Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) (30 page)

Suddenly, there was a deafening boom from above them, and dirt and tiles dropped from the ceiling of the tunnel. The earth shook around them, and Beth and Alice lost their footing, dropping to the ground.

“What the heck was that?” Sandy asked as the tremors ceased. “An earthquake?”

“Probably some kind of gas explosion,” Burns said. A curtain of silt fell behind him, shaken loose by the vibrations in the walls.

“How big could a gas explosion get?” John asked, fearing the answer.

“Well, if it’s in the wrong place, it could take down any building, explode fireballs. Let me tell you something, those buildings up there, those skyscrapers, they’re all in a row like freaking dominos. If one of them falls just right…”

“It’d take out city blocks,” Sandy said in awe.

There was another quake accompanied by an ear-piercing explosion. This time, larger chunks of the ceiling toppled, followed by dirt that started sifting through the holes in the concrete like sand in an hourglass, piling up on the tracks. A second boom traveled like a wave through the tunnel, and two more large sections of the ceiling crumbled into the corridor behind the group.

“We’d better get out of here,” Burns shouted over the din as another blast shook the ground. “The whole place is gonna fall down around us!”

Nicole motioned the group forward, starting to jog a bit ahead of them, watching now for falling hunks of concrete and metal. When she passed the third room on the right, a once-human Lycanthrope roared out of the entrance. The creature’s eyes were wild with terror at the disturbances around it, and it leaped at Michael. The homeless man ducked, falling into a ball, hands over his head as Nicole pointed her Colt at the beast and fired off two rounds before it slammed into her.

The creature, wild with fear, started clawing at her, digging into her bulletproof vest, striving to get to the tender flesh beneath the Kevlar. She struggled with it, trying to shove it off of her, or to at least get a good angle with the gun. She knew she couldn’t get scratched or bitten or she’d become one of those monsters herself within a few minutes, so she shoved with her elbows.

The thing snapped at her face, its jaws closing with the force of a bear trap. Its overlapping teeth banged together two inches from her nose. Thick, viscous saliva dripped from its creaking jaws onto her cheek, and she squirmed again, trying to get the monster far enough from her to get off a decent shot, or any shot at all.

There was a loud clanging sound, and the beast was suddenly rising up from her body. She glanced over and saw Howard slamming the Lycanthrope’s head with his metal pole as if he were in a batting cage. He’d hit the creature just below its lower jaw, slamming the thing’s mouth shut on its teeth and forcing its head high into the air. It still gripped her with its hind legs, but her hands were free, and she swung her right one, still holding the Colt, and shot a bullet through its mouth, opening up the back of its head in a spray of blood and brain tissue. With the force of the bullet, the beast was pushed farther away from her, and it released its hold on her waist, slumping to the side, dead.

Nicole shoved the heavy monster away from herself, watching as its hair started to wriggle back into its skin, exposing the human beneath. A huge chunk of concrete with iron rebar sticking out on the sides dropped into the face of the dead Lycanthrope just as its snout was crumpling back from canine to human form. It crushed the thing’s skull like a rotten cantaloupe, spraying gore on all sides.

Nicole stood, realized how much more of the ceiling was crumbling into the tunnel. Huge pieces of cement and iron were dropping all around them, a lethal rain of sharp angles and crushing weight. Dust from the broken concrete was filling the tunnel, and their flashlights barely pierced the swirling clouds of powder. Several of the group had started coughing.

“We need to get out of here,” Burns shouted. “Or we’re all gonna get crushed.”

“This way,” Michael said, pointing deeper into the tunnel.

A seven-foot section of concrete gave way and collapsed onto the tracks behind them with a sound like the end of the world. Long pipes fell through the hole, and water poured from one of the cracked ceramic ducts. Others were yellow plastic, and more than a few had flammable symbols on the side.

“Now,” Michael said, taking off in a jog away from the gaping hole.

The group charged after him, avoiding the tumbling sections of the cracking ceiling. A ten-inch piece of concrete dropped onto John’s shoulder, and he cried out, dropping his pole. It rolled off into the dust clouds, out of sight. Sandy helped him retrieve it, and he leaned into her as she shouldered him to a standing position. They fell back into step behind Michael. Burns slapped them on their backs, urging them on.

“Go!” he shouted. “Move it, move it, move it.”

Behind them, the gap in the ceiling where the pipes had dropped was broadening, falling in huge glacier-like pieces at the edges, sending long lightning-shaped fractures through the concrete and bringing down larger and larger sections of the ceiling and what looked like tarmac. More exposed pipes fell, some clanging to the ground. A muffled sound emerged from the widening hole.

“What the hell is that? Birds?” Sandy shouted at Howard as they hurried to stay in front of the splintering concrete.

“Sounds like an alarm or something.”

She coughed, spit out a mouthful of dust as they reached Michael, Nicole, Beth, and Alice. Nicole was shoving Alice through a gaping corrugated water pipe. Beth followed, then Michael.

The noise grew louder as a fifteen-foot piece of the ceiling behind them smashed to the tracks, covering everything. A strange, dust-diffused light emerged from the ceiling as the sound increased. With a crash, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, its headlights still switched to bright, dropped into the tunnel nose-first.

“Holy shit,” Sandy said. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the car toppling into the tunnel. It smashed into the floor and stood upright for a second before falling onto its back. The noise was its car alarm blaring at the indignity of its burial. After the car settled onto its back, more ceiling pieces falling onto its exposed underbelly, the alarm seemed to warp. It sounded like the death throes of some great animal.

Burns stepped in behind them, coughing and spitting.

With an ear-splitting growl of protest, a yellow taxi followed the Volkswagen through the broadening hole in the ceiling. It slammed into the first car as another cab dropped in too.

“Go now,” Burns urged, shoving Sandy ahead into the water pipe. Her foot fell in the thin stream of dark liquid that trickled down the center of the little corridor. “Those things up top are gonna figure out we’re down here if even one sees us or smells us. Then we’ll have them to contend with.”

Sandy hurried into the pipe. She had to bend over so as not to bump her head. Several yards away, she saw someone’s flashlight beam urging her forward. She headed toward the light, grunting as Howard bumped into her back.

“Shit, you smell that?” Howard asked.

She sniffed the air, and a chill went through her. “Gas?”

“Yes, ma’am. Must be one of those busted pipes. Probably pumping it down here so fast it’s filling up the tunnels.”

Sandy emerged from the pipe, and Michael helped her jump down to the wet floor. They were in some kind of sewer, a ten-foot-wide hallway made of concrete, supported by concrete pillars every ten feet or so. The walls were splotched with brown stains, and the floor was covered with a half-inch of filthy, stinking water. Sandy tried not to think about what they were sloshing through. The rest of the group followed her, leaping down into the sewer space with a sort of grace.

“We have to block out that gas,” Burns said. “If it keeps pumping in here like it is, it’ll fill the whole tunnel and put every one of us to sleep in a few minutes.”

“How do you block a four-foot-wide sewer pipe?” Nicole asked, searching the bare room for something to utilize.

“Nothing here,” Burns said, confirming her fears. “We’d better just move on, hope it gets blocked by the rubble pouring in from the streets above.”

John asked, “Well, Michael, now where do we go?”

Michael looked around the space, listened to the sound of the subway tunnel behind them collapsing into itself. He looked over at Nicole.

“You still have that GPS?”

“Yeah,” she answered, bringing the TomTom out of her pocket. “That way is south and that way is north.”

“We need southeast,” Michael said, chewing on a dirty cuticle. “Let’s follow this one south. We can cut back into the tunnel later.”

“As good an idea as any,” Burns said with a shrug.

They started down the tunnel, the smell of gas growing ever more pungent.

6:00 p.m.

The farther they traveled down the sewer passageway, the more the sounds of destruction diminished behind them and, more importantly, the more the smell of natural gas grew fainter. Covered with dust, they almost looked like an aboriginal tribe searching for water in the desert. Michael led the way, seeming more comfortable in their grimy environment than any of the others. He remained alert, and John asked him how he was holding up.

“Fine, I think,” Michael replied. “Doing my best to be the hero.”

“You don’t have to be a hero,” John said.

“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Michael said, his face set in a determined scowl. “I think… I really think I do need it.”

John patted him on the shoulder a few times. “Where are we heading, buddy?”

“We follow this for a ways then we’ll get back on track, follow the B Line right to the East River. Once we’re there, I’m handing this over to the military, our friendly general back there. They don’t really seem to have a solid plan, but they’re good on their feet, fast thinkers.”

In a few minutes, they were once again marching along the New York Transit System subway tracks. The emergency lights seemed even dimmer, but the flashlights and helmet lamps pierced the darkness a bit.

Burns sidled up next to Nicole. “How many bullets you have left?”

“Three. Not very promising. You?”

“One buwwet weft,” he said, imitating Elmer Fudd. “And two grenades. I got this pistol, too, but that’s like a peashooter against the Lycans. Don’t know how much good it’ll do us.”

“I lost my grenade back when the roof crashed in on us. Sorry, but it must have fallen out sometime around when I was pinned down by that creature.”

“Hey,” he said, looking around at the sad looking group. “We still have big metal poles.”

The tunnel was suddenly blocked by a stalled subway train. There were maybe eight inches of clearance on each side of the cars. The group stopped, as if puzzling over where to go next.

Howard overheard Nicole and the general, and he handed Nicole the shotgun he’d taken from the engine car; he also gave the flare pistol to Burns.

“Why don’t you guys take these? I’m sure you could do more damage than I could.”

“Better not shoot for a while anyway,” Burns said, sniffing the air. “I can still smell gas. Wouldn’t want to spark that off.”

Howard motioned to the train blocking their way. “You guys have any ideas about this?”

Michael said, “I don’t know how to get around it by other tunnels. Sometimes, it’s a tight fit in these old subways.”

“Easy as pie,” Burns said, stepping up to the door at the back of the last car and wrapping his hand around the handle. “We just go through the cars, one after another. They’re all connected, right?”

Three Lycanthropes popped up from behind seats where they’d been snoozing. They growled and lashed out at the windows. Their claws gouged long trails in the Plexiglas, but they were trapped in the train, unable to reason a way out of their metal car. Burns leaped back while the Lycans slobbered on the windows, attempting to bite their way out.

“Well, scratch that idea,” he said, still shaken by the close call. “Anyone else have a suggestion?”

Sandy nodded and pointed to the top of the stalled train. “We can always go over,” she said.

There was a two-foot gap between the train and the grime-encrusted ceiling of the tunnel.

Sandy continued, “We could all fit on our hands and knees, if we crawl on top of the cars. Should just take a few minutes.”

“That’s my girl,” Nicole said, beaming.

She gave Sandy a short hug then helped her scramble on top of the subway car. The creatures confined inside went crazy, howling and tearing at the sides of the train. Sandy started crawling along the roof, ducking her head around a dimming blue light in a wire mesh cage.

“Is it gonna be okay?” Howard called after her.

“Yeah,” she answered. “Plenty of room to crawl, but a bit claustrophobic. There are six cars, it looks like.”

Nicole cupped her hands and Howard stepped into their cradle. With a grunt, she lifted him up, and he gracefully clambered on top of the car. In moments, he was scooting after Sandy.

She’s right,
he thought.
This is really a tight fit, like the walls and the ceiling’s crashing in on you. Still, it’s better than waiting around to be eaten or to have the place blow up all around you. But it’s so dark and so cramped up here … like the coal mines back in the old hometown. Like what I ran away from.