The Light at the End (9 page)

The story, in a highly abbreviated form, made it to the evening papers. Mention was made of a young woman who was found dead at the Union Square station, suffering from massive head injuries and numerous broken bones.

No mention was made of the fact that she wandered out of the tunnels, or that she was in such a state of decay that she had to be scraped from the steps.

“Are you sure about this?” Allan asked over the phone, a match’s flame dancing nervously at his fingertips. He cradled the receiver against his shoulder and brought the briar pipe to his lips. Lord knew that he needed
something
to relax.

“I stood there and
watched
it!” Ian’s voice was profoundly agitated, still wavering at the borderline of hysteria. “Hunter and I both! We watched this poor woman crawl up the stairs, hit the sunlight, and… poof! Just go down in a cloud of green gas!”

“You…” Allan began, but Ian would not be interrupted.

“When the smell hit, I wanted to run up the stairs and find a quick bush to puke in, that’s how bad it was.”

“Whoa…”

“And they’re covering it
up
, goddamit! I don’t know
why
, but they’re covering it up, Allan! I mean, who are they trying to protect? Something like this happens, the people ought to know about it! You know what I… ?”

“Yeah, boss. I know. It’s just that…”

“You don’t believe me, right?”

“Well…”
How do I put this?
“If I were hearing it from anyone else, I’d be having an even harder time than I’m having now. That’s all.”

Ian seemed to consider this. At any rate, he paused for a moment; and when his voice came back over the line, it was a good bit calmer.

“Honest to God, Allan. It’s true. You wouldn’t have believed it if you saw it with your own eyes… I’m having an awfully hard time believing it, myself… but it actually happened. There were cops there, just standing there with their jaws flapping. They didn’t know what to do, either. It was…” His voice cracked, and Allan suspected that he’d started to cry. “…it was just so unreal. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Worse than
Day of the Dead
.”

“Jesus.” From Ian, that was bad; he must have seen that film a hundred times.

“It was worse, because it was
real
. It was… well, you
know
what it was, don’t you?”

Allan sat and thought for a moment, filling the room with clouds of aromatic smoke. He knew the answer that Ian was suggesting…
what looks dead, walks around, and decomposes when exposed to sunlight?
…and he wasn’t lying when he said he’d have a harder time believing it from anyone else. But, dammit, how
could
he believe something like that? How could even a dungeon master, with one foot firmly planted in the shadowland of fantasy, suddenly rip down the veil and say that, yes, monsters
are
real? How could he say that?

“A… a vampire?” he said.

“You can bet your ass on it,” Ian declared, “and come home with two.” They laughed nervously. “Yes, sir. You can walk through the door with a full set of cheeks on either side if you push the buzzer that says VAMPIRE. Because that’s exactly what it was, my man. No two ways about it.”

“And Joseph agrees with your prognosis?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s all we talked about all day. That’s why we didn’t show up for work; we just sat in a bar and drank ‘til it came out our ears. Then… I guess it was about eight o’clock… he just got up and split.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No.” Pause. “Well, he said that he was going home, but I didn’t believe him. And when I called out there, nobody answered the phone.”

“That’s probably the last place in the world he wants to be right now.”

“Yeah.” Alan heard Ian lighting something; he waited. “You know where I think he went?” Ian resumed.

“Where?”

“Well, I think we’re gonna have to start calling him Joseph ‘The Vampire’ Hunter.”

“
Whoa
, boss. Wait a minute. What do you mean?”

“I think he went to look for the thing that killed that woman.” Once again, Allan got a cold rush up his spine. “I think he plans to track it down and destroy it.”

Stephen fidgeted nervously in his seat on the downtown side of the 42
^nd
Street station, 6
^th
Avenue line. There were a lot of unsavory characters out tonight, filling him with a low-level, numbing sort of dread. He didn’t want to be the next victim of the Subway Psycho, or anybody else.

In the seat next to him, a black man in a nicely tailored suit was reading the
Post
. Stephen determinedly repressed the urge to peek over the man’s shoulder. He had always hated those seamy scandal-rags; and he had, in his opinion, wasted enough time and money on them in the past week to last him the rest of his life.

Especially since they reminded him of Rudy, this week’s Number One time-waster. Every time he thought about Rudy, anger smoldered inside of him like a hot coal. When he thought about all the
work
he could have done, if he hadn’t been running around and worrying himself half to death! It was just infuriating, that was all. It was just intolerably, unforgivably infuriating.

That was why he’d spent the afternoon at the New York Public Library, ostensibly doing research for a new science fiction story. That was why he’d decided to treat himself to a nice dinner at Beefsteak Charlie’s and the 7:15 showing of
The Dark Crystal
: an evening calculated to relax and reward him for all his fruitless effort.

It didn’t work. He’d accomplished zilch at the library, of course; dinner at Beefsteak’s wasn’t nearly as much fun when you were alone; and
Dark Crystal
had left him with some extremely disturbing imagery. The essence-sucking scenes, in particular, were fraught with a horror that he’d in no way expected. They nagged at him now, though he didn’t know why.

I wish the train would hurry up and get here
, he thought, staring down at the tracks. Nothing had run their length in the last fifteen minutes. Slowly, the platform was beginning to fill with people, all of them strangers.
I wish I weren’t alone
, he posed as a corollary to his first wish.

A noisy group of Latinos came down the stairs, laughing and gesticulating like crazy while one of them shouted out some story in Spanish. Stephen turned to look, and that was when he saw the woolly mountain of anger on his left.

That the man was blitzed, he had no doubt. That the man was fully capable of murder was equally clear. As Stephen stared, the man turned suddenly; and Stephen found himself looking into the coldest set of eyes he’d ever seen. The man turned away then, looking at something or someone down the platform, and Stephen shuddered with relief.

Thank God
, he thought.
That man was terrifying
.

Then, barely discernible at first over the boisterous Latinos but quickly overcoming their chatter, came the sound of the train. It took a moment to figure out which way it was coming from. Stephen found himself looking both ways, as if his eyes could pinpoint the source of the rumbling; then, with a slow grin of dawning realization, he became certain that it was heading his way.

“Terrific,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. He took a few steps in the direction of the tracks, glanced around at the others who were beginning to move forward, and…

…roughly halfway down the platform, his pale features contrasting sharply with his customary black attire, was Rudy.

“Omigod!” he gasped, barely believing his eyes. “RUDY!” Rudy looked vaguely around, as though Stephen’s shout had been an echo heard in a dream. “RUDY!” he repeated; and then the train plowed into the station, drowning out all other sound.

“Shit!” he yelled, audible only to himself. Hastily, he began to muscle his way down the platform. Some people didn’t take kindly to it; he muttered a series of apologies that went unheard by all, save one.

The train screeched to a halt. Stephen realized that he wasn’t going to get all the way down there in time. The doors slammed open; he moved quickly to the nearest one, then waited in extreme impatience for the five or six people in front of it to drag their asses on board.

He had completely forgotten the large, angry man who had frightened him mere moments before.

He didn’t know that the man had begun to follow him.

Stephen boarded the train and proceeded toward the front. It was fairly clear sailing inside… most everybody was taking advantage of the available seats, leaving the aisles open… and he had made two cars’ worth of progress by the time the doors shut and they began to roll.

He came to a door. He opened it. He stepped into the space between cars and hesitated for a moment, unsure of his footing. It occurred to him that he had never trekked through a moving train before… had always considered it a reckless, foolish thing to do… and the realization unsettled him further still.

As a kid, Stephen Parrish had always been regarded as a wimp. In his pre-teen years, he sat home and read comic books while the other kids whupped the tar out of each other in contact sports and other forms of casual violence, or flung themselves bodily through the air via rope swings and high diving boards. When high school rolled around, the stakes of playing rough got increasingly higher; Stephen advanced tangentially into the worlds of science fiction and fantasy.

Now, as Joe College, Stephen had graduated to the realms of highbrow philosophy, New Wave culture, and moderate drug use. His earlier fascinations still remained… had expanded, in fact; and so with his fear of bodily harm, his recalcitrance in matters of even slight potential danger. New York City, in particular, had heightened his urge to seek escape from mortal terrors by the use of his intellect.

And here I am
, he thought, still poised on the bucking, yawning sheets of metal where the cars joined together. It reminded him of standing on a two-by-four slung across a flowing stream… another activity which, as a child, he had always wanted nothing to do with. It had always scared the bejesus out of him.

Just as standing here was scaring him now.

So why am I doing it?
he asked himself.
Why am I doing something so contrary to my own nature? Why is Rudy worth taking that kind of chance?

Standing there, in the space between, Stephen found himself examining the nature of his strange friendship with the notorious Rudy Pasko. His mind ran over some of the more typical scenes that they’d been known to act out: Rudy, going off on a spiel that was half lecture, half mad raving, while Stephen passively absorbed it all; Stephen, admiring Rudy’s latest piece of graphic poetry, be it on tenement wall or subway poster; Stephen, lending Rudy money that his parents sent, knowing full well that Rudy would never pay him back; Stephen, blushing in embarrassment, while Rudy introduced him to total strangers with caustic wit and derision; Stephen, envying Rudy’s indomitable self-confidence, easy success with women, and relative success in the field, while Stephen himself eked out an existence as a lonely literary dilettante who barely even started his work, much less finished it; Rudy, strikingly handsome in the dim light of some Bleecker Street cafe, while Stephen wrestled with the impulse to reach over, to touch…

“
Oh, God!
” Stephen whined, suddenly hating himself more than he ever had before in his young, self-pitying life. He saw it all very clearly, all of a sudden. He saw himself in the subservient, stereotypically feminine role: wanting to be dominated by a stronger will, sucking up the humiliation like some fawning, insecure little chippie would suck up her macho boyfriend’s semen on demand. Not request:
demand
.

He realized that what he’d wanted all along was Rudy himself, and that he had been willing to believe all the nasty lies that Rudy told about Josalyn because, in the final analysis, he was jealous of her.

It made him want to cry.

Suddenly, the platform between cars was monstrously stifling: a cage balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff, with the wind howling through it like all the demons of Hell joined together in song. He tried to hold back the tiny scream that trembled in his throat. He failed. And with a sudden, desperate effort, he yanked open the door ahead of him.

And stepped inside.

Of the thirty or forty people in the car, only a dozen or so turned to look as the door slammed shut behind him. None of them were wearing Rudy’s face; the confrontation had not been forced. Stephen received this with mixed disappointment and relief.

The train rumbled into the light of the 34
^th
Street station, dramatically slowing down. He staggered as the engineer jerkily plied the brakes, grasping for the nearest handgrip. Several people got up from their seats to stand in front of the doors, and Stephen briefly considered the idea of joining them, of getting off the train and letting Rudy roll right out of his life forever.

But something inside of him, one of his mind’s wiser voices, told him to stay.
Go find him
, it said.
Calmly ask him what happened, where he’s been. If he hands you some kind of arrogant attitude, turn around and leave. If he apologizes, or has some kind of legitimate excuse, forgive him.

But whatever you do, keep your head on straight. Don’t let him manipulate you.

Be strong. For once.

The train ground to a halt; the doors flew open. Stephen waited once again for the doorway to clear, then peeked out onto the platform to see if Rudy had disembarked. As far as he could tell, no. He decided to take advantage of the fact that the train wasn’t moving, started walking once again toward the front.

Behind him, at the rear of the car, someone waited for Stephen to reach the next car before opening the door and slowly, cautiously, following after.

Stephen stepped into the next car just as the doors closed on 34
^th
Street. His own door slammed shut behind him. Once again, numerous sets of eyes looked up to check him out; but this time, he saw only one of them.

One set of eyes, so red as to appear infected, staring up at him: hazily at first, then clearing into the sharp glint of recognition.

“Ah,” said the owner, a thin smile cutting jaggedly across his thin, bone-white features. “Stephen.”

“Rudy,” Stephen said. It was barely more than a whisper. His heart seemed to have climbed into his throat and strangled the sound.

The train began to move. Stephen stumbled forward, nearly tripping over a businessman’s briefcase. Rudy was watching him, head cocked to one side and grinning coldly, like a pet boa constrictor who’s just been thrown a live mouse. Predatory. Reptilian. Amused. And totally in control.

“Come have a seat, Stephen,” Rudy said. “Be my guest.” Rudy spread his hands to indicate free seats on either side of him. A chill ran through Stephen, paralyzingly cold, and it said
nobody wants to get too close to him. Everybody else is afraid of him, too.

“Have a seat,” Rudy reiterated, patting the space to his immediate left. This time, however, though the smile was still there, it was not a request. There was something strangely compelling about the eyes: a fire not previously there, a force behind them that seemed to draw Stephen forward despite himself.

Slowly, Stephen obeyed.

Rudy watched. He nodded. His smile broadened, as though some wonderful thought had just occurred to him for the first time. Stephen saw him mouth something, but was unable to read it.

Stephen’s hackles rose. He could feel the short hairs at the nape of his neck stiffen as the chill continued to flow through him. He saw now that Rudy was not only pale, but sunken to a deathlike pallor; and the darkness around those horrible eyes was not his customary makeup, but an actual discoloration of the skin. The sight was almost enough to make Stephen stop.

But not quite.

Stephen sat down beside Rudy, and at once the smell hit him: the smell of dampness and mold, the slightest trace of sewage wafting up and through it as though Rudy had been dipped in a septic tank. Stephen wrinkled his nose, but he didn’t move away; to his horror, he discovered that he couldn’t.

“It’s good to see you, Stephen,” Rudy said, grinning. “How’ve ya been?”

Stephen shrugged. It was as if somebody had him hooked to invisible strings; had it been left to him, he wouldn’t have been able to move at all.

“Good.” Rudy drew out the word, as if he were savoring a fine wine. “I suppose that you’ve been wondering where I’ve been.”

Stephen nodded, this time voluntarily; but the movement was sluggish, weak. Rudy grinned, watching him, then laughed out loud.

“I’ve been traveling, Stephen. A trip and a half.” He tittered and wrung his bone-white hands. “A great and mysterious journey,” he said.

His features grew wicked and patronizing. His eyes burned holes in Stephen’s last vestige of self-control. He smiled.

“I used to fancy myself quite the connoisseur of darkness. I really thought I’d seen it all.” An almost humbled expression flickered across his face and was gone. “The full depth and breadth of human depravity. The monster behind the civilized veneer! The skull behind the mask! I thought I knew all about it. I
thought
I knew…” Rudy’s eyes glittered darkly, madly, his voice a husky whisper. “But now I
know
.”

“I… I’ve
changed
, Stephen.” He laughed again, a piercing lunatic trill. “I’ve seen things in the last few days that you wouldn’t believe… you would not
believe
it, Stephen… unless I showed you.”

Stephen shuddered, eyes locked on Rudy’s. It was like staring into a roaring furnace. There was something happening inside of them that inspired the same kind of awe and terror: a dance of destructive power so intense that its majesty outweighed the pain of bearing witness to it. Stephen’s eyes burned, but he was powerless to look away.

Behind him, at the rear of the car, somebody stepped through the sliding door and stood there, watching. Stephen could not have been less aware of the fact.

“I’ve gone all the way in, Stephen.” Rudy’s voice was hypnotizing, like the hiss of a cobra over cold, slit eyes. “I’ve gone all the way into the darkness, Stephen. And do you know what I found there?”