Adam Baker - Terminus

‘Jesus. We’ll get diced.’

They could feel it. A throb in the water. A subtle, sub-sonic pulse each time the great blades swept past.

‘Just got to time it right,’ said Cloke. ‘It’s moving slow. A three second interval between strokes. We can duck through, one at a time. I’ll go first.’

He edged closer to the blades. Inches away from blurred metal. He tensed his muscles and settled his breathing. Each sweep felt like a body-blow.

A blade swung past. He closed his eyes and pushed forwards, tensed for a bone-splintering impact.

He opened his eyes. He was through.

‘Go,’ shouted Tombes. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll deal with Ekks. Just go. Find us a route up and out of here.’

A roof vent fifty yards south. Cloke’s helmet lamps lit a concrete inspection shaft lined with iron rungs.

‘Tombes. You all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m through. I’m cool.’

‘Looks like we got a way out.’

Cloke gripped rungs and hauled himself up the shaft hand-over-hand.

Lupe’s voice:

‘Where are you guys?’

‘Almost with you,’ said Cloke. ‘Had to circumvent a little obstruction.’

‘They’re here. They got inside the station. They’re on us.’

‘We’re seconds away. Couple of hundred yards and we’ll be at Fenwick.’

‘I’m heading down to the platform to meet you. We’ll have to fight our way to the plant room. Be ready.’

‘Ten-four.’

‘Move your asses. We’ve got a serious fight on our hands.’

Incinerated vehicles. Incessant rain.

Shotgun fire. Reverberations like thunder. Muffled concussions penetrated the skull-socket darkness of vacant windows and storefronts.

HONEYBEE.

A bombed-out boutique. Toppled clothes rails, scattered shoes, denim dusted with broken glass. Half-melted mannequins lay dismembered on the floor. Bald. Blank eyed. Arms and heads angled in a coquettish tease.

Clothing and hangers slowly pushed aside. A Hare Krishna, bald like a mannequin, come to life.

He climbed unsteadily to his feet. Coins fell from the folds of his robes and skittered across the floor.

He stood for a moment, swaying like a drunk.

He headed for the front of the store. His sandaled foot stamped through a dummy’s impassive face, shattering it like eggshell.

The Hare Krishna toppled through the storefront window and fell into the street. He lay on the rain-lashed sidewalk and looked around. Transformed vision cut through darkness like infrared. Rubble, buckled automobiles, toppled light poles.

Another distant gunshot.

The Krishna got to his feet and stumbled east.

Liberty Street.

The Krishna shuffled between buses, limos and yellow cabs, livery seared down to base metal.

He shambled past a meat truck. Faint lettering: CROWN MEATS sprayed out and DEPT OF HEALTH – DISPOSAL scrawled underneath. The rear doors leaned open. Infected bodies wrapped in sheets and hung from hooks. Still alive. They squirmed like larvae.

‘Come on, you fucks.’

A hoarse voice echoed from an alley off Liberty.

‘Come on, motherfuckers.’

The Krishna shuffled past the Doric facade of the old Federal Building. Doors boarded and chained.

He entered the alley. An arched gateway. Phantom letters and bolt holes in the stonework: SUBWAY.

A white tiled stairwell heading downwards. A mosaic sign: TO THE TRAINS.

Commotion near the top of the stairs. A big guy, surrounded by skeletal revenants. He thrashed in the confined space: kicked, punched and raged as he was slowly overwhelmed and dragged to the floor.

‘Fuck you. Fuck you, motherfuckers. Suck my fucking dick.’

Krishna descended the steps, arms outstretched.

Fresh blood.

Fresh meat.

He shouldered other infected creatures aside and gripped the man’s head.

‘Fuck you all to hell,’ screamed Wade.

The Hare Krishna pressed thumbs into sightless eyes, forced knuckle-deep into brain.

Tombes jammed his shoulder against the plant room door and struggled to hold it closed. Shuddering impacts. He braced his legs, strained against the blows. He was still wearing dive gear, still dripping tunnel water. Helmet and tanks dumped on the floor.

His feet lost purchase. Overboots skidded on concrete. The door was slowly pushed ajar.

A guy in bloodied pinstripe began to squirm through the gap.

Cloke threw himself against the door. Tombes kicked at the pinstripe creature, forcing it back into the hall.

Door slam. Sound of scrabbling fingers.

‘How many do you reckon?’ panted Cloke. ‘I counted five.’

‘We got to prop this thing.’

Lupe strained to push a heavy iron battery rack towards the door. Metal shriek.

Sicknote watched her work.

‘Help me, you dick,’ shouted Lupe.

Sicknote put his shoulder against the iron rack and helped shunt it against the door.

They stood back. Pounding fists. Scratching nails. The door shook.

‘Guess it will hold,’ said Cloke.

He unclipped his weight belt and began to strip out of his drysuit.

Tombes wiped sweat with the back of a gloved hand.

‘This is fucked. We can’t stay here.’

‘You want to head out there, into the hall?’ asked Lupe. ‘You’d get ripped to pieces in seconds.’

‘Sooner or later we’ll have to make a break for it. Each hour we wait, more of those bastards gather outside the door. We should hit them now, before the odds get any worse.’

‘Any of you guys got a watch?’ asked Lupe.

Cloke checked his G-Shock.

‘Eleven hours until the chopper arrives.’

‘Hey,’ said Tombes, looking around. ‘Where’s Donahue? Anyone seen Donnie?’ Dawning horror. ‘Christ. She must still be out there.’

Lupe tossed Tombes a radio.

‘Donahue, do you copy, over?’

No reply.

‘Come in, Donnie. Do you copy, over?’

No reply.

‘Talk to me, Donnie.’

Dead channel hiss.

‘What happened?’ asked Tombes. ‘Did anyone see what happened?’

No one spoke. No one met his gaze.

‘Come on. Think. Did anyone see her go down?’

Lupe shook her head.

‘Too much going on.’

‘I was with you,’ said Cloke. ‘I was dealing with Ekks.’

Tombes took a tentative step towards the door.

‘I should go out there,’ he said, uncertain, like he wanted someone to talk him out of it. ‘I’ve got to help her.’

The door shook from a fusillade of blows.

‘Forget it,’ said Cloke. ‘She’s gone.’

‘I have to be sure.’

‘I can’t let you go out there, man,’ said Lupe.

‘Who the fuck asked you?’

‘Think it through. There’s a bunch of those bastards massing in the hall. The door has to stay closed.’

The hammering ceased. Sudden silence.

Cloke slowly approached the door.

‘What do you think they are doing out there?’

‘Sniffing around, trying to find another way inside,’ said Tombes. ‘Not much mystery to these roaches.’

‘Maybe we should check our pockets,’ said Lupe. ‘Make an inventory.’

They crouched in a circle and emptied their pockets.

A lock-knife. A bandana. A half bottle of water and a couple of energy bars.

‘Wish we had more water,’ said Lupe.

‘Just got to sit tight,’ said Cloke.