Scott Westerfeld - The Last Days

F for fool, I thought. Or feculent.

Downstairs the platform was empty, silent except for the skitter of rats on the tracks. The push-pull wind of distant trains stirred loose bits of paper and kept the scent swirling around me, the way the world spins when you’ve had too much beer.

I pulled off my dark glasses and stared into the tunnel depths.

Nothing but blackness.

But from the uptown direction came the faintest sound.

Walking toward that end of the platform, a cluster of new smells hit me: antiperspirant and freshly opened cigarettes, foot powder and the chemical sting of dry-cleaned clothing…

Someone was hiding behind the last steel column on the platform, breathing nervously, aware of me. Just another late-night traveler scared to be down here.

But from the tunnel beyond, the other scent was calling.

I took another step, letting the man see me. He wore a subway worker’s uniform, his eyes wide, one hand white-knuckled around a flashlight. Had he heard the beast too?

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just…” I shrugged tiredly, adjusting the weight of my guitar and amp. “Trying to get home.”

His eyes stayed locked on mine, full of glassy terror. “You’re one of them.”

I realized I’d taken my sunglasses off; he could see straight through to the thing inside me. “Uh, I didn’t mean to…”

He raised one hand to cross himself, drawing my eyes to the silver crucifix at his throat. He looked like he wanted to run, but my infection held him in place—the way I moved, the radiance of my eyes.

An itch traveled across my skin, like the feeling I got climbing the stairs to Minerva’s room. I was salivating.

The fear in the man’s sweat was like the scent of sizzling bacon crawling under your bedroom door in the morning—irresistible.

“Stay away from me,” he pleaded softly.

“I’m trying .” I put down the amp and guitar and fumbled in my jacket for the plastic bag of garlic. Pulling out a clove, I scrabbled to peel it, fingernails gouging the papery skin. The pearly white flesh poked through at last, smooth and oily in my fingers. I shoved it in my mouth half-peeled and bit down hard.

It split—sharp and hot—juices running down my throat like straight Tabasco. I sucked in its vapors and felt the thing inside me weaken a little.

I breathed a garlicky sigh of relief.

The man’s eyes narrowed. No longer transfixed, he shook his head at my torn T-shirt and grubby jeans. I was just a seventeen-year-old again, tattered and weighted down with musical equipment. Nothing dangerous.

“You shouldn’t litter,” he snorted, glaring at the garlic skin I’d dropped. “Someone’s got to clean that up, you know.”

Then he turned to walk briskly away, the scent of fear fading in his wake.

I breathed garlic deep into my lungs.

Mustn’t eat the nice people , Minerva’s voice chided in my head.

I was going to try that mandrake tea again. Even if it did taste like lawn-mower clippings, that was probably better than the taste of—

Down the tunnel the darkness shifted restlessly, something huge rolling over in its sleep, and I forgot all about my hunger.

It was down there, the thing that rumbled beneath us when we played.

I grabbed my Strat—leaving the amp behind—and jumped down onto the tracks. The smell carried me forward into the darkness, the tunnel walls echoing with the crunch of gravel, like Alana Ray’s drumbeats scattering from my footsteps. The scent grew overpowering, as mind-bending as pressing my nose against Minerva’s neck, drawing me closer.

The ground began to swirl, the blackness suddenly liquid underfoot. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a horde of rats flowing like eddies of water around my tennis shoes, thousands of them filling the tracks.

But the sight didn’t make me flinch—the rats smelled familiar and safe, like Zombie sleeping warm on my chest.

The scent led me to a jagged, gaping hole in the tunnel wall, big enough to walk into, just like the cavity where Minerva and I had first kissed. It led away into pitch-blackness, its sides glistening. The rats swirled around me.

I could smell danger now, but I didn’t want to run. My blood was pulsing, my whole body readying for a fight. I listened for a moment and knew instinctively that the hole was empty, though something had passed this way.

I reached out to touch the broken granite, and a dark gunk as thick as honey came off on my fingers. Like the black water, it shimmered for a moment on my skin, then faded into the air.

But its scent left behind a word in my mind… enemy . Just like Min always said: I call the enemy when I sing.

The ground rumbled underfoot, and the rats began to squeak.

I started running down the subway tunnel, feet crunching on gravel, the rats following, anger rippling across my skin. My tongue ran along my teeth, feeling every point. My whole body was crying out to fight this thing.

Then all at once I heard it, smelled it, saw it coming toward me…

A form moved against the darkness, shapeless except for the tendrils whipping out to grasp the tunnel’s support columns. It dragged itself toward me—without legs, with way too many arms.

I staggered to a halt, a nervous garlic burp clearing my head for a few seconds. I realized how big it was—like a whole subway car rolling loose—and how unarmed I was…

But then the thing inside me tightened its grip on my spine, flooding me with anger. I pulled the Stratocaster from its case and held its neck with both hands, bringing it over one shoulder like an ax. Steel strings and golden pickups flashed in the darkness, and suddenly the beautiful instrument was nothing but a weapon, a hunk of wood for smashing things.

The rats flowed around me, scrambling up the walls and columns.

The thing refused to take any shape in the darkness, but it was heading toward me faster now, its body spitting out gravel to both sides. It lashed at the dangling subway work lights, popping them one by one as it grew closer, like a rolling cloud of smoke bringing darkness.

Then something glimmered wetly at its center, an open maw ringed with teeth like long knives—and me with an electric guitar. Some small, rational part of my mind knew that I was very, very screwed…

It was only twenty yards away. I swung the Stratocaster across myself; its weight made my feet stumble.

Ten yards…

Suddenly human figures shot past me out of the darkness, meeting the creature head on. Bright metal weapons flashed, and the monster’s screech echoed down the tunnel. Someone knocked me to one side and pinned me against the wall, holding me there as the beast streamed past. Cylinders of flesh sprouted from its length, grasping the steel columns around us, ending in sharp-toothed mouths that gnashed wetly. Human screams and flying gravel and the shriek of rats filled the air around us.

And then it was gone, sucking the air behind it like a passing subway train.

The woman who’d shoved me against the wall let go, and I stumbled back onto the tracks. The monstrous white bulk was receding into the darkness, leaving a trail of glistening black water. The dark figures and a stream of rats pursued it. Weapons flickered like subway sparks.

I stood there, panting and clutching the Strat like I was going to hit something with it. Then the creature slipped out of sight, disappearing into the hole I’d found, like a long, pale tongue flickering into a mouth.

The hunters followed, and the tunnel was suddenly empty, except for me, a few hundred crushed rats, and the woman.

I blinked at her. She was a little older than me, with a jet-black fringe of bangs over brown eyes, a scuffed leather jacket and cargo pants with stuffed-full pockets.