Adam Baker - Terminus

Craven swung his weapon upwards. The barrel light swept across deep fissures in the ceiling. He surveyed the structural damage, the cracked and crumbling concrete that told of the building’s imminent collapse.

‘Place is coming apart.’

The Chief walked deeper into the hall.

Charred panel ads. A cartoon sunset. ‘Camel Cigarettes – Pleasure Ahoy!’

The letters of the station sign beneath a smear of dried blood, matted hair and scraps of scalp:

‘Sir. Got a body.’ Craven knelt next to Tombes. He prodded the dead man’s jaw with the barrel of his rifle. ‘One of the firefighters. Looks pretty mauled.’

‘Infected?’

‘No.’

Bingham took a Geiger handset from her shoulder bag and took a reading.

‘We can take off our masks.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Tolerable background. But mask up if you go near the station entrance.’

The Chief pulled back his hood and peeled off his respirator.

‘Christ,’ muttered Bingham. ‘Dreadful stench.’ Her breath fogged frigid air. ‘Cooked meat. Can you smell it? This city is one giant crematorium.’

‘How long are we staying, sir?’ asked Byrne. ‘This was supposed to be a quick turn around.’

‘I want to be gone as much as you guys,’ said Jefferson. ‘But we’re not going to piss our pants and run like children.’

He kicked through scattered garbage. He bent and picked up a scorched scrap of fabric. Remains of a grey T-shirt.

‘Torched the place. Looks like quite a fight.’

He checked his watch.

‘Search every room.’

The IRT office.

Assault entry. Craven kicked the remaining fragments of door aside, and braced to fire. Swift sweep, SAW set full auto. His barrel light washed over charred furniture.

He explored the room. Gramophone records splintered underfoot.

He lifted the corner of a foil blanket with his boot. A cadaver. The part-cremated remains of Wade, charred flesh fused with the remains of his red prison-issue.

Last look around.

‘Clear.’

Bingham crossed the ticket hall and stood at the head of the platform stairwell.

Steps sloped downwards into darkness.

She struck a flare. It burned fierce white.

She gripped her pistol and cautiously descended the stairs, flare held above her head. Dark water lapped the foot of the steps. She stood at the water’s edge and peered into the cavernous tunnel space.

A couple of infected bodies floating among garbage. They drifted face down, arms outstretched. Ruptured skin. Metallic growths projected from rotted flesh as if their mutated spinal columns had tried to tear free and go squirming in search of a new host.

Bingham shielded her eyes from the flare light and squinted at the floating cadavers. Heads split by axe blows. Spilled brain tissue.

Sicknote was five yards to her left. He crouched in the dinghy, floating tight against the tunnel wall. He knelt, fist jammed in his mouth, tried not to make a sound.

Bingham unhooked her radio.

‘The platform is completely flooded. The tunnel is almost submerged. There’s nobody down here.’

She turned and walked back up the stairs.

Sicknote watched white flare light recede as she climbed the stairwell back to the ticket hall. He relaxed, panted with relief, and let the boat drift clear of the wall.

The plant room.

Byrne stood in the doorway. He struck a flare and tossed it inside. It hit the floor. Fizz and smoke. He unslung his rifle and advanced into the room.

Crazy, shifting shadows.

Quick scan of scattered debris. Couple of used hypodermics. A discarded water bottle.

A small portable generator. Cables clamped to wall-mounted switch gear.

The generator was shut down. Byrne bent and put his hand to the compressor. Residual heat. Faint smell of hot metal. The machine had been running minutes before.

He yanked the starter cable. Nothing.

He checked the fuel level. Quarter tank.

He checked the fuse panel. A cavity. Something had been unscrewed and removed.

‘Shit,’ he muttered.

He got to his feet.

He peered down aisles of web-draped electro-conductive switch gear. He picked up the flare and tossed it further into the room. Tar-coated cables thick as drainpipe. Corroded ironwork.

He took a couple of steps forwards. He squinted into the darkness at the back of the room.

‘Hey. Anyone back there?’

Another couple of steps. He shouldered the rifle.

‘We just want to talk.’

He reached inside his NBC suit, took a penlight from his breast pocket and peered into shadow.

Crumpled boxes and scattered paper. He stepped forwards, ready to kick through the garbage pile, but was distracted by a grotesque shape at the foot of a nearby wall. Some kind of distended bio-form part-shrouded by a hypothermia blanket.

Byrne crouched and pulled the blanket aside. His barrel light lit a nightmare mess of bone and taut skin. Four legs fused to a distended thorax. Spines and tumourous eruptions. Limbs furred with metallic filaments. Foul meat stink.

‘Jesus Christ.’ He covered his mouth.

One of the limbs twitched as if it retained a last spark of life.

Byrne scrambled clear and got to his feet.

‘Jeez,’ he muttered as he backed towards the door. ‘Holy Mother Mary.’

Last glance around.

‘Clear.’

The street entrance. Jefferson pulled on his respirator and gloves. He tested the handcuff that held the gate closed.

He unsheathed his combat knife and slit the curtain with a swipe of the blade.

He shone his flashlight through the lattice grille into the alley. Steady snowfall had reduced the dumpsters and wrecked bike to a blurred outline.

Figures stumbled through the snow. Three prowlers crusted with snow. The creatures jerked and staggered as if nerve signals were starting to misfire, as if they were about to seize up mid-step and freeze to glass.

They slammed against the entrance lattice. Black eyes. Peeling flesh. Clothes white with frost.

An arm pushed through the bars. Chief let fingers claw an inch from his visor.

He drew his pistol and took aim.

Morning suit and carnation, like the guy had been best man at a wedding, weeks ago, when solemn vows turned to screams as infected burst into the chapel and bit chunks out of the guests.

‘Hey, pretty boy.’

The creature snatched at the thin beam of laser light. It hissed. The Chief centred the brilliant red target dot on the back of its mouth.

Gunshot.

The back of the creature’s head blew out. It stood for a moment, mouth locked in a frozen yawn, then toppled backwards and sprawled in the snow. Smoke coiled from open jaws like cigarette fumes.

A second infected figure. He took aim.

‘How about you? Want some?’

Cashmere overcoat. Spectacles. The red dot hovered on the bridge of the creature’s nose. Gunshot. Skull-burst. Wire spectacles cut in two, lenses swinging from each ear. The creature sank to its knees, then fell sideways.

A last revenant. A guy in a black suit. Left arm missing, right arm jammed between the bars.

Lapel badge:

‘Hey, padre.’

The Chief let the laser sight centre on the creature’s forehead. The dot travelled down the revenant’s nose, chin, collar, and centred on its breastbone.

Gunshot.

The creature lay in the snow, smouldering entry wound, spine shattered by the .45 round. It blinked as flakes settled on its face.

The Chief leaned against the cage gate and contemplated the paralysed missionary. ‘Where’s your soul, padre? Flown to heaven, or is it still locked inside that hunk of meat, waiting for release?’