Chapter Nineteen

Billy stopped at the stairs leading up to the elevated train. He wasn't sure if the system was still running despite everything. The city roared with violence, but between 11^th and Tower Street, Chicago felt abandoned. They hardly encountered a single person once they fled the hospital. The apartment buildings, businesses and thoroughfares had been shut and locked and perhaps barricaded. A pair of eyes would occasionally peek through blinds to check on the state of the city, but otherwise, people were playing it safe. Fear permeated the dry air. The dome above them was gradually snuffing the city’s air supply. 

Nelson double-checked the road for strange people. “How much longer before you think we suffocate?”

Billy shook his head. “Let’s pretend someone on the outside of this city’s forming a plan to save our asses. It’s not the air I’m worried about just yet.”

“How do you figure?”

“Whatever murdered my father and all those people is a bigger threat. And then the man who blew himself up yesterday. Think about it. Maybe there are more of them.”

“Do you really think any human being could transport a shell that big and cover the city?”

“Well, somebody did. Who would slice and dice an entire floor of hospital patients? I still believe that guy looked too much like that damn movie to be a coincidence. Shit, I don’t know. I can't make sense of it.”

“I can't either.”

“Then let’s get going. Jessica’s alone. Let’s hope the train’s still running.”

Billy raced up the stairs, already winded halfway up. He wouldn’t be much of a hero to Jessica if he couldn’t run a block without keeling over. Who said she was in danger? She’s in a big secure building. I’m sure people are all around her. I'm the one who's in danger out here. 

The platform was barren. Together, they waited for the next train to show up. 

“What if the train doesn’t come?”

“It’s a solid three miles to Corporate Tower and the Crouch and Meadows offices,” Billy said. “It’s worth waiting a minute. It wouldn’t make sense to shut it down. There are innocent people still out and about who have to be carted back to their homes.”

The sound of a train broke the silence. It had to be two or three blocks from them. Billy’s nerves crested. He paced. Wind slipped through cracks of the wooden platform, whistling. He couldn’t erase the image of his father’s bloody face. 

Nelson had been eying him for a time. “What are you thinking about?”

Billy felt the pang of tears coming. He wiped them away, pretending to be fighting fatigue. “My dad. He’s really gone. It hasn’t truly set in until now. I wish I hadn’t seen his dead body. It’s going to stay with me forever. The police wouldn’t tell me anything. It’s their fault I had to charge into that crime scene. I freaked out. He didn’t deserve to die like that. He was a good man. Firm, but still a decent man. He only wanted the best for me.”

“Hey, it’s a tough situation altogether,” Nelson reasoned. “Your father was a good man. Good sense of humor. Hard worker. He'd want you to fight through this and survive.”

The train rumbled closer. The platform shook, the boards groaning and protesting the vibrations. The train arrived. The doors opened with a hermetic shuffle. Together, Billy and Nelson entered. Billy clutched onto the overhead compartment, while Nelson sat down. The car was empty except for the last eight seats closest to the back. Four men. Four women. They stared at each other from across the car. Backs straight. Eyes unblinking. Faces unreadable. 

“What’s with them?” Nelson asked. “Maybe they’re freaked out.”

The doors shut. They were shaken as the train was given a push forward and rolled along the track. Building tops whirred by, the darkness blanketing them to the point they were staring into nothing. 

Billy watched the others in the train. The eight didn’t move. Not a facial twitch. Not a cough. “That’s strange.”

“Maybe I should talk to them.”

“No,” Billy insisted. “I don’t need more problems than I already have. It’s situations like this when people go nuts and kill each other. As long as they’re not carrying weapons, we’ve got a head start to run into the next car.”

Billy couldn’t quit looking at them. They were pasty-faced. They looked pure, he thought, untouched by life. No pigment to the skin. Creamy white. The whites of their eyes were bright and unblemished. They even looked alike. 

“You keep looking at them,” Nelson whispered. “Why are they so interesting?”

“There's something weird about those people.”

“You got that right. They’re out of some religious colony. They probably don’t know what buildings or civilization are.”

Muffled vibrations nearly sent the train off the track. 

BARUMP!

BARUMP!

KATHAM!

They heard the bending of steel, the crashing of windows, screams clashing against screams, the calls of terror, and then the thundering collapse of rafters and concrete and brick. The steady pound of steps overpowered the crash of a nearby building. It was a block or two away. The ruckus wasn’t a single blow, but one of many. Another building was literally uprooted, and Billy and Nelson clutched onto the overhead hold to keep from collapsing onto the floor as the train shook. 

The other group didn’t react. 

They were glued to the seats, staring at each other. 

One of their noses started to bleed. Nelson gasped. “Do you see that?”

Billy was breathing hard without noticing. “Yeah, I see that shit.”

The thud of gigantic steps came closer still. Each of the passengers’ noses started to leak blood. And then red crimson lines descended from their hairlines. As if invisible stitching was undone stitch by stitch, a line down the center of their faces ripped open. Their skulls split, teeth sprouting around the edges of the openings the size of knitting needles, the Venus flytrap head snapping at air. And between snaps, Billy viewed a pair of diamond-colored eyes embedded in their pink brains. The brain was a creature, and somewhere on the brains, a mouth grumbled nonsense and blathered like an insane monster. 

The eight shot up from their seats, each with the same flytrap head. The chattering and clamping of teeth continued as they edged toward Billy and Nelson. The overhead lights flickered out. Darkness surrounded them. Their steps closed in. 

From the end of the car, the source of the outside devastation presented itself. A bare leg—a human leg—the size of a column at the Lincoln Memorial—swiped the car. The train was hurled from the track and plummeted onto the street.