F. Paul Wilson: Hosts

"We're alive!" the film student under him said. "What—?"

Abashed, Sandy rolled off of her. "Sorry."

She sat up and stared at him. "God, I can't believe you did that!"

"Please," he said, looking away to hide his shame. He saw the GPM in a crouch, picking up something from the floor, but couldn't focus on what he was doing. Sandy had to frame an answer. How could he explain the terror that had taken control of him? "I don't know what came over me. I—"

"You shielded me with your own body!"

What? He turned and found her staring at him, her chocolate-brown eyes wide and wonder filled.

"I've heard of it and, you know, seen it in films, but I never believed—I mean, you were like some Secret Service agent!"

And then her face screwed up and she started to cry… huge racking sobs that shook her fragile body.

Sandy's befuddled brain finally registered that she thought he'd knocked her down and landed on her to protect her. What did he say to that?

But before he could respond he heard a voice call out behind him.

"We've got a lady who's still alive here! Somebody get up here and help her!"

Sandy turned and saw that the GPM had turned to face the rest of the car, but he'd first stretched his knit cap down to his chin. The effect might have been comical but for that deadly little pistol still clutched in his hand. What was going on here? A few moments ago he'd had his face out in the open for everyone to see. Why hide it now?

"Come on!" he shouted through the weave. "Someone move their ass up here, goddamn it!"

A young black woman with cornrowed hair, wearing white pants and a blue sweater stepped forward.

"I'm an OR tech. I know a little—"

"Well, come on then! Maybe you can save one of your fellow ewes!"

She edged forward, giving Sandy an uneasy look as she slipped past him and hurried to a woman who was moaning and clutching her bloody head. He understood her uncertainty. What he didn't understand was the anger in the GPM's voice.

"Why me?" the man shouted. "Why do I have to save your sorry asses? I don't know you, I don't care about you, I want nothing to do with you, so why me? Why did I get stuck with it?"

"Hey, mister," said a tall lean black fellow who could have been a minister. "Why you so riled at us? We didn't do nothing."

"Exactly! That's the problem! Why didn't one of you put him down?"

"We didn't have no gun!" someone else said.

"And this creep knew that. He knew he'd be dealing with a herd of human sheep. Losers! You make me sick—all of you!"

This was scary. The dude seemed almost as crazy now as the mass murderer he'd just killed. Sandy was beginning to wonder whether they'd traded one maniac for another when the train roared into the Seventy-second Street station. He saw the GPM pocket his pistol and turn toward the door. As soon as the panels parted he leaped through and dashed across the platform. In a flash he was lost among the crowd.

3

Keeping his head down, Jack dodged through the people waiting on the narrow platform. Pulled his cap up as far as the bridge of his nose and kept one hand on his face, rubbing his cheeks and eyes as if they were irritated.

Of all the luck! Of all the lousy goddamn luck! Why on my train, in my car?

Someone in that car had seen his face, would remember it, give out a decent description, and by tomorrow his likeness would be on the front page of every paper in the city and flashing across TV screens every hour.

Maybe I should leave town tonight. And never come back.

But his face would be plastered all over the national news as well— Time, Newsweek , the network and cable shows. He'd be on every newsstand everywhere. Even if the likeness wasn't good, sooner or later someone would make a connection and point a finger.

And then life as Jack knew it would be over.

Yanked off the cap as soon as he hit the stairs, taking them two at a time while he pulled off his football jersey. Stuffed that into the hat and wadded it all into a tight little bundle. Hit street level as a bareheaded guy in a white T-shirt carrying something blue.

Keep your head, he told himself. You've still got options.

But did he? At the moment he hadn't a clue what they were. Knew there had to be some but right now his adrenaline-addled brain was too wired, too pissed to think of them.

The Seventy-second Street station opened onto a wrought-iron fenced island in the middle of the perpetual vehicular chaos where Broadway forced its way on a diagonal across Amsterdam Avenue. His instincts wanted him in a full-tilt sprint away from the station, urged him to jump the fence and skip through the traffic, but he forced his legs to keep to a walk.

Don't attract attention—that was the key here.

Vibrating like a nitro-fueled hotrod at the start line, Jack stood with half a dozen other pedestrians and waited for the walking green. When it came he crossed and headed east on Seventy-second, which was perfect because, as one of the handful of two-way cross streets in the city, it was busy at this hour. No one else here seemed in a hurry, so he adopted a loose-limbed but steady amble to blend in. He slipped through the shoppers and the locals hanging out on this mild June night, all unaware of the bloody horror in the subway car a few dozen feet below. Two blocks ahead lay Central Park. The anonymity of its cool shadows beckoned to him.

What a horror show. He'd read about that sort of thing in the papers but never expected to be an eyewitness. What drove someone to that sort of mad carnage?

Damn good thing he rarely traveled without the Semmerling, but still he raged that he'd been forced to use it in front of all those citizens. Not that he'd had a choice. If he'd waited for someone in that crowd of sheep to save his ass, he and a lot of others would be as dead now as the poor souls splattered all over that subway car.

Why me, damn it? Why couldn't someone else play hero?

Hero… no doubt that was what they'd call him if he'd hung around, but that would last only the proverbial New York minute—right up until they escorted him to the cooler for illegal possession of an unregistered weapon and carrying said weapon without a permit. And sure as all hell some shyster would dig up the shooter's family and have them sue him for wrongful death and excessive use of force. And how long before the papers learned that he didn't have a job, or a known address, wasn't registered to vote or licensed to drive—hell, didn't even have a Social Security number? Then the tax boys would want to know why he'd never filed a return. On and on it would go, spinning out of control, engulfing him, ensuring that he never took another free breath for the rest of his life.

Jack picked up his pace a little once he crossed Columbus, leaving the shops and restaurants behind and walking through the ultra-high-rent district. Almost to Central Park West, he passed the two liveried gatekeepers outside the Dakota who kept watch on the spot where another gun-wielding lunatic had done his bloody work in 1980 and ended an era.

He crossed CPW and stopped at the mossy, soot-encrusted, rib-high wall of textured brownstone. The park lay just beyond… tempting… but if he entered here he'd have to exit somewhere else; his best bet would be to get out of sight as soon as possible. His apartment was less than half a mile from here. An easy walk. But first…

He stepped through an opening in the wall and entered the shadowed underbrush. Once out of sight he pulled his shirt from the cap and dropped it in a puddle. A dozen feet farther on he shoved the cap into a tangle of vines, then angled around and made his way back out to the sidewalk.

Keeping to the park side, he lengthened his stride and headed uptown. To his left, echoing along the concrete canyons, sirens began to wail.