F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (60 page)

 
          
"What
are you doing?" Carole said.

 
          
"I'm
about to play hide and seek. Just be ready to burn rubber when I tell
you."

 
          
Could
she get away with something like this again? If they were half as horny as she
thought they were yeah. Maybe.

 
          
Taking
a breath, she pressed a balloon over each breast, plastered a big grin on her
face, then rose to her knees.

 
          
The
left blue-and-white swerved as the driver hit the siren again and a couple of
hands popped out the windows to wave the horn sign. The right unit did the
same.

 
          
She
pulled the balloon off her left breast and held it high.

 
          
The
sirens wailed again.

 
          
She
bared her right breast and held that balloon aloft.

 
          
Another
wail.

 
          
She
tossed both balloons at the cars.

 
          
"Hit
it!" she yelled as she dove for the seat.

 
          
The
last thing she saw as the tires screeched and the Fairlane leaped forward was
one balloon splattering harmlessly on the pavement and the other breaking
against the grill of the right car. The front of the car exploded, rocketing
the hood toward the ceiling, and then Lacey was down, flat on the rear seat.
The explosion kicked them from behind like a rear-end collision. A wave of heat
rolled over them for an instant before they left it behind.

 
          
Lacey
peeked over the back of the rear seat in time to see the burning unit sidewipe
its companion. The second bounced off the wall with a shower of sparks, then
slammed into the first as someone's gas tank exploded. The second car flipped
then and landed against the first. Amid the agonized screech and groan of metal
grinding against concrete and asphalt and tile, both slid to a halt across the
tunnel roadway in a single, twisted, flaming mass.

 
          
Lacey
shook her head. Wow. Powerful stuff.

 
          
She
thought she saw something moving, a flaming man-shaped thing crawling out a
window, but she couldn't be sure. Suddenly a third explosion rocked the mass.
The other gas tank, she guessed.

 
          
Lacey
tugged her shirt back over her head and climbed up into the passenger seat.

 
          
"That's
it! The last time I strip down for these animals."

 
          
"Let's
hope so," Carole said. "By the way, that was an amazing piece of
indirection."

 
          
Was
that a note of genuine admiration Lacey detected in her voice?

 
          
"Thank
you. And my compliments to the chef on that napalm." Lacey pointed ahead
at the splotch of brightness ahead in the dark of the tiled gullet. "Look.
The light at the end of the tunnel."

 
          
"More
Vichy
there?"

 
          
Lacey
grabbed the shotgun. Her stomach crawled. How long could their luck last?

 
          
But
to their amazement, the
Manhattan
side of the tunnel was deserted. Gasping with relief, they swerved left
and roared into the concrete box of an enclosed above-and-below-ground
park-and-lock lot on
42nd Street
.

 
          
BARRETT
. . .

 
          
Neal
kicked a piece of blackened metal from the wrecks and sent it spinning across
the scorched pavement. He tugged on his beard.

 
          
"What
the fuck?"

 
          
"What
the fuck is right," Barrett said. "All seven guys gone. Just like
that."

 
          
Franco
was going to be pissed ... if he found out.

 
          
The
relief crews had arrived on the
Manhattan
side at
noon
to find smoke billowing from the middle
tube. They'd waited till it tapered off, then drove inside. This was what
they'd found.

 
          
Lights
from the headlights of a couple of cars illuminated the twisted mess of metal.
The ceiling and walls were scorched black for hundreds of feet in both
directions.

 
          
"You
think it was a hit?" Neal said.

 
          
"You
mean like what happened at the Lakewood Post Office. I don't know. See any
bullet holes?"

 
          
Neal
shook his head. "Not a one."

 
          
Neither
had Barrett.

 
          
Two
carloads of cowboys reduced to crispy critters. It looked like one car had
plowed into the other, smashing it against the side of the tunnel. Barrett
visualized a bent side panel, showers of sparks, a gas cap tearing off, then
kablam!

 
          
What
had they been doing—drag racing through the tubes? Assholes. One car was
supposed to be stationed at each end of the tunnel, but this wouldn't be the
first time they'd got bored and hung out together on the
Jersey
end. He'd caught them at it before and this
was probably another instance. Most of these guys had the attention span of a
gnat.

 
          
"Well,
without bullet holes in the cars—or what's left of them—how could it be a hit?
Must have been an accident. Caused by terminal stupidity."

 
          
Barrett
ground his teeth. He had to get out of this job. He had to take the next step.
Get turned. He'd go crazy if he had to spend another nine-plus years with these
assholes.

 
          
CAROLE
...

 
          
"Look,
Ma," Lacey said. "A double threat: no hands while walking on the
third rail."

 
          
Carole
knew Lacey had to be as uneasy as she, walking these subway tracks, but she was
doing a better job of hiding it. She briefly angled her flashlight beam at
Lacey, then back to the tracks again.

 
          
"Under
different circumstances I might call that a shocking display of brashness, but
after yesterday ..."

 
          
Lacey
laughed.

 
          
They'd
huddled in the car in the park-and-lock garage all day, venturing out only to
relieve themselves. When the sun had fallen and Joseph was awake, he left alone
to begin nighttime surveillance on the
Empire
State
Building
and the area around it. But he'd returned
less than an hour later driving a huge Lincoln Navigator he'd appropriated from
a nearby parking lot. He insisted that she and Lacey transfer to it, not
because of the comfort its extra size afforded, but because of its hard top.
They were already insulated by the garage's layers of reinforced concrete, but
he wanted them further sealed in steel. He begged them to stay locked in during
the dark hours, telling them their warm blood made them easy to pick out
against the cold concrete and granite of the city. If a hybrid like him could
sense them, what about the fully undead?

 
          
Carole
had missed him, worried about him, but had taken his advice. She and Lacey had
slept when they could, and talked when they couldn't—talked about anything they
could think of. Except sex. Lacey's lesbianism made Carole uncomfortable. Or
was it the fact that she felt a growing fondness for this young woman who
happened to be a lesbian.

 
          
She'd
been relieved to see Joseph return with the dawn. He was excited. He'd found a
place where they could watch the comings and goings at the

 
          
Empire
State
Building
in relative safety and comfort, and told
them how to get there.

 
          
So
now it was their turn. They'd left the garage at sunrise when the undead were
no threat. Only the living.

 
          
They'd
walked the deserted pedestrian tunnel from the Port Authority to Times Square,
and were now down on the tracks of the 42nd Street Shuttle. This seemed like
the safest way to move about the city. Certainly less risk down here of running
into a pack of cruising Vichy than up on the street. At least she hoped so.

 
          
Flashlight
in one hand, cocked-and-ready pistol in the other; backpacks filled with
sharpened stakes, hammers, batteries, and cans of salmon they'd brought from
the Shore.

 
          
What
a way to travel. What a way to live.

 
          
Carole
knew nothing about guns, had never liked them, had never so much as laid a
finger on one until a few days ago. She'd always imagined she'd be afraid of
them, but had to admit she found something comforting in the weight, the
solidity, the pent-up lethality of the semi-automatic Lacey had given her.
She'd shown her how to work the safety. All she had to do if the need arose was
point and pull the trigger. She prayed that need would never arise. There was
no place to practice so she hadn't fired it yet, and had no idea how it would
feel when she did.

 
          
"You
know," Lacey said, dancing along the third rail like a gymnast on a
balance beam, "it's strange. From the instant we jumped off the platform
onto the tracks, I had to touch this rail. I was scared to—I mean, what if by
some freak chance it was live—but I had to. Didn't you feel any of that?"

 
          
"Not
at all." But seeing Lacey on the third rail made her nervous. The chance
of the power coming back on was about equal to that of a subway full of
commuters coming by, but still it put her on edge. "We've been told all
our lives that we could never touch the third rail because we'd be fried to a
cinder. At first opportunity you're up on the rail, walking along it. That's
pretty much you in a nutshell, isn't it."

 
          
Lacey
snickered. "I guess so. What's the psychology there? It no longer has
power over me, so now I'm dancing on its grave?"

 
          
"I
never placed much stock in psychology."

 
          
"But
look where you're walking, Carole. What does that say about you?"

 
          
"It
says nothing's changed. I was quite happy staying off the third rail when it
was live, and am just as happy to stay off it now."

 
          
"Ever
watch Ren and Stimpy?"

 
          
"Can't
say that I have, although years ago at a school picnic I remember some of my
students wearing badly drawn T-shirts with those words on them."

 
          
"It's
a cartoon show, and in one of the early episodes they're in outer space and
they come across this button with all these warnings about 'Do not press or you
will destroy the space-time continuum,' or something like that. Anyway, Stimpy
just has to press it. And when I saw that I said, Yeah, I think I'd press it
too."

 
          
"Good
Lord, why?"

 
          
"Well,
first off, part of me would be going, Yeah, right, like this button's gonna end
the space-time continuum. Uh-huh. And another part would be thinking, Really?
What would that be like? Let's find out..."

 
          
"How
about a part of you saying, Let's lock the door to this place and throw away
the key?"

 
          
"I
think when they were giving out parts I missed that one." She flashed her
light at Carole and held out a hand. "Come on. I'll help you up."

 
          
"No,
thank you. If one of us slips off and sprains an ankle, the other has to remain
well enough to carry on."

 
          
Lacey
loosed a dramatic sigh, then stepped off the rail and fell in beside her.
"Spoil sport." She flashed her beam ahead. "Damn, it's
dark."

 
          
Carole
nodded. The light-colored tiles—she supposed they'd once been white—in the
pedestrian tunnel and in the Times Square station had reflected the glow from
their flashes, letting them see more than just what was in the beam. But down
here on the tracks, surrounded by grimy steel girders and soot-blackened
concrete walls, with no reflective surface except the polished upper surface of
the tracks and an occasional puddle, the darkness seemed a living thing,
pressing against them. And all those recesses and access tunnels and crawl
spaces . . .

 
          
Something
splashed behind them.

 
          
Carole
heard Lacey gasp. Both whirled and flashed their beams madly about but found
nothing moving. Carole could feel her heart pounding.

 
          
"Think
it was a rat?" Lacey said.

 
          
"Could
have been."

 
          
"I
hate rats."

 
          
"They're
just animals."

 
          
"Yeah,
but I really skeeve them."

 
          
"Skeeve?"

 
          
"Yeah.
Heard it from some Italian girl I knew. Means to make your skin crawl. If we
see a rat, that'll be a good time for you to get used to firing your pistol. I
think we can risk a few shots down here."

 
          
"I'm
not shooting a rat. And neither are you. They're no threat to us, it's a waste
of ammunition, and besides, they were here first. It isn't rodentia you should
be worried about down here. Genus Homo offers the main threat right now."

 
          
They
started walking through the dark again, but every so often one of them—they
took turns—would turn and flash her light behind them.

 
          
Lacey
whispered, "I remember hearing about homeless people who used to live in
the subway tunnels. I wonder if any of them are left."

 
          
"If
I were a betting woman—and I'm not—I'd say no. Underground is where the undead
go to hide from the light. Once down here they'd sniff out the living in no
time."

 
          
Lacey
grabbed her arm. "Speaking of sniffing, what is that?"

 
          
Carole
felt her nose wrinkling. She knew the odor: carrion. "Something died
nearby."

 
          
"Which
means there's a good chance one of them is nearby."

 
          
They
followed the stench to a recess in the right wall that led to an alcove beyond
it. Carol flashed her beam down the narrow passage. The floor was littered with
the bodies, of beheaded rats, some of them acrawl with maggots.

 
          
"What's
with the dead rats?" Lacey whispered behind her.

 
          
"I
don't know."

 
          
"We
don't want to go in there."

 
          
"Right,"
Carole said. "But we must."

 
          
"Like
hell."

 
          
"We
can't leave any undead along our route. What if we're delayed coming back and
we're caught down here after sundown? We can't see in the dark; they can."

 
          
Lacey
was silent a moment, then grumbled, "All right, but let's go in with all
bases covered." Carole felt a tug on her backpack. "I'll handle the
gun and flashlight—in case whatever's in there is human—while you take the
hammer-and-stake detail."

 
          
A
moment later Carole had her crucifix and a stake in her left hand, thrust out
ahead of her, the hammer clutched in her right. Lacey was squeezed beside her,
manning the flashlight. Carole wished she had a third hand to hold a cloth over
her mouth and nose. The stench was unbearable.

 
          
They
edged down the passage, shuffling to avoid stepping on the dead rats, and
entered a small square alcove, maybe ten feet on a side. The first thing Carole
saw was a naked corpse crumpled in the far corner, face to the wall; the
position made it impossible to determine its sex. The floor was littered with
more dead rats, most of them clustered around the naked emaciated male figure
that lay in the center of the space. When Lacey shone the light on its face,
the gummy lids parted slowly. It let out a feeble hiss and bared its fangs.
Although this one didn't quite qualify as a feral, its appearance was a long
way from human.

 
          
Carole
wasted no time. "Keep the light on it," she told Lacey as she knelt
beside the thing.

 
          
She
touched the crucifix to its sunken belly, eliciting a flash and a puff of smoke.
That proved beyond doubt it was undead. The creature writhed as she raised the
stake—she'd have no trouble finding a space between the jutting ribs of this
washboard chest. But just as Carole pressed the point of the wooden shaft
against its skin, Lacey let out a cry of terror and the flash beam darted
around the room.

 
          
Carole
turned and saw Lacey struggling as if her foot was caught.

 
          
"It's
got me!" Lacey cried. "Damn it to hell, I thought it was dead!"

 
          
In
the wildly wavering light Carole saw that what she too had assumed to be a
human cadaver had locked its fingers around Lacey's ankle. Lacey was trying to
kick herself free but the creature clung to her like a weighted manacle. Panic
bloomed in the hollow of her gut. Were there more?