Adam Baker - Terminus

‘Yeah. He draws pretty much every waking minute. They had him in a holding cell at Bellevue. He decorated the walls with his own faeces. So they gave him crayons. More hygienic.’

‘Screaming faces.’

‘Yeah,’ said Wade. ‘A detailed delusional system, according to the docs. Obsessive motifs. Fills his head, night and day. Soon as he wakes up each morning he gets to work. Swings his legs from the bunk, yawns, scratches his ass, then picks up a pencil. Never stops.’

‘But always the same thing? Faces?’

‘Always. You know who he is, right? Real name is Marcus Means.’

‘Am I supposed to recognise the name?’ asked Galloway.

‘Albany, ten years ago. Any other state he’d be on death row. Personally, I’d tie him to a chair, but Lupe seems to have a soft spot for the guy.’

‘The Chief will order him killed,’ said Galloway. ‘You too.’

‘He’s that kind of guy, huh?’

‘His boys spent a couple of months bulldozing bodies into mass graves, and shovelling lime. They were pretty strung out by the end. He’s kind of protective.’

Wade took the cyanide cylinder from his pocket and turned it over in his hand.

‘According to Cloke, neither of us will be making the trip.’

‘How are you feeling?’ asked Galloway.

‘All right, I guess. One minute I’m hotter than hell, next minute I’m freezing cold.’

Wade pulled off his do-rag and dabbed sweat from his face and neck. Wisps of blond hair shook loose and drifted to the floor.

‘Well, hang in there, man,’ said Galloway, without conviction. ‘Maybe you’ll be all right.’

Donahue descended the platform steps and stood at the water’s edge. She listened to the deathlike silence of the tunnels. Strangely peaceful.

An unwelcome recollection. A woman retrieved from water, far out in the Hudson bay. A winter suicide. She jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. An office worker. CCTV showed her strolling along a traffic lane, calm, relaxed, ignoring horns and flashing headlamps. She stopped and patted her pockets like she forgot keys. Then she set down her briefcase, squirmed through the lattice bars of the side barrier and dropped into the heart-stopping cold of the East River. Her body was discovered weeks later during a scuba training dive. Saponification: a long-submerged cadaver trapped among weeds, protected from microorganisms by depth and cold. Her flesh turned white like wax. Body fat slowly transforming into soap.

Donahue tried to push away the memory.

She gulped. She coughed. She bent double and puked. A torrent of vomit splashing into the flood water. Each hard retch echoed through the vaulted cavern. She caught her breath, and spat the taste from her mouth.

She pressed another couple of Vicodin from a foil strip and knocked them back.

She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, tried to get her body back under control.

A distant splash.

Donahue trained her flashlight into far shadows. The beam lit dissipating ripples.

She took a step back and unhitched the shotgun from her shoulder.

She scanned floating rafts of garbage. Big Gulp cups and clamshell burger cartons pirouetted in an almost imperceptible slow drift.

Another ripple. Bubbles broke the surface, an unmistakable trail heading from the distant tunnel gloom towards her.

She held the Maglite between her teeth like a cigar and shouldered the shotgun. She squinted and took aim, followed the approaching bubble-trail with the front sight.

The stairwell lights winked out.

She backed up the steps. She stumbled in the gloom. She dropped the flashlight.

She unhooked the Motorola hanging from her belt.

‘Guys? What’s going on? What’s the deal with the lights?’

The ticket hall.

Lupe fumbled the matchbook. She struck a light. The match flared, then burned steady. She peered into shadow.

‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Donnie? What’s going on?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Galloway. ‘The generator stalled. Give me the matches. I’ll get her going.’

The plant room.

Galloway struck a match. The weak flame threw sulphurous shadows.

Scattered papers on the floor. He scrunched a few sheets into a fire bucket and lit them with the match. The yellowed, desiccated sheets burned fast like autumn leaves. He threw more paper onto the pyre. Sheaves crisped, blackened and curled.

He crouched by the inert generator. He tapped the fuel gauge. The level rested at zero. He unscrewed the fuel cap and began to decant kerosene from a plastic jerry can.

Radio crackle. Donahue’s voice:

‘Guys? What’s going on? What’s the deal with the lights?’

‘Give me a moment,’ said Galloway.

Rotted fingers gripped his shoulder. Nails dug into his flesh. Teeth sank into his neck.

He screamed. He twisted away. He dropped the kerosene. The plastic bottle fell on its side. Fuel washed across the floor.

The creature crouched and hissed.

It was dressed in the tattered remnants of a nurse’s uniform. White polyester streaked with blood and pus. Name tag: NGUYEN. Skin like leather, stretched taut over tendrillar tumours that snaked and branched down each limb. Arms bristled with metallic spines.

The creature’s shoulder was broken. Its right arm hung lose and useless.

Galloway scrambled clear, kicked distance between himself and the crouching, leering thing. He clapped a hand to his neck and checked his palm for blood, desperate to see if teeth had punctured his skin.

The monstrous figure crouched on its haunches, gathered strength and sprang forwards. Galloway scrambled to his feet. It was on him before he could run. He threw up his arms to protect his face. Bodyslam. They hit the floor. The creature sat on his chest, straining to reach his throat with its one good hand.

Galloway jammed his hand beneath its chin and struggled to push away the snapping, biting face. He groped for a weapon. He snatched a pencil from his breast pocket and punched it into the creature’s temple. Blood-spurt. Splintered wood nailed deep into flesh.

The creature twisted its head and gripped Galloway’s right forefinger between its teeth. It bit down. He screamed. It gnawed and ground its jaw. Frothing blood. Bone crunch. He roared in pain.

He fumbled for the jerry can. He gripped it and bludgeoned the creature’s head. He put all the force he could muster behind the blow. He hammered the skull-face, breaking a cheek bone.

The emaciated thing fell clear and climbed to its feet, dripping kerosene. It leered. It spat Galloway’s finger onto the floor.

It stepped towards him, arm outstretched.

Bare feet kicked through burning paper. The hem of the nurse’s smock caught alight. Polyester fabric smoked and shrivelled. Burning melt-drips hit the floor.

Galloway rolled, lunged for the kerosene can and threw it into the blaze.

Blue fire washed across the creature’s body turning it to a pillar of flame. It held up a burning hand, mesmerised by dancing light. Then it emitted a high, shrill shriek.

Galloway crawled away from the conflagration, shielding his face from the heat.

Lupe and Donahue ran into the room.

The blazing creature grabbed for Donahue. She aimed a high-kick at its belly and pushed it away. It thrashed. It bounced off walls. Donahue shot it in the gut. It struggled to stand. She kicked it in the face. It lay burning, movements slowing to a spastic dance, like a clockwork automaton winding down.

Donahue slapped shreds of burning fabric from her boot.

‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Brain cooking in its skull. Poaching like an egg.’

Lupe ran to the ticket hall and fetched a hand extinguisher from the equipment bags.

‘Stand back.’

She broke the ring-tab and trained a stuttering burst of carbon smoke. She doused the burning figure, then turned the carbon jet on smouldering wall cables.