Adam Baker - Terminus

Shut off. Darkness. Silence.

Lupe set down the extinguisher and switched on a flashlight. The beam shafted through thick smoke. She trained the light on Galloway. He crouched by the wall, trembling with shock, hugging his injured hand to his chest. He shielded his eyes from the glare.

‘You all right?’

He didn’t reply.

She checked the generator for fire damage.

She crouched next to the carbonised body. She inspected contorted arms, skin blackened to a crust, fabric fused to bubbling, steaming flesh.

‘Damn,’ murmured Donahue.

Lupe examined the creature’s face. Black eyes. Mouth locked in a silent scream. Taut, carbonised lips. Brilliant white teeth.

The rib cage rose and fell, weak respirations, medulla retaining a last spark of will-to-life, like the dimming embers of a discarded cigarette.

A final, shuddering breath.

Lupe examined a half-melted name badge.

‘She worked for Ekks. One of his disciples. Vietnamese chick. Total bitch. A privilege to incinerate her ass.’

‘How the hell did she get in here? Where the hell was she hiding?’

Lupe stood up. She contemplated the shadows at the back of the room.

‘The Bellevue crew. About fifteen, twenty guys in total. Medics and soldiers. If they got infected, if they are sniffing around in the tunnels, then we’ve got a serious problem.’

Donahue and Lupe searched the recesses of the plant room. They crept between racks of chemical batteries.

Hand signals: go forwards, check left.

Donahue held the shotgun. Lupe held the flashlight. Blue haze. They shielded their mouths to mask the sour barbecue stink of cooked flesh. They blinked smoke-tears from their eyes.

An air-con turbine at the back of the room. Lupe’s flashlight lit blades furred with dust and webs. Huge, like someone detached the engine nacelle of a passenger jet and put it in storage.

‘Wouldn’t want to be standing here when that thing is switched on.’

The blades faced a duct mouth. The grille was ripped open. The torn mesh was tipped with flesh and tufts of white fabric.

Lupe shone her flashlight into the brick pipe. A ribbed, intestinal conduit receded to darkness. She held up her hand. A gentle air current. A fetid exhalation of tunnel breath.

Donahue crouched and examined the floor.

‘Give me more light.’

Blood drips.

‘Maybe that thing was already down here, with us,’ said Donahue. ‘Crawling round the ventilation pipes the whole time.’

‘Tight squeeze,’ said Lupe, contemplating the duct. ‘Hands and knees.’

Donahue gestured to a pile of boxes and cable drums.

‘We should stack some stuff in front of the grille. Do our best to plug it closed.’

‘But why now?’ asked Lupe, still mesmerised by the tunnel dark. ‘I don’t get it. Wade and Sicknote were camped in this room for days. They weren’t attacked. So what changed? How did the bitch sniff us out?’

Galloway sat on the ticket hall bench. He hugged his injured hand, face grey with shock.

Lupe sat beside him.

‘It’ll be all right, yeah?’ he pleaded. ‘Just got to clean the wound. Disinfect.’

‘You’re a dead man walking.’

Lupe thrust her hand inside his trouser pocket.

‘What are you doing?’ he said, drawing away.

She pulled out a fistful of shotgun cartridges.

‘This all you got? Five shells?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you bring a bag? A backpack? Sure you don’t have a spare box of ammo somewhere?’

‘No.’

‘Five. And four in the gun. That’s not a whole lot of firepower.’

She paced the ticket hall. She blew her hands and clapped her arms to get warm.

She crossed to the equipment pile. She pulled clothes from a canvas duffle. She pulled on an over-sized fire coat and turned up the cuffs.

‘Did I hear right?’ asked Wade. ‘Nine shells?’

Lupe picked up a fire axe and took a couple of practice swings.

‘We’ll be okay,’ she said. ‘Any of those bastards make it inside, we’ll take care of them.’

‘What about me?’ said Wade. ‘I want a knife.’

‘You’re blind.’

‘I can fight.’

She upturned a tool bag. She found a lock-knife and put it in his hand.

‘Thanks.’

He flipped it open and tested the blade with his thumb.

‘Hey, Lupe.’

‘What?’

‘I heard there’s a bike out there, in the street.’

‘Yeah. Other side of the alley.’

‘What kind?’

‘No idea.’

‘Messed up?’

‘Looked in one piece.’

‘A Harley?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Describe it.’

‘Chromed out. High handlebars, ape hangers. Extended forks. Someone spent a lot of money on that bike. Lavished a whole lot of love. She was somebody’s baby.’

‘How old?’

‘God knows.’

‘What did the cylinder look like? Was it a panhead?’

‘Dude, I don’t know shit about bikes.’

‘Man. If only I had my eyes.’

‘You wouldn’t last long out there, brother.’

‘Fuck it. I just want a ride. I want to be under the sky. I don’t want to die down here, in this sewer like a roach, you know? Anywhere but here.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lupe. ‘Yeah, I hear what you’re saying.’

Donahue and Lupe dragged a table from the IRT office. They hauled it across the ticket hall, kicked it over and blocked the platform stairwell.

‘So what exactly did you see?’ asked Lupe.

‘I’m not sure. Something in the water, below the surface. Bubbles. Ripples. Reckon they could survive under water? Infected? How long can they last without air?’

‘Might have been rats,’ said Lupe. ‘You can bet the flood water drove a swarm of rats from the tunnels. Bet there are plenty swimming around down here.’

‘No more surprises. We stick together. No wandering off alone, all right? Line-of-sight, at all times.’

‘Relax. You got the gun.’

‘I got nine rounds. Won’t go far. You guys stay sharp, all right?’

Galloway sat on the bench, sweating and rocking, teeth clenched in pain.

Donahue knelt in front of him. She loaded a hypodermic, jabbed into his bicep and shot Galloway 20mg of Demerol.

He relaxed as opiate bliss washed over him.

‘Let me see your neck,’ said Donahue.

He pulled his collar aside. Bruised. No blood.

‘Quite a hickey. Show me your hand.’

Galloway held out his right hand, sticky with blood. The forefinger was bitten through at the knuckle.

Donahue wriggled on two pairs of Nitrile gloves.

‘Hold still.’

She rinsed the injured hand with mineral water and began to swab it clean with cotton wool. She didn’t look him in the eye.

‘Doesn’t look like you lost too much blood. Vasoconstriction. The cold worked in your favour.’

‘It’ll be okay, right?’ he asked. ‘Few stitches. It’ll be fine, yeah?’

‘Relax,’ she said. Calming voice. ‘Let me do my thing.’

She knelt beside plenty of injured folk during her time as an EMT. Pedestrians who ignored DONT WALK and got their legs crushed by a truck. Balcony jumpers impaled on railings, broke-backed but with a weird look of acceptance as if this horror were an average day in a lifetime of bad luck and failure. Disoriented stab victims lying on a sidewalk, trying to plug a wound with their hands, trying to tell her, as they slid into unconsciousness, they had looked into the dumb, dull eyes of the kid demanding their wallet and seen the true face of evil.

She had a personal code. Soothe, but don’t lie. Say: Help is on its way . Don’t say: You’ll be fine.

‘There,’ she said, dabbing the wound clean. ‘Looks a bit better.’

She felt icy detachment steal over her. A familiar mindset. The willed callousness she adopted each time she faced catastrophic injuries, certain her patient could not be saved, nothing to be done but supervise a painless death.