Jay Budgett - The Indigo Thief

Red sirens lit the aisles. A feminine voice that sounded like velvet spoke over the speakers. “ This is a drill. This is only a drill. ”

Outside the windows, sparks flew as the subway skidded to a halt. Its doors swung open.

“ This is a drill .”

There was going to be more time until my vaccination. More time for the Carcinogens to kill me.

“Just our luck,” said Charlie. “You’ll be okay.”

A clock blinked on the TV screen—it was 8:10.

Charlie reached for my hand. I wiped sweat on my cargo shorts and then put my hand in Charlie’s. My heart was beating hard in my chest. I glanced at my cheeseburger socks. I had to be brave.

“Stay close,” I said to Charlie. As if there were many options in a Tube a hundred feet below sea level.

A girl with black, curled hair elbowed her way to the back of the subway, keeping her head down. People hardly noticed her beneath the flashing lights.

“ This is only a drill .”

The red lights lit the girl’s nose. She wore a diamond stud.

A scream caught in my throat. This was no drill. It was a terrorist attack.

The Lost Boys were here.

I squeezed Charlie’s hand. “We have to get out right now. Get as far away from this compartment as we can.”

Charlie didn’t understand, but she saw the fear in my face and nodded. We pushed through the aisle. Screams sounded from the direction in which the girl ran.

Charlie and I pushed out the door and hurried along the maintenance shelf in the Tube’s pressurized air. I glanced back. The subway compartment where we’d just been sitting exploded into flames.

“ This is a drill ,” the robotic voice droned calmly over the sounds of screams and explosions.

Charlie and I stared at our former compartment in horror. The flames leaped from the car, licking at the Tube’s glass ceiling, where cracks began to form.

Charlie buried her face in my chest. Shoulder, really. I wasn’t much taller than her—I hadn’t had my growth spurt yet. Mom said I came from a long line of late bloomers. I was glad Mom was safe at home.

Charlie sobbed. There had to be something I could do. Something I could say to make her feel safer. Maybe I should kiss her. Uncle Lou said fear went well with romance. Instead, I blurted the first thing that popped into my head. “I think this was a terrorist attack. I saw a Lost Boy.”

The screams of a woman next to us pierced the chaos. “IT’S A TERRORIST ATTACK! THE LOST BOYS ARE HERE!”

Another explosion sounded. The cracks in the Tube’s ceiling stretched wider. Water began to shoot from them in thick spurts.

The Tube was breaking in half.

The Tube’s leaking ceiling groaned and quivered beneath the ocean’s smothering weight. A boy dressed in a Captain Ultimatum shirt wept and kneeled on the maintenance shelf as throngs of people raced past him like water through rapids.

Charlie knelt next to the boy. “Shhhh, it’s okay, kiddo. Is your mom with you?” He shook his head, and Charlie wiped away his tears. “Do you want to come with us? It’s not safe here.”

He pointed to the burning compartment. “M-M-My sister S-S-Sandra is still in there,” he stuttered.

Charlie threw me a look. “We have to go back.”

I stepped back. “Not now, Charlie. Now’s not the time to be a hero.”

“You’re right,” she said. “Now’s the time to be a decent human being.”

My heart beat faster and my hands got sweaty. Charlie made me a better person.

She grabbed a woman and had her take the boy with her , then pushed through the crowd to the compartment. I sprinted to catch up with her.

Fire raged around us as we climbed back into the compartment we’d just abandoned.

“ This is a drill ,” the voice announced over a loudspeaker. “ This is only a drill.”

“Some drill,” Charlie muttered, pushing a strand of hair away from her bright blue eyes.

Another explosion sounded in the Tube. The cracks in the ceiling gave a final hiss and then burst wide open, the water rushing in. The loudspeaker fell silent, and the subway car’s doors slammed shut, sealing us in. Charlie, unfazed, pointed to a row farther down the aisle.

A six-year-old girl sat whimpering on the ground. “I think it’s broken,” she said between sobs. “I’m gonna die in here.”

I shivered. She seemed too young to be talking about death. I was reminded again how familiar it was, the threat of it perpetually hanging over all our heads.

The girl looked around. “Where’s Shawn?” she said. “What happened to Shawn?”

There was a loud crack—the Tube had snapped. The floor lurched beneath us as the subway car groaned and twisted, breaking free of the Tube’s shattered casing. We were sinking.

I offered the girl a hand. “We’re gonna get you out of here. Okay, little dude?”

She frowned. “I’m a girl. Don’t call me dude. My name’s Sandra.”

“Er—right then, Sandra,” I said, “we’ll get you out of here.”

Charlie tried to help her up, but she shook her head. “It hurts to move.”

Charlie offered her a chopstick. “Have a margarita, then.”

The girl smiled and cautiously took the dangling pendant. It was no dinosaur sticker, but it was better than nothing, and seemed to calm her a bit.

Something heavy slammed against the sinking subway car as it plummeted into deep ocean. The world grew dark. Water spurted in through cracks in the doors. Hands pounded against its sealed glass windows. People from the Tube, sinking alongside us, drowning like rats as water rushed to fill their throats.

The compartment began to tilt. It was quickly filling with water, and the remaining pockets of air raced to one side, lifting the compartment vertically. We wedged ourselves in between two rows of seats. My feet dangled beneath me as water lapped at my heels. Sandra held onto Charlie’s arm. Charlie held onto mine.

Beyond the subway’s walls, shadows sped toward us, growing larger as they approached. Shadows that big meant only one thing: megalodons. Monsters of prehistoric proportions. Another byproduct of the war’s nuclear fallout. Creatures born and bred from radioactive evolution. They usually lurked outside Federal waters, kept at bay by electrical nets. But today, of all days, those nets must have failed.

Just our luck.

Charlie squinted out the window. “What is that? What’s going on out there? Are those shadows—?”

A corpse slammed against the subway car. The red cabin lights flickered from the force of the impact. We didn’t have long before the power reserves ran out or the ocean short-circuited it. Red streams danced in the water outside the windows—blood.

A megalodon’s gnashing teeth came into view. It was one thing to be told about them; quite another to see one up close. Seven-inch-long teeth, and its body ran upward of forty feet. It was twice the size of the biggest great whites. It shredded the corpse into bits like paper.

Charlie shut the girl’s eyes and rocked her back and forth. The subway’s lights sparked and went out. The girl screamed again.

“Hold my hand,” said Charlie.

It was pitch black, but we could feel the water rise, and soon we were swimming. The subway dove deeper into the ocean. I kicked my legs to keep my head above the water.

Next to me, Charlie panted, struggling to keep herself and the girl afloat. I grabbed the girl and helped her keep her head above water.

Outside, green and white light flooded the water—lanterns. The Federal guards were here at last.

Charlie sucked in a breath. “You see that, Kai?”

I nodded. “They’ll get the nets back on. We’re gonna be okay. We just have to get out of here.”