The diesel engine’s wheels clanked slowly along the track. Sal peered through the cabin’s front window for any signs of what he had seen in the grainy photograph. At this speed, they still had a few minutes before arriving at the Pavilion. Any faster risked creating sparks. Lots of them.
So far, nothing had appeared out of the ordinary apart from the lack of working lights. Still, the deeper they descended, the faster his heart raced.
“I still don’t believe it,” Mike said.
“You heard Cafferty. Creatures. Plural.”
“You’ve read too many comics, buddy. And he’s wasted on too much methane.”
“Well, something’s down here. And if we see something, we flatten them.”
“I can live with that . . . if we don’t, you know, die.”
Sal shrugged at Mike’s worrying. He had no regrets about thundering through the police line, as it meant a shot at saving his friends and anyone else in the Pavilion, including the mayor and the president. Despite the fear building inside of him, he thought the only place worse than being here was back in the maintenance shed.
The diesel engine steadily continued toward their destination, when a movement caught his eye: down the track, a hatch flipped open on the left side of the tunnel.
Mike bolted from his seat.
Sal jumped, too, but quickly gathered his wits as he prepared for his first sight of the creatures.
Any minute now, he told himself. Stay as calm as possible and don’t lose your shit. People are relying on us. Stop for nothing. That’s what Cafferty had said. He thought he’d feel the crushing weight of their survival resting on his shoulders, but if he felt anything, he felt buoyed by the thought of saving all those people. He wasn’t about to back down from anyone or anything.
The engine closed to within thirty feet of the open hatch.
A figure rose up and extended a palm in a halting gesture, partially obscuring its face.
“Holy shit, Sal,” Mike said. “Should we stop?”
“It could be a trap. Remember what Cafferty told us? Stop for no one.”
“We can’t just barrel past—”
“We can. We stop for nothing. That’s one man. There’s loads more in the Pavilion.”
As the train rolled by the figure, Mike leaned closer to the window. “Fuck, Sal—that looked like the president.”
“It wasn’t the fucking president.”
“I’m telling you, it was John Reynolds.”
“Are you certain it was him?” Sal asked.
“I . . . I can’t be sure.”
“Then we keep going.”
The engine powered around a shallow bend and hit the straight descent toward the Pavilion. A smashed rail tie jutted from the ground at marker 119 and the track curved upward. It looked intact, though . . .
“Hit the brakes,” Mike shouted. “Hard.”
“And ignite the tunnel? Stop saying that.”
“We’ll derail, you dumbass.”
Sal kept the throttle at a steady level. As the engine neared, the headlights brightened on a gaping hole in the middle of the track, but the metal rails on either side appeared mostly undamaged, apart from being bent upward.
“Stop,” Mike said. “It’s suicide.”
“We’re committed, my friend. Buckle up.”
“We don’t have fucking buckles.”
“You know what I mean. This diesel engine weighs over four hundred thousand pounds. I’m telling you, we’ll flatten that track.”
“And what if the ground below won’t hold us? It has to be damaged to raise the track, right?”
“It’ll hold, buddy. It’ll hold.”
Farther past the damaged section, charred corpses were spread around the tunnel.
Mike crouched in the corner of the cabin and spread his arms against the walls, bracing himself for impact.
Sal tensed. He had no worries about the state of the track, but Mike’s comment about the strength of the ground had put a fresh doubt in his mind.
The engine closed to within seconds.
He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. This was the moment of truth. If they couldn’t get past or, worse still, crashed, it was all over. They’d be all over.
The diesel engine juddered . . . and smoothly continued forward, bending the track back down into place under the enormous weight of the locomotive.
“What did I say?” Sal muttered, trying to force a smile. “Piece of cake.”
Mike stared out the window and his jaw dropped. “Creatures.”
A burned body lay against the wall, big and black. A scorched arm had frozen in the air with claws like talons. A tail. Skin had receded away from rows of sharp teeth. The engine passed another five twisted corpses that looked the same.
Cafferty had spoken the truth.
The picture in the TV van wasn’t a lie.
One creature, missing both legs, dragged itself along the side of the track. It flicked its tail at the engine when they passed, leaving tiny shatter marks across the window.
“Holy shit,” Mike said.
Sal swallowed hard and his grip tightened around the throttle lever, but that was a last resort. He knew he couldn’t risk it. Not yet.
Shit was getting real.
Both stood in silence as the markers passed by the window. Sal said a silent prayer, asking for a clear run from here to the Pavilion and a safe return to the maintenance shed. He fished out his phone to text his family, a last message in case he didn’t make it, but the signal had dropped out.
Something jumped from the middle of the track.
And another figure.
And another.
The engine’s headlights hit a group of creatures bounding directly for them.
Hundreds of the damned things.
Behind the moving mass, three dazzling lights swept through the tunnel like World War II searchlights.
The creatures rushed past on either side, giving Sal a gut-churning closer look at their powerful bodies. Muscles and veins bulged on their arms, legs, and chests. They bashed themselves against the sides of the engine. A tail lashed the front of the cabin and took out a headlight.
“My God,” Mike said.
Sal wiped sweat from his brow. They were committed, like whoever was shining the lights, sending the creatures hurtling in their direction.
The last few creatures in the tide raced past.
Another tail strike took out the remaining headlight.
The engine cruised past three people holding spotlights, focusing on the retreating creatures. One waved who looked like Cafferty, but he couldn’t tell for sure.
Seconds later, the circular entrance of the Pavilion appeared in the distance.
“They’ve got some balls walking through the tunnel like that,” Mike said.
“Not sure why they didn’t wait for us.”
“Maybe they’re clearing a path?”
The Pavilion entrance grew bigger every second, along with the battered rear car where the survivors were holed up. People jumped out and cheered at the approaching engine. Two hugged, and another planted their hand on their forehead. Sal gently applied the brake, and they rolled to a gradual halt a few feet from the train.
“Check our alignment and the train’s couple,” Mike said. “Let’s get this done as fast as possible.”
“You see the state of this place?”
“That’s why I said as fast as possible.”
Dead bodies, with jackets spread over their upper halves, lined the far wall close to the Starbucks’ splintered window. The command center blast door had been smashed inward and body parts covered the ground immediately to its front. People in MTA uniforms moved around inside.
“Just how strong are these things?”
“Dunno.” Sal gazed up at the shattered overhead fittings. “But we don’t need Columbo here to work out they don’t like light.”
Judging by the state of the barricaded train, the survivors had put up a serious fight before clearing the creatures from the Pavilion. A few cops and MTA workers stood outside the car, fixing spotlights and oxygen tanks to the sides. Sal flung open the door and stepped out into the glare of the IMAX projector.
“Thank God you’re here,” Lieutenant Arnolds said. He approached Sal and shook his hand. “Is anybody else coming?”
“This is it. You wanna get outta here, LT?”
“Does the Tin Man have a sheet metal cock?”
“Does a what? Oh, I get it. We’ll hitch the train and head straight out.”
Sal moved between the diesel engine and the train, checking that the couples were aligned, and he raised his thumb to Mike. He headed over to the command center, where several people clustered around wires and electronic equipment. He recognized Anna, who had come along to Friday drinks a few times with Munoz and had stonewalled his drunken advances, like pretty much every woman. None of the other faces was familiar.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said.
“Literally, by the looks of it. You guys must have been through hell down here. Where’s Munoz?”
“He left with the president in the sub.”
“What sub?”
All eyes focused on Sal.
Anna’s smile vanished. “It hasn’t been picked up?”
“Not that I know. But we saw a figure in the tunnel. Mike thought he looked like the president.”
“What the hell? Was he near the breach?”
“You mean the hole in the ground? No. He came out of a hatch closer to Jersey City.”
“Without Diego?”
“We only saw one guy. How’d he get from a sub to there?”
Anna moved over to a schematic of the system on the wall, placed her finger on the docking station and traced a route to marker 110 in the Jersey tunnel. “If that was Reynolds, they didn’t get the sub. They probably went through the engineering bay to the maintenance tunnel. I don’t see any other feasible route to the hatch. He couldn’t have gotten there on his own, though.”
“Munoz saving the president’s ass.” Sal shook his head and couldn’t help grinning.
“Or his Secret Service agent who insisted on leaving us behind. Samuels. That guy made me show him around twenty times during the last week. He knows the layout, too.”
“Let’s hope they’re all safe.” Sal looked behind her at a pile of wires, batteries, and a large black projector. “What are you doing?”
“We’re powering this baby up and attaching it to the front of your engine. Any creature in our way gets blasted with light.” She turned to her team. “Attach the remaining oxygen tanks on there, too. As close to the wheels as you can. We’ll keep them open with the smallest possible stream. It’s a long shot, but with these tanks pumping out O2, we’re hoping any sparks we create don’t ignite the methane.”
“Every little bit helps,” Sal said, though it sounded crazy.
A covered mass on the floor caught his eye. Rigid pale white fingers poked from beneath a fire blanket, and the shape underneath looked like a torso with missing legs. Bile rose in his throat and Sal recoiled. For everyone’s sake, Anna’s plan had to work.