Adam Baker - Terminus

Lupe shook her head.

‘I’m just trying to do right.’ She got to her feet. She stood in front of Galloway, shotgun at the ready. ‘Time to go.’

Galloway shouted across the ticket hall:

‘Hey. Hey, Donahue. You’re leaving her in charge? This bitch? Fucking barrio trash?’

Donahue sat on the platform steps, staring downwards into the dark. She didn’t turn around.

‘What the hell happened to you people?’ shouted Galloway, addressing the ticket hall. ‘Taking orders from some spic gangbanger? Some crack whore? Is she the boss now? Shaking a cup outside Citibank, and now she’s calling the shots?’

No reply.

‘Come on. She’s picking us off, one by one.’

He looked around. Sicknote absorbed in his art.

‘Hey,’ said Galloway, trying to get his attention. ‘Hey, dude. Help me out.’

‘You got bit. Sorry, brother.’

Wade leaned against the wall, listening to the conversation.

‘Yo, Wade,’ called Galloway. Give a guy a break.’

Wade turned away.

Lupe prodded Galloway with the barrel of the gun.

‘Make it easy on yourself.’

He slowly got to his feet.

‘Here?’

‘No.’

Lupe took a step back. She signalled with a wave of the shotgun. The plant room.

Galloway slowly walked across the ticket hall, each step deliberate and heavy, his time left on earth measured in floor tiles.

He reached the plant room door. He pushed it open. Heavy creak. He took a last, despairing look at his companions.

Donahue hadn’t moved position. Still sitting with her back to the hall, still turned from the light.

Sicknote was on his knees, scribbling with a pen. He glanced up. Mix of boredom and pity.

Wade groped along the wall to the IRT office.

‘Hey,’ pleaded Galloway. ‘Wade. Please.’

Wade closed the office door. Latch-click.

Galloway’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He took a shuddering breath and walked into the plant room.

He was swallowed by shadow.

Lupe and Galloway faced each other. The bare bulb overhead threw harsh shadows, turned their faces to grotesque Kabuki masks.

Lupe. Resolute. Deep frown, clenched teeth.

Galloway. Sweat-sheen, panting with fear.

He was mesmerised by the yawning, blacker-than-black cavern mouth of the barrel, inches from his face.

‘Want me to turn my back?’ asked Galloway. ‘Want me to kneel?’

‘Makes no difference to me.’

He pushed his hands in his pockets.

‘Got a final message for the world?’ asked Lupe.

‘I’d like to pray.’

Lupe shrugged.

‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come…’

He palmed the scalpel.

‘…on Earth as it is in heaven…’

The generator coughed. The light flickered. Lupe glanced upwards at the web-draped ceiling bulb.

Galloway snatched his hand from his pocket. Silver blur. The scalpel blade embedded in Lupe’s cheek.

Angry cry. She staggered.

Galloway grabbed one of the generator cables hanging from the wall, and wrenched the clamp from high voltage switch gear.

Sudden darkness.

Lupe pulled the scalpel from her face and threw it aside. Clink and clatter. She raised the shotgun and fired. Blast-roar. Muzzle flare lit the room like a camera flash. Glimpse of Galloway ducking between battery racks, flinching from a high-velocity shower of brick chips as buckshot blew a crater in the wall.

She fumbled for the generator cable. She reattached the clip. Spark and hum. The bare bulb flickered and glowed steady.

She cranked the shotgun slide. She crept between racks, gun to her shoulder, poised to fire. The room was fogged by a blue haze of stone dust and gun smoke.

‘Hey. Galloway.’ She wiped trickling blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘Step out, dude. No use skulking back there.’

Distant rasp of metal.

‘I didn’t want it to end this way. It should have been quick and clean.’

She peered into shadows, finger on the trigger.

The air con grate high on the back wall was pulled back.

‘Galloway?’

She peered into the narrow conduit. Brickwork receded to darkness. Distant scuffle and pant.

‘Is this really what you want?’ she bellowed into darkness. ‘You want to become a monster? You want to let it win?’

Lupe emerged from the plant room. She dabbed blood from her cheek.

‘Is it done?’ asked Wade.

‘No.’

‘I heard a shot.’

‘He ran. He hid in the pipes. Fuck him. If he wants to endure a living hell, if he wants to be transformed into a sickening mess, then let him. He’s not our problem.’

She cleaned her face with antiseptic swabs then pasted a dressing over the wound.

‘Are you hurt?’ asked Wade, listening to the rustle and rip of sterile wrappers.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Any word from Cloke or Tombes?’

‘Nothing we can do but wait.’

A muffled crash.

‘What the hell was that?’

Sicknote stood at the foot of the street exit steps, transfixed, gazing upwards at the entrance gate.

‘What’s going on, Sick?’

He smiled. He giggled.

Lupe ran to the foot of the stairwell and pushed him aside.

The entrance gate was open. Metal-shriek as infected creatures pushed the Coke machine to one side and stumbled down the steps towards her.

‘Holy fuck,’ muttered Lupe.

‘They’re in?’ said Wade, panic in his voice. ‘Did they get in?’

Lupe shouldered the shotgun and fired. A guy in a pus-streaked Starbucks shirt caught a blast to the chest. For a brief moment Lupe could see clean through his torso: a smouldering, cauterised hole bored through ribs, lungs, shirt fabric and skin.

The guy reeled like he took a gut-punch, but kept coming.

She ran up the steps to meet him. She racked the slide, adjusted her grip, adjusted her aim.

Muzzle-roar. Point-blank skull burst. The headless body toppled backwards and sprawled across the steps. The tight stairwell filled with gun smoke and blood mist.

A blue-haired skater kid, iPod beads fused to his ears.

Lupe racked the slide, took aim and fired. Second head burst, body hurled in a near back flip. Blood and skull fragments dripped from the stairwell ceiling.

Two guys in grey janitor shirts jostled through the entrance gate and stumbled down the steps towards her.

She racked the slide, took aim and pulled the trigger. Click. Empty.

Donahue stood next to her, paralysed with horror.

‘Shells,’ shouted Lupe. She cuffed Donahue round the head. ‘Give me the spare shells.’

Donahue dug cartridges from her pocket.

‘Make them count.’

Lupe snatched the shells from her hand and fed them into the breech.

‘Grab an axe, a hammer, anything.’

Donahue ran to the equipment pile, pulled a strap and released a clutch of heavy tools.

‘Give me something,’ shouted Wade. ‘Give me something I can swing.’

Donahue ignored him. She grabbed an axe and ran back to the stairs.

Lupe shouldered the gun. She squinted down the barrel sight, waited for a clear and certain shot.

‘Come on, fuckers. Come get some.’

Cloke and Tombes lowered the stretcher from the subway carriage and set it on the track. They inspected the oxygen and nitrogen cylinders lashed to the backboard. They checked straps, gas levels and helmet hose.

Ekks lay impassive, face serene behind his visor.

‘Let’s get him in the hole.’

Tombes squirmed beneath the subway car. He dragged Ekks behind him.

He tied kernmantle rope to the head of the backboard. He looped the rope over a greased axle and slid Ekks into the shaft. It was a tight angle. The head of the backboard scraped against the underside of the coach.