Chris Holm - Dead Harvest

I climbed gingerly to my feet, and extended a hand to Kate. She took it, and I lifted her wobbily upward. She was filthy, and a little dinged up, but she looked mostly OK. I looked around. Two sets of tunnels extended outward to our left and to our right — a commuter rail nearest the platform, and beyond it the express. We stood atop the tracks of the first of them, closest to the platform, the tunnel's overhead lamps a string of Christmas lights, disappearing into the gloom on either side of us. For the first time since the demons had arrived on the platform, I allowed myself a ray of hope. If we could reach the tunnels unnoticed, we might just get out of there alive.

But as the demon on the platform spoke, I knew that we'd have no such luck. It was the messenger again, or what was left of him, now that the creature inside had had his way. Again, it said only one word, but this one I understood just fine.

"Collector."

My eyes met the demon's, but this time, I did not freeze. I wrapped my arms around Kate and pulled her close. Her jaw was set in fierce determination, but she was shaking like a leaf, and her heart fluttered in her chest.

The demon eyed the two of us and smiled. "Give us the girl, Collector, and you and I have no quarrel."

"Go fuck yourself," I said.

"Actually," the demon said, "I had a certain someone else in mind." It licked its lips, and a chill worked its way along my spine.

"You don't know what you're doing," I said. A cool breeze buffeted my face, and I realized the chill I'd felt was not from the creature's words alone.

"I rather think I do. The two of you have brought war upon us. I intend to set things right — to restore the natural balance. They shall sing my praises in heaven and hell both. And all for the pleasure of devouring this lovely little morsel."

"The girl is an innocent," I said. My eyes were filled with the grit of dust suddenly disturbed. I blinked it back, tried not to react. "These skirmishes you've seen are gonna seem like a holiday compared to the world of shit that'll rain down on you if you devour her soul."

"Do you dare attempt to deceive a deceiver? I know what the girl has done. Nothing you say can change her fate. The only hide you can save today is your own."

"Actually," I said, as the rush of air became a roar, and the glare of headlights kissed my face, "I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you, there."

I threw Kate backward with all I had, lunging after her as the train roared past the place where we'd just stood. It screeched to a halt at the platform, blocking the demon's path, and the walls shook with a wail of fury so pure that there was nothing Kate and I could do but cling to each other, trembling, as we lay sprawled across the second set of tracks, its darkened tunnels stretching off to either side around us.

But as the echoes of the demon's cry faded into nothingness, we found our feet, and sprinted hand in hand into the darkness.

Keep running, I thought. Don't stop. Don't think. Just keep running.

The air in the tunnel was cold and dank, the tracks uneven beneath our feet. Above us, sickly yellow lights pushed back the darkness at regular intervals, and cast long shadows of the tangle of pipes across the filthy concrete walls. The space between the rails was narrow, forcing us to run single file — Kate in front, with me scant inches behind, my thigh twingeing with every step despite the doctor's numbing agent. The lights of the next station were lost in the gentle curve of the tunnel. It could be fifty yards from where we stood; it could be five hundred. I told myself it didn't matter where it was — we just had to keep running. But of course it mattered. That train wasn't going to block their way forever. They'd find their way around it, or through it if need be. And when they did, they'd be coming for us. If we didn't reach the next platform before they broke through, we'd be trapped in this concrete tube with a horde of pissedoff demons. If that happened, I didn't like our odds.

Kate let out a yelp, and tumbled to the ground. Something squeaked angrily in the darkness. A pair of beady rodent eyes looked up from where she'd just stood, and then disappeared into the gloom. I dropped to a knee, panting, beside her.

"You all right?" I asked. Though I spoke at just above a whisper, my voice echoed through the tunnel, advertising our position to anyone — or anything — that cared to listen. I could only hope the constant clatter of distant trains was enough to drown out my words before they reached the ears of our pursuers.

"I stepped on something," Kate replied. "Something alive." She twisted one arm out away from her, examining her elbow. A scrape the size of a silver dollar glistened black under the dim overhead lights.

"Rat," I said. "He's gone now, though." I nodded to her right, where, beneath a thin protective canopy, the third rail stretched the length of the track, just inches from where she lay. It looked so harmless, so unremarkable, that you couldn't help but doubt the countless admonitions you hear growing up in the city not to touch it. But still, there it sat — a challenge, a dare, a trap for the unwary. As Kate spotted it, she recoiled.

"That thing's got enough juice in it to animate a train," I said. "I suspect it's got the opposite effect on a person. Be careful getting up."

I extended a hand, and she took it. With a little more trouble than I'd expected, I hauled her to her feet, doubling over afterward and sucking air as waves of nausea radiated outward from the stab wound in my leg and turned my insides into knots.

"Jesus, Sam, are you OK?"

"Yeah," I said, straightening. "Just popped a stitch is all. C'mon, we gotta get moving."

She looked doubtful. I couldn't blame her — I didn't much believe me myself. But staying here wasn't really an option. So instead she slung an arm around my waist, and we set out down the tunnel, straddling the dead left-hand rail of the track, staying as far away from the third rail as we could manage.

We'd only gone ten paces when we heard it: a shriek of rending metal, a crash of shattered glass. A horrid slavering filled the tunnel, and one by one behind us, the overhead lights flickered and died. The darkness marched forward, step by step, as light after light gave up the ghost, and what remained was more than a mere absence of light: the darkness was pulsing, malevolent, alive. There was no mistaking what that darkness contained; it was the black fire of pure torment, of a being forever occluded from the nourishing light of grace, and in the face of it, all hope of escape withered and died.

They were here.

Without a word, Kate and I released each other from our awkward embrace, and took off down the tunnel at a dead sprint. Blind panic coursed through my borrowed frame. It made me strong. It made me fast. It didn't make me fast enough.

There were three of them, the bike messenger in the lead, followed by two others. In all my time walking this Earth, I'd never seen a demon so thoroughly warp its host as these three had theirs — nothing human of them remained. The clothes of the bike messenger hung in tatters around his now-massive frame. He galloped just ahead of the darkness on all fours, his flesh as black as the fire that raged in his eyes, as black as the Depths from which he had sprung. In the naming of things, humans have never been so wrong as when they called the brown-skinned "black" — for brown skin is full of warmth, of life, and this creature, black as pitch, was anything but. Its skin glistened and rippled as muscles pushed beyond the breaking point heaved and flexed like the haunches of a prized steed. Gristly streaks of red where the skin had split in deference to the form it now contained marred every swollen joint and twisted limb. Bloodied fingers, more claw now than digit, tore at the ground, propelling the beast forward, while the joints of its hind legs now bent backward, folding under the creature in an awkward, inhuman motion, and then extending in leap after bounding leap. I'm amazed I managed to keep my feet, so transfixed was I with the view over my shoulder. But keep my feet I did, and as I tore my eyes from the horrible visage behind me, I saw something that caused my heart to leap: a glimmer of light maybe a hundred yards ahead, the next station on the line. If we could just make it, just shake these beasts for long enough to disappear into the crowd…