Authors: Adam Baker
‘Where exactly did it come from?’
‘Over there. The corner of the room. Or thereabouts.’
‘There’s nothing,’ said Donahue. ‘Seriously. It had to be the phonograph. The mechanism must be rusted to shit.’
‘No. It was the sound of a living thing. You know what I’m saying. Scratching. Clawing. It had purpose.’
Lupe looked high on the wall. She ran her hand across the whitewashed surface.
‘Couple of planks screwed to the wall. See that? Beneath the paint? Wooden slats. Something blocked off.’
‘Could be rats,’ said Donahue. ‘Got to be millions of them, skulking around.’
‘Sure as hell didn’t sound like rats.’
‘Don’t let your imagination run wild,’ said Donahue. ‘Chill. We’ve got axes, knives and a big-ass gun. Anything breaks in, it will rue the day.’
Galloway paced the ticket hall.
‘Anyone got a smoke? Come on. One of you bastards must have a cigarette.’
‘Sorry, brother,’ said Wade.
Lupe and Donahue ignored him.
‘Assholes. The lot of you.’
Galloway stood over Sicknote and watched him paint. He cocked his head, tried to make sense of the image.
Sicknote pricked his thumb with a sliver of glass. He squeezed a fresh bead of blood and smeared it on the tiles. Bold, broad strokes. Blood and dust mixed charcoal black. He painted a swirling vortex. Screaming faces sucked downwards into the singularity.
Galloway repositioned himself to get a better view.
‘What’s that? Sinners dragged to hell or some shit?’
‘The Great Absence. It’s calling us, drawing us in.’
‘Calling? You can hear an actual voice?’
‘I can hear the smothering silence. It’s reaching out to us, reaching through the tunnels. It’s almost here.’
‘Has it got a name?’
‘It can’t have a name. It’s like antimatter. The opposite of existence. A creeping, expanding null. It’s new to this planet. Nothing like it has ever walked the earth before. But it is here now, singing in the dark.’
‘Whatever, man.’
Galloway took a Sharpie from the breast pocket of his shirt. He dropped it on the tiles.
‘Stop cutting yourself, for God’s sake.’
Sicknote uncapped the pen and started to draw.
Galloway sat on the bench next to Wade.
Wade held out his hand.
‘Guess we got off on the wrong foot.’
‘Fuck you,’ said Galloway.
‘We’ll be down here a while, bro. No point throwing punches all damn night.’
Galloway reluctantly shook his hand.
‘Does he always do that? Your friend. Sicknote. Does he always daub mad shit over everything?’
‘Yeah. He draws pretty much every waking minute. They had him in a holding cell at Bellevue. He decorated the walls with his own faeces. So they gave him crayons. More hygienic.’
‘Screaming faces.’
‘Yeah,’ said Wade. ‘A detailed delusional system, according to the docs. Obsessive motifs. Fills his head, night and day. Soon as he wakes up each morning he gets to work. Swings his legs from the bunk, yawns, scratches his ass, then picks up a pencil. Never stops.’
‘But always the same thing? Faces?’
‘Always. You know who he is, right? Real name is Marcus Means.’
‘Am I supposed to recognise the name?’ asked Galloway.
‘Albany, ten years ago. Any other state he’d be on death row. Personally, I’d tie him to a chair, but Lupe seems to have a soft spot for the guy.’
‘The Chief will order him killed,’ said Galloway. ‘You too.’
‘He’s that kind of guy, huh?’
‘His boys spent a couple of months bulldozing bodies into mass graves, and shovelling lime. They were pretty strung out by the end. He’s kind of protective.’
Wade took the cyanide cylinder from his pocket and turned it over in his hand.
‘According to Cloke, neither of us will be making the trip.’
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Galloway.
‘All right, I guess. One minute I’m hotter than hell, next minute I’m freezing cold.’
Wade pulled off his do-rag and dabbed sweat from his face and neck. Wisps of blond hair shook loose and drifted to the floor.
‘Well, hang in there, man,’ said Galloway, without conviction. ‘Maybe you’ll be all right.’
Donahue descended the platform steps and stood at the water’s edge. She listened to the deathlike silence of the tunnels. Strangely peaceful.
An unwelcome recollection. A woman retrieved from water, far out in the Hudson bay. A winter suicide. She jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. An office worker. CCTV showed her strolling along a traffic lane, calm, relaxed, ignoring horns and flashing headlamps. She stopped and patted her pockets like she forgot keys. Then she set down her briefcase, squirmed through the lattice bars of the side barrier and dropped into the heart-stopping cold of the East River. Her body was discovered weeks later during a scuba training dive. Saponification: a long-submerged cadaver trapped among weeds, protected from microorganisms by depth and cold. Her flesh turned white like wax. Body fat slowly transforming into soap.
Donahue tried to push away the memory.
She gulped. She coughed. She bent double and puked. A torrent of vomit splashing into the flood water. Each hard retch echoed through the vaulted cavern. She caught her breath, and spat the taste from her mouth.
She pressed another couple of Vicodin from a foil strip and knocked them back.
She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, tried to get her body back under control.
A distant splash.
Donahue trained her flashlight into far shadows. The beam lit dissipating ripples.
She took a step back and unhitched the shotgun from her shoulder.
She scanned floating rafts of garbage. Big Gulp cups and clamshell burger cartons pirouetted in an almost imperceptible slow drift.
Another ripple. Bubbles broke the surface, an unmistakable trail heading from the distant tunnel gloom towards her.
She held the Maglite between her teeth like a cigar and shouldered the shotgun. She squinted and took aim, followed the approaching bubble-trail with the front sight.
The stairwell lights winked out.
She backed up the steps. She stumbled in the gloom. She dropped the flashlight.
She unhooked the Motorola hanging from her belt.
‘Guys? What’s going on? What’s the deal with the lights?’
The ticket hall.
Lupe fumbled the matchbook. She struck a light. The match flared, then burned steady. She peered into shadow.
‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Donnie? What’s going on?’
‘It’s all right,’ said Galloway. ‘The generator stalled. Give me the matches. I’ll get her going.’
The plant room.
Galloway struck a match. The weak flame threw sulphurous shadows.
Scattered papers on the floor. He scrunched a few sheets into a fire bucket and lit them with the match. The yellowed, desiccated sheets burned fast like autumn leaves. He threw more paper onto the pyre. Sheaves crisped, blackened and curled.
He crouched by the inert generator. He tapped the fuel gauge. The level rested at zero. He unscrewed the fuel cap and began to decant kerosene from a plastic jerry can.
Radio crackle. Donahue’s voice:
‘Guys? What’s going on? What’s the deal with the lights?’
‘Give me a moment,’ said Galloway.
Rotted fingers gripped his shoulder. Nails dug into his flesh. Teeth sank into his neck.
He screamed. He twisted away. He dropped the kerosene. The plastic bottle fell on its side. Fuel washed across the floor.
The creature crouched and hissed.
It was dressed in the tattered remnants of a nurse’s uniform. White polyester streaked with blood and pus. Name tag: NGUYEN. Skin like leather, stretched taut over tendrillar tumours that snaked and branched down each limb. Arms bristled with metallic spines.
The creature’s shoulder was broken. Its right arm hung lose and useless.
Galloway scrambled clear, kicked distance between himself and the crouching, leering thing. He clapped a hand to his neck and checked his palm for blood, desperate to see if teeth had punctured his skin.
The monstrous figure crouched on its haunches, gathered strength and sprang forwards. Galloway scrambled to his feet. It was on him before he could run. He threw up his arms to protect his face. Bodyslam. They hit the floor. The creature sat on his chest, straining to reach his throat with its one good hand.
Galloway jammed his hand beneath its chin and struggled to push away the snapping, biting face. He groped for a weapon. He snatched a pencil from his breast pocket and punched it into the creature’s temple. Blood-spurt. Splintered wood nailed deep into flesh.
The creature twisted its head and gripped Galloway’s right forefinger between its teeth. It bit down. He screamed. It gnawed and ground its jaw. Frothing blood. Bone crunch. He roared in pain.
He fumbled for the jerry can. He gripped it and bludgeoned the creature’s head. He put all the force he could muster behind the blow. He hammered the skull-face, breaking a cheek bone.
The emaciated thing fell clear and climbed to its feet, dripping kerosene. It leered. It spat Galloway’s finger onto the floor.
It stepped towards him, arm outstretched.
Bare feet kicked through burning paper. The hem of the nurse’s smock caught alight. Polyester fabric smoked and shrivelled. Burning melt-drips hit the floor.
Galloway rolled, lunged for the kerosene can and threw it into the blaze.
Blue fire washed across the creature’s body turning it to a pillar of flame. It held up a burning hand, mesmerised by dancing light. Then it emitted a high, shrill shriek.
Galloway crawled away from the conflagration, shielding his face from the heat.
Lupe and Donahue ran into the room.
The blazing creature grabbed for Donahue. She aimed a high-kick at its belly and pushed it away. It thrashed. It bounced off walls. Donahue shot it in the gut. It struggled to stand. She kicked it in the face. It lay burning, movements slowing to a spastic dance, like a clockwork automaton winding down.
Donahue slapped shreds of burning fabric from her boot.
‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Brain cooking in its skull. Poaching like an egg.’
Lupe ran to the ticket hall and fetched a hand extinguisher from the equipment bags.
‘Stand back.’
She broke the ring-tab and trained a stuttering burst of carbon smoke. She doused the burning figure, then turned the carbon jet on smouldering wall cables.
Shut off. Darkness. Silence.
Lupe set down the extinguisher and switched on a flashlight. The beam shafted through thick smoke. She trained the light on Galloway. He crouched by the wall, trembling with shock, hugging his injured hand to his chest. He shielded his eyes from the glare.
‘You all right?’
He didn’t reply.
She checked the generator for fire damage.
She crouched next to the carbonised body. She inspected contorted arms, skin blackened to a crust, fabric fused to bubbling, steaming flesh.
‘Damn,’ murmured Donahue.
Lupe examined the creature’s face. Black eyes. Mouth locked in a silent scream. Taut, carbonised lips. Brilliant white teeth.
The rib cage rose and fell, weak respirations, medulla retaining a last spark of will-to-life, like the dimming embers of a discarded cigarette.
A final, shuddering breath.
Lupe examined a half-melted name badge.
‘She worked for Ekks. One of his disciples. Vietnamese chick. Total bitch. A privilege to incinerate her ass.’
‘How the hell did she get in here? Where the hell was she hiding?’
Lupe stood up. She contemplated the shadows at the back of the room.
‘The Bellevue crew. About fifteen, twenty guys in total. Medics and soldiers. If they got infected, if they are sniffing around in the tunnels, then we’ve got a serious problem.’
Donahue and Lupe searched the recesses of the plant room. They crept between racks of chemical batteries.
Hand signals: go forwards, check left.
Donahue held the shotgun. Lupe held the flashlight. Blue haze. They shielded their mouths to mask the sour barbecue stink of cooked flesh. They blinked smoke-tears from their eyes.
An air-con turbine at the back of the room. Lupe’s flashlight lit blades furred with dust and webs. Huge, like someone detached the engine nacelle of a passenger jet and put it in storage.
‘Wouldn’t want to be standing here when that thing is switched on.’
The blades faced a duct mouth. The grille was ripped open. The torn mesh was tipped with flesh and tufts of white fabric.
Lupe shone her flashlight into the brick pipe. A ribbed, intestinal conduit receded to darkness. She held up her hand. A gentle air current. A fetid exhalation of tunnel breath.
Donahue crouched and examined the floor.
‘Give me more light.’
Blood drips.
‘Maybe that thing was already down here, with us,’ said Donahue. ‘Crawling round the ventilation pipes the whole time.’
‘Tight squeeze,’ said Lupe, contemplating the duct. ‘Hands and knees.’
Donahue gestured to a pile of boxes and cable drums.
‘We should stack some stuff in front of the grille. Do our best to plug it closed.’
‘But why now?’ asked Lupe, still mesmerised by the tunnel dark. ‘I don’t get it. Wade and Sicknote were camped in this room for days. They weren’t attacked. So what changed? How did the bitch sniff us out?’
Galloway sat on the ticket hall bench. He hugged his injured hand, face grey with shock.
Lupe sat beside him.
‘It’ll be all right, yeah?’ he pleaded. ‘Just got to clean the wound. Disinfect.’
‘You’re a dead man walking.’
Lupe thrust her hand inside his trouser pocket.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, drawing away.
She pulled out a fistful of shotgun cartridges.
‘This all you got? Five shells?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did you bring a bag? A backpack? Sure you don’t have a spare box of ammo somewhere?’
‘No.’
‘Five. And four in the gun. That’s not a whole lot of firepower.’
She paced the ticket hall. She blew her hands and clapped her arms to get warm.