F Wilson - Midnight Mass

They'd walked the deserted pedestrian tunnel from the Port Authority to Times Square, and were now down on the tracks of the 42nd Street Shuttle. This seemed like the safest way to move about the city. Certainly less risk down here of running into a pack of cruising Vichy than up on the street. At least she hoped so.

Flashlight in one hand, cocked-and-ready pistol in the other; backpacks filled with sharpened stakes, hammers, batteries, and cans of salmon they'd brought from the Shore.

What a way to travel. What a way to live.

Carole knew nothing about guns, had never liked them, had never so much as laid a finger on one until a few days ago. She'd always imagined she'd be afraid of them, but had to admit she found something comforting in the weight, the solidity, the pent-up lethality of the semi-automatic Lacey had given her. She'd shown her how to work the safety. All she had to do if the need arose was point and pull the trigger. She prayed that need would never arise. There was no place to practice so she hadn't fired it yet, and had no idea how it would feel when she did.

"You know," Lacey said, dancing along the third rail like a gymnast on a balance beam, "it's strange. From the instant we jumped off the platform onto the tracks, I had to touch this rail. I was scared to—I mean, what if by some freak chance it was live—but I had to. Didn't you feel any of that?"

"Not at all." But seeing Lacey on the third rail made her nervous. The chance of the power coming back on was about equal to that of a subway full of commuters coming by, but still it put her on edge. "We've been told all our lives that we could never touch the third rail because we'd be fried to a cinder. At first opportunity you're up on the rail, walking along it. That's pretty much you in a nutshell, isn't it."

Lacey snickered. "I guess so. What's the psychology there? It no longer has power over me, so now I'm dancing on its grave?"

"I never placed much stock in psychology."

"But look where you're walking, Carole. What does that say about you?"

"It says nothing's changed. I was quite happy staying off the third rail when it was live, and am just as happy to stay off it now."

"Ever watch Ren and Stimpy?"

"Can't say that I have, although years ago at a school picnic I remember some of my students wearing badly drawn T-shirts with those words on them."

"It's a cartoon show, and in one of the early episodes they're in outer space and they come across this button with all these warnings about 'Do not press or you will destroy the space-time continuum,' or something like that. Anyway, Stimpy just has to press it. And when I saw that I said, Yeah, I think I'd press it too."

"Good Lord, why?"

"Well, first off, part of me would be going, Yeah, right, like this button's gonna end the space-time continuum. Uh-huh. And another part would be thinking, Really? What would that be like? Let's find out..."

"How about a part of you saying, Let's lock the door to this place and throw away the key?"

"I think when they were giving out parts I missed that one." She flashed her light at Carole and held out a hand. "Come on. I'll help you up."

"No, thank you. If one of us slips off and sprains an ankle, the other has to remain well enough to carry on."

Lacey loosed a dramatic sigh, then stepped off the rail and fell in beside her. "Spoil sport." She flashed her beam ahead. "Damn, it's dark."

Carole nodded. The light-colored tiles—she supposed they'd once been white—in the pedestrian tunnel and in the Times Square station had reflected the glow from their flashes, letting them see more than just what was in the beam. But down here on the tracks, surrounded by grimy steel girders and soot-blackened concrete walls, with no reflective surface except the polished upper surface of the tracks and an occasional puddle, the darkness seemed a living thing, pressing against them. And all those recesses and access tunnels and crawl spaces . . .

Something splashed behind them.

Carole heard Lacey gasp. Both whirled and flashed their beams madly about but found nothing moving. Carole could feel her heart pounding.

"Think it was a rat?" Lacey said.

"Could have been."

"I hate rats."

"They're just animals."

"Yeah, but I really skeeve them."

"Skeeve?"

"Yeah. Heard it from some Italian girl I knew. Means to make your skin crawl. If we see a rat, that'll be a good time for you to get used to firing your pistol. I think we can risk a few shots down here."

"I'm not shooting a rat. And neither are you. They're no threat to us, it's a waste of ammunition, and besides, they were here first. It isn't rodentia you should be worried about down here. Genus Homo offers the main threat right now."

They started walking through the dark again, but every so often one of them—they took turns—would turn and flash her light behind them.

Lacey whispered, "I remember hearing about homeless people who used to live in the subway tunnels. I wonder if any of them are left."

"If I were a betting woman—and I'm not—I'd say no. Underground is where the undead go to hide from the light. Once down here they'd sniff out the living in no time."

Lacey grabbed her arm. "Speaking of sniffing, what is that?"

Carole felt her nose wrinkling. She knew the odor: carrion. "Something died nearby."

"Which means there's a good chance one of them is nearby."

They followed the stench to a recess in the right wall that led to an alcove beyond it. Carol flashed her beam down the narrow passage. The floor was littered with the bodies, of beheaded rats, some of them acrawl with maggots.

"What's with the dead rats?" Lacey whispered behind her.

"I don't know."

"We don't want to go in there."

"Right," Carole said. "But we must."

"Like hell."

"We can't leave any undead along our route. What if we're delayed coming back and we're caught down here after sundown? We can't see in the dark; they can."

Lacey was silent a moment, then grumbled, "All right, but let's go in with all bases covered." Carole felt a tug on her backpack. "I'll handle the gun and flashlight—in case whatever's in there is human—while you take the hammer-and-stake detail."

A moment later Carole had her crucifix and a stake in her left hand, thrust out ahead of her, the hammer clutched in her right. Lacey was squeezed beside her, manning the flashlight. Carole wished she had a third hand to hold a cloth over her mouth and nose. The stench was unbearable.

They edged down the passage, shuffling to avoid stepping on the dead rats, and entered a small square alcove, maybe ten feet on a side. The first thing Carole saw was a naked corpse crumpled in the far corner, face to the wall; the position made it impossible to determine its sex. The floor was littered with more dead rats, most of them clustered around the naked emaciated male figure that lay in the center of the space. When Lacey shone the light on its face, the gummy lids parted slowly. It let out a feeble hiss and bared its fangs. Although this one didn't quite qualify as a feral, its appearance was a long way from human.

Carole wasted no time. "Keep the light on it," she told Lacey as she knelt beside the thing.

She touched the crucifix to its sunken belly, eliciting a flash and a puff of smoke. That proved beyond doubt it was undead. The creature writhed as she raised the stake—she'd have no trouble finding a space between the jutting ribs of this washboard chest. But just as Carole pressed the point of the wooden shaft against its skin, Lacey let out a cry of terror and the flash beam darted around the room.