Чак Хоган - The Blood Artists

“Help me,” Melanie croaked, sinking beside him. “Help.”

No one did. They all fell over one another getting away.

He threw her sprawling inside. She hit the far wall, her shoulder and her hip, and the force of it knocked out what little air she had won.

“Welcome to Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport...” The voice on the train was female, stern. She tried to keep from sagging to her knees. She could not breathe at all.

“The jungle,” he said, entering, watching her, eyes glowing. “What did they do to me in the jungle?”

“Caution. Doors will not reopen.”

The doors closed. She staggered and almost went down as the train started forward.

“...A one-and-three-quarter-mile-long underground mall connects the terminal and concourses.”

She reached for a handrail and pulled herself straight, her chest small and empty. She could get nothing into it. She was suffocating.

Zero left his tablet on a seat and started toward her. She moved away blindly down the car, not breathing, like a diver in trouble, scrabbling toward the surface, until all at once something broke inside her chest, like a stuck valve coming free, and she groaned and tasted a gulp of air.

“He’ll kill me,” she choked. She saw stars again as he moved before her. “To get to you. Maryk. He doesn’t care.”

He fondled a pole as she struggled back toward the middle doors.

“Concourse B. Gates B1 through B36 Delta. Delta Crown Room.”

The train was slowing. She was nearing the doors. The train stopped again and the doors slid open and she turned to them, but awkwardly, as he moved in front of her, cutting off her escape route.

She shrank away, gasping. Behind him she saw the last of the travelers hurrying away through the concourse.

“Caution. Doors will not reopen.”

The doors closed again and the train jumped forward. “The girl in the jungle,” he said, insistently.

She retreated, using all her breath to stall him, telling him what Maryk had told her.

“Outbreak. Stephen Pearse tried to save her. But the girl was already sick. The serum was from Maryk’s blood.”

He was pacing her, step by step, pole by pole, back through the shuttle car. “How did you survive my virus in Plainville?”

“His blood. Maryk’s. He put me back together again.”

She moved past more poles, the shuttle rocking, the lights flashing, the overhead voice droning on and on.

Zero’s eyes flamed. “Then his blood runs through us both.”

She felt something solid behind her. It was the door to the next car. She had run out of space.

“Marries us,” he said.

She reached frantically back for the door handle but it did not turn at all. She looked back again and his eyes were lascivious over the breathing mask. She sank down as far as she could.

He reached with one hand behind his own head. She did not understand the gesture at first. Then she saw that he was untying his mask.

Melanie was making herself smaller and smaller against the door.

The mask came down off his face, and she saw his mouth. His lips were gone. The skin there was blackened and decayed. He had gnawed off his own lips and his teeth were rotted and his mouth inside was crimson red, like excited flesh, his tongue small and bright and swishing, the top coating having sloughed away. She could see clear to his tonsils, the soft parts of his mouth scarlet and writhing.

“Concourse C. Gates C1 through C36. Air South. Midwest Express...”

He was all throat, and she watched it undulate as he slurred: “You should have died in Plainville.”

He was reaching down. His dirty glove was reaching around for the nape of her neck. She was low and practically lying on the floor. There was nowhere else to go. He gripped the back of her head, the tongue and throat of his mouth yawning toward her, finally claiming his good night kiss.

The train stopped. The doors began to open and a form, a blur, only partially realized over Zero’s shoulder, hurtled through the doors nearest her. She saw Maryk’s face and its expression of pure homicidal rage as his fist came down driving from behind his head, burying a syringe needle deep into the base of Zero’s slender neck.

Zero keened and fell back and away from the force of Maryk’s blow, and Maryk crashed into her on the floor of the train, his bag skidding across to the wall.

Maryk rolled off her. Zero was sitting up, twisting his head to look at the syringe jutting out of the top of his shoulder as though inspecting his collar for lint. With his opposite hand he wrapped his thin fingers around the barrel, and in one motion jerked it out.

Doing so kicked loose pellets of his blood which lolled through the air of the train. They fell like bullets at the floor near Melanie’s feet.

The syringe in Zero’s hand was still loaded, the plunger fully extended. Maryk hadn’t yet forced it. The poison had not been delivered.

Zero looked at her, his open mouth howling. He jumped to his feet and held the syringe out like a sword as he lunged at her.

Maryk was on his side by then, crouching. His left shoe came up strong and flat against Zero’s thin chest, and Maryk extended his knee and Zero sailed flailing four or five seats back through the car. The syringe jerked out of Zero’s hand and landed dancing in the center of the aisle. He fell sprawling behind it.

Zero cried out, or giggled, then flipped over and grabbed his tablet off the nearby seat. The doors were still open and he fled crawling out of the car. Melanie saw him slide between the corner of the platform and the end of the train. He was escaping into the tunnel itself.

Maryk stood and lifted her to her feet. “Did he get you?” he said.

“I’m all right.”

“Did he get you?” His eyes were murderously bright.

“No!”

He stood staring and panting wide-eyed as though he didn’t believe her.

“Caution. Doors will not reopen...”

Maryk looked to the rear of the car. “I’m going after him,” he said.

He grabbed the bloody syringe and his bag and rushed out, clearing the doors just as they slid shut. The train started ahead again automatically and Melanie stood and stumbled against its motion, moving to the rear window of the car. Maryk’s shadow emerged into the dark light of the tunnel, bag in hand, and as his silhouette faded away, she sagged to the floor, safe finally, fighting for a mouthful of air.

Maryk sprinted after Zero’s shadow lurching between the rails as the tunnel began collapsing around him. Loose stones shifted beneath his feet. He stumbled and felt the sensation of a tremendous weight shifting inside his head. His claustrophobia only amplified the debilitating force of the cascade.

He tried to follow the echoing footfalls but lost track of Zero ahead. What he thought was the end of the tunnel turned out to be a yellow safety lamp on the wall and this disappointment drained the last of his energy. He wandered off the twisting rails into a wall recess. He slid to the grimy ground there with his legs out flat in front of him.

Zero is close and ready to infect. Get up.

Maryk could not. He was spent. The full force of the cascade was pressing on him.

He pulled his tablet from his bag. He opened the screen and hoped the signal would carry through the tunnel. He posted Zero’s location to Freeley just as the tablet slid off his lap to the floor. His breath was coming in gusts and his chin rode the pitching of his chest. The ground lifted and drifted like a loosely moored dock. He had speed in his bag but it was too far for him to reach now. He could not move at all.

Zero will escape onto the airfield and the runways beyond.