason for his pain.
Then he did. A
trickle at first, barely noticeable. A thin line of red that appeared at
the right corner of Freddy's mouth. Blood. Just the tiniest bit,
and Jim still couldn't understand why Freddy was screaming – louder, in fact,
than he had when his fingers had been pulverized and melted by whatever acid
had destroyed them.
Then the quality of
Freddy's scream changed. It didn't gurgle or hiss, the tone didn't raise
or lower. It was as though the shape of the man's mouth, the sound tunnel
through which the scream issued, was somehow altering in shape. Jim
looked around, wishing he could keep his eyes off what was happening, knowing
he would look back;
had
to look back.
Humans are drawn to
horror, he thought. We read it in books, we watch it on movie
screens. We slow down during traffic accidents to get a good look.
We obsess over the latest celebrity shooting, the latest news of death and
destruction. And on the off chance that there is no such macabre
occurrence in the offing, we just wait a minute and
someone
will commit
some
atrocity. It's as though humanity can't exist without horror, without
fear. Without hopelessness battering at them.
He looked back to
the rear of the car. The sound of Freddy's scream was still
shifting. The trickle at the corner of his mouth had grown. Blood
was streaming all around his lips, in fact. Not like it was coming from
inside his mouth, though, but like it was coming from inside the lips
themselves, like the capillaries within them were rupturing and the blood somehow
pouring through the skin.
A tearing sound
pulled through the air of the car, through Jim's ears and mind. Freddy's
scream reached a crescendo, a fever-pitch.
Freddy's lips tore
off his face.
Jim almost couldn't
believe what he was seeing. Surely if someone on the street had told him
about this, he would have recommended some heavy medications.
Am I mad?
Have I gone insane?
The lips came free,
exposing Freddy's scarlet-stained gums and red-running teeth. The man was
still rigid, though whether with pain or because he was being held there by
some invisible force, Jim couldn't tell.
Jim tried to follow
the lips as they flew off Freddy's face, but he couldn't. One second they
were attached to the weaselly man's face, the next instant they flew into the
air in a spray of spit and blood, and then…
… they were gone.
They didn't flip
out of sight somewhere in the car. Jim didn't just lose sight of
them. Rather it was as though somewhere a few inches away from Freddy's
body they had…
shifted
was the best word that he could think of.
They had shifted from
here
to
there
. From the place where
Freddy screamed to the place where the cause of his screaming had come from.
Xavier and Olik
turned and took three quick steps, retreating in a fast but orderly way, like
soldiers leaving unexpectedly hostile territory. They drew even with Jim
and Adolfa, then turned back to look at Freddy.
The hunger to view
horror is universal.
Freddy fell to the
floor, his fingerless hands hitting the steel with a horrid, wet
thwop
.
He looked up at his fellow passengers, and Jim realized absently that Karen had
crept up to join the rest of the passengers. She was still holding her
satchel protectively in front of her chest, but she – like Olik and Xavier –
had apparently decided that the only safe place to be was with the group.
Perhaps the same genetic coding that required human beings to immerse
themselves in terror at every turn also required that they do so in the
presence of their fellow travelers.
Freddy's lipless
mouth opened and closed. His teeth clacked together, and blood drooled
down his chin.
Jim thought,
insanely, that Freddy would never be able to eat another lollipop. You
need lips for lollipops.
"
Hep me
,"
said Freddy, the words distorted and odd. "
Shtop them
."
No one moved.
Freddy's teeth clacked.
He screamed
again. Again Jim couldn't see why, couldn't see what was occurring
now. Olik muttered a soft curse – he was the first to see what was
happening. It was like what happened with Freddy's lips. Only this
time the blood was appearing at the corners of Freddy's eyes. Weeping
blood, like a blasphemous recreation of a holy miracle.
Adolfa whispered,
"
Santísima Virgen
."
Freddy's mouth
started pouring blood at the same moment. No trickle this time, but a
fountain of crimson. "
Sh-sh-shave m-m-me,
" he managed to
stammer. Then there was a triple-tear, three shearing rips. Two
small puffs of blood and one large one.
Jim tried to follow
what came away. Again he couldn't. Again the objects
shifted
.
They went from
here
to
there
and were gone. Gone, but not
forgotten. Gone, but not before he saw what they were. Gone, but
not before the image of Freddy's tongue exploding whole from his mouth was
burnt forever into Jim's mind. Gone, but not until after he saw the other
man's eyelids ripped away, leaving forever-unblinking orbs staring in terror
and pain.
Freddy's face was a
mask of blood. He tried to crawl to them. He couldn't even scream,
just made a terrible
ung-ung-ung
sound that was worse than any
screaming.
Freddy stared at
them all with eyes made far too large by their exposure, with a mouth running
blood like a crimson fountain.
"
Ung-ung-ung
."
Xavier and Olik
backed away until they knocked into Karen. Jim felt a strange looseness
at his center and knew he was about to lose control of his bladder.