Douglas Preston - Reliquary

Trumbull lurched into a seat as they pulled out of the station, looking around in annoyance. The car’s air-conditioning wasn’t working and all the windows were open, letting in the stale, damp smell of the tracks and the deafening noise of the train. It was hot as hell. He loosened his tie further. He was beginning to feel logy, and a mild but persistent pain was gathering at his temples. He glanced at his watch: they had to be back at the office in six hours. He sighed and leaned back. The train rocketed through the tunnel, swaying, making so much noise it was impossible to speak. Trumbull closed his eyes.

At 14th Street, several of the guys got off to catch trains for Penn Station. They grasped his hand, punched his shoulder, and were gone. More got off at Grand Central, leaving only Trumbull and Jim Kolb, a bond trader who worked one floor below. Trumbull didn’t particularly like Kolb. He closed his eyes again, exhaling wearily as the train dove deeper into the earth, following the express track.

Vaguely, Trumbull was aware of the train pulling into the 59th Street station, the doors opening, closing, the express plunging back into the darkness, gathering speed for the thirty-block run to 86th. One more stop, he thought drowsily.

Suddenly, the train lurched, then slowed, screeching to a halt. A long moment passed. Jostled awake, Trumbull sat in gathering irritation, listening to the tickings and creakings of the motionless car.

“Screw it,” said Kolb loudly. “Screw the Lexington Avenue Number Four.” He looked around for a response, getting none from the two other half-asleep riders. Then he elbowed Trumbull, who managed a wan smile as he thought about what a loser Kolb was.

Trumbull glanced down the car. He saw a cute-looking waitress and one black kid, wearing a bulky overcoat and knitted cap despite the hundred-degree interior of the train. Although the youth appeared to be sleeping, Trumbull eyed him warily. Probably coming back from a hard night’s mugging, he thought. He felt in his pocket for his penknife. Nobody was going to take his wallet, even if there was no money left in it.

There was a sudden crackle of static and a raspy voice came over the PA system: Attention passengzweesh therlalignal problem reshorkwix hortly.

“Yeah, right, tell me another one,” Kolb said disgustedly.

“Huh?”

“It’s what they always say. A signal problem. We should be moving shortly. In their dreams.”

Trumbull crossed his arms, closing his eyes again. His headache was getting worse, and the heat felt like a suffocating blanket.

“To think they charge a buck fifty to make us sit in this sweatshop,” Kolb said. “Maybe next time we should hire a limo.”

Trumbull nodded vaguely and checked his watch. Twelve forty-five.

“No wonder people jump the turnstile,” Kolb was saying.

Trumbull nodded again, wondering how he could make Kolb shut up. He heard a noise outside the car and glanced idly at the window. There was a dim form in the humid darkness, approaching up the adjoining track. Some MTA repairman, no doubt. Maybe he’s just doing late night track repairs, Trumbull thought, watching idly as the figure came closer. Hope swelled, then ebbed. But if there’s something wrong with the train, shit, we could be down here until —

Suddenly it passed by his window, soundlessly, a figure in white. Trumbull sat up like a shot. It was no track worker, but a woman: a woman in a long dress, running and stumbling down the tracks. He watched her retreating back through the open windows. Just as she disappeared into the gloom, he noticed that the woman’s back was splattered with something that glistened black in the reflected light of the stalled train.

“Did you see that?” he asked Kolb.

Kolb glanced up. “See what?”

“A woman running along the tracks.”

Kolb grinned. “One too many, Billy boy?”

Trumbull stood up and thrust his head out the window, squinting down the tracks in the direction the figure had gone. Nothing. As he ducked back into the car, he realized nobody else had noticed anything.

What was going on here? A mugging? He looked back out the window but the woman was gone, the tunnel once again quiet and empty.

“This is getting to be a lot longer than ‘shortly,’ ” Kolb groused, tapping his two-toned Rolex.

Trumbull’s head was pounding now. God knows he’d had enough to drink to be seeing things. Third time this week he’d gotten hammered. Maybe he shouldn’t go out so much. He must have seen a track worker carrying something on his back. Or her back. Some of them were women these days, after all. He glanced through the coupling doors into the next car, but it was equally peaceful, its sole occupant staring vacantly into space. If anything had happened, it would have been announced on the PA.

He sat down, closed his eyes, and concentrated on making the pain in his head go away. Most of the time, he didn’t mind riding the subway. It was a fast trip, and the clattering tracks and flashing lights kept a person distracted. But at times like this—idled without explanation, in the overheated darkness—it was hard not to think about just how deep under the earth the express track ran, or the mile of blackness that lay between him and the next stop…

At first, it sounded like a distant train, screeching into a station. But then, as Trumbull listened, he realized what the sound was: a distant, drawn-out scream, strangely distorted by the echoing tunnel, wafting faintly through the windows.

“What the hell—?” Kolb said, sitting forward. The youth’s eyes popped open, and the late-night waitress suddenly became alert.

There was an electric silence while everyone waited, listening. No other sound came.

“Christ, Bill, you hear that?” Kolb asked.

Trumbull said nothing. There had been a robbery, maybe a murder. Or—perhaps worse—a gang, working its way down the stalled train. It was every subway rider’s worst nightmare.

“They never tell you anything,” Kolb said, glancing nervously at the loudspeaker. “Maybe someone should check it out.”

“Be my guest,” Trumbull said.

“A man’s scream,” Kolb added. “It was a man screaming, I swear it.”

Trumbull glanced out the window again. This time he could make out another figure moving along the far track, walking with a strange rolling motion, almost a limp, as it approached them.

“There’s somebody coming,” he said.

“Ask him what’s going on.”

Trumbull moved to the window. “Hey! Hey, you!”

In the dimness beyond the train, he saw the figure stop.

“What’s going on?” Trumbull called out. “Did someone get hurt?”

The figure began moving forward again. Trumbull watched as it went to the head of the next car forward, then climbed up onto the coupling and disappeared.

“I hate these TA assholes,” Kolb said. “Bastards make forty grand a year and don’t do shit.”

Trumbull walked to the front, looking through the window into the next car forward. Its lone occupant was still there, now reading a paperback book. Everything was quiet once more.

“What do you see?” Kolb whined.

Trumbull returned to his seat. “Nothing,” he said. “Maybe it was just some transit worker yelling to a buddy.”

“I wish they’d just get moving ,”the waitress suddenly said, her voice tight with nerves. The youth in the heavy coat was slumped motionless in his seat, hands shoved in pockets. I’ll bet he’s got his hand on a gun, thought Trumbull, uncertain whether the thought made him anxious or relieved.

The lights blinked out in the forward car.

“Oh, shit,” Kolb said.

A loud thump came from the darkened car, causing the train to shudder as if something heavy had been slammed against it. The thump was followed by a strange sighing sound. Trumbull thought of air being released from a wet balloon.