Mandy charged through the mist two steps at a time. Nearing the top of the stairwell, she leapt onto the platform and turned to see the back of the 6:30 to New New York as it left the station, its red and white lights blinking through the haze. No. She fell to her knees. Please God, no.
Passengers scattered, moving past. They moved in a methodical hurry, an anxious rush that permitted not a single glance down. Fine, whatever. Run. Hide. It wasn’t like this town knew to do anything else.
It took a while for the gang to reach her. “You didn’t make it?” Karen asked somewhere over her shoulder.
Mandy didn’t turn around. “No.” She raised her head to look up to the sky, but the early morning was lost in the gray. The platform lay empty and she sighed, lowering her gaze into lingering, shallow pools of rainwater left upon the concrete. “All right,” she said, “get the weapons.”
More footsteps as everyone headed back down the stairs. Mandy turned as they left to see that only Braxis remained, the great big husky who occasionally left Sammy’s side to join hers. She ran a hand through the dog’s coarse hair and resisted the urge to nuzzle him as a breeze passed over her face and a pair of boots came into view as she crouched near Braxis.“You’re staying?” a voice asked.
She looked up. A large man stood in front of her; tall and brown-skinned, big shoulders packed within a green field jacket. He looked like one of those grizzled war veterans, or an ostensible fan of grizzled war veterans. Stubble ran across his cheeks and chin, and a deep scar trickled down one side of his face. A second marked the base of his throat. “Yeah,” she told him.
“You know what happens at seven?”
Mandy swallowed, pushing aside a lock of her curtained, raven-black hair. “Everybody knows.”
“Not everyone. Not even close to everyone.”
“Well, everyone in town. You from town?”
“I’m from around,” the man said, then inclined his head. “Hernandez.”
Mandy looked down at Braxis but the husky just looked back at her with big, dumb, happy eyes. She nodded back up at the man. “Mandy,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you, Mandy. You should go.”
“My friends are coming back. I’ll be fine.” She paused, giving Hernandez a squinty, guarded look. “My boyfriend’s with them.”
“Good for you. Leave with him. Grab some coffee, or sex or something. This station’s not for you right now.”
“I have to take this train,” Mandy said, folding her arms. “It's under control.”
Hernandez leaned back, his eyes giving her a considered study. “New job?”
Mandy smacked her lips in annoyance. “Yeah.”
“Pretty important? First day?”
“Yeah.”
“Hallelujah. Productive hands are graceful hands. Now smarten up and catch the next train.”
Couldn’t this guy give it up? Mandy had half a mind to flip him off, but… she looked past him down the tracks. Nothing there, not yet, just the empty and silent rail line running through a grove of leafless birch. She gritted her teeth. Losing her cool would be the stupid move. She stuck her chin out and stood her ground instead.
Hernandez looked from her to Braxis and back again. “Fine,” he said, “fine,” and moved away down the platform.
The gang returned soon after. Karen had the crowbar, Ellie the kitchen knife; Francisca brought the family pistol while Moral Support Marky had that rifle borrowed from God-knows-where. And Sammy, oh wow. Sammy had his barbed wire bat, the kick-ass one with the nails driven through. Hard and spiky. You had to love a man who knew how to make violence fun.
Marky looked over towards where Hernandez had edged. “Who’s the old guy?” he asked. “He's kind of cute.”
“Nobody,” said Mandy. She turned to Karen, holding out her hand.
Karen shifted, acting like she didn’t have it but Mandy could see the sword right there, strapped to her back. “Can’t we talk about this, Mands?” she asked.
Mandy made an exasperated sound and walked behind Karen, unfastening the blade and taking it from her. She unsheathed the first inch of her finest possession, admiring the steel, shining even in comatose morning weather. Satisfied, she slid it back as Ellie handed over her sparring gauntlets. “What’s to talk about?” Mandy said. “I missed my train.”
“It’s my fault; I slept in,” said Karen. Her blue eyes darted back and forth behind mousy glasses. “Look, I can fix this. If we take the twelve-oh-four to—”
“Karen, stop. There’s no way to program your car for me to make it by nine. Not with what we can afford.”
Karen grew flush, blinking. “You can’t take the Nightmare. You can’t.”
“I have to.”
“Just listen, there’s another way; I’ve been talking to, I mean…” Karen looked down the tracks then shut her eyes tight, lips pulled back like she was about to cry or bite off her own mouth. She covered it with her hand.
Mandy reached under Karen’s glasses, and wiped the tears from her ducts with the heel of her thumb. “Hey. It’s okay. We all knew this could happen, if one of us got a job in town. You did your best. Setting alarms can be a bitch, all right? Look… give Ellie the crowbar. Go home.”
Karen snapped her head back. “What?”
“Go home. It’s okay. We can take it from here.”
Karen looked them all over, pulling her open cardigan closer around her chest. “You’re kicking me out of the group,” she said.
Mandy snapped a finger, pointing it in her face like they were back in third grade. “Stop saying that. Stop.”
“But you won’t listen! I think there’s…” Karen trailed off, her voice growing weaker as she gave up. Finally, she handed over the crowbar and ran off down the platform stairs.
“You didn’t have to be hard on her,” Marky said after she was gone.
Mandy silenced him with a look, bracing the sheathed blade between her legs as she twisted on the gauntlets. “I love Karen. But she’s no good in a fight.”
“I’m no good in a fight,” Ellie piped up.
“Ellie, I saw you knock down Dan McGee in the middle of Mr. Harlaw's history class after he kept harassing me. I never forget when someone beats me to a punch.”
“That was Karen!”
Gauntlets on, Mandy froze. She looked back towards the stairs. “Oh. Right, yeah,” she said, and all at once wanted to run back home and stay forever. Jobs in New New York—jobs anywhere—were a big deal, but taking the 7 a.m. Nightmare was one desperate bit of madness. She started taking off the gauntlets when Sammy was suddenly there, pulling her aside with Braxis in tow. “You got this,” he said after they were a few feet away.
“Are you kidding? It’s a disaster. This was not the plan.”
“It was always a flimsy plan. Traffic, sleeping in, it's a tough world out there. Listen, do you want the job?”
Mandy closed her eyes. There in her mind, she saw herself walking marble office hallways, pushing presentations over touchscreens that felt like silk, fetching coffee, and oh, the paycheck! Had you ever seen one? Like precious relics from high finance genies, they bestowed quality food, entertainment, pump-action weaponry; quality living to go around. She might even find a house, better than her parents’ with property value so low due to their remote location and the hushed, shadowy visits of the Nightmare. A big house with a room for every person that had ever shown enough guts take her side. Bought with actual money. Take that Universal Basic Income script and blow it out your ass.
“Yes,” Mandy said as the future passed and faded before her eyes. “Yes, I want it.”
Sammy beamed down. They were poor. Maybe not poor like people used to be, but poor enough. Nonetheless, Sammy always looked so clean, so boy-band fresh, smelling like he’d strolled out of the 1980s without a decade to spare. “’Atta girl," he said, "we’re here for you. Now come on and take your shot.”
And then, as if it had been listening, the 7 a.m. Nightmare pulled into the station without a sound.
Sleek, black and windowless, it shone like Mandy’s blade, with ridges that ran up and down between sections, making it look like a long, glass worm. She’d seen drawings before, heard the whispered stories, like the one about the five journalists that came to town and disappeared, one after the other. Or when the National Guard came to blow it clean off its tracks, only to stand down as it approached. The Nightmare always came, always went, and no one dared block its path. Once in the comfort of New New York, it would make its last solemn stop before disappearing to sleep beneath the earth until arising with the dawn of the next day. Nobody could explain it, nobody went near it and absolutely nobody talked about it openly. Not anymore.
It slowed to a halt. Braxis whimpered and bolted from Sammy’s side, disappearing down the stairs.
Sammy moved to follow the husky, but Mandy put a padded hand over his chest. Leave it to the dogs to make informed decisions. Removing a gauntlet, she walked up to the train and reached out, tentatively brushing her fingertips along the Nightmare. It looked like glass but felt like flesh; soft and slimy. “Never thought I’d see this up close,” she said.
“It’s weird,” said Ellie. “Mands, you sure about this?”
The doors opened. There were four or five along the train, and the closest revealed a deep red interior with everything beyond the entrance obscured by shadows. Someone stood in the doorway, a young man with sickly, moist skin, staring into the distance with cloudy eyes. He wore a simple pillbox hat that didn’t match his unassuming clothes. He just stood there, mouth hanging open.
“Hey,” Mandy said. She walked up to the young man and waved a hand in his face. “You okay?”
The guy didn’t respond. After a long moment he took off his hat and handed it to Mandy. Then he walked out of the train, staggering across the platform towards the stairs.
“There,” said Sammy, “still breathing. Can’t be that bad.”
Hernandez walked between them and got on board. “You smell better than you think, son,” he said, turning around. “It always leaves at least one.”
“Who does?” Mandy asked. “How do you know?”
Hernandez opened his jacket. Lined inside were as many weapons as would fit—handguns with ammunition to spare, brass knuckles, knives large and small, and even grenades packed next to a mound of C4. Mandy’s mouth dropped open as she resisted the urge to caress and admire each enticing toy. “Because I take this train every day. Last chance to turn around.”
Everyone looked to Mandy. She swallowed, then hoisted herself onto the edge of the train. “Look, guys,” she said, “I appreciate you being here. But this is my gig. I can’t ask—”
She had to step away as Moral Support Marky barreled past. He climbed up onto the train and looked down—as refined as anyone could pretend to be in heavy flannel and his uneven blend of flamboyance and utility with gothic tattoos and painted eyebrows. He shifted the rifle on his shoulder and reached for her, pulling her onto the train with him. “If you’re going love, I’m going,” he said, then looked at Hernandez. “And shut up, pretty boy. You've been taking the wrong sort of train, if you ask me.”
Hernandez ignored him. He inclined his head and, giving Mandy one last lingering glance, disappeared into shadow.
It was quiet inside. Black and red and rosewood-brown, the cabin lay before them, lit by candlelight. Carpets lined the aisles between rows of soft leather seats. Doors to adjacent cars stood on either end, with long drapes where windows should be. Mandy pulled them aside, revealing only wooden paneling. Sammy leaned over a chair. “All aboard the Dracula express,” he said.
Mandy looked around. Narrow stairs ran to an upper level. “Let’s climb,” she said.
Upstairs was the same. Everyone looked to each other and sat down. “No seat belts,” Ellie complained.
“The terror deepens,” said Mandy, drumming her fingers over the arm of her chair. She took out her phone. Full bars of service—who knew? She pulled up Karen in the contacts list. Sorry I snapped, she typed, on train now. Wish us luck. Mandy sent it off. Hopefully she’d live to read the response.
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Ellie whined.
Mandy hung her head forward, hair falling into her face. Was it too late to throw herself down the stairs? Stupid misremembered acts of everlasting friendship.
The train lurched forward. Everyone grabbed their armrests as a deep rumbling came from below. It didn’t sound like an engine. More like a low moan rising from the grave. Then it fell and rose again and again, creating a rhythm. Mandy felt the momentum building, churning. They were on their way.
Nobody said anything for a long time. The seats were comfortable. You know, if you got past the ever-present lurking sense of abominable evil, it wasn’t half bad. “When’s the last time anyone took this train?” Ellie said after a while.
“We just met two of them,” Francisca hissed.
“No, I mean somebody that went missing. Or someone found dead. I mean, you never hear anything, right? It’s never in the news, nobody talks about it. Maybe it’s just a weird, shitty train they can’t get rid of.”
Francisca lolled her head towards Mandy, rolling her eyes so Ellie couldn’t see, then turned back. She raised the pistol, pointing it casually towards the ceiling. “Dream your dreams, honey. I’ll keep my faith in this while I’m here, thanks.”
The lights went out.
Ellie let out a cry, short and shrill. Mandy stood but couldn’t see a damn thing. She carefully drew her blade over her head, assuming high guard. All that Kendo better start paying off.
“Quiet!” Marky said, but Ellie kept crying. “Quiet!” There was a rumbling, hard to hear above Ellie’s cries, but it grew louder. Like stomping feet pounding up the stairs or down the aisle. Then the shrieking began. Mandy turned one way, then the other, listening as everyone hollered and shouted and pleaded to God.
Snarling. Deep, guttural and feral. A voice rose in a long scream that went on and on before growing weak and ending in a gurgle. Mandy only knew it wasn’t Ellie; her contrasting cries had become short, terrorized bursts, like panting agony. Mandy waited. Swing and she might maim any of her closest friends; their swords, guns and bats rendered useless with the simplest trick of sight and sound.
Silence descended. The lights came back up, like a play ready to begin its second act. Ellie cowered in a corner, Marky stood frozen with his rifle pointed at the ceiling, Sammy turned away with his hands over his ears.
And Francisca was gone.
Marky crept into the middle of the train car. Sammy joined him. They didn’t always get along, but came together on matters of Mandy—and now, survival. “Did you see where she went?” Sammy asked. Marky shook his head.
Mandy walked over. Francisca’s gun lay between streaks of blood on the hardwood floor. She bent down and shoved it into her pocket.
“We have to get off this train,” Ellie said, still sobbing.
“A bit late for that,” said Mandy. “It doesn’t stop ‘til New New York.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s get out of here, at least.”
“Downstairs,” Sammy said, extending his hand. She took it, smiling. He always knew how to make things better. He held her close as they walked together, though she caught Marky scowling as he struggled to coax Ellie from the floor.
They waited at the bottom of the stairs. “Next car,” Mandy said when her friends came down.
“What if Francisca comes back?” Ellie asked.
Mandy didn’t dignify that with a response.
The double doors to the next car were tall and ornate, with cloudy panes of glass in the center. She went to open them but Sammy came up, slipping his hands over hers. “Hold on,” he said, gently moving her aside. “Could be dangerous.”
She stepped back. “This is my first day,” she reminded him, “my job. My responsibility.”
“Would you rather I sat back and watched you take all the heat?”
Mandy squirmed. She hated questions like this. “Yes,” she said. “No. Sometimes?”
“Okay. Sometimes it is. So sometime later, you can get the next one.” He opened the doors.
The head of a giant ant burst through and thrust its mandibles into Sammy’s chest.
Everyone screamed again. Sammy’s legs went limp, his face gaping in shock as he weakly swung his bat while the ant jostled him like a rag doll. Mandy charged, slashing and slashing but her sword just glanced off the creature’s tough shell.
Ellie crawled under a chair. Marky backed up, raised the rifle and fired, but missed and hit the top of the door frame. Dust and splinters rained down as blood gushed out of Sammy, soaking the floor. The creature made loud, clicking noises that sounded like a laugh.
Mandy tried pulling Sammy back but the thing had him locked tight in its jaws. “No!” she shouted, hacking away. Gouts of blood splashed onto her face, covering her eyes. “No, no, no, no, no!”
Suddenly an arm pushed her aside as a tall man stepped forward with a sawed-off shotgun in his hand. Hernandez. He pointed his gun into the ant’s bulging black eye. “Trigger warning!” he roared, blowing a hole that erupted in a yellow splatter on the other side of the creature’s head, fist-sized chunks staining the walls. Sammy and the ant fell to the ground.
Mandy leapt over, dragging Sammy back into the cabin, running her hands over his face and hair. His eyes stared blankly. Their pupils did not move. She gazed into them, her face as motionless as his.
“He’s gone,” Hernandez said, hovering somewhere above.
“He’s good,” she insisted. She pushed loose folds of his shirt aside, saw the gashed, torn meat of what had been his fine and hairless chest. “He’s good. He just… needs a solid time out.”
Hernandez let out a sigh. “I told you it would be this way,” he said.
Mandy wheeled, grabbing her sword. She swung it into the air between them. “Shut up!” she yelled. “Shut up!” She swung the sword again.
On the third swing Hernandez unsheathed a Bowie knife and blocked her strike. The blades hung there, clashed, one against the other. “Do you want to get out of this alive?” Hernandez asked.
“I want to get to fucking work!”
“Good enough. Stick with me, all of you.”
“I don’t get it,” Ellie’s dazed and uncomprehending voice rose from beneath her chair. “I mean, why does anyone still use that station? You could build another one, commute from there. It all just seems clearly unsafe…”
Marky walked over. He leaned the muzzle of his gun over the still-frozen blades and Mandy pulled hers away from Hernandez’s knife. Marky knelt down, putting an arm around her. She clutched at his shoulder and squeezed.
A loud, mechanical screeching filled the air and everyone fell forward. Mandy landed on all fours. The train was slowing. She looked at Hernandez as he braced against a wall. “A shutdown,” he said with a grimace. “It does these when it really wants to fuck with you. We have to find the problem and fix it.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Marky said. The momentum stopped and he stepped in front of Mandy as the train shuddered to a complete stop. “Poking around just got two of us killed.”
“Yes. It wants to keep the good times rolling.” Hernandez pulled himself off the wall. “I’ve been through this. It’s not going to move until it gets what it wants.”
“It can’t stay. What about the other trains?”
“It won’t move until it gets what it wants.”
Mandy exchanged glances with Moral Support Marky. Once upon a time, years ago, everyone thought they were a couple. Teased and teased them. M & M Enterprises. And because they were young and didn’t know anything, they tried it out a few times until Marky decided het-normative wasn’t his slice of life. That was hard. She’d never told him, how hard that was. But not ever having that conversation seemed to let them skip others, allowing them to communicate with the slightest expressions. “Fine,” Marky said after a long minute, “we’ll go.”
Soon they were crawling over what was left of Sammy and the ant into the next car and up through the train, Hernandez in front, Marky in back, and the girls in the middle. Mandy didn’t know if the train had slowed or stopped, but she could still hear the moan of the engine somewhere far ahead and deep below.
The cars looked the same until they reached the fourth. Wide and squishy, it heaved with walls of dark, undulating skin. Hernandez stalked inside. Mandy followed. She saw movement ahead, but couldn’t make out exactly what was making it.
Hernandez produced a flashlight from his array of tools and weapons. He shone it over a writhing floor, a twitching set of triangular wedges. He held up a hand as the wedges pulled downward, widening into a hole.
“In there?” she asked.
Hernandez nodded. “It wants you.”
“How do you know?”
He passed the flashlight beam over the hole, revealing the name ‘Miranda’ written in scarred flesh along the rim. She looked inside, but saw only darkness. “How is that possible?” she asked. “The tracks are just a few feet down.”
“Nothing makes sense in the Nightmare,” Hernandez said. “You have to go alone. There’ll be trouble if you don’t.”
“There’ll be trouble if I do.”
“Yes. But the longer we amuse it, the better our chances.” He handed her the flashlight.
Mandy looked to Ellie. She seemed too weak to look back, staring at the floor, nose running, smelling a little funny, her eyes a flushed mess of tears and anguish. But Marky looked Mandy straight in the eye. His gaze flickered down to the hole, then returned. He nodded, once.
“Right,” Mandy said. She stepped over and tapped Ellie on the cheek to snap her back to reality, handing her Francisca’s pistol. She drew her sword with her free hand. “Remember,” she said, “I love you guys.” She turned to Hernandez. “You and I just met, so that can’t reasonably apply.”
Hernandez shrugged.
“Wish me luck,” Mandy said. With that, she braced her arms to her sides and hopped into the hole.
She bent into a squat when she landed at the bottom, nine or ten feet deep, and looked up. The hole was as black looking out as it had been looking in. She lowered her gaze and saw a tunnel stretching ahead. The walls seemed cut from rough black stone, with amber lamps burning in the corners.
The noise of the engine rose. Mandy felt the train's momentum increase as it started moving again, as if accepting her arrival within itself. She took a deep breath of relief, and walked forward.
“Miranda,” a voice called. She looked back down the tunnel. No one forward, no one back. Oh. One of those voices. She tightened her grip on the sword. The voice kept calling, “Miranda, Miranda, Miranda…” She spat on the floor. Even Mom didn’t call her Miranda anymore.
The tunnel ascended, its walls smoothing like polished obsidian. Mandy followed, hearing her name with every step.
And then she heard: “I have a job for you, Miranda.”
“Get in line," she said, “I'm in demand.” The tunnel was evening out. It seemed to come to an end just ahead.
With a loud crack, the walls split. No, not split—the top half lifted and pulled away, revealing long and greasy windows. For the first moment since entering the train, Mandy saw daylight. Withered trees, grass and bushes of a lifeless countryside passed below. She walked closer to what had been the end of the tunnel. There seemed to be a panel there, embedded in stone.
“Yes, right there,” the voice said. “Do you see it?”
The panel had a palm print in its center, surrounded by yellowed spikes, like jutting fangs. “What is it?” she asked. She guessed the voice would respond, seeing as how they seemed to be on a conversational, first-name basis.
“Put your hand there. Become the driver.”
“Whose driver?”
“Mine. With the power to summon me to life or lull me to sleep. To jump the bars of these wretched tracks and lead me to roam free upon the earth. Until I find one with the will to claim my helm and make me theirs, I may only dream such sweetened visions.”
“And you’ve chosen me?”
“No. I have a job opening. I am suggesting that you apply.” The voice laughed. “Many have tried.”
Mandy lowered her sword. The palm print looked exactly the same size as her hand. The pillbox hat the stranger had given her felt suddenly heavy where she'd strapped it to her waist. She had a sudden spark of insight. “Is that why you’re doing this?” she asked. “Trying to find someone who has what it takes?”
There was a long pause. “I experiment,” the voice finally said. “Like the great experiment in the underground machine that wrought me from its steely womb, I test by trial and by error. I test by the right of science and laws of nature.”
“You’ve killed my friends,” said Mandy. “And my boyfriend.”
“They were weak. You are not.”
Mandy stifled a scowl, forcing a sly grin onto her face. She took off a gauntlet and held out a hand, as if sizing the fit. To get it really excited, she asked, “What’s the pay?”
Another pause. “No pay. Only power.”
"Ah." On came the gauntlet. “No pay. Like an intern?”
“Like a Queen.”
Mandy shook her head. “You look like slimy shit, you act like slimy shit, and this is one slimy, shitty bribe.” Mandy raised her sword. “And you killed my fucking boyfriend!”
She drove the weapon into the panel. Black goo spat from the center of the palm like a burst artery. She pulled out the sword and backed away.
“Miranda,” the voice began again, but now whispering in anger. “Miranda, Miranda, Miranda…” More blackness oozed from the panel onto the floor. She watched as something rose from it, human-shaped, like a man dipped in tar. “Miranda, Miranda, Miranda…”
Mandy flipped the creature off. She fixed her dueling stance. It raised its runny arms and shambled forward.
Something exploded behind her and Mandy staggered to one side. A hole had been blown into the ceiling of the declining tunnel. Marky appeared, crouching through the opening. “Come on!”
She ran. The oily thing tried giving chase but moved slowly and Marky shot a couple bullets into it to slow it further. Mandy jumped into the hole, pulling her legs through as Marky helped her up.
She emerged from the floor of a room raging with gunfire. It was an angular, broad hexagon, with bolts of electricity snapping off its metal walls and singeing the air like the center of a high voltage generator. Hernandez unleashed hell upon more of the black tar creatures as Ellie stood beside him, awkwardly firing away.
“Aim higher!” Hernandez shouted, then looked back. He switched placed with Marky. “You made it,” he said.
“Barely.”
“What happened? Did it speak to you? Make the offer?”
Mandy took a step back. “How—”
Hernandez moved past, looking into the hole. Then he cried out, shooting back the way she’d come. “You didn’t take the offer?” he cried.
“It wanted me as its slave!”
“It wanted you as its master! Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get in there and stop this crazy train?”
“How was I supposed to—” Ellie screamed, cutting Mandy off. She was trying to fix a problem with her pistol, helplessly watching an oil creature close in. Mandy dashed forward, crashing into her as she sliced through the thing and half its body slid away. Ellie staggered, firing wildly, careening into the waiting grasp of a second monster. Mandy gasped, reaching out.
Ellie’s face looked clouded and half asleep. But her eyes popped open at the last moment, as if realizing peril the instant before it struck. Black, fingerless hands caught her by the head. Sludge ran into her nose, mouth and eyes. Her scream was frozen as blackness sealed over her. Then it caved in as the entire mess dissolved away.
Mandy stumbled as Marky raged, aiming his rifle at the waist and blowing the thing apart. “Come on!” Hernandez cried, stepping up and finishing off the last of the creatures with bursts from his semi-automatic.
They moved through the train. Marky and Hernandez flanked Mandy’s every step, eyes watching every corner. Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out in a daze. Text message from Karen. Good Luck, it said.
Mandy it shut off. “Which car is safest?” she asked.
No sooner had she spoken than they turned a corner into a room of dead flesh. Corpses spread across the floor and hung from the walls. Each body looked fresh, limbs pinned against one another or swaying in the air. Blood smeared every open space with an overwhelming stench that nearly knocked Mandy over. Marky reached out to steady her.
A man stood in the middle, alive in the midst of the carnage. He had a familiar posture, an effeminate air, and it took a moment for Mandy to realize it was Marky. She looked up and saw her greatest friend stare at himself, shock stamped onto his face and the core of his being. The other Marky smiled and raised an arm, pointing.
Marky pushed Mandy aside, raised his rifle and fired, but his twin was already gone. Then he cried out, dropping to his knees. Mandy was there instantly. She tried sitting Marky back as he tilted his head, his mouth hanging open and his eyes, milky white, staring out blindly. He turned toward her and gnashed his teeth into a smile. “You weren’t the only one,” he said.
She blinked. She let go of him and stood, dropping Marky like dead weight into the ocean. He kept staring. “I had to find out,” he said, “I had to be sure of what I was. There was a girl before you. And another after.”
“Shut up,” she said and then, repeating in a scream, “shut up!”
“And, to be honest, you were only second best.”
Hernandez hit Marky over the back of the head, knocking him out. Mandy’s entire body shook.
Before tears could rain down her face, a roar came from above. Another impossible black hole appeared in the ceiling and some new terror pulled itself from the center. Pale green with maybe a dozen legs encased in exoskeleton, it looked like a cross between a spider and praying mantis, with a mouth wielding two sets of sharp incisors and a long red tongue wriggling through the middle. It let out a hiss and turned toward them.
Hernandez dropped to one knee, shooting. “Take him!” he said, pushing Marky toward Mandy.
She took Marky's limp body by the arm. “What about you?”
Hernandez shot off one of the beast’s legs and it reeled, falling to the floor. He looked back and winked. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I do this every day.”
Mandy nodded. She grabbed Marky and pulled, dragging him foot by foot, leaving the roar of gunfire and rabid shrieks behind.
They fell backward into the adjacent car, door sliding shut. She rolled Marky to the side. Funny; this looked like the cabin they first entered, when everyone was still alive. She took a breath, shut her eyes and opened them again. The lights went out. She groaned.
And then the voice once more, whispering from the dark. “Miranda, Miranda, Miranda… you can always re-apply, Miranda.”
The train stopped. The moan of the engine fell as the lights came back on. Everything went quiet.
Mandy didn’t move. Finally, Marky stirred. She got him up, drew herself under his arm to support his weight. A door slid open from the side of the car and they staggered out.
Sunlight, blindingly bright. They fell into an empty station, the 7 a.m. Nightmare sitting idle behind them. All around she saw shafts of skyscrapers and heard the muted bustle of New New York. Marky squatted on the station floor, holding his head. She turned and watched as the long and evil worm pulled away, churning into a waiting tunnel past the end of the platform. She watched until the very last of it disappeared and was gone.
Marky got to his wobbly feet. She looked at him, wiping mascara streaks from her eyes. “Was that true?” she asked. “About those girls?”
“Was what true?”
“Forget it. Let’s go.”
They exited onto a busy street, passing lines of commuters awaiting any next train that wouldn't also send them on a personal trip to hell. Someone stood alone on the opposite side of the road. Karen. Braxis sat beside her.
Mandy stopped, barely able to move. “How…”
Karen ran up and threw her arms around her. Braxis barked and leapt up, leaning into Marky. “You’re alive!” Karen said. “You’re alive, you’re alive! What happened to…” she looked into Mandy’s eyes, and her gaze fell to the ground. “Oh.”
Mandy let them both take a moment. “How did you get here?” she asked after it had passed.
“That’s what I was trying to say! I wasn’t sure, but I read about a monorail service opening in the next township. I checked and sure enough, it was running. But by then you were on your way…” Her eyebrows pushed together in the center of her forehead. “I’m sorry. Sammy was such a nice guy.”
“Yeah,” Mandy took off the gauntlets and wrung her hands. “And Francisca was good for a laugh. I’ll miss them. Um…” she paused, thinking. “How was the ride?”
“Terrible. Getting Braxis on was a pain, the entire thing was packed. Couldn’t get a seat. Had to use handlebars.”
Mandy made a face. Handlebars? “Oh, fuck that,” she said, looking to Marky, then at the clock on her phone. Not quite half past eight. There was time to grab a bite, if they hurried. She looked down and saw the stranger's hat still strapped to her belt. Sun shining on her face, she looped her gauntlets next to it and took each of her friends by the arm. “All right, guys,” she said, “buck up. My new life starts in half an hour. I’ve got a feeling I’m in for a lovely day.”